JPHiP Forum
The Hello! Project Fanfics => H!P Fanfics => Library => Topic started by: OTN1 on May 23, 2007, 10:10:17 AM
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I started this story in December, 2005, and I have continued it up until just recently. Since many of my stories are continuations of this world, I want to post them all together in one thread in the order they were written. Also, some people can't access the forum where most of them were originally posted, and they're clean enough to be here in this fanfic section. I've gone through the entire thing and done some re-editing.
Without any further ado, I present the epic (i.e. way too long) series known as Love x 2, starring Aya and Miki, and with lots of help from Shiba-chan.
For easier navigation:
Love x 2 (Story 1) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg362089#msg362089)
Love x 2 (Story 2) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg362092#msg362092)
Love x 2 (Story 3) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg362373#msg362373)
Love x 2 - 1 (Story 4) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg365476#msg365476)
Love x 2 = ∞ (Story 5) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg366359#msg366359)
My Own Private Funeral (Story 6) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg374534#msg374534)
What Needed to be Done (Story 7) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg394014#msg394014)
Friday's Children are Full of Woe (Prequel. Story 8) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg410829#msg410829)
Past the Barrier and to the Left (Prequel 2. Story 9) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg410865#msg410865)
Why (Friday's Children are Certainly Full of Woe) (Alternate story. Story 10) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg410894#msg410894)
Why II (Friday's Children are Certainly Full of Woe) (Alternate story. Story 11) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg410901#msg410901)
Restart (Love x ∞ Part II) (Final story. Story 12) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg410918#msg410918)
...
A Brief Interlude: Requiem for Three (ridiculous parody written to demonstrate my "cruel and morbid" nature) (http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=11131.msg410941#msg410941)
Love x 2
story 1
Chapter 1 of 3
Saturday, June 25, 2005.
Kobe, Japan
At last, we finish the concert. I'm laughing so hard the whole time because I'm in such shock. All these surprises just happened. Most of them weren't in the script. My reactions have all been very, very real throughout the night.
I thank everyone a million times. I really do love them all. We shuffle off the stage to the tune of the latest shuffle single and are immediately surrounded by the backstage staff.
I have my own change room, which is nice. The other girls are divided two per room, but since we're an uneven number, it makes sense to let the top soloist be alone. After the immediate post-concert gathering, where we eat my birthday cake and chat with the staff for a few minutes, we walk back into the bowels of the theatre to go and change.
My change room is the last one, right at the back of the building. As we walk down the hallway, the girls, pair by pair, peel off from the group and enter their rooms after hugs and more happy birthday wishes.
Finally, it's Aibon and Nono's time to leave. They always make me laugh, those two. They sing me a silly song they've composed for me, and they threaten that when I turn thirty, they'll make a full orchestral version. I laugh, hugging them both hard and telling them I'll see them soon for the ride back to the hotel.
I'm on my own now, just like I usually am onstage. Humming "All For One," I round the corner and blink. At the far end of the hallway, just outside the door to my change room, there is someone standing there. His (or at least I think it is a guy) back is turned to me so I can't tell who he is. He's wearing more clothes than someone should be wearing in this summer's heat.
I sigh inside. All I want to do is change out of this sweaty clothing, wash my face, and go out for dinner with the girls. Maybe I don't even want to go out. I'm tempted to go back to my hotel room and just sleep until we have to wake up for breakfast. As much as I love to chat with people, it's difficult dealing with complete strangers when you're sweaty and exhausted.
I walk slowly to my change room, trying not to make any noise. It's inevitable, however, that he hears me, and shifts, starting to turn around. As I get closer, I realise he isn't a he. It's a girl standing there. I scrunch up my face in a frown and wonder who it is. With her long hair dyed brown, it could be almost anyone. I get closer as she turns around, and as if I haven't had enough shocks for one night, I receive another one.
"Heeee…?" I stop in my tracks and jerk back in surprise.
"Hi," the girl says, smiling. I look behind me and then all around. We're the only ones there.
"Wh- what are you doing here? Are you here to see me?" I stutter in shock.
What is Miki doing in Kobe?? Isn't she busy elsewhere (elsewhere being way more north than here)?
"Yeah, I dropped by to see you," she says simply.
"'Dropped by'? Miki, where did you come from? Tokyo? Further?"
"Er, Tokyo..." she says a little nervously. I just stare at her. "I wanted to wish you a happy birthday..." she says shyly.
I can't help it, and my defence mechanism starts up. I laugh. She knows that I do this when I'm shocked, so she looks amused.
"Miki, that's really sweet, but you could've just mailed me. Or called," I laugh, a dorky smile on my face.
I finally walk up a little closer and hit her gently on the arm. She looks embarrassed and she looks down at the floor.
"But that's what I did the last few times for your birthday since we were both working. It gets monotonous, Aya," she murmurs.
I smile and take her hands and pull her to me.
"You are the best friend I could ever hope to have," I say.
She looks up at me and laughs gleefully.
"So, happy birthday, Aya-chan," she says, and she shakes my hands off of hers, giving me a big hug.
This is a secret I've never told anybody, but Miki's hugs make me feel good. Frighteningly good. I feel happy and warm and even a little safe when she hugs me. My body always tingles, but I try not to pay attention to this. I don't really want to understand why it happens.
I hug her back tightly and enjoy these feelings that run through me. I think Miki makes me too giddy. I feel so out of control when she's around. She finally lets go and I'm somewhat disappointed that it has to end.
"How about we go inside," I say, pointing to my change room. "As much as I love the hallway, I need to get changed and sit down."
Miki smiles and nods, and we enter the room. I take a step back and look at her, remembering she's wearing strange clothes.
"Miki, you look like a boy," I say, brushing a stray piece of bangs out of her eyes. I have this uncontrollable habit of doing that to her.
"Oh... I just wore this to blend in," she says, not making eye contact.
"Blend in? What did you do... go to the concert?" I ask, expecting her to laugh and say 'no.'
She looks at me embarrassedly and looks back down, her cheeks slightly red. I laugh and impulsively hug her tightly.
"You did!" I squeal. "Why?!"
I let go of her and she stumbles backwards slightly.
"Because, um, I don't know. It's a special day."
I shake my head in disbelief.
"I can't believe you came and sat in the audience. You could've just said something to me and come and watched it from backstage."
"But I wanted to see it from the front. I wanted to experience what you said to the fans..." she trails off.
Interesting. I look at her slyly.
"How was it?"
"It was amazing," she gushes with a dumb grin on her face.
I'm surprised at first and then I laugh heartily.
"What was your favourite part?"
She gets all quiet and doesn't answer.
"'Nikutai wa shoujiki na eros'?" I tease her. She flushes slightly and shakes her head.
"But that was pretty sexy, Aya-chan. Didn't know you had it in you," she bites back.
I roll my eyes at her.
"You know I'm damned sexy. Don't deny it," I retort.
She giggles (which I find so cute) and pats my cheek. She puts her face right up to mine so that our noses are touching and I scrunch mine up.
"Of course you are," she says.
It's supposed to be said jokingly, I think, but it comes out sounding a little serious. I'm glad because sometimes I wonder if I can pull off sexy. If she really thinks so, then I think I've managed to pull it off. She's a good judge of such things.
It's then that I become aware of her proximity, and my stomach does a strange flop. I bump her nose with mine and pull away quickly before I do anything weird.
"But really... what was your favourite part? Your favourite song?" I prod, hoping that staying on topic will make me forget that strange feeling in my tummy.
She hesitates, but she finally says, "Your performance of 'zutto suki de ii desu ka.' That's my favourite song of yours..." she trails off. She sounds so serious.
"Thank you," I smile, blushing and looking down. "That performance meant a lot to me."
"Me too," Miki says quickly, and then she looks like she wishes she hadn't said that. "Um..." she starts again, "because it's a touching song, and... it's always nice to see your best friend sing something so deep."
"Thank you. Very much. I'm glad that you could hear it today, too," I say without even thinking.
Oops. Did I just say that? It guess it's not that big a deal. She probably won't even notice. She looks up at me like a little puppy dog.
"Really?"
"Of course," I shrug, trying to downplay it a little.
She smiles at me and it's so cute that I want to do something, but I don't know what.
This happens a lot, especially lately. I just want to do stuff. I want to show her how much I love it when she does all these cute things that only I am privy to seeing.
I settle for a grin. I'm about to try and find something to say when she suddenly speaks.
"I wish I could've been onstage with you... and I wish I could've sung for you, too. I wish I could've sung with you. And, uh, I just want you to know that you looked beautiful up there. Absolutely gorgeous and cute and mature..." she trails off.
Something's up with her. She's not usually this weird. Nevertheless, I take her compliments to heart and smile even more. My face hurts from smiling so much today. I lift her chin and make her look at me.
"Thank you, Miki," I say seriously. "I wish you could've been onstage with me, too. That would've made the perfect birthday gift."
She smiles and reaches into her pocket. She pulls out a paper and hands it to me. I open it up curiously. Scrawled at the top is, "Dear Aya" and a little red heart beside my name. I read the sheet of paper.
No way.
"Tomorrow?!" is the first thing I blurt out.
Miki laughs at me and nods enthusiastically.
"Are you nuts?! Are you joking? Are you on drugs? Do you even have time? Where'd you get the money?!"
I can't believe it... This girl is insane. I never thought she'd actually do it. I once told her a long long time ago that I wanted to go to the most expensive hot springs in Hakone. A fairly good deal costs over fifty-thousand yen for one night. This crazy girl (who I think I'm in love with now) just went and booked us both two nights and two days at this place. That's hundreds of thousands of yen. I know we get paid nicely, but can she really afford to throw that all away?
The paper is a printout of the confirmation. I guess she has booked and paid already. But my god, I can't believe her. I really can't believe her. I'm absolutely speechless. I stare at her with the paper in my hand. She takes it back from me, pulls out a pen from her pocket, and scribbles something on the paper. She hands it back to me and I look at it. "Surprise," it reads. It has a little heart drawn around it.
An incredibly mushy feeling comes over me. I want to hug her. I want to kiss her. I want to throw myself at her and tell her I'll do anything for her. It's not because of the price and the rarity of the gift, but because of her kind heart. Her thoughtful sentiments. Her caring attitude towards me. She treats me better than I deserve.
I can't control myself, and I do throw myself at her. I grab her in a tight hug, kiss her cheek, and then squeal happily. She laughs and tries to hug me back, but we're way off balance, so she just stumbles around and tries to steady herself. It must look funny to an outside observer. I let go and look at her and she grins and I hug her again. She goes "oof!" as she doesn't expect the second hug, and I continue to giggle madly. I calm down eventually.
"You didn't have to do this, you know. You didn't have to give me anything. Especially something so huge," I murmur into her shoulder.
I feel her shrug, and her hands climb up my back as she has found her balance and can now hug me back.
"I wanted to," she replies.
I pull back again and she hesitantly lets go. I find that hesitation very sweet.
"I didn't know what to get you anyway, so I figured I may as well go with what you said you wanted."
"The fact that you came to visit me just now is the best birthday present you could ever give me, you know that?" I ask.
I smile and I suddenly feel so shy. I can usually control myself when I want to say something weird like that, because it sounds a little scary. Maybe she'll get freaked out. This time it just slips out. I don't think she minds, though, because she looks happy and she blushes. So cute.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come earlier. Work," she rolls her eyes.
"Idiot," I say, hitting her. "You're here now. That's all that matter...s..." I trail off because this is starting to get really mushy.
What the...?
Sometimes I have these thoughts. Thoughts about Miki... and me. It's probably just me being silly, right? I imagine us in situations or, if you like, different scenarios. We usually have lots of fun in my imagination. Sometimes, though, it's really serious, and I say things to her I'd never say in real life, no matter how good friends we are. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about her in a... different way. Not as my best friend, but the other kind of bf. My boyfriend. Which is strange, 'cause she's such a girl with me. Sometimes I tell her, "If you were a guy, I'd so be all over you." Sometimes - and this is something I don't even admit to myself very often - sometimes I wonder why I can't be all over her even if she isn't a guy.
Ugg.
"Well, I'm glad I could come and watch. Nothing could've made me happier," is Miki's reply.
We sound like two year olds. What the hell is wrong with us?
There's an awkward silence where we both look at the floor. I suddenly become aware that my face is very hot, and that I'm still sweaty from the concert. I clear my throat.
"I guess I should get changed," I laugh nervously.
She laughs along and agrees. I head to the sink in the corner of the room and I clean my face quickly, re-applying my make up, although not in massive theatre quantities. Miki takes a seat on the couch on the other side of the room. I look at her out of the corner of my eye, and she's staring at everything in the room but me. At one point she's staring at a pillow intently, and I just want to burst out laughing and go and pinch her cheeks. I don't, though, because then it would be obvious that I'm watching her.
I grab various clothes from hangers and the counter top. I hesitate for a minute. I don't know why. We take baths together, for heaven's sake.... but for some reason, changing alone in full view of Miki makes me feel very strange. Very embarrassed. I look away and change my clothing as quickly as possible. I run a brush through my hair and figure I'll just leave it down. It can wait for a shower. I don't smell that bad.
I finally turn back to Miki, and I catch her looking at me innocently. She looks away quickly and then looks back. I smile and her and she smiles back guiltily.
This is crazy. What's going on here?
I walk over to the couch and sit beside her.
"So, want to go out somewhere?" I ask.
She looks at me nervously.
"I don't have much money on me, actually..." she admits.
I laugh and put a hand on her thigh.
"Don't worry about money. I brought a lot in case I did go out."
She blushes and looks even guiltier.
"I couldn't-" she starts, but I lift my hand and slap her leg to shush her up.
"Don't you dare start with that. And don't you dare not stay in my hotel room tonight. I know you don't know anyone in Kobe to stay with. Now come on, where do you want to go?" I ask, getting up and tugging at her hand.
She gets up and laughs in my face.
"You're the birthday girl. You tell me." I stop and think for a minute. "Aren't you going out with the girls anyway?" she pipes up while I'm in mid-thought.
"We thought we might, but I just want to spend my time with you," I say honestly. Oh my god. Stop saying embarrassingly corny things, Aya. "I mean, I just spent the whole day with them. I'm sure they're sick of me..." I quickly cover up.
"Sick of you? Hah. As if," Miki mutters.
I grin and I let go of her hand (which I didn't realise I was still holding) and gather my things.
"We can just drop our stuff off at the hotel, and I'll tell them I have other plans."
She nods. I guess it sounds like a good plan to her.
We quickly leave my change room as she tells me about her day and the silly recording she did with Takahashi and Yoshizawa for some TV show. I get a little jealous of them sometimes because they get to spend so much time with Miki, but such is life. Oh well. It makes my time with her even more special.
Ugg.
-
Chapter 2 of 3
We get to the back entrance of the theatre and there's a van waiting there to take us back to the hotel. All the other girls are already seated and waiting. I laugh and run into the van with Miki. All of the Melons look surprised to see her there, but Nono and Aibon just grin and wink at Miki. She grins back. I stare between them suspiciously.
"You two knew she was coming to visit and you didn't tell me?" I accuse them.
They giggle.
"But isn't it better as a surprise?" Aibon cackles.
I roll my eyes and hit the two on their heads and laugh.
"You two are really something else, you know that? I love you both," I say.
"I guess this means birthday celebrations with us are off," Hitomi says with a grin.
I feel guilty all of a sudden.
"Yeah, leave the two lovebirds alone," Masae teases us.
I think I probably turn bright red at that comment, but I try not to let it bother me.
"I never said anything like that," I defend myself. I roll my eyes for effect
"Nah, it's ok. I'm actually exhausted. I don't think you could drag me out for any more fun," Hitomi laughs.
Ayumi yawns and rests her head on Megumi's shoulder. I study them all and they really do look beat.
"Well, I'm not asking you to stay in your hotel rooms. If you want to go out with us, come along," I say.
I look over at Miki and she looks a little confused at all this. Frankly, I'm a little confused, too. Why am I suddenly inviting all the girls out when I said I'd tell them I have other plans?
They have a silent powwow and they decide that rest is probably the best thing right now. I sigh inwardly in relief. I look over at the top two. Aibon looks up at me sweetly.
"Will you be eating cakes and sweets?" she asks.
I look at Miki and we shrug at each other.
"We'll probably just have some dinner. Maybe go for coffee," I say.
Aibon sticks her tongue out.
"Then forget it. Nono and I are gonna order room service and eat the best sweets Kobe has to offer us."
I roll my eyes.
"Don't overdo it, guys. Remember last week?"
I see Nono visibly shudder at the memory of the two gorging themselves on so much candy that they couldn't fit into their costumes the next day because their stomachs were bloated. Miki snickers at this and they glare at her.
We pass the rest of the ride in silence. Everybody seems to fall sleep. It's been a long day for us, and it was a very emotionally charged performance. In a good way, of course. I doze off on Miki's shoulder and I wake up to the sound of the van stopping. I move my head to look up. Miki's eyes are closed, but I don't know if she's asleep or not. She opens her eyes slowly, leading me to believe she did fall asleep, and we share a smile.
We exit the van and head into the hotel. I say my goodbyes to the girls, they repeat the whole well wishes thing, and this time Nono and Aibon sing a harmonised version of their special, silly birthday song. Miki looks entertained, which is always a good thing.
Finally, we're in my room. We drop our bags on the floor and I fall back on the bed while Miki takes a seat at the desk.
"Hey, if you want to just stay in, that's fine with me. You must be exhausted," she says quietly.
I roll up.
"Nonsense. You came all the way to Kobe. You are not leaving without going out and having some fun."
"But I came here to see you. I am having fun," she says even more quietly.
I don't really know what to say to that, so I just smile and pretend it's a normal thing for her to be saying. I get up and grab Miki's knapsack and throw it at her.
"Come on. Get changed. Let's go."
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" Miki asks, glaring at me.
I know she has the full intention to change, but she's being stubborn because she just gets like that when I "boss her around."
"You look like a boy," I roll my eyes at her. "I'm not going out with no boy tonight. This is a girl's night out."
Miki laughs, defeated by me, and opens her bag. She quickly changes her shirt but leaves the jeans on. She's so hot that she can pull the look off perfectly. Carpenter jeans and a tight tank top, with those amazing shoulders and beautiful skin and... and why am I thinking like this? I scare myself back to reality and I run a hand through my hair, trying to calm my overactive nerves.
"Okay, now that we're dressed decently," I look at her pointedly, "let's go."
We leave the room hand in hand and we literally skip down the hallway. In the elevator, we decide that a hearty dinner of meat is in order, so I suggest a place that I know. I've been to Kobe a few times before, so I'm a little familiar with the area. I'm able to lead us to a decent restaurant that will serve us meat, rice, and vegetables to our hearts' content. It's unfortunate that not all cravings can be satisfied so simply.
The meal is good as far as meals go. We sit in a cosy corner and chat about this or that. It's what we always do. It's nice to be able to fall into that comfortable, familiar groove with her where even my strange feelings of wanting to do strange things have no effect.
Once we've had enough, I pay the bill, after which Miki thanks me gratefully like some starving child who eats once a week. I tell her to be quiet. Of course, I always shoot her down with a big smile so that she knows I'm not serious. It's unnecessary, though, because I'm fairly certain she already knows I only kid. She's demonstrated on many an occasion that she can read me fairly well. I just hope she can't read me that well when I think things that I wouldn't even think I thought…
We go out into the dark streets and wonder as we wander. We don't know what to do. Miki says she'd suggest karaoke, but that I've been singing all afternoon. I agree with her that being locked up in a stuffy room is the last thing I want. As much as I love to sing, I also like to breathe air. We settle for wandering around the city. The air is a bit nicer down here. Unbearably hot, but it's real, fresh air. I grab her hand and swing it playfully as we walk in the dark, listening to the sounds of Osaka Bay at night.
I wonder when the last time I went out like this was. Probably with Miki. We do everything together, it seems. Sometimes we even have week-long sleepovers depending on where our work takes us. We both live near different studios, so sometimes it's more convenient for me to stay at her place (and vice versa) when we have early starts. Our sleepovers are always fun, but lately, perhaps within the past few months, they've been awkward for me. They've been awkward because I can't stop thinking about Miki.
I hate admitting it because it's plain weird. Who thinks about her best friend all the time? Who changes her schedule so it works out with said friend? Who gets all tingly and excited when said friend so much as looks at her?
Ugg.
-
Chapter 3 of 3
We get lost because I'm so distracted by my thoughts. This ends in us tugging at each other in opposite directions, demanding that we each know the way back. I finally win the battle. Of course I'm right.
We decide to head back to the hotel. It's getting late and we do have to get up early tomorrow to get back to Tokyo.
"You know," Miki says as we reach the front entrance of the hotel, "we didn't do much partying tonight."
"Well, we went out for a good dinner..." I point out.
"Yeah, but we didn't drink or sing or... I don't know. Party stuff."
"I'm not old enough to drink," I scold her.
"Didn't stop you those other times," Miki says slyly to me.
"That's because we weren't out. We were at somebody's place."
Miki rolls her eyes at me and I just ignore her playfully. She tugs at my hand.
"So what now? Sleep?"
"I could go for a bath," I say, yawning suddenly and letting go of her hand to stretch my arms in front of me. "Get into bed, watch some TV, maybe order room service and eat sweets like Tsuji and Kago are doing right now..."
I'm kidding about that last part, but I have to admit that those two girls sure know to live the good life.
"Is it really ok for me to stay with you tonight?" Miki asks suddenly. "I figure you need some down time. Er, alone time. That concert must've taken a lot out of you. You probably don't want to hear people talking or even moving around you."
I screw up my face and look at her weirdly.
"Sure I don't want to hear just anyone talking or moving. But I want to hear you talking and moving. Of course I don't mind. I'd be lonely on my own..."
She smiles and squeezes my hand, and I make a New Year's resolution half a year early to stop saying cheesy things.
We reach my room again and Miki watches TV while I run a bath, going all out with the hot water and the soapy bubbles. Sometimes I love UFA and its generosity. Without them, I wouldn't be staying overnight at a five star hotel in Kobe at no cost.
"Bath time!" I announce cheerily, and I start to strip, this time feeling no embarrassment. Nothing can keep me from wanting to jump into the most appealing bath I have seen in ages.
"You can go first," she says distractedly, eyes glued to the television set.
I frown. I thought we'd take a bath together. That way it's not boring. It's always nice to have someone to chat with. I stalk over to her and grab her by the shoulders, pulling her up and dragging her towards the bathroom.
"Let's go," I say, and she stumbles along with me.
I close the bathroom door and continue to strip. She rolls her eyes and strips as well.
That's when I suddenly feel very shy and flushed.
We quickly wash ourselves up and then slip into the bath. It's nice and soapy so bubbles drown our heads as we giggle and splash water at each other. For a moment, I forget all the wild things going through my head and I sigh and close my eyes, resting my head back. If only life could be this ? dinner, walks, baths, concerts once in a while...
When I open my eyes again, Miki's staring at me, but this time not innocently. There's something different in her eyes. She swallows and looks away after a delayed second.
"What?" I ask, my voice cracking.
She shakes her head and stays quiet, but then changes her mind.
"You just look so peaceful."
I'm pretty sure that's not what she was thinking. Or is it that I hope it's not what she was thinking?
"Do you like watching me sleep?" I tease her jokingly, trying to relieve this pressure that's building in my head. It feels like we're in a plane that has just taken off. Can't stop it, can't speed it up...
I don't think she's actually going to respond to my question until she nods her head. I blink and blush, lowering my shoulders and neck deeper into the water.
"You do? When?" I quiz her.
She looks frightened now. I want to tell her it's okay and that I'm not creeped out, but I decide to let her sweat it out a bit because I've been sweating about it all evening.
"Just... uh, sometimes when I can't sleep. Or... uh, when I wake up before you when we're sleeping over at each other's places," she mumbles quickly. "When I see you sleeping, it calms me down a bit if I watch you."
I nod pensively.
"Mmhmm. I see. Interesting," I say in a methodical way.
It's the completely wrong thing to say, but I don't know what else to do. I think I shoot her some sort of strange look, because she hits the water angrily.
"Don't give me that look," she growls at me.
I frown.
"What look?" I ask, clueless.
"That look," she repeats. "The look where I've just said something weird and you try to pretend its normal. That condescending look."
But I didn't think I... Oh dear.
"Miki, I don't think you're weird..." I mumble in disbelief.
"Then why do you do that?"
It must be either the summer heat or the intensity of this whole evening that gets to me because I snap back angrily.
"I don't know. How am I supposed to reply to something like that? I don't exactly have a repertoire of stock phrases in my head. Don't blame me when you say abnormal things I have no answer for."
I take a breath and immediately regret saying that. It's completely not how I feel.
It's too late, however. Miki stands up angrily and walks out of the bathroom, draping a towel around her body carelessly. I grit my teeth in frustration. This is not exactly the best start to my nineteenth year of life. I hear her getting dressed and zipping up her bag.
I get out of the bath quickly and wrap a towel around myself, running out of the bathroom and after her. She's halfway to the door when I grab her bag and pull her back.
"Where are you going?" I demand.
"I'll find some other place to stay," she mutters angrily.
I'm about to yell at her and then I suddenly lose all my anger. I let go of her bag and look down.
"Fine, just go," I mumble in a tired, sad voice.
I can sense that she hesitates for a moment. She doesn't move. I look up and she's staring at me, looking worse than I feel.
"I..." she starts.
"Do you always have to react like that when you don't like something?" I ask her straight out. "Is it possible to wait a few minutes and get an explanation for something you might be misinterpreting?"
"I'm sorry," she whispers like it hurts her to say it. I shrug. "But I'm sorry for saying all that stuff in the first place. It was weird."
I shake my head.
"No, it wasn't. Why do you think so?"
"Because it just is. I mean, come on. Staring at you while you sleep? Don't tell me that doesn't creep you out," Miki deadpans.
"Should it?" I ask. "It's you. Not some creep."
"Yeah, but..." and she doesn't know how to finish that sentence.
I wait expectantly for her to finish, but she doesn't. She drops her bag on the floor, looking annoyed, and looks me in the eye.
"What did you mean by your answer, then?"
The truth is, I don't even know.
"Just that... Well, it's a surprising thing to hear. I don't mind, Miki. It's nice and not weird to me at all..." I trail off.
I don't really know what's happening until I'm suddenly being hugged gently. I twitch slightly and calm down when I realise it's just her. I hug back tentatively, and my towel starts to drop. Oops. I reach down for it quickly and wrap myself up again, blushing furiously. Miki laughs at me, her cheeks tinged pink.
"I didn't mean to get angry, but sometimes you can be really frustrating," Miki says honestly.
"...I know."
She's the only person I'd ever admit that to. I continue.
"But you know better than to get all fiery when I say something questionable."
She sighs.
"It's my nature."
We both roll our eyes at that. We both know she uses that excuse all the time for being hot headed. I smile forgivingly at her, and she smiles forgivingly at me, and wordlessly, we apologise and forgive. She playfully pushes my shoulder. My bare shoulder. I giggle and push her back. She pokes me in the side and I shriek and jump back. I hit her arm, and she's poking at me more. She cackles like a crazy teenager and full out attacks me. I jump back and fall on the bed, and she's suddenly on top of me and we're grappling. I don't even think what this could lead to. I'm too busy trying to keep her hands off of me since I'm horribly ticklish.
She has the advantage of gravity, though, so I fail miserably, and she's able to reach my stomach and sides and tickle me while I screech with laughter. I squirm about, and by some miracle, my towel doesn't come off completely. Tears start to run down my cheeks because I'm laughing so hard, and I'm sure that any minute, our fellow hotel customers are going to come barging into the room to tell us to shut up.
Miki stops abruptly. I catch my breath and wipe at my eyes. A change comes over her face. She no longer has that wild, let's-attack-Aya-today look. Instead, she has a kind face. A gentle face. She looks at me almost tenderly, like maybe she's proud of me for my performance this evening. I look back up at her as she studies my face.
"Well... Anyway... Happy birthday," she smiles softly at me.
I turn my head and check the alarm clock on the small bedside table. It's already past one o'clock. I stick my tongue out at her.
"It's already the twenty-sixth. It's not my birthday anymore," I say mischievously.
She smiles a bigger smile.
"Okay. Happy start of the first full day you'll be nineteen years old," she says in one breath.
I smile shyly.
"Thanks."
She looks down at me some more and then spontaneously, gently kisses my lips. It's brief, like a whisper of air. Barely there. It's a friendly gesture, I'm sure. She looks back down at me. I smile at her, probably a little nervously. It's suddenly very hot, despite the air conditioning.
I stop smiling slowly as I'm filled with these weird thoughts again. These weird urges. Her smile slowly drops from her face and she stares at me, her mouth slightly open. She bends down again and kisses me again. A dry kiss. Quick, like the last one. Maybe it's a test. I don't say anything and I stare back at her. It's like a face off. A game of chicken. Who will get grossed out first?
I'm suddenly very aware of her entire body pressed into mine. She licks her lips ever so slightly. She bends down again and this time kisses me for more than one second. It's a more real kiss. It's not the kind of kiss you give to your friend. It's definitely not dry. She pulls back after a few seconds and studies my face again, looking for reaction.
My heart is now pounding like mad. What are we doing? Are we just playing around? Or is this for real?
She shifts slightly on top of me. Oh, this is definitely real. She continues to look down at me. I think she's waiting for some sign to continue. Waiting for me to continue. I pause. Do I want to take that step and twist our friendship into something else? Isn't it already something else? We just haven't gone through the motions yet...
I wrap my arms around her back, clasping my hands at her lower back, and pull her into me. My lips seek hers again, and this time we kiss hungrily, as if years of sexual tension are being released suddenly. I pull her in tightly to me as I learn just how good a kisser she is.
She's good.
My mind becomes a blur. Any thoughts of this being wrong, gross, or a game disappear from my mind as I pull her in tightly to me, my hands going up under her shirt and grasping at her bare back. Her hands ride up my torso and she's suddenly undoing the towel from around me. It comes off partially, and I flush with embarrassment, but I don't stop her. I'm enjoying it. She touches me in a few ways that maybe she's touched me before, but not with the same intentions. Well, maybe she did have those intentions, but it just didn't have the same outcome as it's having now. They were "accidental" after all. And now it's prolonged... ongoing...
My body is melting.
My mind is also melting, but it suddenly begins to spin with thoughts again. Why am I doing this? Why am I here? Why am I messing around with my best friend on a bed in a hotel in Kobe after a concert while wearing nothing but a towel?
Why am I enjoying it?
She breaks away from my lips and kisses my neck, and I think I just about faint as her hands touch me in all the right places, moving swiftly and, it almost seems, learnedly. I wonder if she's done this before. With a girl.
We share a lot of things and we claim to have no secrets between us, but sometimes things can be conveniently "forgotten" or "just not mentioned" because they are "not that important." For example, we obviously both have felt the need to do what we are doing now, yet neither one of us ever brought it up. At least not in a serious way or in anything beyond teasing hints.
She kisses down my neck lower and lower, and suddenly she reaches my chest. She seems to hesitate for a brief moment, and I wonder if she's going to stop out of awkwardness.
No, she doesn't stop. She continues, and I'm almost convinced she has to have done this before since, well, guys don't got what I got. I roll my eyes at my thoughts and then tell myself to shut up, stop analysing, and just enjoy it. She'd kill me if she knew what I was thinking right now.
Before I can stop myself, though, I blurt out, "Have you done this before??"
She stops abruptly and sits up on my stomach, her legs straddling me on either side as they support most of her weight. She looks down at me and frowns and seems a little freaked out. I think I just shattered the moment.
Great going, Matsuura. You're a real star tonight.
"No..." she mumbles embarrassedly.
I raise surprised eyebrows. She seems to get angry.
"I thought we had no secrets between us. I would've told you," she insists.
"Well, it seems like we kept this all one big secret," I say weakly and nervously.
She looks flustered. Oops again.
"That's... that's different..." she mumbles.
She looks like she's going to get off me, or something, so I put my hands on her knees to make her stay.
"I know," I say, even though I don't really.
Miki opens her mouth to say something, but she looks flustered again and stops.
"Miki-chan, it's okay. It's all very weird to me, too," I reassure her.
She scrunches up her nose and gets off me quickly.
"God, what am I doing to you?" she asks, suddenly seemingly disgusted. "Oh my god..."
She shakes her head and grabs her bag and walks quickly to the door.
I'm horrified. I feel sick. I call for her to come back, but she keeps going. I grab my towel and wrap it around me and watch as she leaves the room. I quickly slip my clothes back on. Just my jeans and tank top. No times for underwear or a bra. I run out the door and catch her walking away quickly.
"Miki, wait!" I yell angrily.
She ignores me and keeps going.
"Why are you leaving? Stop."
"I'm sick, Aya. This isn't right. Just leave me alone," she growls back at me, not even turning around.
"What the fuck is the matter with you?!" I scream.
She stops abruptly, probably shocked at my language and the volume of my voice. I don't care if the management comes up and kicks me out for that. I'm so angry and frustrated right now that I need to let it out. I walk up to her like I'm stalking a prey. She stands there, shoulders stiff.
"First you drop in unexpected with some mushy reason and a birthday gift, and you act as if it's the most important thing in the world, treating me like a princess. Then we go out and have a lovely night and get back and take a bath where you throw a fit, I win you back, we get all sexy on the bed, and then you jump up and get mad and leave again. What the hell? Are you bipolar? Do you like me or hate me?"
I'm now standing in front of her, and she's got a hard expression on her face, staring back at me stubbornly. I sigh and throw my hands up in the air.
"I don't know what we're doing either, okay? But why can't you just go with the flow? Don't tell me you weren't having fun just now."
She stays silent, teeth grit.
"What is your problem, Fujimoto? Just tell me."
"My problem? Is that I like you too much," she growls back. "And I have for a long time. Longer than you'd care to know. And it's all wrong because you don't really like me that way."
"... How the hell do you know that? Have I even said anything to you about it yet?" I ask hotly, completely forgetting the fact that what she just told me is what I've secretly wanted to hear for so long.
"No, it's because I made you do those things just now. I set it up so it would happen."
I feel woozy (in a bad way) all of a sudden and wonder what she means.
"What do you mean you set it up? What are you talking about?" I ask angrily and perhaps with a little fear.
She glares into my eyes and I feel cold.
"I'm pretty sure if Maki or Yossi had given you that gift and come all the way to see you and sweet talked you like that, you would've been flattered out of your pants, too."
I stop completely. The anger and the fear drop right out of my body.
I can't do anything but laugh. That's the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life. She looks angry that I'm laughing at her, but nevertheless, I giggle uncontrollably.
"Ew," I say. "You think I'd do that with those two? Or anybody else, for that matter?"
I clutch my stomach and have a good chortle until I can't breath. Miki's face softens slightly.
"Miki, I'll tell you one thing right now even though I'm still pretty confused about it all: I wouldn't let anyone - anyone- touch me like that. Nobody but you."
She doesn't say anything, but I know what she's thinking.
"Why?" I voice her question myself. "I don't know. I guess I really like you. A lot."
Miki's shoulders drop, drained of tension and anger.
"But you're confused..." she says stupidly.
"Well, of course. You've been confusing me for a while, you know? Every time you do something that I like, I get these strange feelings, and I don't know how to deal with them. You make me feel things I don't feel when I'm around other people. I thought it was just because we knew each other very well, but..." I take another breath, "Obviously I was enjoying our foray into the unknown just now, so I guess it's a little more than just a friend thing, don't you think?"
Neither one of us speak for about a minute.
"Come on, we're waking the other guests," I say lightly.
I turn around and head back to my room, praying that she'll be sensible and follow me back. I hear silence from behind me for about ten seconds, and then I hear her start walking after me. I inwardly thank whatever power it is that let this be, and keep my pace steady.
I reach for the handle of my door, but Miki has caught up with me and she puts a hand over my hand over the doorknob and stops me.
"Are you sure you want me to stay here tonight?" she asks gravely as though she has some wasting disease that I might catch.
My stomach drops and my heart speeds up.
"Are you sure there'll be no more big secrets between us?" I ask back.
I trace a finger along her jaw and up along the scar on her forehead. I've never gotten a clear or direct answer about that scar, not that I'm asking for one now, but she gets my meaning. She nods and lets go of my hand so that I can open the door.
We walk into the room slowly. For a minute it feels like some sad ceremony for which we have to remain completely serious. A funeral, or something.
Miki drops her bag in the corner again and she sits on the bed. I go and sit beside her.
Now it's just awkward. We can't jump back in where we left off. We sit there for about half a minute before I start to giggle. It's contagious, and she starts to giggle, too, so we both clutch our stomachs and giggle together. Once we're done with that moment of silliness, we feel better. Or at least I feel much better. We lie back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling of the room, talking about, of all things, candies and sweets, and what kinds we'd love to have right now. I guess it's the Tsujikago effect.
I feel really close to Miki. I roll onto my stomach and drape an arm across her stomach, snuggling into her and closing my eyes. I feel her reach over and turn the light off using the switch just above the middle of the bed.
"You should get some sleep, Aya. You've been up since... what? Seven?"
"Six," is my muffled reply.
"Ouch."
I take my head off of her shoulder where it is resting comfortably. The room is dark, but there's enough light coming from outside that I can see her face just fine.
"But I'm okay. I don't feel tired. I feel, er, energised..."
I blush and hide my face again. She pries me off her shoulder and kisses me. Well, I have to admit that I'm glad one of us finally took the initiative.
It starts gently... experimentally... but it turns insatiable and desperate. We can't seem get enough of each other, which is understandable since we've both needed this for a long time. We tug at each other's clothing, and soon, we're both naked, the bed sheets twisted at our feet. The air generated by the air conditioner can't do much to cool us down now. We don't care. We keep going.
Miki turns into a complete pushover in the dark... in bed.
Evening time Miki likes to be dominated. Evening time Miki is gentle. Evening time Miki is delicious.
She lets me take the lead. God knows I have no idea what I'm doing, but I have confidence in myself, so I ride on that.
I get to run my hands all over her body and do all those things to her that I've daydreamed about and tried to repress the memories of. In turn, she does the same to me. There is absolutely nothing I want to repress about it.
We mess around, giddy, high on love, needy, gentle, tender... but most of all, it's honest. We don't do anything we don't mean. It's all for something. It's all for each other and our own selves.
Everything builds up. Feelings intensify. We've gone nuts. We can't keep off of each other. This has to be more than just lust, though, because my body aches not just for Miki's touch, but the warmth that comes with it. I want to cry because for once in my life, I am experiencing something so mind-blowing that I'm sure life can never be the same afterwards.
Minutes apart, our worlds explode, but the real climax of the evening begins after that of the body's. As we hold each other tightly, breathing heavily, she lifts herself up weakly, puts her mouth to my ear and starts whispering secrets to me. Painful secrets. Big secrets, small secrets. Things that matter, things that don't. Things about her life before I met her. Things about her life since I met her. Things she loves and hates about herself...
I lie on my back and listen to every word she has to say, not judging. Simply taking it all in.
When she's run out of things to say, she rests her head on the pillow and shuts her eyes. She looks amazingly calm for someone who just spilled all her secrets, but then again, we are in a sharing mood tonight.
I stroke her hair and she smiles without opening her eyes. I smile back even though she can't see me, and I snuggle in a little closer, pulling the sheets up and covering us. I close my eyes, and slowly, lazily drift off to sleep, wondering what sort of world will greet me later in the morning.
-The end of story 1
-
Love x 2
story 2
Chapter 1 of 3
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Kobe
I wake up to the sound of the phone ringing. I groan and reach out blindly to pick it up. My hand touches soft skin, and I open my eyes in surprise, looking beside me.
Oh. That's right. I'm in Kobe. With Miki. And we...
I blush as I remember just exactly what happened. As the memories continue to flood my mind, I grope for the phone. Miki looks like she's still asleep, and I'd like to keep it that way if possible.
"Hello?" I whisper into the receiver.
A loud receptionist's voice informs me that this is a wake up call and that it's six forty-five. She hangs up. I mutter a few curses at whoever set us up with wake up calls this early and I hang up the phone.
I sigh and turn onto my side, watching the exquisite girl sleeping next to me. She's lying on her stomach, head turned towards me, one arm just above her head and the other right beside my body. She's breathing slowly and steadily, muscles relaxed, totally vulnerable.
She's such a heavy sleeper that it amuses me. I don't see how that loud ringing couldn't have woken her up, but oh well. We each have our own sleeping habits. At least right now she's not doing those weird things she occasionally does. As funny as it is when she makes gestures and has full conversations while in deep slumber, I sometimes like to see her completely at peace. Completely innocent.
Funny. After last night, I don't know if I can even associate the words "innocent" and "Miki" with one another ever again. I study her face some more and I guess everyone does have their innocent moments, especially when they're asleep.
I pull the sheets up a bit because it's chilly in the room. We left the AC on all night by accident, so it's still going at full force. I make sure Miki's covered, too, because I want her to wake up feeling comfortable, not like a popsicle.
She stirs in her sleep and my heart leaps as I wonder what our conversation will be like once she wakes up. I hope it's not awkward, although I'm afraid it might be. She might feel strange when she realises she told me all those personal things last night. She might feel strange about what we did. I have to admit that I do. A little. Not a bad kind of strange, but just a little surprised that any of it happened at all. All I know for certain is that if she feels awkward, I'm going to feel awkward, too.
She doesn't wake up, though. I wonder how long I should let her sleep. We do have to meet up with everyone else and head back up to Tokyo. From there, it looks like Miki and I are going to Hakone for a couple of days of R&R. I wonder just how much rest we'll get.
She begins to mutter something. I roll my eyes. Oh great. Here we go again. Miki's eyes open and she stares straight at me, her expression blank. She flips around onto her back and closes her eyes again. She continues to mumble. I hold in a laugh and I bring my ear closer to her so that I can hear what she's saying. I can't quite understand.
"Speak louder, you dummy," I tease her under my breath.
To amazement, she speaks a little more loudly.
"...you... ya... love... Aya... Love you, Aya. Love you, Aya. Love you, Aya..." she repeats.
My heart speeds up and I blush and smile. Is she dreaming about me? That's so sweet.
I move my head away slowly to rest it on my pillow and watch her, but she suddenly opens her eyes again and I freeze. This time she smiles at me and keeps repeating the phrase.
Huh?
I frown in confusion, and she stops muttering and raises a hand to my face. She pats my cheek.
"Good morning," she says.
I stare at her. I'm not sure if she's awake or asleep or... What the heck?
"Are you asleep?"
"No."
I don't know whether to believe her or not.
"Who's the prime minister?" I ask suspiciously.
"Who cares?" she replies languidly, rolling onto her side and putting an arm around me.
"Are you messing around with me?"
"No, but I'm just about to start," she grins wolfishly, her hand travelling to my ribs.
"Okay, wait. What were you just saying?"
"My mantra. Do I get a good morning kiss, or what?" she asks impatiently, putting her face right up to mine.
Yes, I think she's awake. I ignore her advances and pull back from her.
"How long have you been awake?"
"Since the stupid phone rang. How could anybody sleep through that?"
I groan and drop my head on the pillow. Innocent, sleeping Miki? It was too good to be true.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because I like it when your guard is down in the morning," she smirks.
Ugg. It's true, though. I guess that was the "real me" for those five minutes I thought I was alone. I close my eyes and start to chuckle. Well, at least our conversation isn't awkward. Miki puts her head down on my pillow and asks me what's so funny. I open my eyes.
"You. You are so... weird."
She pretends to look hurt.
"But," I continue, improvising. "You're forgiven because I approve of your mantra." She looks happy again. "Anything that mentions my name has to be good."
"You're so full of it, you know that?" she glares at me.
"Whatever."
We lie there staring at each other for about twenty seconds.
"Did you have fun?" she asks suddenly.
"When? Last night?" She nods. "Yes, I did," I say quietly with a silly smile on my face.
"Good," she says happily. "Me too."
A silence. I don't know if you'd exactly call it awkward. It's more shy, but my mind does race to try and find something to say. She beats me to it.
"So when's breakfast?"
If I it wasn't so early in the morning, I'd hit her for being so unromantic.
"Seven-fifteen, maybe. I think that's what my manager told me yesterday. Is food all you think about?"
"Maybe," she replies, turning her nose up in the air. I shoot her my most not amused expression. "But it's ok," she continues, pushing me onto my back and climbing on top of me. "I don't mind breakfast in bed."
I wonder if she makes up these cheesy/dirty lines, or if she reads them in magazines. Being completely honest, though, I don't care where she gets them from or the fact that they're cheesy or dirty. Her voice is just another way she leaves me breathless without even having to touch me.
And so we're busy for a while and miss the real breakfast for which I'm sure Nono and Aibon arrive early. Our absence is probably as conspicuous as ever, but because of the amount of fun I'm having now, I really don't care.
-
Chapter 2 of 3
At eight-twenty-five, we rush downstairs, bags in hand, hair wet, clothes thrown on hastily. While "breakfast in bed" isn't of any irregular duration, the shower we try to take afterwards turns disastrously distracting, so we're massively behind schedule.
This is something I'm going to have to get used to - mornings with Miki. I think we're going to have to wake up a whole hour earlier whenever we stay over at each other's places because I can't see how we'll ever be on time for anything again if we wake up feeling so... excitable. I wonder what it's going to be like from now on. I wonder how different our sleepovers will be and how different our daily lives will be.
On the one hand, I'm thrilled. We already spend as much time together as possible, and with this new element, we have lots more stuff to do besides shopping, purikura, and watching movies on the television set. I will no longer dread bedtime (I've always thought bedtime is boring, what with having to stop all your fun just so that you can lie on a mattress while you essentially pass out for six or seven hours), and I'll look forward to the mornings a little more if they're as fun as this morning is. I won't have to be lonely anymore. I won't have to be worried that wanting to spend too much time with her might freak her out. Now I know that she doesn't mind. No longer will I be frustrated, annoyed that I'm single, and all that jazz.
On the other hand, I'm a little scared. I don't want anything to change. I want to be able to hang around my regular, cute Mikitty who giggles and turns into a soft, bashful, girly girl around me. I want to have normal moments where we're both sitting on the couch, bored out of our minds and unsure of what to do. I even want us to be able to go out and have fun without wishing the day was over and that it was bedtime so that we could tear each other's clothing off. I want to be able to enjoy regular, fun (and even mundane) life as friends with her.
Finding a healthy balance now might be difficult.
I'm also scared of everyone we know finding out about us. This is something that I feel is reasonable to worry over. It could affect our relationships with other people as well as our careers and the entire Project's national image... But that's a whole other matter that I'm going to try not to worry about for at least another few days
Right now we're late.
Laughing, minds still a little foggy, we run to the back entrance of the hotel and spot my manager. She's looking incredibly pissed off. She spots us and points to her watch frantically. We gulp and run up to her. She wastes no time with pleasantries and leads us out the building and to a taxi cab. The three of us get in.
"You're so late," she scolds us.
I bow my head down. I hate letting her down.
"I'm sorry. We slept in," I lie.
I justify my lie by telling myself she really does not want to know the truth.
"Where's everyone else?" Miki asks, bringing to attention the obvious absence of the other girls and staff members.
"They went ahead. The shinkansen leaves soon."
I feel really guilty again, this time for keeping my manager back. I know she's very busy and would like to get home as soon as possible. If we miss the shinkansen, it'll be my fault.
The taxi speeds along the streets as Miki, my manager, and I sit, staring out the window silently. My manager seems distracted enough that I take Miki's hand and hold it as I look out the window. She squeezes it tightly and we sit peacefully for a few minutes, our lateness forgotten and everything else remembered.
We get to the train station and run. Miki has to go and argue with the shinkansen ticket sales office to get her ticket changed for the one that leaves in five minutes. By some lucky miracle, it works, and the three of us make tracks for the tracks.
We jump into the train as the warning bells are going off. Seconds later, the doors close, and I solemnly vow to set all my clocks at home ahead by ten minutes in case waking up an hour earlier doesn't work.
My manager gives me a look that says "you're of the hook this time" and I hang my head guiltily. We find our seats and rejoin the group.
Miki is luckily able to sit with us and not in the car for which her ticket is. The agency found it necessary to book off a few extra seats around us. It's frustratingly unfortunate that we didn't have the tickets for the seats when we were running late, but such is, as they say, life.
Aibon and Nono are the first to greet me, practically jumping on top of me and asking me if I had fun last night, how it feels like to be older, and going on and on about things I don't even understand. It's amazing how they rarely act their age. They're not that much younger than me.
Miki sits back and watches with a smirk as I try to explain what we did last night (before we got back to the hotel) and answer all their other weird questions. I look at her helplessly and desperately, but she smiles innocently and closes her eyes, leaning back and seeming to fall asleep. I curse her and turn my attention back to the top two.
Things settle down after an hour. Miki is asleep, most of the Melons and staff members are either sleeping or reading, and Tsujikago are sitting in their seats, earphones in their ears, entranced by something they're playing on an mp3 player. I get up and wander down the aisle, a little bored and restless. I'm eager to get back to Tokyo. I go out and stand in the small space between cars, staring out the window as the scenery whizzes by at an incredible speed.
I think about Miki, of course. Perhaps not so much about her alone but her in the context of us. I've seen the different sides of her personality and am fortunate enough to know some sides that others don't. Yet as well as I know her, I feel I don't know her enough. Why else would last night have been such a surprise?
Or maybe it's just me that I don't know very well.
I sigh and wonder what life will be like after we get back home, because at this point, we really haven't had any time to process anything that's happened. We also haven't had time to talk about anything. Well, we've had the time, but we've been busy doing other things.
"Aya-chan..." a voices comes from behind me.
I almost jump and I look behind me. It's Shibata. She's looking at me with a slightly worried expression. Maybe she thinks I'm brooding because I'm standing alone, staring out the window. I give her a big smile to show her that I'm perfectly happy.
"Shiba-chan, coming to enjoy the view?" I ask, pointing out the window.
She remains serious, though, and steps up beside me.
"Aya-chan, was that you I heard last night?
"What?!" I exclaim, suddenly so embarrassed that I can barely resist the urge to run away.
I want to die. Why is she bringing this up? How could she hear me if she was five doors away? I wasn't that loud.
Shibata gives me a strange look.
"In the hallway, yelling... some time after midnight..." she elaborates.
Oh. Phew. I wipe the proverbial sweat off my eyebrow. She's talking about the argument in the hallway.
"Umm..." I stall.
What do I tell Shiba-chan? She gives me a very serious look and puts a hand on my shoulder.
"Aya-chan, you shouldn't have to put up with something that makes you that angry. And the fact that it was your birthday..."
I blink internally. Well, crap. This just isn't right. She has no idea why I was angry, nor the fact that the problem has been solved.
"Oh, we, uh... Miki and I got into a bit of an argument, but it's okay. It was completely my fault," I reply, hoping to sound convincing.
I hate lying, especially to a concerned friend. Shibata has been nothing but kind and supportive ever since I met her, when she could just as easily tell me to shove off and stop stepping in her potential spotlight. For that, I've always been grateful.
She gives me an unsure look.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes," I smile. "Trust me, it takes a lot more out of her to really piss me off."
She seems to look convinced and relieved. She takes her hand off of my shoulder. I expect her to excuse herself and go and sit down again, but she stays beside me, watching the world go by.
"You two are pretty close," she says out of the blue.
Oh, this is painfully awkward...
"Yeah, we are."
At least that's no secret I have to keep.
We look out the window for a while more before continuing.
"Do you have any other close friends like her?" she asks.
I wonder why this sudden curiosity from Shiba-chan. I think about my friends and try to give her an honest answer.
"Maybe. Or... not really. Or at least I used to," I stumble.
Being honest is sometimes very difficult.
"Before you moved and became a star?" Shibata asks.
She doesn't say it in a teasing, bitter, biting, or mean way. I think she's just genuinely curious and trying to get to know me better.
"Yeah," I nod. "But also back then I was little more... trusting. A little more willing to befriend anyone."
"And then?"
"And then," I sigh before continuing, "and then I realised that not everyone is as understanding as they may say they are."
"Best friend back at home dumped you?" Shibata asks with a flat tone.
"Pretty much," I reply in the same tone. "A few months after I moved."
I have a suspicion as to why she's asking me all these things.
"Did that happen to you?"
"Yeah," she sighs. "And the sad thing is that I don't even live that far away from them. I guess they just got fed up because I'm busy all the time."
"Was this recent?"
"No. A long time ago. Some time after my debut."
I guess it's happened to a lot of us. It's not something we Project girls talk about, though. At least not with the girls we aren't as close with. Something must've reminded Shiba-chan of it lately, though, because I can't see why she'd be talking about it now. Probably the fact that Miki came to visit made her start to think about best friends.
"I'm sorry..." I say.
We both realise it's a futile phrase. Shibata smiles and waves it off.
"It's okay. I'm over it. I guess it's a good thing that it happened. That way we know who our real friends are. In the end, they weren't worth it, huh?" she says.
She stares out the window, touching the glass gently as though reaching for some distant memory. As much as I'd love to believe her when she says she's over it, I know that there's still a tiny part in her that regrets it had to happen. I know because it still exists in me. We're not too far apart, Shiba-chan and I. We're both a couple of girls in the middle of walking down this crazy path called "youth"...
I put my arm around her shoulders and tell her she's right, rubbing her opposite shoulder. As I suspect would happen, a tear runs down her cheek. She wipes at it quickly.
"I never cried about it when it happened," she says, laughing softly.
"I did. It helped," I confess.
Wait a minute. Aren't these sorts of talks supposed to be reserved for Miki? Of course I've told her that stuff already, but it feels weird opening up these parts of myself to people other than her. I guess it's okay to be good friends with more than just one person. Shibata and I get along well enough that I wouldn't mind knowing her a little better.
"It's harsh, especially when it happens at such a young age," Shibata says sadly.
I nod in agreement and let go of her shoulders. I put my hands on the window and lean towards it.
"That's why I like Miki-chan," I say before I can stop myself.
Shibata waits for me to continue. I guess there's no harm.
"She's not like other people. She can be mature. She knows she doesn't have to pretend with me, and usually if I do something wrong, I'll be sure to know. I think that's a sign of a good friend."
"And so therefore, new best friend to fill in the blank spot," Shibata winks.
I smile shyly.
"I guess. Also, the fact that she understands the idol life really really helps. She's there. She knows."
"A couple made in heaven, huh?"
I can't tell if she's joking when she says that or if she's hinting at something. I laugh and push her arm and hope that she's just joking with me like some of the other girls like to do. Even Miki and I joke about being a couple, but we just do that because it's cute.
The next stopover is then announced, and Shibata and I decide to go and sit down since this area will become busy in a minute with boarding and disembarking passengers.
We get back to our seats and I find Miki awake. Shibata thanks me and then goes to join in a card game with the rest of her group. I sit back down.
"How long have you been awake?" I ask.
"Ten, fifteen minutes."
Just about as long as I was gone.
"Feeling rested now?"
"I'm exhausted," she replies with a mock sad expression.
"Me too."
We share a secretive laugh.
"We can sleep tonight," I reassure her.
"Are you kidding?" she says quietly, a devilish look in her eyes.
The breath leaves my body and I feel faint. I swallow hard.
"Okay, we can sleep in tomorrow morning, then," I correct myself, barely even able to talk.
She pokes my leg, and I wish we were alone.
I scold myself for letting my hormones get the better of me and I look around. Everyone is distracted. Miki and I are sitting at the front of the car, and Hitomi and Megumi, who have seats behind us, have moved further back to play cards with Shibata, Masae, and some of the staff members. Tsuji and Kago, who are across the aisle from us, have fallen asleep with their earphones in.
I wonder if Miki and I should talk. Don't people usually do that after a night like that? Maybe we don't need to. We just did what was natural.
Maybe?
I take a hold of her hand loosely. We fall asleep.
-
Chapter 3 of 3
"The conductor would like the attention of her majesty queen Ayaya," says a distant, snobby voice.
I stir into semi-consciousness, wondering who is talking to me. I open my eyes and see Aibon's face about ten centimetres away from mine. It scares me and I yell and jump. My forehead hits her nose, and we both yelp in pain.
"Kago!" I growl, rubbing my forehead.
"I'b beed indured" Kago moans, holding her nose. "Helb!"
I forget about my injury and tend to Kago. I see Tsuji looking on curiously, more amused than worried. I also notice Miki has woken up and is glaring at us for waking her up.
"Kago-chan, are you all right?" I ask, grabbing onto her wrist and pulling her in front of me.
I move her hand from her nose to make sure nothing's seriously wrong. It doesn't look broken and there's no blood.
"You have a hard head," Kago glares at me.
Tsuji's eyes narrow, too, in a comedic defence of her sister, I guess. Great, everybody's glaring at me now.
"You're too soft," I bite back.
She sticks her tongue out and puts her hand back over her nose.
"I was just trying to tell you that we've arrived."
I look up and realise that we're slowing down and entering Tokyo Station. I get excited for a moment, and then I go into my frenzy mode. I apologise to Kago for hitting her (even though it's completely her fault), and I grab my bag from the rack above us. I figure I should grab Miki's while I'm up. I quickly take out a brush and run it through my hair, check my makeup briefly, apply a few eye drops because my eye and contacts have become very dry, and I smooth out my clothing.
There. I'm ready to make an exit. I take one bag in either hand and go to join our disembarking group when a cough comes from behind me. I turn around and see Miki still sitting in her seat.
"I can carry my own bag," she says to me.
I realise that I'm holding her bag. I laugh and drop it beside her. She gives me a shifty look, puts her knapsack on her back, and gets up.
"That whole five minute makeup and hair check was just priceless," she mocks me.
"You'd benefit from it once in a while," I retort.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means your hair is a mess."
Miki quickly feels her head and does her best to straighten her hair out with her fingers. She looks at me, hoping I'll act as her personal mirror. I guess it looks decent now.
"It's okay now. Let's go."
We get off the train.
Tokyo is like a breath of fresh air, which is funny because it probably has some of the dirtiest air in the country. I don't care whatever "coolbiz" campaign is going on. The simple fact that a gazillion people live here is going to keep that air nice and dirty with all those CO2 emissions.
Nevertheless, it's home. Or at least one of my homes. Home is where the heart is, after all, and my heart is attached to many places in this city. Lots of memories have been made here.
I wonder if I stop hanging out with Miki maybe I'll become less cheesy.
Everything goes by like a blur. We're carted off to different exits where different rides await to take us home. We move through the hoards of people quickly and try not to be recognised. We wear our hats and sunglasses indoors (which I think makes us look much more noticeable, but I don't say anything because I like being recognised in the streets).
Before I can say three words, Miki, Masae, and I are in a black car and being driven to our homes. Masae and I happen to live in the same general area, and Miki is with me at the moment. It's a little cramped in the back seat.
We reach my apartment, say our goodbyes and thank yous, and ride the elevator up while laughing and placing bets on what colour Masae's hair will be next time we see her. I open my door and sigh happily as my familiar entrance greets me. I remove my shoes and I toss my bag into the corner, collapsing on the couch. Miki follows and stands just beside the couch. I'm surprised she hasn't jumped me already. Maybe she wants to say something. If so, I'll let her bring it up. I could just about fall asleep...
It feels like only two minutes pass before I jerk awake. Oops, I fell asleep. I look at my watch. About ten minutes have passed since we arrived. I hear the TV and I turn around. Miki's sitting on the floor in front of me, remote control in hand and flipping through the channels.
"Uh, sorry..." I say aloud in a hazy voice.
Her shoulders give the tiniest, barely perceptible twitch so I know that I've surprised her. She turns around.
"That was quite the impressive display there, Aya. You hit the couch and fell asleep in ten seconds flat. I didn't even realise it until you didn't reply to me," she laughs.
"Sorry," I mumble again, stretching my arms above my head and cracking my back in the process. "It just happened."
Miki pokes my stomach and I yelp and bring my hands back down to protect myself from any further assaults, fearing a repeat of last night's attack. She doesn't do anything, though. I'm not sure if I'm happy or disappointed about that.
"So anyway, as I was saying," she says, as I look on quietly and curiously, wondering if this is going to be awkward. "What time do you want to leave here? We can arrive at the place any time after three."
Oh. I thought she was going to say something else. Like maybe start some sort of painfully awkward talk about us that I'm actually starting to dread... or perhaps I'm just building that up in my mind too much.
"Oh... It's about one-thirty now. How long does it take us to get there? An hour?"
"Probably closer to two."
I mull it over in my mind. I wouldn't mind leaving right away. The more time spent at a hot springs resort, the better.
"If we leave right away, we can spend more time there. I wouldn't mind that."
Funny, I don't think I just spoke out loud. Wait, I didn't. She said that. I look at her feeling like a love struck idiot.
"I agree!" I gush enthusiastically.
She laughs at my face and I get all red. Sometimes I wear my heart on my sleeve without realising it, and when I do, it never fails to embarrass me.
"So I'll go home and pick up some stuff now," she continues.
Go home? Right, she doesn't have all her things - her clothing, toothbrush, and so on.
"Can I go with you?" I ask stupidly.
"As if you need to ask," she laughs.
She climbs up on the small couch and lies down, leaning into me. I shift a bit so that I can hug her to me, hands clasped at her stomach.
"So we should go now," I say in a tone that I would describe as unconvinced.
"Yeah," she replies lazily, closing her eyes and obviously not getting ready to go.
A completely defenceless, helpless, tired, cosy Miki is just sitting in my arms. I wonder if now would be a good time to-
RIIIIIING. RIIIIIING.
I groan. My phone is ringing. My cell phone. Miki's eyes open and she looks annoyed. I smile apologetically and push her off of me so that I can stand up. She grabs the remote again and turns the TV off.
I take my phone out of my bag and open it angrily.
"Hello?"
It's Tsunku. He's asking me to do a late night benefit show tonight followed by an interview.
What?! I kneel down on the floor beside my bag.
"Why is this so sudden?" I ask him, not even caring if it's out of place to ask.
Tsunku doesn't seem to mind my question.
"They called last night. I spent all night figuring out schedules. All the other girls are busy. You're the only one free tonight," he replies.
He sounds so tired. He probably didn't sleep at all.
I know that he's asking a question that I could technically answer "no" to, but it's my job to say "yes".
I sigh and muster up all my positive energy.
"Of course. What time?" I ask, reaching for a pen and paper.
He gives me all the details and I take notes. I can sense Miki watching me from the couch, probably curious and maybe worried. I don't dare look at her. I read back the information I've written down to confirm it, and I'm certain that Miki has figured out that we're not going to Hakone. Not together, at least.
We say goodbye and hang up. I stare at the paper in my hand for a brief moment before getting up. I look at Miki. She's fiddling with the remote control, putting the batteries back in after taking them out for reasons I can't fathom. She doesn't look back at me even though I know she knows I'm off the phone.
"Miki-" I start.
"I know," she says quietly. "You can't go."
I feel like jumping off the balcony right about now.
"I'm sorry," I apologise weakly.
She finishes putting the batteries into the remote and puts it down on the couch. She finally looks up at me.
"It's okay."
It most certainly isn't, I want to reply. She looks back down at the remote and studies it. I go and sit beside her on the couch, keeping a bit of distance between us. I feel awful.
"I'm sorry," I say again, lost for words. "He doesn't have anyone else to-"
"I told you it's okay," she interrupts me.
She sounds annoyed.
"No it's not. You're upset," I reply matter-of-factly.
She looks up at me. She definitely looks upset.
"Of course I'm upset," she replies.
I look down.
"I'm sor-"
"Stop apologising. It's not your fault."
"But I have to cancel, and it cost you so much to-"
"It's not about money, Aya," Miki cuts me off again. She's starting to sound angry. "I couldn't care less about how much it cost. I'm upset that we can't go together. That's all. That's the truth. I'm not mad at you. Not even close."
I feel like crying. Crying because I'm upset that my plans have been ruined, but also crying because somehow I ended up with someone like Miki, who may seem temperamental and harsh, but is in fact a softie at heart.
I don't cry, but I move the remote control out of the way and move closer to her, resting my head on her shoulder.
"I'm upset, too."
"Yeah. But we shouldn't be. We should expect this sort of thing to happen, right?"
It's not even a pessimistic statement. It's simply the truth. She plays with my hair for a minute and then pushes my head up.
"Okay, go get ready. Your ride will be here soon."
Now I know that she has definitely heard the entire phone conversation if she knows a detail like that. But when did she turn into my mother?
I don't complain, and I go to pack the things I'll need. The benefit concert is far away enough that I'll end up spending the night in a hotel. Tsunku needs me to go early since the tech rehearsal starts in four hours. He's arranged for my ride.
I finish packing and ignore the growling in my stomach. I'm so hungry. We skipped breakfast and slept right through lunch. I'll have to pick something up on the way.
I tune out and suddenly I find myself at the doorway with my freshly packed bag. I'm ready to go. Miki comes over to the doorway.
"Can you lock my place up later?" I ask, giving her the extra key that I keep in a box at my entrance.
She takes the key with a smile.
"Of course. I'll be leaving in a few minutes."
"Oh, you don't have to go. You can hang around if you want. You seem to like that remote control," I tease her.
She laughs.
"Well, I'll see. Don't want to overstay my welcome."
I hit her upside the head.
"You could never do that."
I pull her towards me in a big hug.
"I know you don't want me to apologise, but I'm still really sorry this happened. I'll make it up to you," I say quietly.
I can just sense her rolling her eyes at me.
"Well, I'm sorry that you feel so bad."
I let go and look at her sadly, but she replies with a big supportive smile.
"Go. You don't want to be late. Good luck, and call me when you get back."
I nod, give her one more apologetic look, and then quickly slip out the door. Before I can close it, Miki grabs me by the arm, pulls me back into my apartment, kisses me, and then pushes me away in the direction of the elevator. She closes the door quickly with a tiny "hurry!" so that I can't even see her inevitably laughing at my surprise.
I drag myself to the elevator, wishing briefly that my job didn't require so much time and responsibility. My ride is waiting for me when I reach the street. I open the door and slide in, greeting the familiar driver. He begins to drive.
I sigh. Why does Tsunku have to do this to me?
No, not Tsunku. It's not his fault.
Why does the public have to do this to me? I know the answer already, though. It's because it's my job. It's because they love me. It's because if I slip up and say or do something wrong, they'll write even more articles about me and my scandalous behaviour. Disrespecting the stagehands and buying Keita groceries... I shake my head. They love to see me fall. They don't love me. Not the real me, anyway.
I stop this unproductive line of thought because getting all depressed over one show and an interview isn't worth it. I know that not all the public wants to see me in moments of failure. I know that the newspapers that focus on my shortcomings aren't credible. I know that my family and some of my friends - the important people in my life - love me unconditionally.
And then I remember the conversation I had with Shiba-chan not too many hours ago.
"Also, the fact that she understands the idol life really really helps. She's there. She knows."
I smile.
Maybe it's okay after all. The person that means the most to me - the person who I just let down minutes ago - understands. She won't hold it against me.
The life of an idol is very hard. I know this. She knows this.
And that's what makes it all work out okay in the end.
-The end of story 2
-
Love x 2
story 3
Chapter 1 of 16
Another night, another show, another interview. Tomorrow I'm going to call Tsunku and order him to order me to take three consecutive days off. I'm absolutely exhausted.
After the benefit show (which is some fundraiser for some charity devoted to curing some illness that I can't even pronounce), I have my interview. It is the most painful hour of my life. The same sorts of questions asked, the same sorts of answers given. There is one interesting question about my opinion on my personal growth as an artist, but I still don't feel comfortable answering things like that honestly. I have certain rules I have to play by, and as much as I sometimes hate them, if I don't follow them, I'm out of a job and left in a world where I potentially have a bigger chance with another company, but also have the potential to fail miserably. I think I'll hang on to the Project for a little while longer. I still have room for growth. I just can't brag about it in magazines.
After the interview, I'm accosted by several more magazine writers who also want interviews. My publicist (who has had to clear her schedule suddenly for the evening to come and be here with me), tries to shoo them away, but it takes half an hour.
I get back to my hotel room at two-thirty am. I kick my shoes off, drag myself over to the bed, and fall on it, not even bracing my body for the impact. I lie there, face buried in the sheets, and I start to curse. Why can't I be in Hakone with Miki? We'd be sitting in a hot spring as our tension would drain away from our muscles. We'd be surrounded by peace and quiet. We wouldn't have nosey journalists at our backs wanting to ask us the same questions over and over again.
No, wait. It's half papst two in the morning. We'd probably be in bed.
Sleeping, of course.
Hah, there's no point in lying to myself about what we'd be doing.
I pick up my heavy body and drag it over to find my cell phone. I go back to the bed and fall on it again, this time on my back. I flip open my phone and find one message that was sent an hour ago.
Sender: Miki
Message: Hi.
I roll my eyes and sigh. I type back a message.
Hi.
I close my phone and my eyes. Thirty seconds later, my phone rings.
Sender: Miki
Message: Finished your show?
me:
Yeah, finally.
Sender: Miki
Message: That was long.
Me:
I know. I'm beyond tired. What are you up to now?
A minute later
Sender: Miki
Message: Just went to bed. You woke me up.
Me:
Sorry. Didn't realise I'd wake you.
Sender: Miki
Message: Don't worry. I stayed up late on the off chance that you actually could come home tonight.
I wonder where she...
Me:
Where are you?
Twenty seconds later.
Sender: Miki
Message: In bed.
Me:
Your bed?
A minute later.
Sender: Miki
Message: ...No... I'm at your place.
I feel happy and angry at the same time. Happy that she's over at my place just because she's Miki, and everything she touches is gold. Angry because I'm not there.
Me:
Call me now using my landline.
I wait half a minute and my phone rings melodically. I check the display even though I know what I'll see. Sure enough, it's my own home number.
"Hey," I answer the phone.
"Are you mad at me?" is the first thing out of Miki's mouth.
"For what? Staying overnight at my place?" I ask incredulously. There's a glum silence, indicating that I've guessed correctly. "Not at all. I told you you're welcome to stay."
"I was too lazy to leave," she says guiltily.
Oh, come on. I bet she missed me and that's why she stayed.
"Did you sleep at all?"
"Huh, a bit in the afternoon right after you left."
I giggle at her laziness and feel a pang of jealousy. I have had no time to nap, not even during the ride down to the venue. I had too much to go over in my mind regarding the performance.
"What did you do for food?" I ask curiously.
There's a nervous silence and I wonder if she's burnt my kitchen down.
"Um... You have an interesting stove."
Yup, she burned something. I'm not sure I even want to know what. I stay silent. She continues.
"Er, and now you have one less frying pan..."
I blink. How did she manage to destroy a frying pan?
"Did you melt my frying pan?" I ask in amazement.
"Er, not quite... It just, um, found a new home..."
"Found a new home," I repeat back.
"Out the window..." she says weakly.
I don't even want to know what frustrated her enough to throw my frying pan out the window. I don't say anything for a minute as I try to imagine how the scene played out. I think she takes my silence for anger or disapproval.
"I'm sorry, it was on fire and I took it to the window to pour water on it, but I burned my hand and let go of it..."
I wonder what my landlord is going to think if he ever finds out a flaming frying pan was dropped out of my window. I giggle. I had no idea Miki was this klutzy. She's usually a well-coordinated person, and while a little fiery at times, she has common sense. Doing something like that is beyond the level of idiocy that she occasionally stoops to.
"I wish I could've been there to see that. Then again, nothing would have caught on fire if I'd been there."
She laughs at that. She asks me more about my performance, so I ramble on about what I sang, what I wore, who was there, what the interview was like, and so on. She says she agrees that interviews can be such a drag because they're so repetitious.
I don't bring up the other issues I've been thinking about because of the interview. Issues of me in the Project, scenarios of leaving, and my growth as an artist. I'm not really sure how to talk about these things with her because first of all, I don't want to worry her into thinking I'm unhappy with my job. Second of all, I don't want to unwittingly strike any nerves. While she's made it clear she doesn't detest me because I got to keep my solo career while she got stripped of hers, I still feel bad rubbing my job in her face too much. I don't think she needs an overconfident, seemingly egotistical Aya saying that she could leave the Project and be even more popular and loved.
It's not even that I want to leave. The more I think about it, the more I love my position in the Project as a leading soloist. I also get to interact with the other groups and soloists, so my work and life aren't completely lonely. I get unique opportunities being under this giant umbrella of talent, and I get to see Miki more often than I would if I worked for another company. It's a little scary to think of how much that (seeing Miki around) is a pull factor for me staying in H!P.
And I realise I've gone completely silent on the phone because Miki is calling my name and asking if I'm still there.
"Sorry, I tuned out," I apologise.
She asks me what I'm thinking about. I sigh and wonder if one day I can be as brave as her and tell her all of my secrets and all those things that I never mention but that are often on my mind.
"Don't worry about it."
"What's wrong?" she asks, suddenly on alert.
I cringe. I don't mean to concern her.
"Nothing bad. Just boring stuff I'll tell you later when I see you."
That might end up being a lie because I don't know if I'll ever bring it up. I hate myself a tiny bit for it.
She asks me if I'm sure. She sounds a bit hurt that I don't tell her what's on my mind even if it is boring. I suck it up and reassure her that it's nothing important. To change the subject, I ask her what she's been up to this evening.
"I watched a couple of those cheesy DVDs you own and I read your girly manga," she snickers.
I groan. Lately, she's been getting her kicks from teasing me about these things I've gotten into. It's not fair. She's just as bad as I am. I know she enjoys all those cheesy films and comic books. She just thinks that she's so tough and cool because she's in Gatas.
"Yeah? Which ones?" I ask.
She names a couple of DVDs that I've bought recently. One of them I haven't even watched yet, and I groan about it and ask her how it is, but she remains tight-lipped and says that I'll just have to see if for myself since she doesn't want to spoil it for me. She says the manga she read was okay, but a little corny. I tell her she reads the same kind of stuff, and she denies it like crazy.
"So what time are you coming back?"
I reach into my pocket and take out a messily folded schedule my manager faxed to me (it was a last minute thing that she printed out, which I think is very considerate of her to have done at all on such short notice).
"Breakfast at... oh god. At six-thirty in the morning? Who runs this hotel?" I mutter. "And it says we'll leave by eight-fifteen. It takes a few hours to drive back..." I trail off. "You're still free today, right?" She hums in response. "Okay, then I'll just meet up with you when I get back. We can figure out something to do later."
"We could just stay at your place... watch movies," Miki suggests innocently.
So many kilometres away, and she can make me blush like crazy.
"We could..." I reply innocently.
"In that case, I think I'll go to sleep now so that the time until then passes more quickly," she laughs.
Oops, that's right. It's nearing 4:00am. We've been nattering on for about an hour.
"I have to wake up soon. This is not fair," I growl.
She laughs at me some more and tells me to get at least some rest because she doesn't want me coming home and crashing on the couch like I did yesterday. I mumble that I will. I'm suddenly overcome with exhaustion again, and not even talking to Miki can stop it from taking me over.
"See you tomorrow, then," I yawn, ready to cut the line.
"Awww, what? No sexy message? You're not going to tell me to have sweet dreams? That you miss me? That you wish I was there with you? That what you'd really like to do instead of sleep is grab me and take m-"
"Good bye, Fujimoto," I say strongly into the phone.
She hushes up like a good girl and apologises in a cute voice. I'm not angry with her and she knows it, but it's a little game that we sometimes play, although this is the first time she's ever said anything like that on the phone to me.
"Okay, good night, Aya-chan. See you later," she says sweetly.
"Good night, Miki. Sweet dreams, I miss you, wish you were here with me, and I can't wait to get home do whatever it was you were going to say I want to do," I grin as I speak quickly and sexily, and I then hang up before she can reply.
I roll over onto my stomach and put my phone beside me and stare at the alarm clock. Nine past four.
A minute later, my phone rings. I check the new text message.
Sender: Miki
Her message consists of a purple smiley face, and attached is a picture. I open it. It's her, grinning like a cheesy idiot, hair messed up, and looking tired. I recognise my room behind her and my pyjamas on her. What a moocher. Well, at least she looks cute in my pyjamas. I smile, save the picture, and send her back a red heart. After that, I close my eyes, and before I can change my clothes or wash my face, I fall asleep.
-
Chapter 2 of 16
It's the second day in a row that a hotel telephone has woken me up. This time I jerk awake and grab the phone. A man tells me it's a quarter past six and that this is my wake up call. I thank him loudly and hang up before he does.
I spring up from my bed, my brain not quite working well because of two hours of sleep but excited and ready to get home. Again.
I realise that I fell asleep without taking a shower or changing. I scrunch my nose up and jump into the shower, scrubbing my body clean of sweat, dirt, and makeup.
I take too long. By the time I get out, I realise I've wasted twenty minutes. I get dressed and reapply my makeup within fifteen minutes. If only I could match the speed and efficiency at which Miki and I got ready yesterday after that shower, I'd be downstairs having breakfast already.
I run down to the dining room and greet my publicist. She's almost finished with her breakfast. I grab a tray and go and see what's left on the buffet table. My horrible luck with food continues when I find that most of the food is gone because all the other patrons attended breakfast right when it started. I grit my teeth and take a few surviving pieces of fruit and go to sit with my publicist, trying to cheer myself up with some conversation. Luckily we get along because she's fairly young and hip. We always have some stories to trade. She asks me why I'm not eating much and I just tell her I'm not that hungry. I refuse to admit that I made the mistake of coming late.
I finish my "meal" quickly and we say goodbye. She's heading even further south for work. I'm heading back north.
I grab everything out of my hotel room and go downstairs to wait for my ride. I'm ten minutes ahead of schedule, but the driver is there already. Since I'm the only one being driven, we leave early.
I am wide awake. I look out the window and check the time every minute. I rummage through my bag and look for things to pass the time. There's nothing to do. I get antsy and sigh, resting my head back against the seat and closing my eyes. Why? Why? I groan in my head. I can't even message Miki because I don't want to wake her up.
If I was home right now with Miki beside me, I'd wake her up. She'd be angry at me for waking her up so early (because she's so lazy in the morning), but then I'd put on my cute, innocent face and I bet she'd crumble and forgive me. Then she'd ask me what was wrong and I'd tell her that I couldn't sleep and turn onto my side. Maybe she'd hug me from behind and tell me to just close my eyes, so I'd snuggle into her and close my eyes and pretend to fall asleep while being held. But... secretly, I'd stay awake so that I could cherish every single second of it.
Maybe she'd also secretly stay awake. Maybe twenty minutes later, I'd open my eyes and look up to find her watching me. I'd blush and ask her why she was watching me, and she'd say something stupid because I'd catch her unprepared. Then we'd stare at each other and silently dare each other to make the first move. Neither of us would, so we'd stare for two whole minutes.
Then finally I'd look down and smile shyly and she'd grin and kiss my cheek. I'd turn my head away and act as if that wasn't good enough, and she'd lean over and nibble on my ear and kiss down my neck. She'd pull back and ask if that was better, and I'd nod and say it was a little better. She'd wait a minute. Then she'd free one of her hands from her hold around me and touch my face and neck and collarbone. Then she'd drag her hand down to my tummy, rubbing it and tickling me ever so slightly so that it wouldn't make me laugh too hard. She'd kiss the nape of my neck and move down slowly, making funny spitting sounds as my hair would get into her mouth. I'd laugh. She'd reach my shoulder and rub her cheek against it. She'd kiss her way to my arm and then ever-so-gently bite down on it. It would feel good and strange, and so I'd say something about it. Maybe something about how she may love food, but that I'm not food, so please don't chew me.
She'd put her lips right against my ear and whisper to me that I'm better than food, that I'm better than chocolate or any kind of sweet, that there's nothing as superbly-tasting as me. I'd shiver and she'd kiss my ear again.
She'd dig her hand in under my ribs and turn me around slowly to face her. I'd curl my arms in front of my chest she'd hold me as if she owned me. She'd look at me with that proud face again, and I'd smile back at her, proud to be hers. She'd run a hand from my shoulder all along the side of my body as far as she could reach. She'd rest her hand on my hip. She'd pull herself in an inch closer to me. She'd let her feet play with mine, and they'd soon come to a rest, gently tangled with mine. Then she'd move my hands out of the way and pull me in towards her so that our bodies were right against each others. She'd wrap her hands at my back.
She'd breath out something... something about me. Something about how she can't get enough of me. Something about spending all our time together and feeling desperate when she can't see me. The words would be music to my ears and I'd hug her closely, unable to let go of someone who loves me so dearly. I'd tell her that there's nobody else in the world as important as she is to me. That there's nobody else worth doing anything big for. That there's nobody else in the world who has made me want to keep improving myself. That there's nobody else in the world that I could ever love as much as this.
She wouldn't speak for a long time. I'd feel her move a little. My shoulder would feel wet all of a sudden. I'd pull away from her and she'd bury her face in the pillow, but not before I would see a tear running down her cheek. I'd put my face right up to hers and whisper at her not to cry because it's true. She'd then look up at me, ashamed to be crying, but unable to look away from me. She'd say that she's wanted to hear me say exactly that. She can't believe I've just said it. I'd tell her that it's been the truth for a while, but that I was just too scared to admit it to myself, let alone her.
She'd smile and tell me that I'm perfect, and I'd deny it vehemently. She'd keep saying it, and she'd keep piling praises on me, telling me everything that she thinks is wonderful about me. I'd keep denying it all, and suddenly she'd attack me with soft kisses, mumbling about me and how much she loves me between each kiss. I'd try to respond to her words, but I'd be distracted by her wandering hands. She'd push me onto my back and ease herself onto me.
I'd wonder why she's so submissive at night but so controlling in the mornings. She'd continue to kiss me with a burning desire that is suffocating (in a good way) and flattering. I'd grab her tightly, digging my fingers into her back, pulling her in for more closeness or pushing her away to look at her face. She'd start to kiss my entire body, leaving nothing out, as if memorising me so that if I wasn't around, she'd be able to remember every centimetre of me. As if worshipping me for reasons I can't understand... don't even want to understand... and just accept. And we'd continue to do this for eternity...
And then two hours later, I wake up from this day-fantasy-turned-dream. My face is flushed, I feel warm, and I'm worried that I may have said something inappropriate aloud while deep in sleep. The driver doesn't seem to be paying any attention to anything but the road, so I sigh with relief. Even if I did say anything while sleeping, he'd be courteous enough to never mention it to me or anybody else.
We're not quite home yet. Traffic keeps us another hour on the road. I don't mind. I just had the best two hour dream of my life. But while dreams are lovely and all, I have to say that the real thing - the real Miki - is much much better.
-
Chapter 3 of 16
I arrive home from the south for the second time in two days. It's almost eleven. I open the door ever so quietly and close it with just as much stealth. I go through the routine of removing my shoes and just leaving my bag by the door. I tread softly, heading for my bedroom. I pop my head into the doorway (the door has been left open).
There's Miki lying all alone in my bed, still wearing my pyjamas and still asleep, tangled up in the sheets. I resist the urge to squeal because it's such a cute scene. I walk over and carefully sit on the bed beside her, watching her sleep. I doubt she's pretending again. She's not one to play the same joke twice over. Now this is the real innocent, sleeping Miki.
I touch her head just to make sure she's real and not just some exhaustion-induced fantasy. She's very real. I bring my legs up onto the bed and then smoothly lie down right beside her, trying to pull some of the tangled covers over me.
I intend to lie there with her until she wakes up. I don't care if she sleeps until two in the afternoon. She's beside me, I'm home, and the AC is running. My priorities. I lean in to her so that my head is resting against her arm.
I nod off and wake up about twenty minutes later. I open my eyes and find that she's turned around and is now on her stomach. I roll onto my side, put a hand on her back and drift back into a dreamless sleep.
Another half hour later, I wake up again because she's moving. This time she's turning over to her back again and kicking her legs out. I wonder why she's so restless today. Probably dreaming about underground sea worlds again. I let my hand stay and it now rests on her stomach. I don't mind at all.
I don't fall asleep again. I just think. Nothing in particular. Just various random things from my performance last night to Ogawa's latest hairstyle to Miki's nose. In a way, I don't want her to wake up for a while. This is so relaxing. In another way, I want to wake her up now, and I can think of a few sexy ways to make it happen.
I wait.
I don't have to wait long. She stirs in her sleep and makes a little sound at the back of her throat like a tiny groan. She's waking up. She rolls over on her side, my hand now resting on her side as a result, and her eyes open slowly. She sees me, smiles, and then closes her eyes again.
I laugh silently. She doesn't realise she's awake and that I'm real. She looks amazingly happy for a few seconds and then she frowns and opens her eyes again. She looks straight at me and her frown turns into a smile more brilliant than before.
"Are you really here?" she croaks out, her throat dry and her voice scratchy from sleep.
"Yes," I reply, tickling her ribs lightly.
She giggles sleepily.
"You are!" she tries to cry out in a bright voice, but it just cracks.
She lazily sidles up to me and snuggles into me, her head in my stomach, her arms wrapped around my back. As usual when we're just sitting there, I play with her hair.
"What time did you get in?" Miki asks.
I can feel the vibrations of her voice in my stomach. It feels nice.
"An hour ago. I fell asleep a few times," I admit.
"Why didn't you wake me up?" Miki asks, looking up briefly.
"Wake you up before twelve on a day off?" I gasp with false shock. "And risk getting my head chopped off?" She glares at me and returns to her snug hold. "I was tired, too, and I figured we could both use some rest."
"That was very considerate of you," Miki croons sweetly.
"I know," I grin.
We stay like that for a bit while she continues to wake up. Eventually, she pulls herself up and rests her head by mine, taking me by the hand and staring up at the white ceiling.
"You have the entire day off today, right?" she asks.
"Yes, you already know that."
"Well, you were supposed to have the entire day off yesterday," she says in an accusing voice.
I feel guilty again.
"I'm really sorry..."
She squeezes my hand tightly.
"If you apologise one more time..." she threatens me. "I'm just saying I hope nobody calls you and steals you away from me again."
"So what do you want to do today?" I ask, seeing if she's changed her mind.
Her stomach suddenly growls. I remember my hunger as well.
"Cook breakfast," she laughs in immediate response.
I let out a loud guffaw because food seems to come up between us at the best times. We decide a real breakfast is in order, so we get up and look around the kitchen. I don't have anything in the fridge because I've been out of the house so much these days. We act like scavenging vultures and retrieve what we can- one egg, a quarter cup of canned corn leftover from a few days ago, and a fraction of a box of juice that will expire tomorrow. I don't even have any instant noodles.
We fry the egg up in my surviving frying pan- a very big one since Miki killed the smaller one. The egg looks so small and lonely as it sizzles in the centre of the pan. I wonder if we'll fight over the yolk. We warm the corn up beside the egg in a separate pot. When both things are done, we put them on plates and take them to the table where we've put our juice. It's a pathetic meal. We don't fight over the egg yolk because it breaks and spreads all over the plate anyway. I'm still so hungry when we're done eating.
"Miki-chan, that was the saddest excuse for a meal. I need to go shopping," I say, leaning back against the couch and grabbing my empty stomach.
She joins me in leaning and mutters obscenities under her breath.
"I'm serious," I say with a start, getting up quickly, "Let's go shopping now."
She looks at me like I'm an alien, and I just stand there, shooting an impatient look back at her, waiting for her to get up. She groans after a minute and gets up slowly.
"Do I have to go?" she complains.
"Well, fine. You can stay here all alone while I go off for an hour to buy us food in this heat."
I hope that hits some sort of guilty nerve. It does. She looks sorry.
"Okay, just give me a minute. I can't go out in this."
She points to the pink and blue pyjamas she's wearing and I wonder if she'll ever wear them again because they look beyond adorable on her.
"Er, can I borrow some more clothes?"
I roll my eyes at her and tell her that of course she can.
She changes quickly, I grab what I need for grocery shopping, and we head off. We go to the big supermarket at the station. Since we're so hungry, we end up buying six thousand yen worth of good quality food, and lots of it. We run wild around the store, picking up whatever makes our mouths water, which is pretty much anything, considering the empty states of our stomachs. I have no idea how I'm going to manage to eat all of this by myself, so I decide happily that Miki can sleep over for the rest of the week and we can eat scrumptious, home-cooked meals every day.
I tell her this, and she acts all surprised that I want her to stay over so much. Is she missing too many brain cells? Of course I want her to stay over as much as possible. Why wouldn't I?
We pay for the groceries, get recognised by a little eight year old girl (even her grandmother recognises both of us, which is always a nice experience), and go home to cook. We only have one frying pan, but we make do. We cook and cook and cook, and two hours later, after we've eaten and drunk to our hearts' content, we can barely move. I feel absolutely sick, and I sit propped up against the couch, groaning about how I'm never going to eat again in my life. Miki is in a similar position and is also saying similar things.
Twenty minutes later, Miki rolls over to the TV and pops in the DVD that I haven't seen yet and comes back to sit against the couch. She presses play, and I ask her if it's okay to watch a movie that she just watched not even twenty-four hours ago. She tells me it's perfectly fine. She wants to watch the movie with me anyway.
We watch it. It's sappy and cheesy. I love it.
I think I realise why Miki wants to watch it with me. It's because she's not really watching it. Once in a while I catch her watching me. Every time I squeal or giggle, she laughs, but she's looking at me, not the TV. I'm astute. I notice these things. So I call her on it.
"You really like me, huh?" I ask.
She blushes and asks why I'm asking.
"Because you seem to be more interested in me than in the movie."
She mutters a little "Oh," and then more loudly she confesses, "Your reactions are cute. I can't help it."
I crawl up onto the couch and sit down. I pat the space next to me and she crawls up, too. She lies down and puts her head in my lap so that she can look up at me. We watch the rest of the movie like that- or I watch the rest of the movie like that. She just watches me.
Once it's over, both of us are too lazy to turn the TV off and the remote is just beyond our reach. We sit there with the DVD menu screen playing its soft, silly music.
"Hey, Aya-chan. Imagine we were in Hakone now. We'd be soaking in the best hot water you could ever bathe it..." she says dreamily.
"Are you trying to make me feel guilty?" I sigh.
She grins up at me and mouths a silent "no." I tap her on the nose.
"Yeah, I'd love to be there. But it can't be helped, right?"
"Right."
Miki looks pensive for a moment, looking away.
"What's on your mind?" I ask.
She looks back at me and looks startled that I interrupted her. Then her expression turns timid.
"I was just thinking about stuff to do this summer..." she trails off.
I can tell that she has something she wants to tell me.
"So what do you want to do this summer?" I ask, playing along.
"Well, I thought we could take a trip somewhere together," she suggests.
"Which we tried to do today but ended up failing at," I roll my eyes.
"I mean somewhere further away."
"Like where? Australia? Korea?" I ask, wondering where she thinks we're going to get the time off to go anywhere far away.
"Well, not that far away. Like... maybe to Hokkaido," she mumbles.
"A trip home? Miki, that's not very exciting and new. We've done that before," I laugh.
"No, I mean, not to my home. To the city. We could just hang out there and go shopping for a few days. I don't know. Maybe not, It's stupid," she looks a little defeated.
I laugh some more.
"It sounds good. When do you want to go?"
Her face lights up like a little kid's.
"You want to go?"
"Yes. I am a fashion queen, after all. I have to see what all the hip people are wearing in Sapporo in order to be a well-rounded individual," I say snobbishly.
She makes funny gagging sounds at me.
"Maybe I'll just go alone," she threatens me. "I'm not into people with big heads."
I put my hands on either side of her face and rub them in opposite directions.
"You liar."
She laughs and tells me to stop. I do eventually.
"So you want to go? I know it's not exciting like Hawaii or Hong Kong, but it would be nice to be far away from here even if it's just for a weekend."
"Of course I want to go. And this time I'll make sure not to get called away on business. I just won't answer my phone for the whole day before departure."
Miki looks happy. We continue to chat about this potential trip, and then we move on to other topics. It's in the middle of what seems like a soliloquy about the increasing number of younger children and girls at concerts when I realise that I am almost alone because Miki's dozed off.
The domesticity of the scene suddenly hits me, and it scares me a little. But it's not too bad. I could get to enjoy this. Waking up together, shopping together, cooking together, watching movies together, planning trips together, and then taking siestas together. It's normal life.
Well, not really. It's weekend or day-off life. I'm sure this week is going to be very interesting because we have busy schedules. Luckily we're in the same building for some of it, and on those other days where we're apart, we both end at fairly decent hours.
Call me crazy, but I can't wait for work to start up again because then this won't seem like unreality anymore. It'll become something solid that I can touch. Then as a result, I'll be able to say, "yes, this is happening."
Because I still can hardly believe it.
-
Chapter 4 of 16
Sunday is a lazy day. We stay in and lounge around, watching TV and talking. At night time, our characters undergo a drastic change as if the setting of the sun means we can let go of all our inhibitions, and we stay up until three in the morning.
The next day we sleep in late and then go out in the afternoon. I can barely even remember what we do. We walk around the neighbourhood, do a bit of shopping, and then come back to my apartment to cook some more of that food that I have in my fridge.
Miki goes back to her apartment afterwards because she has to wake up early for filming the next day. The studio is near her place, and we figure some sleep is a good thing, or else she'll have magazines and fans going on about the bags under her eyes and how she's now hooked on drugs. I stay at my place because I also have to be up early for a dance rehearsal in the morning. The great thing is, in the afternoon she'll come over to the same studio because she and her group have dance rehearsal while I'll be hanging around for practice with a few of the girls.
Tuesday morning comes around. My alarm clock wakes me up, and I sigh with a bit of relief that it's not my phone. I feel too lazy to get out of bed, so I lie there and wonder what the day is going to be like. Rehearsal starts at eight-thirty. I have an hour and a half before I have to leave my apartment, and it takes me thirty-five minutes to get there on the train.
I wonder who I'll see, what we'll do, where we'll go for lunch (if anywhere). I wonder what it'll be like to see Miki at work, surrounded by everyone we know. The idea excites me. It's thrilling to have a secret that nobody else knows.
I'm lying in the middle of my bed. I look to either side just to check. No and no. No Miki. I check because I've realised that she hasn't given me back my extra key. I'll have to get it from her because I actually need it. Sometimes I forget where I put my regular key, and if I'm in a rush to leave, I know I can always rely on the spare key at the door. It's nothing personal against Miki. I really don't mind if she drops in unexpectedly. I just need to be a little practical.
I stretch out my body and reach my arms and legs out towards each corner as far and hard as I can. I then fall limp and roll off the side of my side. I drag myself through my morning procedure and leave my apartment a little early.
Dance rehearsal is strenuous. The first hour and a half is just me alone. Tsunku talked to me a few months ago and wanted me to level up my dancing, so I've been having more rehearsals lately. I'll admit that dancing isn't my forte, although I have improved greatly since my early days. I have a new teacher for these extra rehearsals. She's in her late thirties but doesn't look a day over twenty. I envy her. If I'm not careful, I'll probably end up showing my age when I'm older. People already think I look older than I actually am. It's a drag to hear that all the time. I need to talk to my mom soon and find out what she did when she was in her twenties. She must've used some good remedies because now she looks ten years younger than her age.
Miki still looks like a little kid. Well, not for filming and photo shoots. She looks sexy and mature there, but first thing in the morning when she's just woken up and her face is all puffy from sleep, she looks like she's fifteen years old. It makes me feel like I'm robbing the cradle, when the exact opposite is the case.
Rehearsal ends and I take a break. At ten o'clock, the Melons arrive and we start up our rehearsals within half an hour. This time, we go over our concert tour material since there are still some things that need tweaking. I love how little things in these tours are constantly changing. It's not big enough to be noticeable to the audience, but we certainly feel it. Each one of us has our own habits that we have to get out of, so our teachers will always remind us, and we'll have it on our minds for the next performance.
Today is a particularly trying day. For some reason our teacher is working us hard. It almost seems as if she's angry at somebody. As one o'clock approaches, I keep getting distracted and looking out the window on the door. I see people walking by once in a while. I wonder if Morning Musume has come to the building yet.
I guess it becomes painfully obvious that I'm not paying attention because the teacher goes and stands by the door and starts assigning us complicated drills. I sigh and pray for a quick end to this rehearsal.
At twenty-five past one - twenty-five minutes overtime - we're finally let go. We file out of the room and go back to the change room where I drink so much water that I feel like I'm going to explode. I sit in my chair beside Shiba-chan, and we complain about how sensei always seems to take things too personally and then takes it out on her students. We know she's dedicated to seeing us succeed, but she's too hard on us sometimes.
"So, what have you been up to, Aya-chan? You look happy," Shibata asks.
I can't help but smile widely. I look happy? That's nice to hear. Much better than "you look tired" or "you look stressed", which are two that I often get.
"I've just had a relaxing couple of days off."
"What did you do?" Hitomi butts in.
I shrug noncommittally and reply, "Relaxed around the house, watched some movies, cooked, went shopping..."
"With whom?" Hitomi again.
This time she looks at me slyly. Oh brother.
"Why does it have to be with anyone?" I ask, trying not to sound defensive.
"Because you are way too happy for just having two days of alone time," Masae bellows from the other side of the room.
I wince at her loud voice and I wonder why they're picking on me.
"I didn't hang out with a secret boyfriend, if that's what you're thinking," I state.
"Okay, I can believe that you spent these last two days alone. But... who are you seeing?"
Jesus Christ, Hitomi. Lay off.
"Nobody," I reply firmly.
"Bullocks."
"It's the truth." I laugh inwardly at her term.
Then the questions come at me non-stop so I barely have time to think.
"What time did you get home last night?"
"Seven."
"Did you speak with your family this weekend?"
"Yes."
"Where'd you go the day after our concert?"
"Yamanashi."
"Why?"
"Benefit concert."
"Did you sing?"
"Yes."
"Are you in love?"
"Yes."
There's an electrified silence in the air as the girls looks at me in surprise and I realise what I've said. I have to remember to think before I speak.
I force a loud laugh.
"Hahaha, I got you. Joke!"
The girls aren't sure what to think. I could be telling a joke, or I could have really slipped up and said that and am now trying to cover up.
Shibata eventually laughs.
"That was too obvious to be a mistake. I guess Aya wins this round!"
"Huh, wasn't a very funny joke," Masae mutters.
Everyone goes back to changing and I sigh with relief. Shibata shoots me a strange look, though, and it leaves me feeling slightly uneasy.
I change into more presentable clothes quickly and we decide to go out and grab lunch. We have a few hours to kill before our next rehearsal. As we walk through the building, I try not to make it obvious that I'm keeping an eye out for someone. I'm so focused on looking at the entrance that I barely notice a group walking from the opposite direction. I happen to glance just before we step out of the building, and I catch sight of Yoshizawa's familiar head poking above a crowd of shorter girls. I stop in my tracks. Where there's Yoshizawa Hitomi, there's...
"Miki-chan!" I call out. "I'll catch up in a second," I tell my lunch group.
They all nod and continue walking out the building. I walk over to the group of five musume.
"Aya-chan," Miki says with a plain smile.
"Good morning. Er, afternoon," I say brightly.
I address everyone, but I look at her the longest. A chorus of "good afternoon" replies.
Miki nods at me, smiles, and then there's an awkward silence between us. The other girls keep walking in the direction of the elevator.
"Did you just get here?" I ask.
"Uh, yeah. I have to go and drop my stuff off," she says, pointing to the group of girls waiting at the elevator.
"Oh," I say, realising that she wants to catch the elevator with them. "Uh, okay. I'll see you later, then?"
"Yup," she says quickly.
She runs off to jump into the elevator just in the time.
I'm left feeling rather let down. I scold myself. I shouldn't have expected anything grand and sweeping. It's just a brief encounter in the hallway. I shake my head and go and catch up with the rest of the Melons. They're standing around outside and they start to walk once I catch up.
We head for the usual place we go to when we're here for rehearsal. The owner of the restaurant knows us and we're never bothered by anyone. We take a seat at a large table, and suddenly Hitomi, Masae, and Megumi all go to the washroom, leaving behind me and Shibata. I feel uneasy again. I don't want to be left alone with her. I'm afraid of what she might say to me.
"so what did you really do all weekend?" she asks me immediately. I swallow hard and try not too look frightened.
"I told you already."
"Okay. Then with whom?"
"I hung out with Miki-chan for a bit and then spent the rest of the time alone. Nobody else. I swear on my life."
I think I convince her. She smiles.
"Sorry. It's Hitomi's fault. She keeps saying that you've got some fling going on. I guess I started to believe it," she apologises.
I breathe a sigh of relief, but I'm curious to hear what Hitomi has to say about it all. I'm not going to ask, though, because asking invites questions aimed at me.
"It's okay."
We sit in silence as we decide what we want to eat. The others come back soon, and we have a nice conversation about travelling.
After a pleasant lunch, we pay and head back to the change rooms. I keep an eye out for Miki. I don't see her, but I see Konno. I decide to ask her where Miki is because I know she's usually very aware of things going on around her. She tells me she saw Miki going upstairs to the warm up room with Yosssi and Takahashi. I thank her and head up to find my girl.
I wander into the room and see the three girls spread far apart from each other, stretching their muscles and warming up. I head straight for Miki, who is in the corner of the room by the mirror-covered wall. I sit down right in front of her.
"Hey!" I greet her quietly but cheerfully.
She looks up, startled, and returns a smile.
"Hey."
She looks around the room a little nervously. Silly.
"Where'd you go?" she asks
"I went for lunch with Shiba-chan and company," I reply. "Same place we always go to."
"Hmmm," Miki hums thoughtfully. "I wish I'd had time for lunch."
I give her a scolding look as I always do when she doesn't take care of herself properly.
"You can come over tonight and we can cook," I grin.
I think of all the food in the fridge. She nods and smiles warily and looks over at Takahashi, who is currently in the splits.
"Miki," I say, moving my head in front of her line of sight.
She pulls back and blinks, not expecting my movement.
"It's okay," I comfort her.
I put a hand on her leg, and her eyes shoot towards Yossi. I rub her knee.
"Don't worry," I mouth at her.
She looks at me painfully.
"Aya, I've gotta go," she says. She gets up and looks down. "I'll see you later, okay?"
She walks out the door.
What the hell? Okay, maybe she's just grumpy. She probably didn't get much sleep. People are usually unreasonable and paranoid when they're tired.
I stand up, smile at Yossi who looks over curiously, and I walk out of the room.
More rehearsal, more sweating, more distraction. I drift back up to cloud nine and stay there for the afternoon.
When our break at four o'clock rolls around, I wander down the hall way to the vending machines, thirstier than ever. I walk by Miki, Takahashi, Yossi, and Tanaka. We say hello and stop to chat.
Tanaka, who I barely know, likes talking to me for some reason, so she asks how things are going and I reply that things are good. I comment on the difficulty of my dance rehearsal. Takahashi asks what sorts of things I'm doing, and I explain a little bit about the technique I'm learning. Yossi looks on interestedly. Miki just fidgets the whole time. She stares at Takahashi for a while, then Tanaka, and then Yossi. She looks over at me a few times, but she looks almost angry.
The five of us walk to the vending machines together. I try to latch on to Miki's arm, but she shies away from me smoothly.
I think she's overdoing it. It's not like we're not allowed to look at each other or touch in public. We always have before.
We stand around and drink. The girls suddenly start giggling about some inside joke they have, and I'm left out of the joke. I lean against a wall and watch them. Miki laughs along, but she quiets down after a while, as Yossi and Tanaka continue with some antics targeting Takahashi.
I tap Miki's arm from where I am. She turns around and looks at me guiltily. She backs up to stand beside me.
"You're completely ignoring me," I state quietly so that the other girls don't hear.
She looks down.
"No I'm not," she mumbles.
"Yes, you are," I say, poking the side of her head.
She looks up at me and looks like she's in agony.
"I'm sorry."
I snort out a laugh.
"Don't be sorry. Just stop doing it. Makes me feel yucky."
She doesn't say anything.
"Listen, Miki-chan. You don't have to overcompensate. Just act normal, okay? Nothing's changed between us as friends."
She nods and smiles a little. The other three girls are still giggling. She takes my hand and squeezes it, letting go right away. She checks her watch. Break time is over.
"Yocchan," she calls out.
Yossi stops and looks over at us.
"Time's up," Miki says, pointing to her wrist.
Yossi lets out a groan and starts to head back to their studio. Tanaka and Takahashi follow, and for a moment, everyone's back is turned to us. I look over hopefully at Miki. She gives me a warning look. "Don't try anything," it says. I wink, kiss the air between us and then push her away towards the three girls just as Takahashi turns around. Miki stumbles in front of her, looking stunned, and Takahashi gives her a funny look.
"What did you drink? Vodka? Come on, Fujimoto-san."
They disappear around the corner and I go back to the Melons with my mind at ease.
-
Chapter 5 of 16
The end of the day rolls around. Six pm has never looked more appealing to me on a clock in all my life. As soon as we're dismissed, I run out of the room. Hitomi yells after me that I should hurry because I don't want to keep my boyfriend waiting. I tell her to shut up and she grunts some sort of retort.
I reach the change room first and grab my phone. I text Miki, telling her to meet me up at the front as soon as she's changed out of her sweats. I get changed before the rest of the Melons even arrive, and I pack up my bag as they come in, staring at me in disbelief.
"Okay, I don't believe this. You have a date now, don't you," Hitomi says.
"Will you drop it already?" I cry out. "I'm going home. I'm starving, exhausted, and just ready to collapse."
"Okay, okay." Hitomi lifts her hands in defeat and changes out of her clothes.
I finish gathering my things and I say goodnight, walking out the door. Shibata runs out the door after me and confronts me.
"I'm not convinced anymore," she states firmly.
"Uh, I know. It's all in Hitomi's head."
She shakes her head.
"No, I'm not convinced by you. There's something going on with you."
I shoot her a genuinely annoyed look. She doesn't stop.
"Listen, Aya-chan. Whatever it is, it's fine. Just don't let it affect your performance because you know what'll happen if you are discovered to have a life outside of this Project."
I think back to Mari's incident. I'm sure she's referring to it.
"Tsunku-san won't drop me from the Project," I risk saying.
It's a brazen statement, but I'm irritated and don't feel like being modest.
"You're right. He won't," Shibata agrees with me. "But UFA won't think twice about doing it."
Low blow.
"Fine. Then I'll go to another company," I say carelessly.
"It's not that easy, Aya-chan. You're associated with this Project. It's unfortunate because you're one of the few girls that could leave it and be successful. If only the stigma wasn't attached to your name."
This has suddenly turned into a very real and dangerous conversation. I'm treading on thin ice. I can feel it cracking beneath me. I don't even know what I want anymore.
"Shiba-chan, I..."
I can't think of anything to say. I've blanked out.
"I'm not sure what you want because we've never talked about this before, but I do know one thing. You could be so successful if you were let loose. I know you know that."
She's completely serious. She's not mocking me. She's not baiting me.
"I wasn't being serious before. I can't leave this place," I say quietly.
"Can't or won't?"
There's something fierce in her eyes. She stares me down. I've never felt this uncomfortable about my position before.
"Can't," I say firmly, trying to convince myself and her at the same time.
She shakes her head.
"Aya-chan, you have to figure out your priorities. You're meant to be something a lot greater than what you're being allowed to be."
It's a mouthful of a sentence, but I get it as I swirl it around in my mind.
"I wouldn't be anything if it wasn't for this agency. I'd be sitting in some junior college classroom learning how to become a flight attendant or a nursery school teacher."
"Okay, granted," Shibata allows me. "But... you've outgrown it. You have to admit it."
Damnit, she's right. I can't let her know that I think so.
"Shiba-chan, I really appreciate the concern, but I'm not going anywhere right now. I'm staying right here. There are things I have to do, and that's that."
She looks at me thoughtfully.
"You're a smart girl. I hope you know what you're doing."
My face hardens. I wonder if she's not trying to be a little condescending. She smiles, breaking the tension.
"Sorry to bring it up. I just felt I had to talk to you about it."
I wave my hand in a nonchalant gesture.
"Have a good night," she says, and she just leaves, going back into the change room.
I stand there for a whole minute and let the waves of shock pass through me.
Where did that come from??
I continue my walk to the front lobby, but this time, my mind is steeped in thoughts of leaving H!P and finding my own way. The more I think about it, the more tempting it sounds. I know I could do it... But I don't want to leave H!P. It's a comfort zone. It's my first agency. Miki's here.
I find a seat in the lobby and plunk myself down in it as I try to review the entire conversation with Shibata. Miki makes an appearance five minutes later. I push all the problems out of my mind and decide to just have fun this evening.
We go to my place, cook, stuff ourselves (although not too much as we have learned our lesson), take a bath, and then plunk down in front of the TV for lack of anything better to do. We watch a drama that neither of us follow regularly.
I find myself not paying attention to the show. Shibata's words keep echoing in my head. I almost start to think that I'm getting a headache. How intrusive.
Once the drama is over, commercials start playing before the next show and Miki looks over at me.
"What's on your mind?" she asks curiously.
"Huh?" I blink and come back to reality.
"Looks like you're thinking hard."
"Uh, nothing. Just tired. I think I'm getting a headache," I say.
I don't want to worry her with my problems. It's on par with my thoughts from my magazine interview a few nights ago.
"You sure?" she asks, rubbing my head gently.
I nod and smile.
"I'm fine."
Miki wiggles her way behind me on the couch and her cool hands take me by the head as she starts to give me the most wonderful head massage. Whatever headache is forming in my mind because of my thoughts is quickly forgotten as a result of this massage. I lean back and let her spoil me.
The head massage turns into a shoulder massage, which turns into a back massage, which turns into a full body massage. It remains entirely clean the whole time, though, and I almost fall asleep as my tension drains away from my muscles. Once she's done, I sit back up to make some room for her on the couch and we end up watching some Chinese drama that has been dubbed over.
I drift away again, eyes open but mind completely gone. What would happen if I left H!P? What if I successfully joined some other agency? I could sell millions of records. I could gain national respect, not just fame. I'd be a true star making it based on her talent, not because of the weight of the promotion behind her.
But I'm too entrenched in this thing called H!P that I can't get away. Shibata is right. There is a stigma attached to the name, and I'm associated with that name. It's hard, if not impossible, to escape it.
And then there's Miki, who I wouldn't want to spend any less time with than I already do. I think about the fun we have when we get those rare chances to work together, and I can't imagine having a more perfect job.
I feel a hand take mine. I look up and see Miki looking at me, half amusedly but half worriedly.
"Aya, what's up?" she asks, her tone brooking no argument.
I sigh and rub the side of my head.
"Nothing. I'm just really tired," I reply.
She looks at her watch.
"It's nine-thirty. A little early to go to bed," she says.
I nod distractedly. She gets up and pulls me up with her.
"It's okay. I'm tired, too."
I'm not even in control of myself as we lie down. I don't know what we talk about because my mind isn't there. It's with Shibata, repeating our conversation over and over again.
I snap out of it again when Miki snuggles into me and asks me to just drop whatever it is I'm thinking because I'll never get any sleep if I keep it on my mind. I look down at her and briefly feel bad for not being great company tonight. I apologise and make up some dumb excuse. She laughs, kisses my forehead, and then turns off the light. I pretend to sleep, but I remain awake long after Miki's fallen asleep.
I'm meant to be something a lot greater than what I'm allowed to be now?
Maybe. Do I even want that?
Maybe yes.
-
Chapter 6 of 16
I drift off at around one-thirty am. Three and a half hours of just lying and thinking while wrapped in the arms of the person to whom I want to both tell everything and not say a word is like pleasant torture.
I wake up to Miki shaking me by the shoulders. I struggle to open my eyes. I feel so tired. She's kneeling beside me looking rather tired herself. I groan and turn away from her. I look at the alarm clock. Half past five. What is she doing up so early, and why is she waking me up? I close my eyes again, but she yanks me by the shoulder and rolls me onto my back. I crack my eyelids open and glare at her.
"What?" I grumble.
"Good morning," she says cheerfully.
"...That's it?" I croak in disbelief.
She shrugs and smiles. I wonder if she'd feel guilty if she knew how much sleep I got last night.
"Why? So early..."
My speech faculties aren't quite awake yet.
"Early to bed, early to rise," she says wisely. "I figured the early morning mind is free of stress. Whatever was bothering you last night can't seem like a big deal now."
She has to remind me. Shibata's words flood my mind again, just as fresh as they were four hours ago. I twitch and groan.
"There was nothing..." I tell her.
I'm too lazy to finish my sentence. She looks at me with a neutral face. I shrug. She shrugs, too, and lies down with her head on my stomach.
"You know that you can tell me anything," she reminds me lightly.
She looks up at me for a moment as if she's expecting me to say something. I don't offer anything. I detect a faint sigh as she crawls back up and rests her head by mine.
"Just so you know."
"Thanks," I reply gratefully.
I close my eyes and try to drift off to sleep. She doesn't let me. She somehow gets behind me and grabs me by the armpits, hefting me up into a sitting position like a rag doll. She sits behind me, her arms trapping me and her head resting on my shoulder.
"Let me sleep," I grumble, trying to pull away from her.
She ignores my protests and hugs me. She puts her nose in my hair and inhales.
Weirdo.
I'm not in the mood for anything but sleeping, but somehow she manages to change my mind quickly. Within a heartbeat, I am completely at her mercy. Soon enough, I decide that waking up so early isn't such a bad thing when you have good company. Without even knowing it, Miki is able to make me forget all my worries. I don't even have to ask.
At a quarter to seven, we get up and make breakfast. We take turns taking showers (for time's sake). I go first.
I turn the hot water up as far as it will go and I let it pour down on my pale skin, telling myself that today I'll start fresh. I'll forget yesterday's conversation with Shibata. I'll pretend it never happened.
The problem is she has piqued my interest, and now I can't help but think about leaving Hello! Project.
I get out of the shower and get dressed quickly as Miki goes for her shower. I flip on the TV and brush my hair. I don't want to see Shibata today. I know that I'll be tempted to talk to her, and I don't need any more to worry about.
We leave my place at eight. We're waiting on the train platform when Miki changes the flow of our mindless chatter.
"I've been thinking of graduations recently," she starts.
"Oh? Your own?" I ask curiously.
"A little. I'm wondering what it'll be like. For what reason. Will I go solo again? Will I join a group? Quit altogether?"
I swallow the bad feeling I'm getting.
"I'm sure you'd go solo again," I offer my input.
"I wonder..." she muses. "Imagine a Miki without H!P. I'd be jobless. I can't do anything else!" she laughs.
I scoff at her and tell her she can do whatever she wants and then gently steer the conversation away from the volatile topic of leaving H!P. While I don't mind discussing her situation and helping her out, I don't want to field any potential questions about what I think of my situation.
The morning passes uneventfully. I have singing lessons with my main vocal instructor and then a meeting at lunch with Tsunku. Tsunku really seems to value and respect me. I wonder what he'd think if he knew what ideas I was toying with in my mind.
In the afternoon, Maki and I have a rehearsal together. It's a big hushed project, but there are some rough plans in the works for us to release a collaboration of some sort next year. The two top soloists of the Project could potentially sell a lot of records. It's like Gomattou, except it's missing a third of its constituents- the most important part to me, but I would never tell Maki that. I love her, too. Just not that way.
I can't even remember how many times this past while I've been frustrated because Miki's no longer a soloist. She should have been there in NUN with us. She should have been there for all our promotional TV appearances and events, and for the concerts... Instead, she got sidelined. She was tossed into a barrel full of sixteen year-olds and made to babysit them.
No, I don't like thinking like this. Morning Musume is the biggest act of H!P. They get the loudest cheers. They're not a demotion. It's an honour. It's what she auditioned for in the first place.
But to Miki, being a soloist is more important. She told me so. And to me, especially now, it would be so much more fun if she was a soloist. Of course this is something I'd never tell her. I don't want to make her feel bad, regretful, or helpless about a situation she has little control over.
I have too many secrets from too many people.
I go the whole day without seeing Shibata, although I know for a fact that she's around. I saw her name on the schedule. I bump into Miki once. She's much more relaxed than yesterday and acts her normal self. We steal ten minutes of each other's time and walk around the building, hand in hand, updating each other on our mornings. Miki's there for voice training, too, although with a different teacher. I get the feeling that whoever makes the schedules tries to get us in the building on the same day because it often happens that we're scheduled for the same days. He or she probably knows we're friends.
"By the way," Miki interjects before we have to part, "Shibata was around asking for you."
The smile on my face freezes.
"Er... What did she want?"
"I don't know. I told her you were in studio D and she thanked me and left. That was about twenty minutes ago."
I nod slowly. I'm sure I'll be getting a visitor later this afternoon. Miki asks if I know what it's about. I tell her I don't know and suggest that it probably has something to do with our current tour. She accepts my words immediately. It makes me feel strange because I'm not telling the entire truth. However, I'm just doing it because I don't know how to think of everything yet. If I told her the real reason why I think Shibata's looking for me, she'd probably react badly to my thoughts of being able to leave the agency and becoming more successful.
Miki's not as secure as she'd like everyone to believe. I've always known this to a certain extent, but after that night in Kobe listening to her secrets and confessions, I learned just how deep seated the insecurity is.
It's not at chronic levels, nor does it reflect a bad childhood or anything traumatic like that, but she's extremely humble and modest with herself. The last thing she needs is some bigheaded person going on about quitting a huge, multibillion yen agency and becoming even bigger on her own because she's such a good singer/actor/entertainer.
"Aya??" I hear a distant voice call out.
"What?!" I ask loudly, blinking.
Miki's face is about a foot away from mine and I jump back. I vaguely remember that there was some nose and forehead trauma the last time someone woke me up like that. Poor Aibon. No, wait. Poor me, too.
"Aya, what's the matter with you?" Miki asks, exasperation in her tone.
"I spaced out. Sorry," I say in an unapologetic tone.
"No, really. What is wrong? You're starting to freak me out a little. Is everything okay?"
She's got me backed up against a wall (not in a sexy way) and she's looking at me like I'm ill. I almost expect her hand to start touching my forehead, checking for a fever.
"Miki, I'm fine. I promise you."
And with that promise, I feel like I've broken a part of my own heart.
"I don't know, Aya. I'm just worried you're going to walk into traffic or onto the train tracks if you keep this up. Didn't you sleep at all last night?"
All the exasperation has been wiped off her face. Nothing but worry and caring can be seen. I may as well admit something to her.
"Yeah, I didn't sleep much."
"Why not? You said you were tired. We went to bed early."
"I don't know," I grumble. "I just couldn't sleep."
Miki takes me by the hands and leans in closely to me.
"You have to learn how to relax. You're always doing two million and one things. No wonder you're so uptight."
I sigh and smile, wishing that it was just regular stress. She matches my smile and it actually de-stresses me a little. That's one of the effects of her smile.
"Hey you two!" yells a voice.
I try to jump back, but I bump my head on the wall and I wince in pain. Miki drops my hands and stumbles backwards. We look and see Maki coming at us from the other end of the hallway.
"Get a room!" she calls out teasingly.
I glare at her and I touch my head carefully to feel for blood. I'm okay.
"Nice to see you, too," Miki growls her greeting at our approaching interruption.
Maki reaches us and stops.
"I came to find you, Aya. We're starting practice and you're off having a secret rendezvous with the rival group," she says in a mock threatening tone.
Miki snickers at this and gets ready to retort, but I jab my elbow into her side and her face goes from absolutely sly to absolutely pained. Those two can act like the best of friends, but sometimes they tear into each other like cannibalistic piranhas . It's just how they carry out their friendship, although sometimes I get a little worried and wonder if they're crossing the line with their insults. Sometimes they look so fierce that I'm scared they'll start hitting each other.
"I'll be along soon," I inform her.
She gives me an amused look.
"Aya, I don't think you have a choice. You have to come now. Sensei's getting medieval on my butt, and I haven't even done anything wrong."
"Urrg. Okay. Miki, I'll see you later," I say, and I walk to Maki's side.
Miki doesn't reply. I turn around and she's standing there with her arms crossed, glaring at me as if to strike me down where I stand. I give her a bug-eyed "what?!" look. She points to her injured ribs. I roll my eyes.
"Later," I mouth.
I wink, and then turn around, latch onto Maki's arm, and we walk quickly down the hallway. I can just see Miki fuming at being ditched. She'll get over it. I know she loves to play around like this anyway.
We stay at the studio until six. Maki has to leave then, and I tell her to go ahead. I want to practice some things for a few minutes. At six-thirty, after belting out some of my favourite songs (many of which happen to be my own songs), I'm ready to call it quits. I walk out of the practice room and I don't know why I'm even surprised to see Shibata standing outside waiting. We make eye contact. I reach for my phone and message Miki, telling her I'm going to be a while more. I tell her to go home and I'll meet up with her later. I switch my phone to silent mode and then approach the front girl of Melon while trying to stay calm.
"Did you get some rest last night?" she opens up politely.
"A little."
"Good," she smiles.
Then her face turns serious.
"Did you think about what we talked about?"
"A little," I reply in the exact same voice.
"I'm sorry for saying those things yesterday. I think I was a little rude. A little out of line."
That's not what I expected her to say.
"No," I cry out quickly. "It had to be said."
"So what are you going to do about it?" she asks, seemingly relieved that I'm not angry. "Still willing to stick it out here?"
I think long and hard about my answer. I look warily around the hallway. She gets my hint and we walk to the couches and chairs in the main area of the floor. From there we can see anyone well ahead of the time they are within hearing range.
"I can't leave, Shiba-chan. You said it yourself. My name is attached to this Project. It's nearly impossible to leave without bringing all the unfavourable things along."
Shibata smiles.
"Aya, I was playing devil's advocate when I spoke to you about it. I'm doing it for your own good."
It's true. She did switch from warning me to stay to urging me to leave. I do have two questions I need answers to.
"Why me? Why now?"
"Because I noticed. You grew up suddenly. I've been working around you for a few years now and I've seen huge improvements in the past half year alone. This whole tour I've been blown away by your performance. The truth is, you're better than all of us."
I lower my head. I like compliments, but there's a point where I get embarrassed.
"I've noticed, though, that you're restless. At least it seems like it. And whatever sort of romance you've been involved in the past little while, it's done you good."
"What do you think I should do?"
I'm the unsure, inexperienced youngling. Shibata is the wise senior.
"Honestly, I don't know. If you want to grow more, leave. If you want to explore this new, mature side of yourself in a safe environment, stay. If you don't want UFA to kill you, keep your love life secret," she winks after the last part.
"There is no romance. No affair. Okay?" I state firmly.
Shibata shrugs.
"Fine," she says sounding unconvinced, probably because I'm such a bad liar. "Just be careful."
I won't concede, so I drop that topic by ignoring it.
I cross my arms and look up at the ceiling, thinking.
"I don't know what to do," I say finally.
Shibata urges me to go on.
"On the one hand, I want to leave," I lower my voice, "and try a new company and make it on my own merits. Be loved by a wider range of people. But then on the other hand, I have so much to do in H!P. So many reasons to stay."
Thoughts of Miki dominate my mind.
"There's no guarantee I'd have any chance if I left."
"You're right, but then you can never know until you try."
"So I should try?"
"No, I didn't say that."
"You're really not going to help me," I say with a touch of a joking glare.
"I'll help you if you want, but I think I'm more useful as a bucket. Just pour your troubles in and forget about them if you want. Or alternatively, try to solve them by seeing them outside of yourself."
I never thought Shibata could be that poetic (if talking about buckets can be considered poetic).
"Have you talked to anyone else about these things on your mind?" she asks me.
"No. Just you," I shake my head.
"Nobody?"
She looks very surprised.
"Nobody."
Not even Miki. I know she's thinking that, but she's too nice (or maybe surprised) to say it. Or maybe she even understands why I can't talk to Miki about it, although I highly doubt it. Shibata's bright, but she doesn't know Miki the way I do.
"So what's your next move?" she changes the subject.
What kind of question is that? I don't have much of a choice at the moment.
"Finish the tour," I reply as if she's dumb.
"You don't have to wait until the tour is over to start doing something about it."
This piece of seemingly obvious and oversimplified information hits me like a sack of bricks just as Shibata's phone rings. She checks her message and sends one back quickly.
"Rika-chan's waiting. We're going to catch some dinner with Megumi and Hitomi. You're welcome to join us," she offers, standing up and arranging her bags.
"Thanks, but I'll pass," I smile.
"Other plans?" she asks with a wink.
I try not to look away.
"I'm just busy," is all I give her.
Shibata raises an eyebrow.
"Don't get caught. Later!" she skips off quickly.
"There's nothing to get caught over!" I call out after her, but she doesn't turn around.
I sigh and sit back on the couch. She's right. I don't have to wait until the tour is over. I just have to figure out what it is I want to do.
I pull out my phone and see two messages, both from Miki. The first one is a simple "okay" in response to my earlier message. The second one is her telling me she's on the train. She sent it to me less than five minutes ago. I decide to wait to message her after I'm ready to leave the building.
I stroll over to the change room and pack all my things, changing out of my sweatpants and putting on something more appropriate should I suddenly be photographed by a gossip magazine. I touch up my makeup and brush my hair.
Once out, I message Miki and ask if it's okay to drop by her place. An instant reply comes: "of course!"
I know the way to her place as well as I know the way to mine, so I'm able to drift off and not pay attention. I start thinking of all the possible scenarios. If I decide to quit H!P, I need to time it correctly. It has to be between tours. It has to be done quickly. I have to be firm about it.
I almost scream out loud in frustration. Why am I even thinking this? I can't leave. I see all the girls in my mind. I see Tsunku. I see our accomplishments. I see the years of work I've put into this Project. I see Miki. I can't abandon anything or anyone. H!P needs me as much as I need it.
But... "what if", right? I'm not making decisions today. I'm just wondering.
If I left, I'd have to start now. I'd have to level up on my own starting now. I'd have to start reaching out subtly and making contacts now. I'd have to start preparing myself for the battle against my current employers now.
I'd have to tell Miki now.
And that last one is what probably keeps me from making the decision now. By having it all up in the air and undecided, there's nothing solid to not tell. I feels less like I'm lying to her.
However, if I stay in H!P, I can devote my own time to my personal improvement. I can study on my own. Maybe I can write some songs, learn new techniques, broaden my musical horizons... I can push the mature and adult image more and more. I can become stronger.
As I plan this out, I arrive at Miki's front door and I ring the doorbell. The door opens and the most delicious smell assaults my nostrils. I'm about to ask Miki what she's cooking, but she gives me a flirty grin and pulls me into the apartment.
"What time do you have to be at the studio tomorrow?" she asks me without delay. I think for a minute.
I'm filming a brief TV appearance in mid-morning. I have to be there early.
"Eight," I reply, taking my shoes off.
"Can you stay over?"
I figure I can borrow clothes and there's nothing I need from home for tomorrow.
"Yes."
"Good."
Her eyes sparkle and I instantly feel eighty-five percent better. I drop my bag off at the front like I'd do at home and let her lead me into the apartment.
"Hungry?" she asks.
I nod vigourously. She points to the couch and I sit down obediently while she wanders off to the kitchen area. The TV is on so I watch. It's a documentary about lemurs in Madagascar. I stifle a laugh and wonder if Miki was really watching this or if she just turned it on for background noise. It's cute either way.
Before I know it, dinner is served. I relocate to the floor to sit at the table and we change the channel to something a little more interesting after I mock Miki about her geeky TV program tastes. She scoffs and says she's allowed to have layers.
I start to eat a plate of yakisoba and I wonder where Miki learned to make noodles that taste so delectable. I've always been under the impression that she couldn't cook. Actually, I know for a fact that she can't cook. There are very few things she's ever cooked that I've tried that have tasted really good.
"Did you make this?" I ask.
"Um... I didn't make it," she admits. "Maki brought it over last week and I froze what I didn't eat."
I giggle. Maki has a habit of doing that. She'll make something delicious and then choose a lucky winner and give her a week's supply of food. She once made takoyaki and brought over a container of it to my place. We stuffed ourselves silly while chatting. For the rest of the weekend, takoyaki was on the menu for all my meals. As good as it was, I didn't eat takoyaki for months after, and I'm a girl who loves octopus. That's how sick I got of it.
"Well, it's really good. Why can't you cook like this?" I tease.
Miki pouts.
"Don't compare me to her in cooking. Nobody can beat her," she huffs.
"Okay, that's true. Maki makes us all look like idiots in the kitchen, but you're still really really bad for the daughter of parents who run a restaurant," I continue.
She pouts again.
"I know how to cook the important things. The other stuff... I'll leave that to the pros."
"The important things?" I ask.
"Yakiniku."
"That doesn't count. That's easy," I roll my eyes.
"Easy?" she cries.
She launches into a rant. It figures.
"It's not easy. First of all, before you even cook it, you have to make sure that the cuts of meat you choose are premium stuff. Then when you do cook it, you can't do it over too-high heat or else you'll burn it. When you cook it, you have to make sure not to leave it on too long or it'll be too tough to enjoy. The ideal yakiniku should be well done on the outside, but the inside should be soft and mo-"
I grab her shoulders and kiss her to shut her up. I can feel her wanting to pull away and continue her rant, but I push her against the couch, and we forget about dinner for a minute or two. It's disgusting because we've been eating, so of course there's food still stuck in our mouths. I've never kissed someone like that. To put it mildly, it's an interesting experience. I break it off and make a disgusted face.
"That was gross. I don't know why I did that," I say.
"Heh, yeah," she drawls back at me dreamily with a smile.
Ugg. Of course something gross would turn her on. She's so weird. But I love that. I wipe my mouth and drink some water. She complains that I'm rude. I just tell her that I like chewing my own food and not swallowing other people's chewed food no matter how close I am to them. She huffs and continues eating, ignoring me and watching the TV.
"I wonder what the rest of Morning Musume would think if they knew what a big baby you really are," I muse aloud, trying to get a rise out of her.
It certainly works. She shoots me a glare.
"I don't act like a big baby."
I raise my eyebrow and just look at her.
"I don't!" she cries out.
"Look at you now. Whining and complaining. Getting into a huff because I'm teasing you. That's definitely big baby behaviour."
She opens her mouth to yell again but then stops. She smiles.
"So if all I am is a big baby, why do you stick around me?"
"Hmm..." I pretend to think about it. "Because someone has to babysit you when mommy and daddy aren't around. You're fun to play with."
"Oh?" Miki raises an eyebrow. "I think it's fundamentally wrong to sleep with the kid you're babysitting. Maybe I should get another babysitter."
I must turn the colour of a tomato.
"That's not what I meant..."
Oh, there's no point. She's won this one. She grins and knows I know victory is hers. She turns her attention back to her food and keeps eating while I sigh and continue as well.
The television program we're somewhat watching ends and a talk show starts up. On it is some new, unheard of singer who has just released a single. She's talking about how fulfilling it is to be signed up with a small label and that she feels so much more freedom than she would if she was signed up with Avex or Sony.
My heart skips a few beats. What if I signed up with a small, unheard of label, too? I could do whatever I wanted. I push the idea out of my head, though. I'm confident in myself, but I don't think I could handle that very well. Not yet, anyway. Jumping from a huge label to a practically non-existent one would be a shock and would take adjusting to. That would take up my precious time. No, if I move, it has to be to one of the big ones.
A thought occurs to me. What if the bigger labels don't want me? Even if they can forget about my H!P association, what if they don't need more people like me? It's not that I'm bad at what I do, but they have a big pool of people to choose from. I'm sure they can choose others who are like me. I begin to wonder what I can do to make myself even more unique. What points of mine can I sell? I feel a familiar headache coming over me.
Then I feel something hit my shoulder. I look up, startled, and see Miki lying back on the couch.
"How...?"
How did she get up there?
"You either really like this new singer on TV or you spaced out again. I've been trying to get your attention for ten minutes," she says to me.
She doesn't sound necessarily disappointed, but she seems a little worried.
"Sorry, I..." I don't know what to tell her.
"You're tired and you spaced out," she finishes for me.
I shrink into the floor and wish I was a centimetre tall.
"Aya, I wanted you to come over so that you could just relax. A bit of homecooking, TV, and just sitting around doing nothing should do the trick. Whatever is on your mind, just let it go. It's not important right now. There's nothing you can do at a quarter to eight in the evening."
I put a hand on my forehead and rub my temples.
"Headache again?" she asks.
I nod. She rolls off the couch and sits beside me, putting an arm around me.
"Tell me what I can do to help you," she pleads.
If only she could help me. I think the only way I can relax is to be very aware that she's beside me so that I can't drift off into my own thoughts.
"Just stay here," I mumble.
"Easy enough. I live here," she jokes lightly.
"No, I mean just stay beside me."
It's horribly corny of me to say something like that, but it's what I need right now. Physical evidence that I'm not alone and therefore cannot float away deep in thought.
"If you want to talk..." she says hopefully.
I shake my head.
"There's nothing to talk about. I'm just stressed over work."
It's not a total lie. It's not a total lie. It's not a total lie...
"Okay."
She definitely sounds let down, but she doesn't move from my side. She puts her head on my shoulder and squeezes my opposite shoulder tightly. She has got to be the only person in the world who could feel hurt or denied and yet still offer all of the comfort she can give to me.
We sit there without talking for almost an hour as the TV belts out commercials and TV programs. I watch it, but I don't pay attention to it. I focus on Miki and her arm around me and all the good things I can think of from the past few days before I talked to Shibata. I think of all the good times we've had over the past few years- all our goofy jokes, our silly sleepovers, our adventures out in the city, getting lost, watching concerts, and seeing movies. I think about all those little things that Miki's done or said that indicate she likes me a lot. I think of my obliviousness, and I think of her not being aware at the time that half the things she was saying and doing could be read that way. Those things make me laugh inside.
After that hour, she asks me how my headache is. It feels a little better, actually. If I don't pay attention to it, it goes away. I tell her it's mostly gone. She kisses my head as if to help it along to becoming one hundred percent okay. We then get up and change into pyjamas, set the alarm clock, and get into bed where the pyjamas come right off.
As she's on top of me, playing with my hair and studying my face, she asks me if I'm okay. I smile and say I'm fine now that she's here. It's absolutely the truth. I've forgotten everything except me and her, here, now, in this apartment, in this bed. She asks hesitantly if I want her to just leave me alone so I can go to sleep, and I hit her arm and tell her not to start things she doesn't intend to finish. She tells me I'm the one who likes to do that, and I think back to all the projects or hobbies I've ever started and then lost interest in midway through, not continuing any of them. That's a lot. I begin to think again of the good times we've had.
While I'm distracted, she kisses me to bring me back to the real world. She asks me what I'm thinking.
"The past three and a half years," I reply.
"And what in particular?"
She knows what my answer will be or at least its general idea. She just likes hearing me say it.
"You, among other things," I say, pointedly emphasising the second half of my sentence.
"What other things?" she asks, getting dangerously close to my face, reminding me who is in control now.
"Fun stuff we've done," I say quickly.
I don't want to fall victim to Miki's teasing. She's much worse than I am. She gets physical about it.
"But not as fun as this past weekend," she grins evilly.
I blush at her words.
"No, a different kind of fun."
I think of everything we've done the past week, and suddenly I see Shibata in my mind again. This time I hear today's conversation. She's telling me I've grown up and improved so much in the past half year. She's telling me that my love life has done good things for me but to be careful to not get caught. I'm starting to hate the sound of her voice because it won't leave my head.
"Okay, I hope the look on your face doesn't tell me how much you like what we've been doing the past few days because if it does, I'll just excuse myself and go sleep on the couch." Miki makes as if to get up.
I have a serious problem in that I can't stop thinking about my problems. I have to stop that. I'm in the middle of something here. It's plain rude of me to be frowning or wincing, or making whatever negative expression I currently have on my face. I grab onto Miki's shoulders and hold her there firmly.
"No, that's not what I think about it. I think-" I pull her down and kiss her hard and deeply.
I break away quickly.
"-about it."
Miki doesn't look quite convinced yet, but I kiss her again and her hug her strongly.
"You sure?" she asks.
"Positive."
I might not be able to lie very well, but I can be very convincing about the truth. She smiles and draws circles on my head with her finger.
"You're still a confusing person to be around. I'll hack into your brain someday," she says a little sadly.
Sad, I guess, that she can't hack in right now. I feel extremely guilty. I feel like telling her everything, but I don't because she looks at me in an understanding way even if she's not entirely happy with me holding back. It makes me feel good. Just plain good. Miki asks for little and gives so much.
I pull her down to me and whisper softly that I'm sorry. She can interpret the apology however she likes. I know I'm saying it for everything I feel I've done wrong, which to me is a lot. We hush up and continue to communicate in a different way.
A wave of gratitude passes through me as Miki touches me and whispers things for my ears only. All worries and thoughts of my problems dissipate. They vanish for the night because she makes them go away.
Over these troubled waters, Miki is my bridge. She just can't know it. Not now.
-
Chapter 7 of 16
The alarm rings at six am and I grudgingly obey it, getting up after pushing Miki off of me. She wakes up, looks up, and then pulls the sheet over her head, continuing to sleep. She doesn't have to be anywhere until half past nine this morning, the lucky girl.
I go through all the motions of getting ready. I suppose it's odd doing it in somebody else's home alone, especially when you have to rummage through the closet and drawers to find clothing to wear for the day. However, I got over it a while ago since I've had to do it before.
I'm all ready. I've showered, dressed, broken fast, and put on my makeup. I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and I stand at the doorway, looking out into the living room.
Out of the corner of my eye I see movement, and I'm surprised to see Miki walking (or shuffling) towards me. She reaches me and I expect that she will hug me or greet me in some way, but she walks right past me with a grunt and goes to the sink, putting some toothpaste on her toothbrush and coming over to the doorway to join me in my teeth brushing. I look at her oddly and she just squints back. She's definitely not a morning person. Neither am I, but I think she's worse than I am. I think she really had to make a big effort yesterday to wake me up at half past five, that ungodly hour. It makes me like her that much more.
I try to say something to her but it comes out as a garbled mess. I cup my hand around my chin where toothpaste is now dripping down and I scramble towards the sink. I spit out the rest of the toothpaste and wash my chin and rinse my mouth. I come up to see Miki beside me, waiting for me to make room. I move out of the way quickly and she spits and rinses. When she's done, she looks up at me.
"Pardon?" she asks politely.
The first word of the day from her to me are "pardon". Is that cute or is that annoying? I'm not quite sure.
"I was going to say 'good morning'," I inform her. She "hmm"s at me. "So I repeat: good morning."
"Good morning."
And now that's settled. We've said our good mornings. I move off to go and make sure my bag is still at the front entrance. I open it up and check the address of the studio I'm going to today. I've been there before once, but a lot of time has passed since then. I study it for a moment and decide that I remember how to get there. I check my watch. Not much time left before I have to leave.
"When do you have to leave?" she asks.
She's standing right above me. I didn't even notice her.
"Ten minutes," I reply.
There's a moment of silence. I look up at her and she's looking at me wickedly. I shake my head.
"Miki, I don't have time for anything," I say firmly.
She makes a sad face and I instantly feel bad. I get up and hold her hand and pull her over to the couch.
"Going home right after rehearsal?" I ask.
We both have separate dance rehearsals scheduled for the afternoon, but hers ends earlier than mine.
"No. I have futsal practice, remember?" she grumbles. "I'll be back late."
That's right. I forgot about that futsal thing. I puff my cheeks out and then let all the air out.
"Tough day."
"No biggie," she shrugs.
Just like her to stubbornly not admit that she's going to be tired and sore later on.
"You want to come over later tonight?"
"Or you could come over to my place. I still have all that food, and I'm not going to be home all weekend to eat it."
She nods an "okay" and we decide that she'll just head to my place after she's finished her training.
I check my watch again. seven-twenty. Time to leave.
We say our goodbyes, and Miki hangs onto me like a baby. I laugh and try to pry her arms from around me thinking that she's just being silly. She tells me to be careful, and I reply that I always am. She starts saying that she doesn't want to let go of me ever.
It's all very sweet, but I'm going to be late.
She doesn't stop there, and I realise that she's not just playing around and hanging off of me to be a cute pest. She sounds desperate. She tells me that she doesn't want anything bad to happen to me, that she doesn't want me to be scared or worried, and that she wants me to know that I can come to her for anything. It's almost a hysterical monologue. It's as if I'm walking off to my death and she's trying to stop it from happening.
I finally manage to pull away from her and I look into her eyes. They are full of worry and uncertainty, and I'm sure that if she'd continued talking, she would have been on the verge of tears. I put on my brightest smile and thank her for being there. I tell her that I'm okay now and that I'll see her in the afternoon and we can hang out and talk then. She still looks worried, but she knows she has to let go of me. She does with a small smile, and I quietly slip out of the door with a wave. No grand exit.
I walk away from Miki's door and my smile completely disappears. If I didn't feel bad enough before, now I'm feeling wretched. Miki is worried almost to the point of crying, and here I am telling her everything's okay when that's not what she wants to hear because she's knows it's not true. Sometimes I truly disgust myself.
"One more time!" the teacher yells over the music.
It's no surprise to me that I can't concentrate. I keep making huge mistakes in the choreography, so we have to keep repeating it. I feel bad for keeping the other girls back.
I avoid Shibata's gaze at all costs. It's pretty obvious what she's thinking: Aya's distracted by her secret affair. Okay, it's a little true. But mostly, I'm just wondering what the point is of being at this rehearsal. I'm not learning anything. All I want to do is curl up with a book about the entertainment industry and learn as much as possible.
Minute by minute, I find myself wanting to leave more and more. This morning's filming further rubbed that into me. I filmed it with a few other singers, all of whom are successful without H!P.
"Okay, break for twenty minutes," the teacher calls out while we're in the middle of dancing (and I'm in the middle of zoning).
He looks directly at me.
"Some of us really need it."
Sensei makes little shooing gestures at all of us. I thankfully run out of the studio, glad that he doesn't want to speak to me alone. I pause to see what direction Shibata is going in. I choose the opposite direction.
I wonder if a big book about the entertainment industry exists. I should check it out at the library if it does. If it doesn't, I'll have to find some other safe way to look up information. Maybe the internet. But I'm not very good with the internet. I type too slowly and it's such a hassle. I decide to go to the library after work today. Miki won't come over until much later, so I'll have plenty of time.
Miki. I look up. I'm at her change room. I knock.
"Yeah!" a muffled voice calls out.
I open the door and walk in. She's surprised to see me. She gets up and ambles over to me, scratching her head distractedly.
"Hi," she says, like she can't believe I was able to find my way to her.
I try to act normal and cheerful.
"Hi," I reply brightly. "You're on break?"
"Rehearsal got cut short. Our teacher got pulled out for an emergency," she explains.
"Lucky," I snort. "I still have an hour."
"Hey, at least you don't have to go and kick a ball around for two hours afterwards," she relaxes and snaps back in a playful tone.
I feel this ball of happiness in my stomach burst open, and I forget everything but the moment. I grab Miki and pull her towards me, surprising her once again. I drape my arms around her neck.
"How much time do you have before practice?"
"Two and a half hours."
"What are you going to do 'till then?"
She shrugs.
"I don't know. I'll probably end up going out for food with Yocchan and whoever else."
"No fair. I want to join you guys. No, wait. I want to have you to myself," I pout.
"You'll get me all to yourself later," she grins, sneaking her hands onto my waist and squeezing me gently. "If you even bother to pay attention to me," she adds on.
The smile drops from my face. She thinks I'm ignoring her on purpose when I space out? I let go of her neck and back off slowly.
"Aya," she says with a question in her voice. "I didn't mean..."
I shake my head.
"It doesn't matter."
"I didn't mean it like that," she says gently.
"It doesn't matter what you meant," I say stubbornly.
Bad idea to be stubborn around the queen of stubborn.
"Well, if it wasn't true, then I wouldn't have said it," she says coldly.
I shoot her an angry look.
"I'm having a rough week. You could at least be a little more sympathetic."
"I'm trying to, Aya, but you won't let me."
My phone rings. I pick it up. Message from Shiba-chan. She wants to talk to me. Just great.
"I have to go," I tell Miki.
"I thought you had a longer break," Miki says in a neutral voice.
"I do. I have to go see someone now."
She walks over to the dresser and starts looking through papers, probably just pretending to look for something.
"Come on, Miki. I'm not ignoring you. I'm not ditching you. I just have to go," I sigh.
"Okay. Bye."
I leave without saying anything. I hate fighting with her. Why is it that we've confessed that we mean more to each other than the world, and suddenly we're at each other's throats even more? At each other's throats in a bad way.
I meet Shibata in the foyer. I do a double take when I see Masae and Megumi with her.
"Matsuura, good. You're here," Megumi says.
I walk up to the trio slowly.
"What's up?" I ask warily.
"In celebration of romance," Shibata begins with a twinkle in her eyes as an argument starts to erupt from my mouth, "we're going out for dinner tonight."
I hold back my complaint. What is she talking about?
"Huh?"
"Hitomi finally scored last night!" Masae cheers.
I cringe. Does she have to be so crude?
"And he called her back this morning," Megumi adds on.
I start to laugh. These girls are nuts. I know that Hitomi hasn't had a boyfriend in over a year, but I find it so funny that her friends get just as excited as she probably is.
"You missed her gushing about it this morning while you were off in TVland," Masae continues. "But she met him at a convenience store of all places and they went out for drinks after, and then at night he went over to her place and they h-"
Shibata delivers a sharp jab to Masae's side, which shuts her up.
"Aya-chan doesn't need to hear the details from you. She can hear the details from Hitomi-chan tonight at our celebratory dinner," she grins.
I sigh and am about to say that I can't make it, but I remember Miki won't be around till later. In fact, I don't even know if she's going to bother to come over after what just happened. I find myself nodding and laughing and saying I can't wait. Maybe a night out with the girls will make me forget everything.
No such luck. After our rehearsal and not hearing a peep from Miki (not even an angry text message), we go out to a fancy Italian restaurant where they don't check for identification. We eat a huge meal and wine flows generously. I only have a few sips because I really can't handle alcohol. Masae and Hitomi really know how to chug it, while Shibata is a little more conservative than them, but does partake in several glasses.
Halfway through the night, Masae and Hitomi are drunkenly gushing about past and current boyfriends and Shibata turns to me. Her face is rosey pink and she's smiling a little more widely than she would if she was entirely sober.
"You know, I was thinking of all the stupid things I've done before," she starts. "And then I realised that talking to you about leaving wasn't one of them."
I giggle despite myself. It's such a funny thing for her to say.
"I'm glad to hear it."
"I want you to know," she says, clasping a hand on my shoulder, "that whatever decision you make, I will back you up because I believe in your talent."
She sways a bit and I wonder if she's not a little more drunk than I first suspected.
"I'm only telling you all this because I originally wanted to be you. I wanted to have your job, but then I realised I wasn't good enough, so I figured I may as well see you make the most of it because you're a nice girl."
I'm sure she wouldn't be telling me this if she hadn't had half a litre of wine. I'm flattered, but I feel bad. Really bad.
"Shiba-chan, you're good enough to do anything," I tell her.
"Nooooho ho ho, I'm not," she chuckles as she shakes my shoulder. "So if you need to leave, then leave. Be the biggest star you can be. Me and the girls, we're cheering for you. We always want you to do your best. So do your best."
And then I almost start to tear up. Shibata is such a good person. Any doubts about her true intentions all this time have been wiped away. I grasp her hand and squeeze it tightly.
"I'll do my best for you and everyone," I promise her.
Now if I can only say that to Miki.
She giggles and continues eating the pasta on her plate. I watch Masae and Hitomi become increasingly drunk and I start to feel terrible again. Here I am talking to Shibata about all these things I should be telling Miki. It's like I'm carrying out some sort of intellectual affair, except not really.
I sigh and completely lose my appetite. I push the food around on my plate and try to make it look like I'm having fun while Hitomi continues to give us details about this new boyfriend of hers. He sounds like a nice guy, but then again, we all tend to talk about the good things at first. It's okay. Chances are he won't end up being complete sleaze.
Ugg. I hate how negative I'm being. I pray for the night to come to a quick end so that I can go home and watch a movie. Maybe fall asleep reading manga.
As if a messenger descending from the heavens above, my mother texts me. She doesn't say anything important other than "hello", but I use this as an excuse to leave. I tell the girls that my mother has to call me and she wants to call me on my landline since it's cheaper. I excuse myself at seven-thirty and head home. I get there just after an hour and I collapse on the couch. I can't reach the remote and I'm too tired and bothered to move.
This lasts until the doorbell rings twenty minutes later. I wonder who it could be.
I get up reluctantly and open up the door. There's Miki, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, face a little sweaty, and wearing a tracksuit. She's holding a sports bag in her hand.
She's a poster girl for the ultimate sexy, messy athlete. My knees feel weak.
Her face betrays no hint of emotion as I let her in. It's like she's fulfilling an obligation. She said she'd be here, so she's here. It feels awkward, but I tell myself that it's the same old Miki that I know.
"What time did you finish practice?" I ask, trying to break the ice between us.
"About thirty minutes ago," she says in a low voice.
There's something strange about her. It's like there's something in her just waiting to burst out.
"Did you eat dinner?" I ask.
She shakes her head.
"We can fix you up something if you want. I ate already."
She shakes her head again.
"I'm okay," she says in a final tone.
I don't argue. She puts down her bag and takes her shoes off. I tell her to come in and have a seat. I feel like I'm letting a casual acquaintance into my home, not Miki. She sits on the couch and asks what I was doing. I tell her I was about to watch TV. She grabs the remote and turns the TV and finds a variety show.
"I wanted to have your job, but then I realised I wasn't good enough, so I figured I may as well see you make the most of it because you're a nice girl."
Maybe that's how Miki feels, too. She told me something similar last Saturday in Kobe. She told me she'd idolised me before knowing me. Maybe she wanted to be me, too, and then realised she couldn't because the Project and the Producer wouldn't give her a chance...
Stop thinking about it.
Miki looks over at me as if she can sense the internal battle going on inside me.
"If you're still bothered about today..." she mutters grudgingly.
I frown.
"No, I've forgotten about that."
In all honesty, I have.
"Then can you say something to me?"
"Like what?" I ask, completely confused.
"Anything. Just tell me something."
I'm not sure what she's getting at, so I figure some gossip would be a safe way to start. I mention to her that I went out with the Melons and that Hitomi got a new boyfriend. Her reaction shows that this isn't what she wants to hear, but I really don't know what else to say.
"Could you tell me something else? Something about you? Not other people?"
She sounds very demanding.
"Like what? What do you want me to tell you?"
I really don't know. I'm starting to get annoyed.
"Anything!" she cries out. "For heaven's sake, Aya, just talk to me."
"Um... I spilled water all over my outfit during a break in filming today so I had to dry it quickly," I say stupidly.
I wish I hadn't said that. She glares at me and then continues to watch TV.
She's angry. Very angry. I can tell. She won't admit it, though.
We both shut up for the rest of the TV program. At one point, I think it's sad how our relationship has been reduced to this- sitting on a couch, not talking, and watching TV while we're angry or confused. Then I remind myself that everyone has their bad days. Every pair of friends or lovers or brothers or whoever has their low points.
The anger doesn't seem to go away. The program ends and Miki gives me the strangest look. She stares at me angrily, her eyes flicker to my bedroom briefly, and then she stares back at me once again. I'm not sure how to interpret that. If she's so angry with me, why would she want to do anything with me? Why would she even be here?
We get up and get ready for bed. I want to smash my face into the ground because it's so uncomfortable right now.
As we brush our teeth, remove makeup, and put on pyjamas, her movements are brisk. Quick. Cold and calculated. I rarely see her like this around me. The few times that she's gotten like this, I've turned timid. It happens again this time. I don't know how to deal with an unstable Miki. The minefield Miki. I don't know what to say or what to do.
We get into bed. The lights go off. She turns onto her side, her back to me, and mumbles goodnight. I'm torn between wanting to tell her to stop being a child and just turning over to my side and going to sleep in hopes of a fresh start in the morning. I do neither. I stare up at the ceiling for ten minutes.
Then I act - perhaps out of spontaneous stupidity - and crawl up right behind her back. I put a hand on her arm and run it down to grasp her hand. I kiss the back of her neck gently.
She rolls onto her back, eyes open, looking perfectly awake. She stares at me blankly. I don't let it stop me. I kiss her neck and move up as she does nothing. I lift myself up with my arms on either side of her head. I kiss her lips- her cold, unmoving lips. They don't respond in any way. They don't register my presence. I move one hand and play with the hem of her tank top. I pull it up slightly and put my hand on her stomach.
Just as I begin to move it up, she reacts. She grabs my hand in an iron grip and takes it out of her shirt. It surprises me. She then pushes me onto my back and climbs on top of me, grabbing my hands and pinning them over my head. She looks down at me, her face no longer blank but alive with feeling. Aggressive feeling. There's a hungry - no - feral look in her eyes. I feel like she's going to attack me.
This is a side to Miki that I've never seen before.
She bends down and kisses me roughly, biting down on my lips and pressing into them hard. It almost hurts enough to cry out, but she doesn't draw any blood. Her hands squeeze mine tightly. I open my eyes and see hers staring back. She looks like a tiger. An angry, famished tiger. My heart skips a beat in fear. Has she gone psychotic?
She lets go of my hands and pins me down by my shoulders. She bites her way down my neck, sucking at my skin mercilessly. It's too late to remind her to be careful not to leave any marks. She veers off and bites my shoulder and then my arm. I don't make any cute comments about food like I did in my dream a few days ago. She changes course again and crushes her lips against mine.
"No matter what you do," she growls, "you still drive me crazy."
I guess that's a good thing.
"You turn me on like mad."
She continues to consume my lips with hers and I try to keep up with what's going on. Her hands move and they're now on either side of my head. I want to tell her that what she just said is the same for me about her, but I'm too scared and too shy to say anything right now.
I carefully put my hands on her back at waist level. She doesn't flinch. Instead, she takes her hands and drags them across my entire body. She grasps at my torso, my arms, my legs... any skin she can reach. She's rough with me. This isn't the sweet, sometimes needy, affectionate caressing from before. This is some sort of twisted, desire-filled touch that demands absolute submission.
I can feel what she's thinking through her hands. She's angry. Angry at me. She's so angry that she feels like she should hurt me, but she would never hurt me. She makes me feel the pain but muffled by ecstasy. Muffled by bliss. It's twisted and perverted and sick, but it feels good because not everything is okay with me at the moment. I deserve the pain, and I need the good feelings that come with it in this violent sex.
Her nails drag across my stomach followed by her hungry mouth. I feel like I don't own my body anymore. It's hers to do with as she likes. She won't let me do anything to her, though. I try to, but she pushes my hands away forcefully. I'm only allowed to rest my hands on her or hold her while she consumes my entire being.
After what seems like endless hours of being brought up and down and up and down, she calms down, but she's still forceful. Still a little ferocious as she kisses me.
"At least I can have you this way," she murmurs.
I have no idea what she means by this. It seems to fuel her on, though, and again, she's rubbing my entire body in an agonisingly painful but gratifying way. Unable to take it anymore, I cry out for her to stop, but she doesn't. She knows I don't really want her to because my arms are clutching her to me, not letting her move away.
And that's how we spend this night.
I'm not sure if I black out or if I just fall asleep. I don't remember. All I know is that one minute I'm in the middle of a high, and the next, I'm out.
-
Chapter 8 of 16
The next morning I wake up to nothing. No alarm clock, no phone call, nobody shaking me. I open my eyes slowly and stifle a groan. My body is on fire. My skin feels raw. The space beside me is empty. I'm alone in my bed, completely wrapped in my covers. I know that I'm wearing nothing.
I wonder if it was all a dream. Some strange, self-punishing, guilt-induced dream that Miki came over last night and did those things to me. I turn my head to the side and bite my lip in embarrassment as I remember what she did. I'm even more embarrassed because I liked it.
My delusion of her visit being a dream is shattered when Miki walks into the room, dressed for the day, her hair wet from a recent shower. She has her eyes set on a pile of clothes on the floor and doesn't seem to notice that I've woken up. I watch silently as she picks up her pyjamas and folds them carefully. I almost laugh. She treats those pyjamas more kindly than she treated me last night.
As if alerted by some unknown force, she suddenly looks up and sees me with my eyes open, looking at her. I blink.
"Morning," she says, her face betraying nothing.
"Good morning," I reply automatically.
"I have to be at the studio early this morning," she explains before going back to folding.
She's acting as if nothing out of the ordinary happened the previous night. Maybe nothing happened. Maybe it was a vivid dream. Maybe we had some fun before falling asleep and my subconscious mind took over out of guilt and created a colourful happening.
I roll up and swing my feet over the edge of the bed, standing up shakily. Miki continues to fold as I timidly walk past her and to the chest of drawers. I quickly slip on some sweat pants and a tank top and leave my room. I go into the washroom and splash cold water on my face, taking a few gulps of it while I'm there. My mouth is dry. My lips feel like they're bruised.
I look up into the mirror. It definitely wasn't a dream. Not if the marks on my neck and shoulders are any proof. I panic for a moment, wondering how I'm going to cover them up. I look around for some tanning lotion, but I have none. Then I forget about the whole issue of covering up my secret life. I suddenly feel very strange. Whatever happened last night was not normal.
But how can Miki be acting like this? Like it didn't happen? I'd almost feel better if she was still angry at me, or even if she'd just taken off early and not said a word to me. She all but tore me apart last night, and all she has to say is "good morning. I have to be at the studio early"? I wonder if she is still mad at me. She has to be. The way she treated me last night was based on a kind of anger that couldn't disappear overnight.
God, it was so good.
Beyond rough. Beyond violent. Beyond ecstasy. Not just physically, but also mentally.
I liked it. I liked it because I've been feeling so guilty these days. It was like her revenge. We're even now. I've kept a secret from her. She's hurt me for it. I don't think it's healthy, though. It can't possibly be.
I don't know how to talk about this with her. What am I supposed to say to her? "Gosh, you really beat me up last night in bed. It was sexy. Let's do it again next month" isn't going to cut it.
I inspect the red marks on my neck. There are quite a few. I'll have to pull out the turtleneck tank top that I bought last month. I knew it would come in handy. My arms, however, won't be covered. I could wear a blouse, but I have yet another dance rehearsal today. I can use make up to cover it up as best as I can. It won't do much good, but I'll try. I realise that I'm never going to hear the end of this from Shibata. I'll see her this morning.
I walk back to my room, stalling and praying that Miki leaves it soon. I get back and she's now cleaning up the room. She's got a small pile of clothing in her arms and she's trying to figure out where to put it. Wordlessly, I take them from her. They're my pyjamas. I put them on the bed and go to fold them, but I realise that they're torn. Ripped off of me. By her.
I'm thrown back onto the mattress after trying to get up to turn the AC on. I'm overheating, and Miki being all over me and smothering me is not helping. I try to tell her I'm hot, but she puts a hand over my mouth and squeezes my forearm with her other. She drags her hand down from my mouth, down my chin, down my neck, down my breasts, down to my stomach. She grabs the ends of my shirt with one hand and pulls it up viciously. I hear the distinct sound of cloth ripping...
My body temperature jumps a few degrees as I quickly shove the pyjamas under my pillow. I look up to see if Miki saw. If she did, she's not paying attention anymore. She's picking up the alarm clock and some miscellaneous objects and putting them back on the small table I have beside my bed.
My arm shoots out as she bites down on me hard. I inadvertently hit everything off of my bedside table. I make sounds, half from pain, half from enjoyment. I pull my hand back and try to push her away because my mind is confused. It hurts but it feels good. She bats my hand away without looking at it, and it hovers in the air for a while before coming to a rest on her shoulder.
I promptly exit my room again, going to the kitchen. I pour a tall glass of cold water and drain it dry in seconds. I'm frazzled. What do I do?
Miki walks out of my bedroom a minute later while I'm standing in the kitchen.
"I'll see you later," she says.
I look up, startled, and watch as she gathers her bag and puts her shoes on at the front door. She leaves and closes the door behind her.
What the hell?
I stand in my kitchen for a while wondering what to do next. Should I call her? Should we talk? Should I pretend what happened last night doesn't matter?
Shibata comes to mind. I bet if I told her this, after the initial disgust and shock, she'd have some great advice. I automatically rule out that option, though, simply because I don't want to involve anyone in this. I don't want anyone to know. It's our secret.
I take a shower. I smooth soap over my body gently. It feel like the times when I get a sunburn and my skin is tender and hot to the touch.
Sucking and biting and nipping and scratching and...
I wince as I remember everything. I want to shut it out of my mind. It wasn't right. It's still not right.
I finish my shower and get dressed, my brain in a strange state of calm. I don't think of anything. I eat, brush my teeth, take the train, and arrive at the studio. I don't think I'll see Miki today. I didn't check with her this morning, but I think she's off filming some futsal-related appearance. I don't even bother to check for her name on the rehearsal schedule.
I miss her. Even with the awkwardness I feel between us now, I miss her.
I drag myself up to the change room I share with the girls at this studio. I walk in.
"My god, Aya, you look like hell!" Masae yells out when she sees me.
I'm wearing long sleeves and my turtle neck tank top underneath, so she can't possibly tell that anything happened. I guess it's the aura around me that she can sense.
"Shut up," Hitomi groans from the corner.
I look over and see her sitting in front of the mirror holding her head in pain.
"Good morning," I glare back at them.
Murata and Shibata aren't here. I change quickly while Masae goes over to comfort Hitomi and feed her some sort of medicine for her hangover. I tell Hitomi to take care and get some rest before we start, and then I head for the warm-up room.
My mistake. Shibata is there. She's early. I didn't notice her things in the change room. I walk into the warm up room and she sees me immediately. I can't turn around and go back. I smile at her and start to stretch, willing her in my mind to just not talk to me.
"You're lucky you left when you did last night," she pipes up.
I sigh resignedly in my mind and respond.
"Why? What happened?"
"Masase started buying Hitomi shots of something. I have no idea what it was, but it did its job well. They made me have a few, but Hitomi downed about ten. We were pretty gone ourselves, but we had to drag her back home because she could barely stand."
I'm so glad I didn't go with them. I'd probably have said something I would regret saying later.
I mutter some sort of stock reply saved just for such stories of such occurrences, and I continue stretching. I take my sweat shirt off after a few minutes since the AC isn't working very well in this room.
The room goes still. I feel the atmosphere change. My stomach drops and I look up slowly, sweating. Shibata looks at me with a spark in her eye.
"Somehow I don't think you went home and called your mother last night," is all she says.
She continues to stretch. I grow angry. What business is it of hers?
"Shut up, Shibata," I grumble in a grumpy voice.
I hope she'll leave me alone.
"Aya-chan, if you try to convince me you fell down while vacuuming last night and that's how all that" she points to me, "happened, then I'll slap you upside the head."
"Leave me alone," I say.
I stretch my legs in front of me and pull my face down to my knees. I hear Shibata get up and come and sit beside me.
"Are you going to tell me anything? Or do I have to keep guessing who he is?"
I look up at her and give her a warning look.
"I'm not in the mood for this."
Shibata shrinks back. Maybe I look very angry. Well, I am angry. I'm angry at her for butting in. I'm angry at her for being the cause of all my confusion. If she hadn't said anything to me about leaving, I wouldn't have had to hold it back from Miki, who wouldn't have a reason to get mad at me and therefore wouldn't have satisfied some sadistic desire or anger by hurting me in the most gratifying way. I wouldn't be worried now, disgusted with myself for surrendering to that deep, dark, and unknown masochistic side of me that I never new existed.
"Okay, sorry," she gives up.
I sigh with relief but also feel guilty. Again. She's just being a silly, curious girl. She doesn't realise, though, what sort of thing I'm involved in. She edges away from me a little and we continue to stretch in the room, close to each other but worlds apart as I piece together the previous night in my mind.
-
Chapter 9 of 16
"...Three four! Five six! Seven eight...!"
Turn, step back, half turn again, arms up, bring one down, step sideways, snap back up, roll head...
...I'm thrown against the mattress after I try to get up again.
"Don't leave me," she whispers in a guttural voice, kissing my ear and biting at my earlobe.
There's a double meaning there, and I'm not sure how to take it. I try to push her off me.
"Stop it."
"No," she almost snarls.
I let her keep going.
"Again! One two! Three and four! Five...!"
Shibata and Murata step forward, Ootani and Saito step back. I stay where I am. Pause for three seconds. Sing. Go forward a step.
And then I pull her into me and tell her timidly that she's hurting me. She doesn't reply with words, but she eases up a little. She stops digging her teeth into me so much. Her weight on top of me, however, overwhelms me and I feel trapped. I start to breathe hard.
"Matsuura, move out of the way a little before this point and then run back up to centre stage. That way Saito can make it in time to reach Shibata."
"Right."
She's sitting on my stomach, looking down at me. She's still clothed. I'm wearing nothing. She leans forward and rests her hands on my chest, pushing down slightly. I feel trapped again.
The only tender moment of the night comes then when she runs a hand gently down my cheeks and over my lips. She stares at me sadly, but I'm in too much of a strange space to be sympathetic. She gets off of me and lays herself down beside me. She draws her face close to mine and puts her cheek on mine, her ear at my mouth. Maybe she wants me to say something. I don't know what to say or what to do.
I move my hand slightly and touch hers with my pinky finger. I take her hand gently in mine and squeeze it. She lifts her head up and her sad face is still in place. Her eyes change, though, and she reverts back to her angry self. She squeezes my hand and brings it up over my head. She holds it there tightly, cutting off the circulation while her other hand tickles its way down my body.
"Good work. You girls were on the ball today. See you later."
Funny. None of us are in peak condition today. The Melons are all suffering from hangovers and I'm... well, I'm suffering from one, too, but a different kind. I was intoxicated last night. A sensual intoxication, the after-effects of which are mental. Mostly.
The change room is quiet. Hitomi excuse herself quickly and runs to the bathroom. Megumi runs after to make sure she'll be all right. Masae changes and says she'll meet us downstairs for lunch. I'm getting sick of the coincidental events that occur in order to ensure that Shibata and I are left alone. I brush my hair and try to be invisible.
"I think you have to leave," Shibata declares into the tense atmosphere.
"Excuse me?" I ask, putting my brush down and looking up at her.
She's standing at the other side of the room holding her sweats. She's changed out of them.
"You have to leave H!P. You shouldn't be doing stupid things to get caught while you're part of one of the strictest groups in the industry. I don't mind what you do after hours, but UFA does."
I swallow hard. I hate her because she's right as usual. I quickly put a shirt on over my tank top to cover myself up.
"It was a mistake. We all make them."
She laughs bitterly and shakes her head.
"You can't afford to make mistakes. I know that we're only human, but other people don't understand that. They don't want to see their precious Aya sleeping around with some guy who's going to mark his territory in such a loud way."
I stand up angrily.
"Would you leave me alone? What is your obsession? Why are you so concerned about my private life and my job? I thought you said you wanted to see me do my best."
"If you can't get it right, none of us can. You set the standard. You're the highest rung in our ladder, and if you're placed low, there's nowhere for us to go but lower. I don't want to be stuck there. It's a bad place."
So it's a selfish thing? Her reasons. Her concerns. They're all for her? I'm blinded by my rage and I lash out.
"Maybe if you didn't just accept things so passively, you'd have a better chance to be placed higher on your stupid ladder. Don't blame me for where you are."
It's a terrible thing for me to say, but I can't erase it now. Shibata bristles up, but she's much better at controlling her anger than I am.
"I'm not blaming you," she says through grit teeth. "I'm just asking you to be a team player."
She's got guts telling me what to do. I grab my wallet and walk out of the change room. The halls are empty of people and I feel like screaming. I reach the foyer of that floor when I hear footsteps chasing after me. I whip around angrily to see Shibata coming at me as if to bulldoze me over. She stops short of crashing into me and glares at me.
"There's one thing I don't get," she says, breathing a little faster from her run.
I look at her blankly, letting her continue.
"Why are you so mad at me? What did I do?"
"What did you do?" I snort. "You opened up this huge dilemma for me. You've made me lose sleep over it."
"It can't be that bad. Don't lie to me and say you haven't toyed with the possibility of leaving. I'm just trying to help you," she counters.
"Fine. You want to know why I'm so angry?" Careful, Aya. Don't say more things you'll regret. "I'm angry because you're talking about these things with me that I can't talk about with anyone else, not even a close friend like Miki-chan."
There. I've finally said her name.
"I can't take it anymore."
"I'm not stopping you from talking about it with other people," she reminds me solemnly.
"But they wouldn't understand. You're the one who approached me first, so I know you believe in the possibility. They'll see a delusional nineteen year old with big dreams and no way."
"Then convince them!" Shibata yells back at me, finally raising her voice. "Don't blame me because you want to leave H!P but you're too scared to do it. Don't blame me that you can't tell your best friend that you want to leave. You put those things in your own mind. I didn't do it. Maybe you're not ready to leave."
"I do want to leave!" I cry out. "I want out of this Project. I've outgrown it. I have outgrown everything we're made to do. I can't stay in it any longer if I want to go anywhere in my life. I'm just worried that there'll be no place for me out in the real world."
"Stop coming to me and telling me you want to leave. If you want to leave, go talk to our boss. Go quit like you want to. Go rise above us in every way possible."
I clench a fist and am about to reply when a slight thumping noise makes me stop. Shibata and I turn sideways. Miki's standing there with her bag. It's resting on the floor, the strap held loosely in her hand. She's staring at me with a blank expression. My ears start to ring as my brain feels like it is being sucked out through my eyes. What is she doing here? Did I mistakenly assume she wouldn't be in the same building today? She stares me down, looks at Shibata for a few seconds, and then returns her attention to me.
"You're quitting H!P?" she asks in a hollow, unreadable voice.
I want to yell out that everything she just heard is wrong, but I can't. I'm frozen with fear.
"Were you going to tell me?"
At this point, Shibata excuses herself softly. This no longer has anything to do with her. Miki and I are now alone. She continues to look at me with her oppressive gaze.
"Is this what has been bothering you all week?"
I finally look down at the floor. That's my answer.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
I have no good answer for that.
"It was just a thought," I say quietly.
"Just a thought?!" she explodes. "It's not 'just' anything. You've been distracted for the past week for reasons I haven't been able to understand. I thought it was me. I really thought it was because of me. I thought I'd done something you didn't like. I was wondering why you were bothering to spend any time with me and pretending to enjoy it. Ever since Monday. I haven't stopped worrying about it. You've made me so angry."
Miki clenches her fists. She is livid. I give her some time and let her calm down. I look up and watch her taking deep breathes. She still looks angry, but not ready to rip my head off, so I speak.
"Are you mad at me for wanting to leave?" I ask.
"No," her harsh reply comes. What a liar.
"Don't lie."
"I'm not," she says dangerously quietly.
She shoots me a cold, accusing glare.
"I think it's probably the best thing for you to leave. I know you're made for something better."
Why is she saying something like this? Why is she complimenting me when she's so angry at me that I thought she was going to break all my bones and throw me out the window?
"Then..." I trail off, wondering what to say.
"You'd rather not tell me what's going on and have me worried sick about you? You'd rather have me think you didn't like me?"
I shake my head. There's a deafening silence for a minute.
"Why don't you ever tell me what's on your mind?"
Her question sails through misty waters. I can't see where she's taking this. I take too long thinking about the question because she continues.
"I've told you everything on mine."
I start to clue in to what she's talking about.
"I've been nothing but honest with you since, well, last Saturday. I told you everything. I haven't held back anything."
"You've been holding back your anger until now. Or last night," I shoot my mouth off without thinking.
"That's because I felt I had to!" she yells. "If you could at least trust me, then I would have told you I was worried and angry. Things wouldn't have gotten like this between us!"
That hurts. I don't trust her? That's wrong.
"I trust you," I say evenly. "I don't know where you got the idea that I don't. Why would I let you stay at my place when I'm not there? Lend you my extra key? Let you do things to me like you did last night?"
She shakes her head at my every word and I grow angrier.
"What do you want me to do?" I demand. "Give you my bank PIN? Okay. It's 723-"
"I don't want your damned bank PIN!" Miki yells, shutting me up. "I don't want permission to stay over when you're not home. I don't want your extra key. It's fine if I can't have those things. What I want is for you to open up your heart to me once in a while. Lend me the extra key to that and I'll be happy. Let me stay overnight there. Don't just give me things- things like PINs and keys. That's not what I want. That's not what I've given you."
I have just had the sense beaten into me. Her words cut into my skin like knives laced with poison that will overwhelm me with guilt and make me hate myself. I clench my fists and dig my nails into my palms. I grit my teeth in anger and pain. Anger towards myself. Pain that I deserve. Pain that I've probably caused her tenfold.
I'm too busy feeling sorry for myself that it's too late for me to say anything. Miki walks away. I don't even chase after her. I don't know what to say. I don't think an apology is going to do any good at this moment.
I sit down on the couch and stare at the area around me. How many times have I been here in this building since before I even debuted? I've always been here with a bright smile and letting nothing get in my way to perfecting my talents.
Now I'm having one of the most miserable moments of my life. It feels wrong to be here and be so down and out. I close my eyes and let the ghosts of the past surround me. I can see myself at different ages drifting in and out of rooms and studios, wandering the hallways, and riding the elevators. Curious. Happy. Always set on improving myself.
Now I sit in this chair in this familiar foyer having just had a fight with Miki, my best friend, my... I don't even know what to call her. She's a lot of things to me. I'm a lot of things to her. Unfortunately, I've also become a stranger to her.
How could I have been so careless? I know that Miki's not the tough girl she pretends to be. I know it because she hardly ever tries to keep up that facade around me. I've made the careless, cold-hearted mistake of mishandling her heart, which she all but tore out of her chest for me. I've left it unprotected and alone on the top of the bookshelf. I have done to her what I fear being done to me.
Baring your soul to someone is not easy. You become very vulnerable once you've done it. I've been holding back from doing it because I'm afraid of people who hurt the people who do it. It turns out I'm afraid of people like me.
I have taken her for granted. Miki. I have used her to comfort myself and make myself feel good. I haven't considered her feelings. I haven't considered the possibility that she wants me to bare all to her, too. I'm starting to think that I should have done the same she did for me- told her all my secrets and wandering thoughts. She was right last night- I gave her my body and let her have me that way completely. I didn't, however, give her anything else she wanted.
I have no idea how my problem has gotten this bad. I guess I can blame my old friends from back home. They ditched me. I can blame myself for overcompensating and not opening up easily to others. Always keeping them at a cheerful and friendly distance. I can even blame Miki for making me feel these outrageous things for her and making my mind simply not work when I'm around her. I can blame her for taking that first step towards this rollercoaster ride we've been on since the evening of my nineteenth birthday.
I become angrier that I'm just sitting here and feeling sorry for myself. I have to figure out what to do. I stand up and go back to the change room to collect my things. I place a quick call to the woman who is handling schedules today. I tell her I'm feeling intensely ill and that I have to go home immediately. She doesn't sound thrilled, but she lets me go.
I go home and think. While my own life may come to a grinding halt, my work life doesn't. I have my next set of concerts this weekend. I have to make sure to be well rested for them.
I lie down on the bed that Miki made this morning. I try to think about my situation, but I'm a blank stone. Maybe I'm in shock. My mind drifts as I stare at the ceiling. I tell myself that I'm screwed. There's no way to fix this situation I'm in.
My home phone rings. I don't pick it up. The person I want to talk to now is not going to be calling me on that line. I let the answering machine pick up. It's my mother. I block her voice out of my head. She can't help me with my problems now. Nobody can. Miki is my problem. Otherwise, I'd go to her for help and comfort.
I put my palms down on my bed and hold onto the top sheet. Miki's slept in this bed. So have I. We've slept in it together many times in the years we've known each other. Then in the past week, we've slept in it in a different way- wrapped around each other, attached to each other even when we're not even touching. My life has revolved around her or the thought of her this past week. Now I only have my thoughts. Maybe that's all I'll ever have.
I start to cry. I hate crying because in comparison to many others in this world, nothing in my life is so terribly wrong that I have to be depressed about it. I'm lucky. I should think about the things I have.
However, the heart can be a very selfish thing. It cries for itself. I turn around on my stomach, sob into my pillow for a while, and then fall asleep.
-
Chapter 10 of 16
"Thank you! This has been Matsuura Aya! Thanks!"
I laugh, smile, and wave at the crowds. I'm caught up in the moment. I feel absolutely wonderful. I've forgotten everything but this concert right now. Me and them. Those people out there. The people I'm onstage with. I can't give up this spectacular feeling. Where else do I have a chance like this? This is a unique venue, and I work with some solid people. No, I can't leave. I belong here!
Running off the stage, I grab onto Kago's hand, and she tows Tsuji along. We pass through the wings and hug joyfully. In imitation of last week, they slap my butt simultaneously. We laugh. The Melons join us and we all celebrate another successful weekend. We calm down and chat while making our way to our change rooms.
I avoid Shibata like the plague. We haven't talked since Friday. At least not about anything beyond tour-related business. I've successfully avoided all situations where I'm left alone with her. It hasn't been hard. I've been spending a lot of time on my own, lost in thought, moping.
I reach my empty change room. My heart sinks just a little to see nobody waiting for me in front of it. As if I should expect anything.
I sit down in my chair and the high wears off. My adrenalin levels drop and I'm flung back into a pitiless world where my life seems like a mess. I feel cold in this thirty-seven degree heat. There's nothing I want to do more than to curl up on my bed at home, cry, and feel sorry for myself. Acting my usual cheerful self is so draining.
I hurry up and change and go to the meeting place. Some of the staff is there. I sit in the van alone and read a book. I'm not actually reading it. I'm holding it in front of me in order to ward people off. Masae is the first to arrive and I breath a sigh of relief. The others quickly gather and we're driven to our hotel. We're silent. They're quiet because they're tired, but I'm quiet because I'm trying desperately not to think.
Our partings are also quiet and soon I'm alone in my room. I shower, re-do my nails, watch TV... I do anything to take my mind off of my problems. Distracting myself helps me to deal.
I check my phone messages. Three from my sisters. Nobody else. I toss my phone on my bed and walk around my room, frustrated.
I don't know what I want anymore. Tonight's performance has made me realise (again) that I love what I do here. I don't want to leave the Project for various reasons. This great feeling about performing a H!P concert is one of them.
Knock knock.
My heart sinks again. I know who it is. I could very well ignore the door and pretend that I'm asleep, but I'm craving human communication. I need to talk to someone about something other than the tour.
I open the door and let Shibata in.
"Come in."
"Thank you."
We're so polite that it's awkward. I have to start. I owe her some sort of explanation for my behaviour the other day.
"Is everything all right with you and Miki-chan?" she asks before I can even phrase an introductory sentence.
"I hope it will be," I reply, not wanting to give too much information.
"She seemed pretty upset you hadn't told her anything," she observes.
I nod warily at her and change the topic.
"Ayumi-chan," I rarely call her by her first name, "I'm really sorry for getting angry at you the other day. I was very rude," I say with a self-scolding look.
"It's okay. We all lose our tempers," she replies understandingly.
"I didn't really mean what I said-"
"Heat of the moment," she says, brushing it off.
I still feel terrible because she probably believes what I said. It was a little exaggerated, though.
"Did you argue with Miki-chan, too?" she asks me.
I feel uncomfortable again. Either I'm being paranoid in thinking that she suspects something, or she is just concerned. I nod at her. No sense lying about it.
"We did argue."
"Are you still arguing?"
"We haven't talked since Friday," I shrug.
Shibata frowns.
"Didn't you say that she's reasonable and mature? That she can handle situations like this and that's why she's your best friend?"
I swallow and look down.
"It's a little different this time," I say.
It's all about trust. I've lost hers, I think. All because she thought she'd lost mine. No, she did lose mine. That was a mistake made unwittingly by me. I wish I could change it and show her that I trust her more than anyone or anything. Once you lose trust, everything else follows after- sensibility, cohesion, friendship...
"What's so different about it?"
I swear it's as if she knows something is going on between Miki and me and she's urging me on to say it. However, when I look at her, I see nothing but curiosity and concern written all over her face.
"She doesn't trust me anymore. Like I said, she's always honest with me, but this time I wasn't with her. That hurt her."
God, that sounds like we're a fighting couple. Shibata shrugs.
"It's not like she has any control over your decision to leave," she points out.
She's so wrong. Miki unknowingly has a huge grip over the lever that I have to pull either up or down. Stay or leave.
"No," I say, "but I basically lied to her the entire week when she kept asking what was wrong. I kept saying there was absolutely nothing..."
"But I don't understand. Why didn't you just tell her?"
"I didn't want her to feel bad about it because-" I cut myself off.
Should I bring up the whole no-longer-a-soloist issue?
"I get it," Shibata says.
It seems like I don't have to explain it.
"Sensitive issue. But it's still a relatively small thing."
She doesn't understand the whole picture. There's so much more to it. How do I tell it? Miki told me all her secrets after we fucked each other's brains out in Kobe? And that I didn't return the favour by telling her anything? I'm filled with anger directed not towards Shiba-chan but towards myself. I'm remembering all my stupidity now. I'm remembering what I have lost.
"She's just really big on being open. She tells me lots of personal things, especially recently, and I didn't let her know anything. We had, uh, an agreement. You know, as friends. We should feel okay telling each other anything."
"Aya-chan," Shibata sighs, "I've never had a remarkably close friend like that, so I really can't judge this situation clearly, but I can't help but think it's all a little exaggerated."
If I just told her what was really going on, she'd probably change her mind…
"Shiba-chan, Miki-chan and I... well..." I trail off.
I sound so weak and fragile. Where's my strength? I can dance around like a nut in outrageous costumes and belt out songs about love rangers, but I can't say a couple of sentences to Shibata without collapsing in embarrassment? The world is full of irony.
Shibata looks mildly curious about what I'm going to say. She probably has no idea. Then again, she's surprised me a lot lately, so maybe she knows and I'm not just being paranoid.
"Miki-chan and I are, uh, really good friends," I chicken out completely.
Shibata looks at me strangely and waits for me to continue, but I don't know what to say after that.
"I know that," she half laughs at me, half frowns.
I shake my head.
"Never mind. I just mean that there's a lot that can't bust up our friendship, but there are a few things that could hurt anybody no matter how close they are."
It's not exactly what I wanted to say, but that's okay. I don't have to give away my whole life if I don't feel like it.
"Well, all I know is that you two had better fix things up come Monday because if you can't stay good friends, nobody else in this world has a chance."
My heart melts to hear that. I smile gratefully at my friend. This girl who before was a co-worker and an acquaintance and who now is a friend and confidante.
"Miki-chan can be bull-headed and difficult to deal with. I hope you don't go nuts trying to solve your problems."
I very well might. I thank her for her vote of confidence. I suddenly don't want to talk about this anymore. I can't do anything at this time of night short of mailing Miki, and I don't think that's a great idea now. It's not a good idea to apologise for something so big over mail.
"Want to watch a movie?" I ask Shibata, and before I realise it, we're laughing over some Hollywood comedy that we order from the front desk.
We don't really talk much during the movie. We make the odd comment about how American humour is so strange, or laugh about a particular scene.
When it's done, I feel so much better. It's quite late, so Shibata says goodnight and goes back to her room after I apologise to her again for being so rude before. She insists that it's already forgotten.
Just before she leaves the door, though, she turns around.
"Just tell Miki-chan what you feel, okay? Tell her everything you've told me. Tell her more. Whatever you want. Just get better. The both of you."
She leaves. I stare after her wondering just how much she knows.
Eventually I close the door and change into my pyjamas, snuggling under my covers, lonely, a little chilly from the cold hotel air.
I decide that I simply need more friends like Shiba-chan. It's not to fill a big empty space in me (that space is reserved for one person and one person only), but just because it's healthy and it makes me feel good. I don't have to tell them every single deep and dark secret of my life in order to call them friends.
I fall asleep thinking of one person and one person only. I have sad dreams that carry me me through until the next morning, when I go home.
-
Chapter 11 of 16
Three rings and an answer.
"Yeah?"
"Hi... Miki?"
"Yes?"
"Can I meet you?"
"What is it, Aya?"
"I just want to say some things to you.
"Does this have to do with work?"
"Not exactly."
"Then I'll talk to you later. I don't have time for this right now."
I swallow my tears down and away while I listen to the dial tone. How busy could she be at lunch time on a Sunday when she's obviously at home? Too busy to talk to her until-now best friend?
I throw out the food I've prepared for lunch. I'm not hungry anymore. I decide to go for a walk. Sometimes that helps me settle my mind, although sometimes it has the effect of making me withdraw even further into myself. I head in the opposite direction of the station and find myself in a park. It's surprisingly empty for a Sunday afternoon.
I'm starting to remember how terrible I felt a few years ago when my best friend in Himeji simply stopped being my friend. I was so lonely. I felt like nobody loved me. I felt like I was incompetent when it came to keeping friends. I felt I would never have another good friend again in my life. I didn't want to have another good friend.
However, this time I feel even more awful because I think the situation I've gotten myself into could have been prevented if I'd done a little more thinking- or rather a little more caring. Also, this time I've lost a lot more than just a friendship. I've lost some sort of integral part of life that is as essential to me as air or food or water. Or rather, this part of my life - this person - has not been lost. I'm the one who has wandered off and gotten lost in a jungle that I can't find my way out of quite yet.
I sit on a park bench and watch as two friends walk by, arm-in-arm, giggling about something. They don't notice me on the bench as I stare at them walking quickly. They're probably going shopping. I want to go shopping. But I need help first. I need to solve my problems.
I can't do this alone, but there's nobody else I want help from but Miki. She's not going to help me, though. I already got too much out of her before.
My phone rings. I sigh and reach for it, flipping it open. I blink twice at the display screen. I must be imagining the number. I answer the phone.
"Hello?"
"What did you want to tell me?" Miki asks impatiently.
I know this game. I've tempted her with some juicy information and she doesn't want to care, but she does... so she gives in. Now she'll try to get it from me without trying to show she cares (which she already has shown by calling). I won't play any games now, though. I want to make this as painless as possible.
"First of all - and I'm sure you must know this - is that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for not telling you what was bothering me all week. I'm sorry for not trusting you more. I'm sorry for not telling you anything that was on my mind. I'm sorry for taking everything and giving nothing."
It's painful for me to say these words because I still can't believe I acted that way. I wait for her to say something, but all I hear is silence punctuated by slight breathing, which at least lets me know that the line is still open.
"And thank you for being a better friend to me than I am to you and for comforting me during this really bad time when you didn't even know what was happening."
She still doesn't say anything. There's not much more that I can say.
"I never lied to you about anything else, though. Everything I've said to you... about loving you and being happy around you and all that... It's all true."
The sound of the cicadas, which I haven't noticed until now, overpowers the silence. It emphasises the silence. Emphasises Miki's refusal to respond. I hold still and wait, my heart on pause, my stomach floating in its place, my sweaty hand gripping my phone tightly. I know that she can probably hear the insects, too.
"Why'd you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Not tell me that you wanted to leave."
This is the painful part. I have to say it eventually, though.
"First, I didn't want to make you feel bad that you lost your soloist title and therefore didn't have that same opportunity to break away. Second, I didn't want you to get angry and think that I was ego-obsessed and that I thought so highly of myself that I could leave H!P far behind without a worry."
I hold my breath and wait for a reply.
"I told you I didn't care about that anymore. I'm not going to jump in pain every time someone or something reminds me I'm not a soloist anymore," she beings, her voice growing louder. "And do you think I'm going to judge you right away and call you stuck up or something because you recognise your own talent? You'd think I'd know you a little better than to automatically assume that. You think I'm stupid enough to get angry about something like that?!"
She sounds very angry for someone who's saying she's not angry.
"Have you ever heard of insecurity, Miki? Maybe you're not the only one to suffer from it," I explode.
I completely forget I'm sitting in a public park. At least I don't think there are people around me. I don't care anymore, though.
"Insecure? You're trying to play an insecure card when you're telling me about how you think you're good enough to go beyond the Project? You know, I have no problem with you acknowledging your own skills because I'm in full agreement that you have them, but trying to throw bullshit around about being insecure in order to get me to believe you... That pisses me off."
"What bullshit am I throwing around? Yeah, I think I'm good enough to separate from everyone, but I still feel insecure talking about it with you because I don't want you to dislike me. That would ruin everything. Your opinion is important to me."
"Don't do this to me. Don't pile it on anymore," Miki groans in a hollow voice.
"Miki, I don't like talking about this on the phone. Can we please just meet up?" I plead, trying to calm down, hoping that she'll at least agree to argue in person.
While it's painful, I find it easier to argue in person because I can see the physical reactions my words have, but also because I can use my own gestures and expressions to help make my appeal.
"Win yourself an invitation to my place by using any spectacular words you may have, if you want. Convince me that I should give you a chance... if you can use that head of yours to think of something other than yourself," she retorts. There's no hope for me with that tone in her voice. I don't have anything. I really don't. I've told her everything I think she'd want to know.
"There's no need to be rude," I say quietly.
"Rude?" she laughs. "Rude?!" She's possibly gone crazy. "Oh no. Rude would be asking something inappropriate of you. Rude would be if I told you to tell me how far you really went with that stupid boyband singer of yours."
What the... Where did that come from?
"Miki... I told you ages ago that there was nothing. For god's sake, it was a couple of dates."
"Yeah, but he still got house calls. Service at his own front door. Groceries and who knows what else," she spits out caustically.
"M... but... your...I told... Miki!" I sputter half in anger and half in shock.
"Was he any good? You never told me the details. I should know so that I can have more things to be angry about. What was it like sleeping with him?"
I start to shake and I feel like throwing up. She has gone too far this time. First of all, it's my business what I did with him. Second of all, I already told her whatever was important about that part of my life. Third of all, she's bullying me, and she's never done so in a purely mental way. I can only think of only one (recent) case of a combination of mental and physical bullying that I'd rather not think of in detail right now.
"I told you everything already," I say quietly into the phone.
"Really?" she snorts. "I hardly believe that you only kissed him a few times."
"And why not?"
"Because I know you better than that," she answers darkly. "I know you have a taste for action. Don't lie to me and tell me you don't. I've seen it."
I can imagine the look on her face. She's probably deriving a whole lot of satisfaction out of this attack on me, and I can imagine it would show on her face as a big, wicked, bitter smile.
"Why would I outright lie to you about it?" I demand, trying to control tears from falling and trying not to let her intimate knowledge of me get to me.
"Maybe you were embarrassed to tell me. Maybe you didn't want me to think badly of you- that you were a slut or really easy or something for sleeping with him after 'a couple of dates'. Hmm?" she taunts me.
Tears spill out of my eyes.
"Stop it," I cry into the phone.
"Why? Why can't I know? Aren't I your best friend? Didn't you sleep with me, too? I deserve to know."
"I didn't sleep with him. I told you the truth. And even if I did, you don't have any right to be angry about it."
"I have every right to be angry about it!"
What do you say to someone who is being unreasonable? Miki is in a rage-filled frenzy trying to pick at everything she thinks I've done wrong, and here I am just about to go into hysterics while trying to use common sense with her when she is momentarily beyond it. I feel the jungle vines wrapping around my arms and legs, holding me tighter and tighter the harder I struggle.
"If that's supposed to be some misguided, jealous statement, then I have to remind you that there was nothing between us back then at that moment."
"Nothing between us?! 'Closest friends in the world' means nothing?" she almost screams.
"You know perfectly well what I mean," I shoot back.
"No, I don't. Please elaborate for me. Just to be clear. How did you think of me back then?"
"Closer to you than to anyone else," I answer truthfully.
Somewhere in my conscience I can hear my sisters and mother asking me why it's not them.
"That's all?" she asks in disbelief.
I don't answer.
"Is that all?" she annunciates slowly.
"Stop this," I whisper quietly.
"You felt something, I know," she says in an evil, gleeful voice. "You couldn't even believe it yourself."
I stare at the ground. I already told her before that I felt something for her for a while but that it was only recent events that made me able to admit it. There's no need to rehash it all. Not now.
"And you fucked him despite not even being sure where your heart was."
"You are being ridiculous!" I finally release my full anger and I yell at her despite my very public location. "You're making up things that you wouldn't have even considered a week ago. You're painting me as some bad guy here. Yeah, I lied to you. About one thing last week. Nothing else. Now as for your insecurity, there-"
"Insecure? Hell, yes, I'm insecure!" she yells. "How can I ever be sure you like me if I know you're just going to hide the truth from everyone?"
"It was one instance!" I cry out, frustrated.
"One leads to two leads to three... Maybe I should just become friends with Shibata. Maybe she'll let me know what's up with you."
"You're sick."
"Am I? You're the one who trusts her more than you trust me."
"That's not true. I promise you."
"I don't trust you anymore. Your promise means nothing."
Silence.
"Then it's your loss. If you don't trust me, hang up the phone right now," I growl. "Hang up right now and go on thinking that-"
She hangs up. I can't believe it. She actually hangs up. I slam my phone shut and throw it to the ground in an uncontrolled bout of pure rage. It lands on the dirt, making a small thudding sound and bouncing away. It doesn't shatter like I wish it would. I put my head in my hands and cry silently but hard.
After a while I get up, pick up my phone, and walk back home. I don't hide my tear-stained face from anybody walking by. How can I care about that right now? I curse everything about my life. I curse misunderstandings, I curse insecurities, I curse H!P, I curse my talent, I curse Shibata, I curse Miki even more, I curse the fact that I ever met Keita, I curse Miki again and all the things I ever did with her.
I hate myself. I hate myself so much. I don't see how I can ever climb out of this hole of misery that I've been thrown into. It's too deep, the sides too slick. An unforgiving, dark, empty well. I sit at the bottom of this well in my mind for three days after calling in sick with the flu. UFA tries to send over their henchmen to come and care for me, but I lie and say that my mother has come up to spend the week with me. She's taking care of me.
I wish she was able to. I wish there was a cure for the pain I feel.
-
Chapter 12 of 16
I don't know why I answer the phone. I don't recognise the display number.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Aya-chan."
That's Miki. That's a very friendly, not angry-sounding Miki.
"H-hi..." I stutter.
"Aya-chan. I wanna say I'm sorry," she slurs into the phone.
I sigh, sitting up on my bed.
"Are you drunk?"
She giggles at my question.
"Yes."
Well, at least it's an honest drunken admission.
"You're going to regret it in the morning."
"No I won't. Drinking's fun," she laughs.
"No, not the drinking. I mean calling and apologising."
"No I won't. 'Cause... I'm really sorry," she says a little more quietly but still unsteadily.
I don't say anything. I feel odd. It's exactly what I want to hear her say, but I don't want her to be drunk when she's saying it.
"You know," she starts up again, "I was stupid to say all those things. I was wrong about everything. People... people. People like us shouldn't say those things lightly."
She adopts a lecturing tone.
"If I were you, in fact... If I were you, I wouldn't forgive me. In fact. I mean me as in 'Miki'. If I were you. Not me. Right," she stumbles along. "So the question is, now that I've said sorry, can you forgive me?"
"I think the question is, can you forgive me first before that. For not telling you any-"
"Shhh!" she demands loudly and then giggles. "I already forgave you for that with my apology. Now I want to know if you still want me," she says and then breaks down into giggles at her mistake, "I mean if you still want to forgive me."
"Of course," I say in a choked voice. "I don't want to fight with you."
I feel warm hands climb up my back. I look behind me and there's Miki wearing the kind of clothing we'd wear to go out for a fun girl's night out. I'm just in my simple pyjamas. Her face is flushed as she crawls over to sit in front of me. She turns around and leans her back into me. She crosses her legs underneath my own crossed legs. From time to time we sit like that. In public. Now that I think about it, it's somewhat scandalous, but I don't care. I love the way her skin turns darker in the summer and how I keep mine as light as possible. When we sit together, our legs pressed up against one another's, we're like milk and chocolate...café au lait...
I hug her to me, my hands held at her bellybutton as I plan what to do next. I think I'll start by taking her tight, black shirt off and pulling her down on top of me, rolling over... letting her get another taste of what it's like to submit to me.
I continue to imagine what I'm going to do to her as the sun rises and rays of light pour into my bedroom through the cracks in my curtains. Miki pulls out of my embrace and stands up, no longer drunk. She walks to the window. She pulls the curtains apart and lets the sunlight spill into the room. For a split second all I can see is Miki glowing brilliantly in the light, her face calm, her eyes looking at me as if she's some benevolent goddess whose favour I'm in.
I close my eyes after that split second in automatic reaction to the sudden brightness, and when I open them again, she's gone. The light slowly dims and I lie down on my back. Soon it's pitch black. I wonder why Miki can't be here when it's dark. I'm terrified, suffocating, forgotten.
I close my eyes and wake up.
I'm lying on my back in my bed, the sheets gripped tightly in my hands, I slowly release my hold and turn onto my side, curling into a small ball. The alarm clock tells me it's five-thirty in the morning. The sun will have fully risen soon.
I try to forget my dream. It's the fourth one in three days. Different situations, same type of conversation, same ending. The symbolism of that ending is not lost on me.
I've taken three days off, and I have to return to work today. I'm probably drastically behind in everything. I've received peppy get well messages from some of the girls like Abe, Nakazawa, and Maki, but none from Miki. She knows I'm not sick. Tanaka even messages me on my second day telling me to hurry up and getting better because Miki is moping and not being her usual self. I resist the urge to tell the girl that Miki would probably feel better if she was told I would never show my face at work again.
I roll around onto my other side. I feel so very alone. So cold. So unhappy.
I'm burning mad at Miki for saying everything she did on Sunday- for acting so ridiculously childish and for hurting me with names and accusations. However, the truth is that if she called me up and said she wanted to talk to me, I'd forget every word of it. If she would only forgive me.
I turn onto my stomach and take up as much room on my bed as I can. I wish I couldn't because I'm reminded of what I don't have. I'm reminded of Miki. If everything had worked out like we wanted it to, we'd be together right now. Maybe I'd be at her place. Maybe I'd wake her up now to keep me company until we'd have to get ready to leave. Maybe...
Too many maybes. Not enough action. I grab on to one thing from our ferocious argument. One thing that gives me hope.
"Win yourself an invitation to my place by using any spectacular words you may have, if you want. Convince me that I should give you a chance..."
It's my only hope. I won't let it go. Now instead of maybe-ing and what if-ing, I have to start doing. In order to do, I must think and plan. I decide to do that right now.
Nothing comes to my head, though. This might take a while.
-
Chapter 13 of 16
My return to work is bittersweet. The girls are happy to see me, but one isn't, and that's enough to ruin it for me.
I stumble upon a group of Musume in the cafeteria at lunchtime. I say a general "hello" to everyone and then move to the next table where Rika, Yui, and Nono are sitting. We chat idly and I eat quickly. I feel like everyone has their eyes one me as if they know something is up, but I know that it's all in my head.
I finish my lunch before everyone else, and I go to put my tray of dirty dishes away. I have to walk right by Miki. I do, looking at her from the corner of my eye. She continues to eat silently, not flinching or looking up. I leave the room quickly. If she keeps acting like that, everyone will know by the end of the day that we've fought. There's nothing I can do, though. I'm not ready to talk to Miki, and she's not ready to listen to me.
At the end of the day I realise I've completely forgotten all my previous problems about leaving H!P. Shibata's sudden appearance at my side reminds me as she pulls me aside while everyone is busy changing. We go for a walk and end up in the warm-up studio.
"Feeling better?" she asks, taking a seat on the floor and starting to stretch.
I can tell from the tone of her voice that she doesn't believe for a second that I've been sick. I shrug and mumble a stock phrase about feeling rested. I sit down across from her.
"Aya-chan, you know me better than that. You know I know you're not sick. Want to tell me what's wrong?"
She must know what it's about. There's nothing else that could be wrong.
"Is it Miki-chan?"
I nod.
"It went from bad to worse. She was pretty rough on me," I sigh. "Um, in an argument we had on Sunday. Said lots of nasty things..." I quickly add, my face suddenly feeling hot as I think back to a few days before Sunday.
"She's being a hell of a bitch, isn't she?" she laughs.
I bristle up. How dare she say that about Miki? I count to ten before speaking, though, because I remember that it's true. Miki's not being very nice.
"She is being very difficult," I say.
"For heaven's sake. When was the wedding? I swear I missed it about sixty years ago because you two fight like an old married couple," Shibata laughs.
I feel like I should get mad at her for making light of the situation, but I can't help but reply to her silly statement.
"You sound so much like Masae that it's not even funny," I say, deadpan.
"But really, that's what you two sound like. Are you sure-" she cuts herself off.
The warning bell goes off in my head.
"I'm sure we'll get over it," I say quickly.
"Aya-chan, sorry to break it to you, but you've been arguing about something trivial for how long?"
"It's not about length. She just won't talk to me now. It'll take some time," I insist stubbornly. "And it's not trivial. It's actually important."
"Then what are you going to do? You just said she won't talk to you. If you write a letter, she'll probably burn it. If you call, she'll hang up. Where do you go from here? How long are you going to wait?"
"I don't know, but I'll win her back somehow, okay? I've managed to before," I huff.
"You shouldn't have to 'win back' your friends, Aya. They should be more understanding."
I see her point, but I still can't help wonder what Shibata would say if I told her the absolute truth. I think I'll try.
"Shiba-chan," I say weakly.
She looks at me sharply.
"Miki-chan and I... We're kind of..."
"Kind of what?" Shibata asks.
I really hope she's not freaked out by what I'm about to tell her.
"Kind of... really... badly in trouble."
Strike two for me. No freaking out for today.
"I can't explain it, but believe me, there's really more to it than you think."
Shibata eyes me suspiciously.
"Aya, I'm mighty curious and I'd almost ask you about it, but I won't. Your relationship - your friendship - is your own business. All I can do is give you advice based on what I know for sure," she says to me frankly.
"And if you speculate and give advice based on that?" I ask apprehensively.
I can't help but believe she's already figured out what I'm trying to tell her.
Shibata takes a moment to think about it.
"Then I'd say go and do something about it now, because talking with me won't get you anywhere. She obviously cares enough to get that angry. No matter what horrible things she's said to you, you can't stop loving someone that suddenly. Trusting someone, yeah. It's easier to lose trust, but love? No. Too complex and full of history."
"Who said anything about love?!" I blurt out nervously.
"Well whatever you want to call it. Close friendship, I don't know."
"So it'll be okay?" I ask hopefully.
"To be honest, no," Shibata says.
My heart falls.
"She might still care, but even that eventually disappears. If you say or do something wrong, it might make it worse. If you get angry with her, you can kiss your friendship goodbye."
"So what should I say to make it better?"
"I don't know. You're the one who knows her. I barely do," she says sounding a little exasperated.
I apologise for bothering her.
"I just never would have taken you for one who needs this sort of advice. You're a pretty strong girl, I think."
"I'm not strong enough to handle Miki like this. She's really... really really stubborn," I mumble.
Shibata shrugs and we sit there silently. Then she gets up.
"Well, call me if you need anything. Good luck," she says quickly, and she gets up, heading for the door.
"Thank you, Shiba-chan," I call out to her.
She waves a hand over her head without looking back.
"Let me know how it goes."
She walks out and I lie down on my back, stretching out my arms and legs. I think of what I could possibly do to get Miki's attention and make her listen to me for a minute.
I could do something whacky like apologise in the middle of my radio show broadcast like I've seen people do in the movies.
Then again, I'd get fired and the whole country would know too much information.
I could write a twenty page essay about why I think she's important.
But she wouldn't read it.
I could send her yakiniku.
She'd eat it and continue to ignore me.
I could send her a singing telegram.
But that's just stupid. Also, I don't even know if those really exist.
Or I could do something as simple as ignoring her terms and going to her apartment, knocking on the door, and talking to her.
Brilliant in its simplicity. Daring in that I'm inviting myself over. Direct enough in that I'll be standing right in front of her.
I roll up and walk back to the change room. Maybe I'll do that. But not today. Tomorrow or some time later. Or maybe not at all. It sounds stupider and stupider the more I think about it.
I need more time.
-
Chapter 14 of 16
I avoid the problem for a week. The weekend comes around and I have neither seen nor spoken to Miki. Concerts happen and I continue to pretend I'm okay. I enjoy myself, but not as much as I should. When I sing the songs that mean a lot to me, I think of how Miki wouldn't want to be hearing them right now. I become sad even if they are happy songs.
Tsuji and Kago notice that I'm not my usual self, and they ask me if there's anything wrong. I cheerfully assure them that I'm fine, although a little tired from a long week. They buy the story because they can't imagine what could possibly be wrong.
Monday is my day off this week. I'd go and talk to Miki then, but I know that she doesn't have the day off. Her day off is on Tuesday. Shibata told me this. She actually got angry at me for not having talked to Miki all week. She yelled at me, scolding me for putting things off and being too chicken. I told her I'd do something this week. Shibata means well, but I wish she wasn't so right all the time. It makes me feel so stupid.
On Sunday night, I take my phone out and type up a simple message.
Hi, Miki. Can we talk this week?
-Aya
I wait for two hours before bedtime to hear back from her, but nothing comes. I go to sleep feeling let down but angry at myself for thinking that she'd want to reply.
On Monday morning I wake up after a particularly strange dream. Some of it I'd like to remember. Some of it I'd like to forget. Some of it... I wouldn't mind if it happened in real life.
I roll over and check the time. It's nine am. I really slept for a long time. I reach for my phone and check my messages.
I have one!
It's a reply from Miki.
No, I don't think so.
I start to analyse the response. I can't tell how she means it. Maybe it's a sad and apprehensive "no", which might mean she wouldn't mind talking to me. Maybe it's an angry "no", in which case I wouldn't want to infuriate her further.
Nine o'clock. Hello! Morning filming just started. I jump out of bed and get ready quickly. If I time it right, I can catch her right at the beginning of lunch break. I take a long shower and then hurry up to get dressed.
I leave my house and make my way to the studio. I get there right at half past noon, ten minutes before lunch break usually starts. I get through the front door with no problem from security, and I head up to the change rooms. I find Miki's and knock. No answer. I try the door and find it unlocked. I let myself in and close the door after me.
At this studio, everyone gets their own change room. I know Miki's very well because I hang out here all the time when we're in the building at the same time. My change room is on another floor higher up, so it's easier to hang out here instead.
I look around briefly. Her clothes are in an unfolded but neat pile on the table. She's left her water bottle and snacks on the dresser. It looks the way her change room always does.
I sit down on the chair at the table and rest my chin on my hands. I haven't thought of what to say to her, but I guess I can improvise. As long as I don't yell at her, I should have a chance.
I try and think of what to say, but all I can do is imagine her forgiving me. If we can talk and get it all over with in the first twenty minutes, we'll have thirty-five minutes of her lunch break left to ourselves. We can do something silly. I've always wanted to make out in a change room, and I start to blush as I imagine it. As I'm deep in pleasant thought, the door opens.
"Huh? What are you doing in here?" asks a surprised voice.
I raise my head and turn around. That's not Miki's voice. I see Yossi at the door and I frown.
"Um, Yossi, I was waiting for Miki," I reply unevenly.
She eyeballs me.
"Is she expecting you?"
I shake my head.
"Okay," she says slowly. "Well, she asked me to pick up something for her while I was up here. She's not going to come back here till later this afternoon when we're done."
"Oh. Okay," I nod as if it's all fine with me.
"Do you want me to tell her you're waiting for her? I'm sure she could spare-"
"No!" I exclaim, quieting down before continuing. "No, I'll talk to her later. Don't mention you saw me, okay? Don't want to worry her."
Yossi shrugs.
"Okay."
She goes to the drawer and pulls out Miki's cell phone.
"I'll see you later," Yossi says, giving me an uncomfortable smile.
I smile and wave at her. When she's gone, I groan loudly and let my head fall into my hands again. What lousy timing.
I lose my nerve and leave. I don't want to sit around all day, and talking to Miki after filming would be extra bad. She'd be tired and probably a lot less willing to be friendly. I'm also very hungry now.
I get up and go home. I make myself a small lunch and watch mindless television.
That night as I lie in bed I realise that it's tomorrow or never. I must go and talk to Miki tomorrow on her day off.
Tomorrow comes. I'm in vocal training all day, and I don't see any of the other girls for the entire time. I'm relieved about that because I probably look as nervous as ever. I'm going to go pay a visit to Miki in the evening to get things sorted out once and for all. I fully believe that by the end of this day, we will either be friends again or we won't. I'm that determined to figure everything out.
Time goes by excruciatingly slowly. It's painful for me because my head is a blank. I can't think of the right things to say. I become filled with panic that I know is irrational but that I can't help feel anyway.
6:00pm rolls around. Finally. They let me out and I rush home to drop my things off and take a five minute breather. After four and a half minutes, I put on my shoes and leave again.
I sit on the train, my stomach a nervous knot. This is stupid. I shouldn't be so scared about going to talk to Miki. Sure, she's angry at me, but it doesn't mean that I don't know her at all. I go through the motions of leaving the train station and walking to her apartment. The familiar route…
I see it looming over me. Her home. I walk up the stairs one by one, slowly, apprehensively. I reach her door. I reach out a hand and let it hover over the door bell.
"Hi, Miki. Can we talk?" I practice saying in my head.
I bite my tongue, take a deep breath and ring the bell. A few seconds later I hear footsteps. The door opens. Miki sees me. I see her. We look at each other. Her eyes narrow in an almost undetectable way. Her face hardens the slightest bit.
I hear the sounds of the TV in the background as we have our showdown. I swallow and open my mouth to speak. I have no clue what I'm going to say until I go ahead and say it.
-
Chapter 15 of 16
"Are you busy?"
Her hand twitches on the door as if she wants to simply shut it without saying a word to me. Her mother, I guess, raised her a little too well to do that to a visitor at the door.
"Yes," she replies.
I listen hard. Maybe she has someone over and they're watching TV, in which case this would indeed be a very bad time. I let my eyes wander over her shoulder where I can see the couch. Nobody's sitting there. The TV is playing commercials.
"Watching something good?" I ask conversationally.
I'm so nervous that I forget that I'm not here to chat but to talk seriously. She frowns.
"What do you want?" she asks none too politely.
I finally snap back into my mission mode and pull out my offensive card right away.
"I need to talk to you because it's very unfair how I haven't had a chance to explain anything," I say with controlled force. "I know that I was supposed to say brilliant things to convince you to let me have a chance, but I really have nothing. I'm not a brilliant person when it comes to matters of you, so you're going to have to put up with that. Right now I want five minutes. If you have no interest after that, you can kick me out - literally if you want - and I'll never ever bother you again for your entire life."
I've figured out the key to dealing with her. It's to act like I'm in control. I know that she holds me up above a lot of things in the world and she appreciates and even seeks my approval in everything she does. I'm hoping that despite her loss of trust in me, at least she'll still feel like I'm some sort of power to be reckoned with. Or maybe she'll just be scared into listening to me. As horrible as that is, I'm at the point where I don't care. I'll do anything to get her to listen.
Luckily, I don't have to resort to threatening. She opens the door slightly to indicate it's okay for me to come in. I excuse myself and walk in, removing my shoes and standing at the front entrance. She moves further into her apartment and stands there, making no move to offer me a seat or a drink or any other sort of host-ly thing, but at least her air conditioning is on. I look behind her and see a documentary on koalas come back on after the commercials. Despite my situation, I feel like laughing. There's another one of those things about her that makes me giggle from the bottom of my belly.
"So talk," she says, and I don't feel like giggling anymore.
I'm on a time limit. I have to focus.
"Miki, I lied to you," I start with a punch, "but only once. Only about one thing. Nothing else. Ever."
I examine her face. It hasn't changed.
"And I did it because I didn't want to cause you any concern or pain. I didn't know how to tell you what I was thinking."
Her face remains the same.
"I wasn't exaggerating when I told you I feel insecure around you. You put me up on this pedestal that I can't possibly get down from, so I try to be perfect in order not to disappoint you," I admit to her angrily. "I'm afraid to be less than that because then you'd see through me and stop liking what you see."
"That's absurd, Aya. You don't have to act perfect. To me you're just as good when you mess up as when you're faultless," Miki growls.
"Then why are you so angry at me if you know I'm not perfect?" I demand. "Why is it that I make one mistake - I withhold some information from you - and suddenly I'm a monster?"
"I told you already before. You stopped trusting me. It wasn't just that you didn't tell me you wanted to leave H!P."
I look down at the floor guiltily.
"That's not really how I meant to come off sounding..."
"Yeah? Well you did," she states firmly.
"It's not what I meant," I repeat.
"Is this going to go around in circles? 'Cause we could stay here all night and argue back and forth like this, but it's not going to fix anything," she says harshly. I know she's right.
"So what will? What will fix everything? If I tell you that you can trust me without a single doubt, will it make things better? If I tell you that I'll never keep something like that from you again, will you stop hating me? If I tell you what I've told you before - that you mean so much to me - will it all be okay? Will you believe me?" I demand, the feeling of hopefulness overflowing my body.
I know she probably has some witty and hurtful comment lined up for me, but I may as well try.
Actually, right now she looks like she's torn between two things. It's interesting, and if I was watching this on TV, I'd analyse her facial expressions to give me a clue as to what she might say next. Unfortunately, this is real life and it's speeding by much too quickly. I can hardly think this fast.
"Don't ask me something like that," she says in an unstable, quiet voice.
This catches me a little off guard because I thought for sure she'd say "no way".
"Why not?" I ask.
"Just don't," she says through grit teeth.
"Miki, why not? I want to know," I press her.
"I think you should go," she says hurriedly.
I'm about to protest, but it's true. My five minutes are up.
"Well, thanks for listening to that much."
I feel defeated as I back away and head to the door. Oddly enough, she follows me. I slip my shoes on and pause at the doorway, my hand on the doorknob.
I turn around. I can't resist because this is Miki, not just any person. This might be my last chance to salvage whatever little bit of friendship that remains between us. I will hate myself if I don't hold on with my entire force.
"Just tell me why. Please," I beg.
"Because I don't hate you," she rasps out looking like she's unable to bear my questioning anymore. "And because if you say those things to me, I have no choice but to believe you."
She really could have fooled me. Her story is changing by the minute. Why is it that she makes no sense to me? I know that she's a more complicated person than what she offers on the surface, and I've been able to figure out a lot of what's going on in her mind, but still... She's a mystery. She's still a mystery even when she's told me everything on her mind.
"I don't understand," I speak slowly. "Then why did you say those things to me the other day? Why did you insult my entire character if you don't hate me? Why are you so quick to change your mind?"
I realise that asking her too many questions like that may be too forceful and she might shut off and get very angry and kick me out, but I have to know.
She doesn't speak for about a minute and I decide not to push it any further.
"I didn't..." she starts and then takes a breath, "I didn't mean them."
I can't say I'm not relieved to hear that. Now I want to know why.
"You made me say them."
This makes my jaw drop. There's no way I'd ever try to get her to attack me like that. She must be hallucinating.
"I don't see-" I start, but she cuts me off as if I'm not even in the room.
"Aya, I love you more than air or water or whatever. More than myself. I don't want to tell you that too much because it's weird and creepy and you can't possibly feel the same way even if you say you do. So when you hurt me, it's like I die. I don't like dying."
She speaks weakly, sadly, dejectedly. She can't look at me.
"I said those things because I wanted to hate you. I thought by saying them, I could believe them. And maybe you'd hate me for talking to you like that. Then it would be easier to learn to hate you. Then if I hated you, I wouldn't care so much if you hurt me."
I stand there, my mouth agape, feeling sick.
"And then I thought that I'd no longer have to cut off or at least suppress any part of me that you didn't like or that wasn't useful."
How can she say these things? Speaking about herself like that is almost worse than her accusing me of lying about everything.
"I don't hate any part of you," I say quickly before she can continue with her self-deprecating speech. "All your personalities, all your sides, are what make you you. And... I like you," I finish lamely.
"I don't see how you can," she mumbles.
This is the mystery that is Miki. One minute she's raving mad, the next she's about to cry.
I grab the front of her shirt and pull her towards me, facing her squarely.
"Even that stupid part of you that makes you say dumb things like that... Even that part I like."
"That's the part I can't stand," she says, shying away from me.
I know that already. She told me already. Kobe. I don't loosen my hold.
"I say things at bad times and ruin things. I can't control it. I'm unreliable."
That's it. That's why she acts the way she does. She doesn't trust herself. She doesn't like herself enough. How can she trust me completely if she can't trust herself? How can she even begin to think of loving someone else when she still has to learn to love herself? The thing is, she doesn't even realise this, so of course she hasn't been able to tell me.
"Then you should learn to trust and like yourself before trying to trust me," I tell her honestly and softly so that she doesn't think I'm mocking her.
She looks at me curiously, taking in my words. I can almost see them floating in her head as she tries to make sense of them. She opens her mouth to do what looks like complain, but then she closes it again and looks pensive for another moment.
"I trust myself," she says.
I shake my head slowly.
"I don't think you do..."
She looks at me helplessly, desperately. It's like she's finally realising the cause of her anxieties and insecurities.
I let go of her shirt. I've been holding it this whole time. My palm is sweaty and my whole hand cramped.
"I know that you haven't always been like this," I continue.
It's starting to dawn on me just how much good but also how much damage H!P has done to Miki.
"You've been messed around with for the past few years. You lost an audition, and then you won a highly coveted space in the Project."
She listens to me and I can see the memories playing out in her mind…
"And then you were the hottest star, well on your way to becoming the next... um, me," I blush and she allows herself a playful roll of the eyes, "and then suddenly you were dropped and put into a group where your presence and your talent were both diluted."
"Yeah, but-"
"The thing is," I carry on, "is that while you say it doesn't bother you anymore, it has affected you. You like being in Morning Musume, right?"
"Well, yeah," she replies.
"But you weren't so hot about the idea at first, right?"
"True."
"But now that you've gotten used to it and begun to enjoy it, it's like you've been tamed. Like you've been finally convinced that you weren't good enough and that's why the executives of the company decided to change your position."
It's harsh, but it has to be said. She swallows hard and stares right into my eyes, not blinking once. I don't see any tears forming, but who knows. Who knows...
"Do you really believe that? Do you believe that you're not good enough? Do you let it get to you whenever you say or do or decide things? Do you question every move you make because some people didn't need another soloist in their company a few years ago?"
Absolute silence. She's either going to cry, kick me out, or kill me on the spot. Of course none of those things happen because she works in mysterious ways.
"Yes."
I'm the one who almost starts crying. It can't possibly be fair that the company that made her dream come true also stripped away her confidence in herself. Never have I wanted to leave H!P as much as I do now. I want to take her with me.
"Don't," I say angrily. "Don't let them convince you that you're anything less than outstanding."
"But maybe it..."
"Miki," I groan, clenching my fists, "what happened to that overconfident, funny, stubborn soloist that I met? Was she defeated by a change of situation?"
"No," she says defensively. "I just... I don't know. I don't think about it."
"You should start. If you don't believe in yourself, as stupid and cheesy as that sounds, then you can't believe in other people. Not properly, at least. It's fake. And if you don't like yourself, then you can't like others properly."
I realise that Shibata has been to me what I am being to Miki- someone giving deep advice that might hurt in its delivery, but goes a long way in helping.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly, eyes downcast.
"Don't apologise to me for it. Just be-"
"No, not about that. I mean for yelling at you last week and... saying those things and just being... really rude to you."
How can my heart not melt at that? How can I not want to hug her? I refrain from doing anything, though, because I'm still unsure about this whole thing.
"Just promise me that you'll try and let the past be the past and learn to trust yourself."
Slowly, her face relaxes. She seems to lose some of the tension she's carrying on her shoulders and she looks at me. She looks... relieved? Grateful?
"It might take some time."
I reach out a hand to touch her hair. She doesn't flinch, so I assume it's all right.
"You have plenty of that," I reassure her.
"Not really," she mumbles. "Life's too short."
"Mmm. Maybe. But there's no sense rushing through it and messing up everything when you can take it slow and get everything right."
Talk about metaphorical language. Right now, "life" and "our relationship" seem to be synonymous with one another.
She smiles a little at that. It's not too big of a smile, but it warms my heart because it's the first time in a while that I've seen her look genuinely happy.
Which makes what I'm going to do even harder.
I let my hand run its course through her hair, bringing it down her cheek and then down to her shoulder where it rests.
It's the last touch of its kind. I paint the memory of it on the ceiling of my mind - my own private temple that nobody but I can enter. It's a place of worship where I cherish people and events. A large part of that place is dedicated to Miki. She's earned the space.
I lean forward and kiss her cheek like a friend would do during a close moment, and I let go of her completely. She looks a little perplexed. I think she can sense the finality in my actions, but she's wondering why it's there. I wink and smirk at her to let her know I'm still here and not going anywhere. I'm just giving her room to breathe. Some time to think. Nothing is ending. Life always continues. Situations change, but we're first and foremost best friends. That seems like it can never change.
I feel like I should say something to let her know what I've decided. I'm not sure what, but maybe I can come up with something spectacular. I think for a bit and come up with nothing. Shrugging in my mind, I decide to go with simple. Nothing too deep.
"Best friends, right?" I ask brightly.
She looks confused, then sad, and then... she looks understanding. She realises what I'm talking about. She understands that taking time is important. She understands that we shouldn't be too rash. She has to learn to do some things before she can give herself up entirely to someone else. I, too, have a lot to learn about myself before I can do that.
"Yeah."
-
Chapter 16 of 16
About a month later, we take that trip to Hokkaido we talked about before.
After initially putting a Band-Aid over the situation, I leave Miki to continue watching the koala documentary she was watching before I got there. It's late and I need to get to bed. My own bed.
The next morning I wake up regretting what I've done. I wish I'd stayed over at Miki's. I wish I'd told her I wanted more starting that night. That I didn't want to put anything on pause.
I mentally slap myself silly. How selfish and unfair of me to regret what was probably a good decision made based on what's best for her. What's best for me, too. I decide then to forget about it all. As long as we're friends.
Shiba-chan calls me the next day and asks how things are. I tell her Miki and I have solved our problems. She's relieved to hear that. I don't share any more information. She doesn't ask anything out of the ordinary. Maybe she really doesn't know anything about the true nature of me and Miki. It doesn't matter, though. I'm not about to tell her the details of what happened. Not yet anyway.
I come to the decision not to leave H!P. I realise that my initial thoughts on the matter were right. The thoughts I had after that magazine interview in Yamanashi the day after my birthday. I have improved a great deal, and I do have enough talent to leave H!P, but I could do some more growing up. Sure, there are other singers younger than me who are battling it out on their own in the harsh world of entertainment, but I want to get things right, and so I decide not be a hypocrite. I take my own advice- take things slow so that they don't get messed up.
A few days after, I have a long talk with Miki. I explain everything about my situation to her. She listens and offers me kind words or advice wherever she can.
Once I'm finished telling her everything, I visit Shiba-chan and tell her my decision. She's elated. She tells me she knew I'd make the right decision. I asked her what she would have said if I'd told her I was going to leave the Project.
"If you said it with the same conviction with which you just told me your final decision, then I would have replied in the same way."
That's Shibata for you. You've got to love a girl who is so... I don't even know how to describe it. But I love it and her! I give her a giant hug, thank her, and tell her never to make me think that much again (which is a joke, of course).
The next month passes by so quickly. I don't see Miki much because we're both insanely busy with touring and filming. We keep in constant touch, though, and we repair the foundations we've ruined. Things aren't that awkward between us, but sometimes there's something that nags at my mind when I talk to her or see her. I guess I can't forget our venture into the land that lies beyond friendship.
We're in our hotel room in Sapporo. We have two double beds (the room came that way) and we're sitting on mine playing cards. We've been playing for about two hours since we got in this evening, but both of us are determined to win. We've lost track of time. Shopping bags are piled on the floor below us, evidence of how much money we have spent on this trip so far. It's only been one day. We arrived last night very late and fell asleep almost immediately upon reaching the room. We shopped all day today, and we'll be staying here for one additional day and night.
"You cheater!!! Cheat cheat cheat!!!" Miki squeals at me as I try to pass off a jack and a king as a pair of threes.
I groan and take the whole pile that has accumulated. We're playing cheat, but we've left out randomly selected cards to make it interesting, otherwise it doesn't work with two people. I try and organise the cards, but there are simply too many. I grow frustrated and throw them on the bed.
"Forget it. I don't want to play anymore," I sulk.
"Typical you," Miki snorts.
I glower at her and then we both laugh. Thankfully, some things will never change with us.
"Hey, you hungry? I'm starving," I say.
My stomach feels like it's going to collapse. Miki nods and tells me she's hungry, too, so I pull out the menu for room service. As I study it, Miki reads over my shoulder, and I'm very aware of her presence. Some of her hair is touching my arm, and I feel strange. Stranger than usual. She shifts her weight and her shoulder brushes against mine, her leg touches mine. I feel pleasantly dizzy.
It's not like we haven't touched before this past while. We've even hugged each other a few times. I just shouldn't be feeling something that there's no point in feeling. We haven't talked about becoming anything beyond friends again. I've left it up to her to decide whether to bring it up or not. She's the one who has to deal through more, I think.
I cough, clear my throat, and turn the page.
"Are you getting sick?" she asks me immediately.
"Huh? Oh, no. Just coughing."
We continue to read the menu. I hope she can't hear my heart pounding because it just started racing. I get up abruptly, slamming the menu shut.
"Okay, I know what I'm getting," I say quickly as I head for the phone.
"W-wait a minute, Aya-chan. I haven't decided."
Miki scrambles up and grabs the menu from me. Her fingers almost touch mine.
Ugg. Why am I feeling this again all of a sudden?
She flips through quickly.
"Okay, I'm ready. I'll point, you talk."
I wonder how hard it would be for her to just tell me what dish she wants. I mutter an "okay" and I pick up the phone, dialling the front desk. Miki stands very close to me as I do this. I order my spaghetti and then read out what Miki's pointing to. An appetiser. An expensive one. She then points to something else. I read it out to the woman taking my order. She's about to ask if I want anything else when Miki points to another dish. I cover the mouth of the phone.
"Did you change your mind?" I whisper.
"No. I want that, too," she says.
I frown but uncover the phone and continue the order. Before I'm finished speaking, Miki points to another dish, so I order it. She chooses one more, I order it, and then it's done. I hang up.
"You realise that's going to take, like, over an hour to bring all that stuff, right? She said an hour and a half at the most," I state angrily.
She looks at me and then looks away, fidgeting.
"I'm starving," I whine.
"I have some candy in my bag," Miki offers.
She gets up and takes out a handful of mints from her bag and offers them to me. I grab one from her hand and eat it without thanking her, glaring at her the whole time. She scratches her neck.
"I'm sorry. I just have a big appetite now," she says in what has to be the most unconvincing voice ever.
I don't know what's up with her or what kind of trick she's trying to play by ordering more food than she can possibly eat, but now I'm cranky because I'm hungry.
"Whatever. The only thing that's going to make me feel better now is kicking your ass at a game of President," I glower.
I go and sit on the bed and start distributing the cards. She nervously joins me and we start to play. I lose some of my flare after a few rounds, and I keep looking at her when she's inspecting her cards.
I've never wanted her so much before in my life.
No sense in denying it. I don't know if it's because we're alone and far away from our lives in Tokyo, staying in a hotel room together, or if it's because we're both sitting on a bed, or if it's because we've had such a wonderful day. Something in me feels empty, and I begin to miss what I so carelessly took for granted before. I've been missing it, but repressing it, for a month. However, now it has really gotten to me. I feel like we've reached an impasse and that one of us has to jump up and revive our lives by doing something crazy and unexpected. I really want to, but then I don't want to force anything or confuse anyone.
It's so strange, though, because I've never felt this strongly about having to do something before. I've never felt so right about it. I've never felt so lost, either.
"Hey, Aya-chan," Miki says quietly, interrupting my reverie.
"Mmhmm?" I ask, blinking and refocusing my eyes on her.
I've been staring at her without realising it.
"You know I ordered a lot of food, right?"
I remember my hunger and my anger.
"Yes."
"And you know it's going to take over an hour, right?"
"Yes."
"So, uh, why don't we take a bath before that?"
If I believed in spontaneous human combustion, I'd believe it if someone told me I was about to explode into flames. I think my eyes go out of focus again and I vaguely remember the cards spilling out of my hands slowly as she gets up on her knees and crawls over to me. She takes my hand in hers and takes me to the bathroom. We haven't taken a bath together since that week...
I swallow partly in fear, partly in anticipation, partly in, well, whatever. I push it out of my mind. She's just being Miki. This bath thing is practical. We have the time. Why waste it on playing cards? Bath first, then dinner, then more cards, then gossip, and then bedtime. Separate beds.
"Lucked out with this Jacuzzi," she grins, turning on the water.
The tub starts to fill up and she turns to me. I'm standing there awkwardly.
"Do you want to?" she asks.
Do I want to what? Take a bath? Kiss her?
Yes, yes. But which one is she asking?
I nod. She smiles and takes a hand and touches my face.
"You're warm," she states quietly, a question in her voice.
"I-it's the water," I stutter back, pointing to the tub from which steam is now rising.
She smiles and takes my other hand again. I'm scared that maybe her actions don't mean what I want them to mean. I'm anticipating, however, feeling her hands on me, her lips on me... And I'm excited because she's Miki and nobody else can do wild things to my hormones by just standing there beside me like she does. My heart speeds up.
One of her hands reaches out and she pokes her finger into my cheek gently. She pulls it away and shows me something on her finger.
"Eyelash," she says.
I look down. It certainly is one. I blow some air at her hand, and the eyelash flutters away to land somewhere on the ground between us. We pay it no attention.
"Miki-" I start to ask her what she's doing, but she then places her finger against my lips and beckons me to be quiet.
I don't talk and listen as she puts her hands on my shoulders
"I didn't want to say anything last week, or the week before, or the week before that, but I have to tell you now. There is no way I can ever go back to not thinking about you as the cutest, friendliest, most respectable, most talented, sexiest, hottest, most beautiful and lovable thing in the world," her voice wavers as she speaks honestly from her heart.
My heart beats even faster than before, and I almost wish this wasn't happening because it's painful to have to feel all of this all over again. The feeling where you know something big is probably going to happen and you're wondering how it's going to turn out. A bit like how I feel before a big concert.
"You are my best friend, my closest friend," she takes a breath, "but I like it even better when you're more than that. I want to know if you like it better, too, and if you do, then I want to know if you don't mind being that again."
I nod slowly at first and then more strongly. She smiles big and bright with happiness that I haven't seen in a while.
"And I didn't lie that night. Um, that night when I- uh, I- um, I told you that I always want you no matter what."
I gulp and blush. I have to say something.
"I didn't tell you before, but when you said that, I thought the same thing. You know. About you. And I haven't really stopped thinking it."
Silence bathes us as she takes her hands off my shoulders and lets them rest by her sides naturally.
"I miss that closeness we had," she says.
I nod hazily. I miss it, too.
"Aya, I've got to know, though, before anything happens. Will you be upfront with me and tell me right now what you expect or intend or... Screw it, I don't know. Just tell me you're not going to shut off from me. I want you," she says, her eyes grazing over my entire body, "but I want you."
She puts both her hands on my head gently and stares at me with pleading eyes. I smile calmly and take her hands off my head.
"You have me," I say, putting her hands on my waist, "and you have me."
I lean my forehead against hers.
"Trust me."
She squeezes me and for a minute I think that I'm going to die of happiness or mushiness. I've never been like this with anyone before. Well, except with her before.
What is happening right now is so clichéd, so movie-like, that it's almost disgusting. However, I don't care. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that my wildest dreams would come true. I'm happy to not be let down.
Miki suddenly jumps away, shocking me into thinking she's changed her mind about whatever she's about to do. She turns the water off for the bathtub. A little too much, but we can deal. I ssexy beast and pull her back up to me, relieved.
"We have about forty-five minutes before dinner will even be put on a cart to be brought up here. Let's make the most of it," I say softly.
We slowly help each other undress, barely touching each other. Our hands pass over each other's bodies so lightly that it's almost like we're ghosts who are unable to feel. The tension from anticipation in the air is such that it presses down on my chest, almost making it difficult to breathe.
Once we're undressed, we wash up outside the tub. As she's trying to wash her own back, I take the sponge out of her hand and do it for her. I lean forward and kiss her back, but it's full of soap and I gag, spit, and rinse. She laughs at me, so I scrub her back harder.
Once we're clean, we go into the tub. I'm first. She follows. We sit on opposite sides and stare at each other, our feet touching. I don't want to do anything first. I want her to feel okay about everything, because she's the one that was hurt most before. She doesn't make any move and looks content to just watch me.
"So..." I say. "Are, um..."
I don't know how to finish that sentence. She gives me a silly look, halfway between seductive and, well, just plain dorky. Maybe she wants me to do something first.
I mentally shrug and "swim" my way over to her. I sit beside her and I wiggled an arm around her back, my hand coming to rest on her ribs opposite me.
"Just think that after this, we'll have a nice, warm, huge dinner to look forward to."
That's got to be the stupidest, most unromantic thing I've ever said to anyone in this sort of situation, but she smiles. She probably thinks it's just a quaint, Ayaesque thing.
"And then after, we can go back to our card game," she says with an evil glint in her eye.
"Fine by me," I refuse to give in. "I'm going to win."
It's funny how our flirting before Kobe never led anywhere, but now it's merely a prelude to something bigger.
"That's no fair," Miki whines with a sad voice. "First you defeat me with your looks and your mind and your words, making me fall for you hopelessly, and then you say you'll defeat me at cards? I feel terrible."
I'm about to retort when I realise what she's said.
So I do the only sensible thing I can think of. I kiss her. Being partly submerged in water for this makes it much easier because we can float around and not worry about crushing each other. I wiggle my way above her and hold her back with one hand to help her keep her from sliding down and drowning, while my other hand holds me up.
I promptly slip, and we splash into the water. Water goes up my nose, and I pull up, gasping for air and hacking and coughing. She does the same, but she's laughing at me while she does it. I sit up and mope at how much I just messed that up, but she pinches my arm and tells me not to be upset. Water sports are dangerous. I ask her if maybe we should just take it easy for now, and she growls "no", grabs me by the waist, and attacks me (gently).
Making out in a bathtub requires skill. I guess we have to work on that. We have a good time, though. Better than a good time. We remember a fraction of why we did what we did in Kobe and subsequent days.
After half an hour of just playing around, we get out of the bathtub (surprisingly both alive and not drowned) to dry off and get dressed. Just as we're finished dressing, there's a knock at the door. I go to answer. The server tries not to look at me strangely as he wheels in enough food for a family of four. I thank him and he leaves.
I uncover some of the dishes and look at the food hungrily, but Miki appears beside me like a magical ninja and makes me put the pot lids back on. She takes me by the hand and pushes me onto the bed. She snuggles up beside me, resting her head right in my armpit.
"Miki, I'm really hungry."
She puts a hand on my stomach and rubs it.
"Seriously. I'm starving."
She somehow tugs me so that I'm above her.
"Don't you want me?" she whispers.
I look down and am suddenly hungry for more than just food. I nod.
"Then you can have me."
I waste no time. Food be damned. However, as I'm about to kiss her, she pulls some sort of move and suddenly I'm underneath her and she's smothering me softly with urgent kisses, which I try to return.
She doesn't notice as she runs her hands over me gently, though, that I flinch inside against my will. I shy away. This surprises me, but there's a part of me that's afraid of her losing control. What if she gets carried away? What if something clicks and makes her remember her anger and how she dealt with it before? The violence could be like some sort of addictive drug for her. Now she's in that same position of power, and if she did anything to hurt me, I don't think I could stop her. Not because I'd think I'd deserve it, but because I'd be too upset to believe it.
I blink and realise Miki's stopped. She's looking down at me, her eyebrows knit together. She rolls onto her side and puts a hand on my arm.
"I won't hurt you."
I guess she can read my mind after all.
"I know," I reply automatically.
She takes my chin and turns my head to force me to look at her.
"I won't hurt you," she repeats slowly and seriously as if I never replied.
I sigh and I smile a smile that's overcome with self-admonition. I'm being silly. Of course she won't hurt me. What happened before was isolated. Miki's already demonstrated that she's not like that. I believe her words completely. Even if I can't forget something like that night, I have to try and move beyond it.
"I know."
This time I mean it.
"Don't think that I will ever do that again to you," she continues.
"I believe you," I say warmly, but she refuses to smile at me.
"And I'm very sorry," she apologises, her tone switching from serious to regretful.
"Miki, we already forgave each other about everything. We're over that."
"No, we didn't. We never talked about how I treated you badly when I was angry. I shouldn't have done that just because I didn't think I had you. That was... sick and just wrong."
I look away at the ceiling.
"It wasn't that bad," I say in a barely audible voice. "It's not like I really tried to stop you..."
I look at her and she looks super embarrassed now.
"Don't worry," I assure her. "It was... interesting. It was kind of... good."
She looks surprised.
"In a shocking and wrong way and only because I was feeling bad," I quickly add. "It still upset me even though I totally deserved it. Don't get used to me liking that all the time, though."
She shakes her head vigourously and touches my head.
"Don't expect that from me ever again. Not to that extent, at least," she winks.
I blush and then surprise her by jumping onto her and smothering her with the biggest hug I have ever given anybody in my life. I let my full weight rest on top of her. She returns the hug, squeezing me tightly.
"You're too heavy," she wheezes after a minute. "Can't... breathe..."
I push into her harder.
"What?" I ask in a threatening tone.
"Nothing!" she squeaks.
I smile triumphantly and push myself up again, letting her breathe normally.
"Now try that again when you're not wearing anything and maybe I won't complain," she leers at me.
"When did you become such a pervert?" I ask in shock.
"Oh, come on," she groans, rolling her eyes. "Am I not allowed to say those things to you without getting in trouble? Or have you forgotten what it's like with me?"
I feel my face turn beet red, but I soon relax and become thoughtful.
"It's true. It has been a while."
She grins and shoots her hands up my shirt, startling me.
"Yes. But I don't think people forget things like this easily.
I gulp.
"Yeah, huh."
"I missed you, Aya," Miki whispers sadly.
I bend down to her ear.
"I missed you, too. But it was for the better, right?"
"I guess."
"And it's over now. The waiting. I think I can be completely honest with you now. I'll tell you anything you want to know."
"Just one thing," she says, her hands resting on my ribs.
"What?"
"How much do you love me?"
I roll my eyes. I'm sure that's supposed to be a cute and silly question because she has to be retarded not to know how I feel. I opt for a non-verbal, completely physical response in that I sit up and take her shirt off to reveal a Miki whose body has gotten a little soft around the edges and possibly hotter for it.
My Miki. All mine. I shift down and rest my cheek on her tummy, feeling it rise and fall with every breath she takes. I move my head up and put it against her heart and listen to it beating. It's going quickly. She's nervous.
I find her hands blindly and hold them tightly.
"Don't be scared," I tell her.
"I'm not scared..." she trails off because she knows I can hear her heart beating so quickly.
"I won't hurt you," I say, reminding us both that she wasn't the only one doing the hurting.
"I know."
"Ever."
"I know."
I pull up, look into her eyes, and we have a staring contest much like we did over a month ago before this all started. Back when we were both innocent of any wrongdoings. Back when we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Back when we couldn't control ourselves. I feel that loss of control coming over me again. Any minute now I'll snap. It's a good loss of control. It's the kind that can only come from wanting something so genuinely, so much, that you'll do anything. That's how I feel about Miki.
I drag my hands along her arms from her hands. They climb up her shoulders and I'm soon holding her neck, the part of the body that I consider to be the one most in need of protection. One squeeze, one puncture, and life is gone. It fills me with warmth and confidence when she doesn't flinch as I hold her there. It's how I know she trusts me completely with her life. I can feel every bone and relaxed muscle. It's so soft, but there's something that remains so strong about it. I guess it's just one of those features on a person that can be totally relaxed yet still look imposing. Like a prominent nose or chiselled biceps. Miki has neither of the last two, but she does have broad shoulders that-
What am I doing? I stop analysing her features (because I'm probably boring her), so I start kissing them. She sighs in what I hope is satisfaction. I apologise to her physically for the things I've done. I have said "sorry" enough times to get the point across intellectually, but now I have to show her - with these actions that speak louder than words - that I mean it. On top of that, she needs to know what I'm thinking and how I'm feeling now. Words can't begin to describe it. Actions can't quite convey the meaning. All I can do is try and hope that she can read my mind and know what's in my gut.
I accidentally tickle her ribs with my hands. I honestly don't mean to. My hands just move out of their own volition. She laughs, throwing her head back, arching her back, and trying to push me off of her. Her head is stopped from going far back by the pillow behind it. I murmur an apology and kiss her taut neck, suddenly even hungrier for skin. I finally realise that she tastes faintly of soap. It's not unpleasant, but it's a little funny. It tickles my nose.
"You taste like soap," I inform her of exactly what's on my mind.
"Yeah?" she asks uninterestedly.
She's got her arms wrapped around me and she's drawing things on my back through my shirt.
"It suits you. Nice, clean, well brought up girl."
I continue to devour her neck as I can sense her rolling her eyes at me.
"That's more like you, Miss I-Love-My-Mom," she retorts.
I stop what I'm doing, think about sending my own retort back her way, but then think better of it and continue what I'm doing.
"Whatever."
It's true. I do love my mom and the rest of my family, but I really don't want to think about them right now.
"Still soapy?" Miki asks jokingly.
"Yes," I mumble, my lips pressed against her skin.
I move up and kiss her lips and let her do what she wants with her hands. She's trying to get my shirt off, but I don't move to help. I have my own, passive forms of punishment.
"Move your arms," she mutters, urgency in her voice, hands tangled in my shirt.
"No," I breathe into her mouth.
She grows agitated. I've sparked something in her. She soon gives up and moves her hands down to the waist of my pants. Neither mountains nor belt buckles can stop this girl from touching me. From getting what she wants. But I can. I can stop her.
"Stop."
Her hands freeze.
"Sorry," she yelps.
She puts her hands palm down on the bed and doesn't move. I roll off her and stretch out onto my side. She still doesn't move.
"Miki," I ask in disbelief. "Are you... whipped?"
She frowns at me and grabs me by the shoulders, pinning me down so I can't move. The concept of being afraid seems foreign to me now. This is a good thing.
Miki hovers over me looking like a devil, eyes narrowed, lips curled up in a playful sneer.
"You. Wish."
And she proves to me that I certainly don't have any control over her. I get the point after somehow all my clothes have come off and she's still wearing most of hers. I gripe about how it's unfair, but it's too easy to get me to shut up. Or at least to stop complaining.
Maybe it's just because I remember something different, maybe it's because she's extra aware of it tonight, or maybe even it's just that she's levelled up in her feelings (which to me almost seems impossible that she could be devoted to me any more than she's already claimed), but Miki handles me so gently and so affectionately that I know I can't ever repay those sorts of feelings to her. I don't think that even all the love in the world channelled right at her could ever compete with whatever is going through her head. I love it and I love her, so I enjoy it when she pulls my jeans off and scratches her nails gently up my thighs and kisses my stomach and holds my hands tightly. I whisper her name, which seems to drive her as much nuts as it drives me when my name passes through her lips.
Right now I'm on a cliff, teetering dangerously at the edge. However, one push will send me tumbling not onto jagged rocks and to my death, but to delight and contentment and all that is happiness. If I stay on the cliff, life won't be bad, but the hue will be different. The colours not as bright.
Miki pushes me over the edge in several ways.
I could say that life will never be the same after tonight, but I think what would be more fitting would be to say that life hasn't been the same since I met Miki, and it'll never ever be the same whether she's around or not. With her I've learned to expect not a stable life, but something that's changing and exciting all the time. It seems like whether it's been good or whether it's been bad, it's always led up to an excellent ending. A climactic ending, if you will.
As I fall through the air and towards the heavenly water below, I smile. I grab one of those shoulders of hers and squeeze, digging my fingers in as if to touch her blood and bones so that I can directly feel those things that make her exist. Of course I don't break the skin or leave marks that will last beyond a minute or two, but it's enough to imagine that I'm closer to her than I've ever been.
And when I hit the water, I'm submerged in warmth and I hug her snugly for a few minutes, overcome with feelings that completely drown out any remorse or fear that I ever dared to let get to me tonight. I even forget that I was starving a while ago.
Then she lets go. I feel a little chilly from the air conditioned air and I pull her back towards me, latching on tightly. She looks a little surprised at first, but her expression softens and as soon as I trust myself to move steadily, she lets me do what I want to her. What I know she wants.
Hours later, Miki is asleep, cuddled into me in a familiar way as I lie awake watching her and thinking.
How many gods did I have to piss off to lose her in the first place? Probably a lot. Our attraction to one another is too strong to be broken by merely one divine will. It must have taken dozens of them to get us to make mistakes and then hundreds of them to get us to fight about it. We beat them in the end.
What Miki and I have goes beyond fate or destiny or other such celestial forces that I don't really believe in anyway. Put us on opposite ends of Earth and we'll journey through whatever dangers in order to meet up halfway. It's not destiny. It's just that I'm me, and she's she, and together, we're two friendly, talented, stubborn, gorgeous girls walking down that same path of youth, hand-in-hand and heads in the clouds.
-The end of story 3
-
Love x 2 - 1
story 4
Chapter 1 of 35
It has been eight years since I last saw her in person.
For some reason I think about that fact on this fine autumn afternoon. The wind is still mild, but hidden in it is a hint of the chill that's just around the corner. I can feel it in the mornings when I wake up early for work. Winter will come soon. Time to pull out the dusty heaters.
It's a quarter past five pm and it's getting dark. I'm sitting on my balcony listening to some old music and drinking tea. I'm wearing a t-shirt, but I know that I'll need to go back inside and get a sweatshirt soon if I plan to stay out. Until that time, I'll stay as I am.
I look through the spaces between the rails and see urban sprawl. It has become a comforting vista these past few years. It's my home now, and no matter how unsightly it is, I always feel glad to return to it. I also always reserve a space in my heart for those sad, longing feelings I get. They mix with my nostalgia. My yearning for things of the past, things that are long gone now.
She comes to mind again. She often does during contemplative moments like these. She's smiling at me, her laugh lines and dimples so pronounced it's as if they've been etched into her cheeks permanently from too much laughter.
Eight years. Eight years and I can still remember her face, the sound of her voice, her smell, the things she'd say, her style.
I close my eyes and inhale deeply. I'm so alive. My stomach growls.
I think of her and I smile tartly. Whenever she'd hear my stomach growl she'd tease me without fail. Now it's just a funny memory, but back then it was a chance to bite back and defend myself, pretending to give her the cold shoulder until she pitied me and found me some food. I was so spoiled by her.
Now that I think about it, I shouldn't have wasted any opportunity to be close to her, even when playing around. All those times I played it up, cutely pretending to be offended and jokingly keeping her at a distance... I'd give those up if it meant one extra hug or kiss. An opportunity to touch and feel warmth.
Because now I have none.
I sigh and think about what to eat to fill my stomach up. I run through a list of meals I could make or buy, but nothing appeals to me. I open my eyes and look into my apartment. It's surprisingly neat, although there's one piece of junk lying on the kitchen counter. It's from a few days ago. It's a Kit Kat wrapper. I eye it and realise what I'm craving.
Chocolate.
I get up and find my stash - I always have some on hand - and I settle down on my couch. Chocolate will be my dinner today. I deserve it. I need it
Just before I start to pop a square into my mouth, I distinctly remember something from my past. A certain conversation from... how long ago was it? Twelve years. It was twelve years ago and I remember it like it was last week.
We were in Kobe. It was the first moment in our relationship where we finally admitted to each other that we felt there was something more than friendship between us. A new kind of love that differed from the innocent, friendly one we had for each other before. It was a moving night, but this conversation I'm remembering is from the next morning.
Chocolate.
I giggle and put the square in my mouth. I close my eyes, leaning my head against the wall and relishing the taste of the chocolate and my memories.
-
Chapter 2 of 35
That was a quite a night, was the first thing I thought when I woke up. The second thing I thought was, Someone please stop that ringing.
The phone was screaming out in a very loud and obnoxious way. I suddenly felt a hand touch my back, and I heard a slight groan accompany it. The mattress moved as a body turned around.
I was too lazy to open my eyes, but my heart skipped a beat, my internal organs liquefied instantly. I stayed very still and waited. She rolled up and I heard her yank the phone off the hook.
"Hello?" she rasped out quietly. There was a pause, some muttered response from her that I could barely make out, and then the phone was slammed down.
"Fuck," she muttered under her breath, and I contained my laughter. "Stupid stupid ug crap."
She could say the rudest, foulest things, but Aya would always remain sounding nothing less than adorable.
She didn't lie back down, however, and that's when I started to panic.
Adorable and cute Aya.
What was going through her head now? Was she suddenly remembering what happened and realizing how big a mistake it was? Was she feeling awkward or scared of what I might think? Was last night a one-time thing for us, after which we'd return to our regular friendship until years later when we accidentally got drunk and did it again?
I thoroughly berated myself as I lay there pretending to be asleep, scared of having to get up and face utter humiliation. I could just imagine her sitting there, staring at the sheets and wondering how to get out of this situation, staring at her hands and wondering how she could have touched me as something more than just a friend.
If last night turned out to meaningless, I would most likely cry. I'd told her so many things and probably made a fool of myself. She said things, too, over the course of the night that I thought meant she felt the same way, but now I wasn't so sure. People said things all the time, but often under some sort of influence. In this case it was raging hormones, one of the most powerful and addictive drugs that gave the best kind of high.
I knew for sure that I hadn't simply been a hostage to my hormones the night before, because at that moment I felt the exact same (if not stronger) feelings for her as when I was at my highest of highs sometime in the early morning.
As I sunk further into a deep, darkening well of depression, I felt her move. I knew she was going to quietly go off and get showered and dressed before me.
That's why it surprised me when she reached down and pulled the sheets up over me, tucking me in gently so that I wouldn't get cold. I felt her settle down beside me, and I could feel her breath on my hand.
Suddenly, all was right in the world.
With that action, I finally relaxed and banished all depressing thoughts from my mind. She wouldn't have stayed with me like this if she didn't feel something. She had shown me the truth last night...
I lay there with my eyes closed, basking in the aura of relaxation that I could feel coming off of her. I could even feel her eyes on me. I knew she was watching me. My arm muscle twitched involuntarily and I was momentarily afraid that she'd guess I was awake, but she didn't say anything.
I was filled with unexplainable love, and it burst forth from me in the guise of sleep talking.
"Love you, Aya."
And I repeated it. Then I rolled over and opened my eyes, staring straight at her. She looked bewildered. I closed my eyes again and settled onto my back, repeating my phrase.
"Love you, Aya. Love you, Aya."
"Speak louder, you dummy, " she whispered to me.
So I spoke louder in order for her to hear what I was saying. I felt her put her head on my pillow, and I knew for certain that I had her. I opened my eyes, smiled, and repeated my phrase a few more times.
"Love you, Aya. Love you, Aya."
I patted the surprised girl on the cheek.
"Good morning," I said happily.
Aya stared at me as if I'd grown horns and a moustache. She asked if I was awake and then she began interrogating me.
"Who's the prime minister?" she demanded.
"Who cares?" I retorted, rolling onto my side and putting an arm around her.
"Are you messing around with me?" she asked with a suspicious glare.
"No, but I'm just about to start," I laughed, and I let my hand wander to her ribs.
She didn't let me continue. She put a hand on my hand and stopped it.
"Okay, wait. What were you just saying?"
"My mantra. Do I get a good morning kiss, or what?" I asked, moving in towards her.
She was having none of that. She continued to grill me, but I took it all patiently. She wanted to know how long I'd been awake, and I answered, in a "duh" tone, since the phone rang.
She groaned and put her head back down on my pillow and insisted on knowing why I hadn't said anything. I didn't want to ruin the moment and tell her I'd been freaked out, so I gave her the other half of the reason.
"Because I like it when your guard is down in the morning."
I'm pretty sure she liked that answer. We continued with our banter for a bit before we settled into a brief silence, during which I took pride in how I'd handled things. I'd done the right thing. By acting like a goofball, we'd had no time to feel awkward.
"Did you have fun?" I asked suddenly.
I just needed to make sure. I wanted to make sure that last night had happened and that she acknowledged it.
"When? Last night?" Aya asked.
I nodded, wondering what she'd say.
"Yes, I did."
Three simple, quietly spoken words. A pleasant smile.
That was enough to make my heart soar past cloud nine to some higher level of happiness.
"Good. Me too."
And I lay there in bliss.
We were quiet for a moment until my stomach growled. I don't think she heard it, but I definitely felt it.
"So when's breakfast?" I asked casually. She told me and then scolded me, asking if all I thought about was food.
I gave her a snotty look, but inside I felt all warm and melty. She was expecting me to be all morning-after romantic? I could be. I really could be for her. I could be more than just romantic. I could be sexy and cute and sweet and assertive. I could even be awake, an important thing for the early morning. I could give her all of that and more.
"Maybe," I replied to her question. "But it's ok."
I climbed on top of her and pushed her onto her back. She looked surprised.
"I don't mind breakfast in bed."
And then she looked thrilled. I gained sixteen-thousand confidence points. I was doing the right thing.
We messed around a bit in bed. It was more fun and cute than anything else. This time I took control because she was sluggish from sleep.
Silly morning head, I thought lovingly as I looked down at her sleepy face, her eyes barely open.
I talked to her sweetly, teased her gently, made her giggle and roll her eyes... I didn't even know what I was saying. Dumb stuff. But she liked it, and I liked saying it.
Finally after a while, Aya spoke up.
"Miki, it's just past seven. If you want your precious breakfast before we leave, we should get ready."
I thought about it and how I should reply. On the one hand I could play the offended victim. Ask her why she was checking the time when I was putting all my effort into giving her a fun time. On the other hand I could agree and actually eat some much-needed food. I didn't know about her, but I got really really hungry after active nights like that.
I finally settled on a nod.
"Yeah, maybe we should," I agreed.
It was the practical solution. I kissed her quickly and then rolled off the bed, grabbing her arms and pulling her up after me.
"Come on, the shower's big enough for two. It'll be faster," I insisted, taking her hand.
She looked at me warily and I grinned back.
"I promise we won't take more than fifteen minutes."
She gave in far too easily, and so we took a shower together.
We may as well have stayed in bed until eight o'clock for all the time it saved us.
One can look at it as my fault for starting it, or one can realise that if I hadn't started it, she would have. There I was taking a shower with the hottest person I'd ever spent a night in bed with. How could I not at least touch her?
So that's how it started. I just touched her shoulder and ran my finger across her upper back, creating a trail through the water drops, a trail that quickly closed up again because of the water constantly spraying down on our bodies.
Aya turned around and looked at me with an impish smile that spoke volumes. I raised an eyebrow and returned her smile, turning away and picking up the shampoo. I lathered up and then handed her the bottle. As she lathered, I rinsed. As she rinsed, I took the conditioner bottle. We repeated.
While she was rinsing the conditioner from her hair, I leaned against the tiled wall and watched her. She knew I was watching, but she refused to look back. When she was done, she reached for the soap and a wash cloth. I righted myself up and smoothly took the two things from her. She looked at me inquisitively and I shot her a brief winning smile before letting my face fall back into its relaxed expression.
I couldn't very well let her wash herself. I did it for her.
It was a new experience. Washing someone, washing her. It was different and a little strange, but nice. She stood there and let me, so I figured she must be enjoying it, too.
As I let my hands play around her body with the pretence of lathering up soap, I wondered if spreading soap on someone's body was the same as sex with chocolate syrup. Of course chocolate syrup was meant to be licked off, and soap, while nice and clean, was not. I caught myself wondering if Aya would be into that - chocolate sex.
As I rinsed the soap off of her body, I made myself blush thinking about how I'd get all the chocolate off of her. She noticed my look and grabbed me by the shoulders, pinning me to the cold, wet wall.
"What are you thinking about? What's that face?" she asked playfully.
I blushed and looked down, turned even redder because I was staring at her chest, and then looked back up at her grinning, curious face. I felt like such a little kid.
"Nothing," I mumbled.
She pressed her body into mine, making me gulp.
"What?" she asked again.
I must have turned the colour of a lobster, but I quickly regained my mask of cool.
"I was just wondering what you'd taste like if I spread chocolate all over your body and licked it all off," I stated bluntly.
I felt her heart speed up.
"Oh," she managed to say.
I grinned, no longer embarrassed. I crushed my lips against hers, turning us around and pushing her against the wall. I dropped the wash cloth in the process, clean thoughts all forgotten.
"Maybe one day we can try that," I mumbled without thinking.
I kissed down her neck.
"Uh huh," she replied distractedly.
"We'll buy lots of chocolate syrup," I continued along my path slowly.
"Yeah."
"So much that the cashier will look at us funny."
"Yeah."
"And then-"
"Uh huh?"
"-we'll go to my place - or yours -"
"Uh huh."
"-and take a bath."
"Right."
"And when we're done that, and nice and dry-" I was kneeling down and kissing her belly button at this point.
"Yeah..."
"I'll lay you down on the bed-"
"Y-yeah."
"-and spread chocolate all over your thighs-"
She wheezed out an affirmative response, unable to form proper words.
"-and I'll lick it all up. Every square millimetre. Every trace of chocolate."
I kissed the inside of her thigh and ran my tongue across it, a preview of what I'd do on the day we had chocolate sex.
"And then when I'm done that..." I said, abruptly standing up to face her.
Her eyes had been closed, her head leaned back against the wall. She snapped open her eyes and looked at me.
"And?" she asked.
"And when I've made you scream out my name a gazillion times," I continued, holding her waist and pushing her against the wall again harder.
"A gazillion times," she echoed breathlessly.
"Once I've done that and made you as weak as a starving kitten-"
"Mmhmm?"
I put my mouth right up to her ear.
"-then it's your turn to do me."
We were very late that morning.
-
Chapter 3 of 35
We never ended up doing that - having chocolate sex. Not like that, at least. We were too obsessed with each other to bother with things like chocolate syrup or blindfolds and handcuffs. We didn't need props, costumes, or imaginary scenarios. Our raw selves were more than enough.
We did have fun with chocolate, though. We'd sometimes buy the expensive stuff and go to one of our apartments and eat it in a ceremonious way. We'd devote one hundred percent of ourselves to the act of consuming the chocolate. We'd sometimes feed it to each other, but there were no interruptions. Once we'd had enough chocolate, we'd devote our entire selves to each other. No interruptions.
I open my eyes again and realise that I've been lost in my daydream for twenty minutes. I sigh. I have no plans tonight. I continue to think.
When did we ever talk about what happened in Kobe? We didn't mention it a lot when we were still together. It was something that had happened and led us to something better, so we never felt the need to really analyse it.
I search my memory and become frightened because I know that we did talk about it once or twice and now I'm having trouble remembering when that was. It was... It was... I finally remember. It was a few days later, just before we had to go back to work after our (failed) vacation and just after she got back from a charity concert in Yamanashi. We had gone shopping for food. We went back to her place, we cooked, we chatted. That's also when we acknowledged the enormity that was Kobe.
-
Chapter 4 of 35
"Pass the salt," Aya said.
I obediently did so. Rule number one of keeping a happy Aya was not to defy her in the kitchen. Never ever ever. She'd go all Kansai on my butt if I did.
She sprinkled salt on the two eggs that were frying in the pan. I watched them. One of the eggs' yolks had broken, but the other's was still intact. In a way it reminded me of me and her. The unbroken-yolked egg was her. She was neat, put together, organized, and a perfectionist. I was the runny egg: messy, confused, in favour of simple, one dimensional designs, and never thinking before speaking.
I laughed at it in my head. I was comparing us to eggs.
Eggs frying in a pan together. Eggs joined by... Well, the egg white, of course. The whites of each egg had mixed together as to make them indistinguishable from one another. But the one's runny yolk, too, got thrown into the mix. Was it some sort of symbol? My stupidity brought us together? Or she felt responsible for me and thus helped by reaching out and holding my hand? Or maybe, even, it showed that I was all over her all the time. I grinned outwardly. I liked that interpretation.
Without looking, Aya reached out a hand and brushed her hand along my cheek.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked curiously.
She always asked me that question. She seemed ten years older, her tone of voice, her ability to split her attention perfectly between two things (me and the eggs). It awed me.
My grin widened and, of course without thinking, I launched into an explanation of my egg theory. When I was finished, so were the eggs. She turned the heat off, put the spatula down, and faced me squarely.
"So you think that a frying pan full of runny egg is a good metaphor for us?" she asked without a single trace of mocking in her voice.
Put like that, it made my whole idea sound so idiotic. I laughed, which prompted her to laugh.
"Well..." I said with a shrug.
She giggled some more and looked very amused.
"Maybe the broken yolk symbolises your brain," she teased me.
"Hmph!"
We continued to cook, but now I had questions running through my mind. I had to ask.
"What exactly are we, Aya?"
She put down her stirring spoon and looked at me curiously.
"What are we? Like you and me as human beings?"
She wasn't quite getting it.
"I mean... Saturday morning we were best friends. Sunday morning we woke up and we were...?"
"Still best friends," she filled in without a pause.
"And?" I asked.
"And?" she asked back.
"And more?" I tried. I was confused. Maybe our definitions of 'best friend' were different. Or not.
"What do you think?" she asked me.
I shrugged.
"I don't know. I'm asking you. Are you, like, my girlfriend now or something?"
She snorted as the word "girlfriend" left my lips. I quickly rethought it and hummed. It did seem pretty ridiculous to call her that. Like she'd been demoted. Like the same title given to so many girls in the world could explain what she was to me. I told her with a nod and a look that I understood what she thought and that I agreed.
"My lover?" I tried again, but the moment the words left my mouth, I wanted to take it back. I almost laughed at the thought of calling her that. It seemed so... silly.
That wasn't it, either. Definitely not. She shrugged.
"Why can't we just be Aya and Miki? I'm your Aya. You're my Miki," she suggested simply. "It's not like we're two totally new people today. We just opened up new sides to each other."
I liked the sound of it. She was smart! But did it mean...?
"But does it mean that, well- if there's... well, if you ever met, um, another, uh-" I stumbled.
She silenced me with a hand on my wrist and one shake of her head.
"No. When I say I'm your Aya, I mean I'm yours only. Nobody else's."
I smiled and held her hand.
"Okay. Me too. Yours only. Promise."
She laughed at my casual tone, but she squeezed my hand tightly.
"So two nights ago was..." I started.
"Was the best night I've ever had. I only expect my nights to get better."
I liked the sound of that, and I guaranteed her that any time spent with me would be fun.
"Can you get the rice? It's finished."
I blinked. My jaw might have dropped open a bit. Did Aya just interrupt a meaningful conversation in order to tell me that the rice was finished cooking?
She looked at me impatiently and I just nodded like a zombie and went to turn the rice cooker off. I opened the lid and was surprised by two things. One was a huge cloud of steam blowing right into my face. The smell of rice invaded my nostrils in an unpleasant, choking, and burning way. The second thing was a pair of arms wrapping around me and hugging me tightly, pulling me away from the danger zone and into another kind of danger zone.
"Sorry, I love doing that to you," Aya confessed into my shoulder. "You're just so... vulnerable."
She always did this to me. We'd be deep in conversation about something serious and then she'd bust out with some sort of command so off topic and so unimportant that I'd be surprised into going along with her.
I pursed my lips together slyly and leaned my head back against her forehead.
"When will I ever learn to stop obeying your every single command?" I wondered aloud.
"The day I leave you," she laughed.
"Aya, don't say that!" I cried out in shock, upset but laughing.
What a way to throw a bucket of cold water on a potentially steamy situation.
She giggled into my neck.
"I'm joking. I'm jooooking!"
"God, you're horrible," I lamented.
She squeezed me more tightly.
"Whatcha gonna do about it?" she asked.
I ignored her and I started walking to the fridge. She clung on, so we must've looked like an awkward set of conjoined twins that hadn't learned how to coordinate their movements yet. I opened the fridge and took out one of the onions we'd bought earlier. Then, with the Aya parasite on my back, I went to the counter, grabbed a knife, and started chopping, both of us staying silent the whole time.
A few minutes after I started crying, Aya let go. She was crying, too, wiping at her eyes.
"You are so mean," she sniffed, backing away from the onion.
"You are so annoying," I shot back.
I continued chopping and she stood off to the side. Halfway through the onion, I stopped. I snuck a look sideways. She was standing with her arms crossed and watching me with a blank look. I returned her expressionless gaze, and then out of nowhere, the corner of my lip turned upwards. I saw her mouth twitch. The corner of her lip also turned up. In no time I cracked up and started laughing. She joined me, and we laughed gleefully.
"I can't believe you," she said.
"I can't believe how much you make me want to smack you when you act like that," I replied.
We laughed for a long time and then continued cooking because we were very very hungry.
-
Chapter 5 of 35
I am suddenly filled with inexplicable anger. I open my eyes and step out of my dream again. I wish Aya was here right now so that I could smack her hard for leaving me. I clench my fists and imagine yelling at her and telling her exactly what I think. Eight years ago, just gone. It's not fair. What about me?
I calm down and take some deep breaths. It happens sometimes that I become so angry that I can't think properly. I think things that I regret. I feel guilty because there are some things and people you're not supposed to think ill of. Aya is one of them now. I can't think bad things about her. I mean... she's Aya.
And sometimes at times like this, I become depressed because it's been eight years and I'm still getting like this over her. I can't let go and accept that she's not in my life anymore. I have to move on, I tell myself. Move on.
My only problem is that I have nobody to help me move on. Sure I have close friends, but I don't think anyone really understands just how deep a thing I have - no, had - with that girl.
I look down at my hands. They're shaking slightly. It could be the chocolate. I don't eat it that often. This past week has been different, though. I've had big things on my mind and for some reason I've really needed chocolate to help me deal with them.
I try to remember the last time I was this upset over matters concerning Aya.
I close my eyes...
-
Chapter 6 of 35
The night started with a ring of the doorbell. I was warming up some food with a cute documentary about some sort of monkeys in Africa playing on the TV.
Lately I'd been worried about Aya. She was very distracted, especially the night before. She hadn't been acting herself for the past few days. It was strange because she had been the one to snap me out of a paranoid streak where I'd been afraid to even look at her in public. Now she was the one getting quiet around me, and I was trying to comfort her, but I had no idea what I was supposed to be comforting her about. She refused to tell me.
I suspected the worst. I wondered if I'd done something wrong. I was too scared to face the truth, though. It confused me too much. She acted all interested and happy for one minute, during which I was absolutely convinced that we were okay. But then the next minute she would become quiet, look worried, and then clam up about why. I grew very uncomfortable around her at those times. I tried not to show it (which didn't matter that much since she was so distracted anyway).
I decided that the best way to make her relax was to do everything for her. I'd let her have one evening where she didn't have to do a bit of work beyond chewing food.
When the bell rang, I knew it was her. I dropped my chopsticks and skipped over to the door, excitedly pulling in a surprised Aya.
I studied her for a moment. She looked tired. Her eyes were a little less sparkly than usual.
She needs rest, I thought. I had her sit down on the couch after quizzing her about how long she could stay over, and then I proceeded to feed her dinner (not quite literally).
Maki's yakisoba was a hit. Aya loved it. She made of fun of me for not being able to cook. I defended myself, but deep down inside I knew that she was right. I'd never really cared to learn properly before no matter how good my mom was. But lately I'd felt the need to learn. Like it would make me feel more grown up or a bit more likeable. If I could cook something for an important person (like Aya), it would make me feel good. I'd be helping somehow. I was embarrassed to also admit that I wouldn't mind having an important person (like Aya) being astounded by something I made being so delicious and telling me so in an unequivocal way. I liked it when she complimented me...
We ate, play-argued, and watched TV. That's when Aya's eyes glazed over.
We were watching an interview of a new singer who had released a single under a small, unheard of company. I was impressed that she'd gotten a spot on such a high profile show. I turned to comment to Aya, but she just sat there with a vacant look on her face. I sighed and moved up to the couch, lying down comfortably. She didn't react.
I said a few things to her over the course of ten minutes, but she didn't reply. She didn't seem to have heard. I got bored and poked her in the shoulder with my toe.
"How-?" she asked when she turned around and saw me lying on the couch.
"You either really like this new singer on TV or you spaced out again. I've been trying to get your attention for ten minutes," I said, trying not to let too much ice into my voice.
"Sorry, I..." she trailed off.
"You're tired and you spaced out," I finished for her. She looked guilty. "Aya, I wanted you to come over so that you could just relax. A bit of home cooking, TV, and just sitting around doing nothing should do the trick. Whatever is on your mind, just let it go. It's not important right now. There's nothing you can do at a quarter to eight in the evening."
I just wished she'd tell me what was going on. I could help her, or at least support her. If only she'd tell me...
She looked anxious and she put a hand on her forehead, massaging it on her own.
"Headache again?" I asked almost in disbelief.
Either she was lying and she was trying to distract me, or she was telling the truth, which meant she was probably running herself into the ground with stress.
Aya nodded and I rolled off the couch to join her. I was starting to become annoyed, but I ignored it. I put an arm around her shoulders.
"Tell me what I can do to help you," I begged her.
I looked at the side of her face and I could almost see the wheels turning inside her brain. Her eyebrows furrowed just a little as if she was in pain.
"Just stay here," she said in a tiny voice.
I knew what she meant, but I made a joke and told her that it was no problem since I lived there.
"No, I mean just stay beside me."
She looked embarrassed saying that. I wanted to tell her not to be afraid of being like that with me - admitting she needed help in the form of someone by her side. I wasn't going to tell anyone. I wasn't going to laugh inappropriately at her. I certainly wasn't going to ditch her. She knew I was there for her. She knew that I was on call all the time, and that if she needed anything at four in the afternoon or four in the morning, I'd be there to help. She knew that my love for her transcended all sorts of barriers, definitions, and conventions. I may not have been the brightest person, may not have had access to convenient gadgets, or may not have been rich enough to buy a jet, but I had a heart big enough for her. A heart big enough to give most of it to her. She knew that.
Or I hoped she knew that.
"If you want to talk..." I tried once more.
"There's nothing to talk about. I'm just stressed over work."
That hurt like hell. It was like she was brushing me off. She was looking down at me and telling me I was not needed. That I was not worth telling her feelings to. I seethed with anger. Some of it was directed towards her, but most of it was directed towards myself because I didn't know what to do. I must have failed somewhere along the way and made her not want to tell me what was going on. I tried to retrace my steps to see where I'd gone wrong. While I did this, I thought I'd better do something to show that at least I was paying attention.
"Okay."
And I settled by her side. I was continually filled with emotions that I felt bad feeling. I wanted to push her away and cry and tell her to stop leaving me in the dark. But doing that might make her feel worse, and the worst thing in the world for me was when Aya was feeling bad. I could be in the hospital with a broken leg, four missing teeth, and hepatitis C, yet I'd only cry if she dropped her ice cream on the ground.
I could be raging mad at her and want to do nothing but hug her.
The mysterious things that girl did to me...
-
Chapter 7 of 35
Remembering that moment has cured me of my anger. For now.
I get up to get a glass of water, but I'm sidetracked by a sudden thought. I've remembered something.
I go to my television set and turn on channel four. I'm just in time.
There she is on TV.
Matsuura Aya, the pride of Japan.
I sit down across the room and watch. She looks so good. They're showing clips of her old videos first, and something in me feels overwhelmed with love again. She may be a teenager in those videos, but I know what she becomes after a few years.
There she is singing about mail and tropical vacations. I suddenly want to return to the past. Maybe the day we first met. We were so cute back then. So stupid and cute.
How drastically things change. We went from dumb little cute angels to sexy vixens. I won't deny it. We were hot individually and together. What we couldn't show on camera, we did together after hours.
I close my eyes and ignore the TV program, remembering what happened right after I was finished being angry with her that night she came over.
-
Chapter 8 of 35
We sat together and watched TV for an hour. I could feel her entire body was tense, but she didn't seem to space out at all. I would casually look at her from time to time and she looked like she was concentrating hard on staying awake. She was staring at the TV with such fierce intensity that I was almost afraid to say anything because she might have a heart attack from surprise.
Our eyes met once. She saw me looking at her and turned her head. I didn't know what to do, but she smiled. I smiled back. That was pretty much all our interaction for the whole hour (other than sitting right beside each other).
After that hour I realised it was getting silly just sitting there. I wasn't even paying attention to the TV. I was desperately trying to figure out what the big picture was in my real life. When the TV show ended, I took my (numb) arm from her shoulders and grabbed the remote to flick the set off.
"How's your headache?" I asked.
"Almost better," she replied with a small smile.
One small smile was all it took to make me want to hug her for eternity. I settled with kissing the top of her head quickly.
"Come on. Bedtime," I said while standing up and extending a hand to help her up.
She grabbed on and I pulled her up. She went to get her bag and followed me into my room, putting her bag down in the corner. I walked over to her and put a hand on her arm and pushed her to the door.
"You go take a shower first. I've got to clean up here, okay?" I said.
I felt like I was an adult taking care of a small child. It was a strange role reversal because usually she was the one who babied me.
She nodded and went off to wash herself. I tidied up the room so that it could pass for something inhabitable, and then I took a shower once she was done. I stood under the showerhead, staring at the floor for about a minute while my hair was thoroughly soaked.
Were we really okay?
I didn't know anymore. My anger left completely. I became plain sad. Maybe we'd ruined a perfectly good friendship. Maybe we shouldn't have jumped into this situation. We were now practically living together. Eating, breathing, sleeping together. We shared everything from ice cream to clothes to germs. Maybe we were too young to be doing that. There was nobody around to control us and tell us what was good for us and what was bad for us. Maybe someone with an objective opinion would have told us we were making a big mistake or conducting our relationship incorrectly.
I trusted Aya to know what she was doing (or at least to have more of a clue), but right now she wasn't really being approachable. I was scared to ask her if we were all right. I might make things awkward. She might get angry.
As a result, I was lost and directionless.
I shook my head and reminded myself that I was in the shower and was thus wasting water by only standing there. I sped through the rest of my routine and got out quickly.
Back in my room, Aya was sitting on the floor checking her messages, and so I got into my pyjamas quickly. I decided to drop my worries and try to keep positive and have fun. I had to check and see if we were still cool, and I thought the best way to do that was for me to relax.
I playfully jumped into my bed and snuggled under the covers, pulling them over my head. I watched Aya finish writing a message. When she looked up, all she saw was my head poking out as if I was a shy turtle. She belted out a few notes of laughter and put her phone away, slipping into the bed and lying on her side.
I turned around to face her and we did what I call an exchange of "ho hum" looks. That's just an exchange of looks that says, "well, here we are on this typical day." Not smiling, but not bored or angry. Just normal.
"Here we are, huh?" I said.
"Hmm. Here we are."
It was one of those still moments where if one of us moved, the intensity of the movement would be magnified by two hundred per ent because of the overwhelming presence of stillness. It would be a huge, loud action. It would be awkward as it would sharply pierce the silence.
I pulled the covers away from my head and reached out, brushing her hair back behind her ear.
I was never one for subtlety in bed.
I slid closer to her, propping myself up on my elbow and resting my head on my hand. I stared at her for a while. She stared back for a bit, smirked, and then rolled onto her back to look up at the ceiling. She reached up and took my hand out of her hair, holding it lightly. She moved our hands to the space between us, placing them on the bed.
I continued to look at her, wondering what was going through her head. What did she think about me right at this moment? Was she even thinking about me at all? Maybe she was thinking about work... or about that thing that was bothering her. Maybe she didn't want me touching her at all. Maybe she wanted to sleep. Maybe-
Oh shut up, Miki! I yelled at myself.
I was such an idiot. I couldn't just go with the flow and relax. Not with my ability to easily become paranoid.
But my problem was that I worried so much because it was her. Nothing short of perfection was acceptable from me when it came to her. I had to make sure everything was perfect perfect perfect. Just like her.
It was a funny paradox. She was the only one I could completely relax and be my real self around, but she was the one who made me most uptight. Well, at least lately.
It used to not be like that...
I mentally glared at my train of thought and made it stop. Just in time, too, because Aya turned her head to look at me. She looked happy. I became much calmer.
I let my eyes wander down her blanket-covered body. I imagined the blanket wasn't there and I smiled. Nothing like a cute thought to relax me.
"Do you know that your pyjamas are my favourite outfit on you?" I asked her.
I'd always thought so. I loved how I could speak my mind about things like that so easily.
"Really?" she asked with a frown.
She was probably thinking of the time and effort she put into making herself look good during the day and was confused about why I didn't seem to appreciate it as much.
"Mm hmm," I said quickly. "Because you look cute. Any girl can look good if she spends enough time in front of the mirror. But they need the makeup and the fashionable clothes. You can look so hot without anything fancy on."
"Don't be stupid," Aya rolled her eyes, but I think she secretly agreed. "Besides, I've seen something cuter: You wearing my pyjamas. I have the picture just in case you've forgotten," she reminded me.
I giggled. Of course I remembered that. It was only last weekend.
"And you know what else I like about them? Your pyjamas?" I asked, scooting in a little closer, taking my hand out of hers and playing with the neckline of her shirt.
"What?" she asked with an amused smile.
"They're so easy to take off."
She laughed in disbelief and looked up at the ceiling.
"Sometimes I swear you have a teenaged boy's mind," she groaned. "You can't go five seconds without thinking about naked bodies and sex."
"Whaaat?" I whined, rolling onto my stomach and resting both elbows by her head, my chin resting on both hands.
It was at times like these that I felt so confident and so strong because she trusted me. I could talk like this with her because I knew she didn't mind. In fact, she liked it.
"Then again, I can't complain. I knew you were like this before I surrendered myself to you as your latest victim."
"Surrendered? Victim?" I chuckled. "Careful, Aya-chan. You keep going down that vocabulary path and you'll be talking dirty in no time."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you," Aya sighed.
I bared my teeth with a wide grin.
"I wouldn't complain."
I was completely in my element again. Aya was the only person who had ever seen this side of my personality. It felt good to let loose.
I swooped down to kiss her, but she quickly brought up a hand between our faces and stopped me. I raised my eyebrows.
"What's this?" I grumbled.
"I have a question."
"Yeah?"
I was impatient. We didn't have forever to live. We were wasting precious seconds.
"Do you prefer me as my normal self or when I talk like that and say risky things?"
I laughed at her question.
"What a stupid question," I said. "Of course the normal you. I talk riskily enough for the both of us."
She seemed pleased with my answer.
"Okay, I like that. But what if-"
"Sh!" I demanded.
"But I want to ask if-"
I stuck out my tongue and licked the back of her hand in the sloppiest way I could.
"Ew," she said with distaste. She wiped her hand on the sheets. "I was saying I wa-"
But my plan had worked perfectly, and now that her hand was out of the way, I could make her shut up with my lips. I couldn't help but smile with glee. I was so smart sometimes. A little gross, but effective. I didn't let her finish her sentence. It was forgotten in no time, anyway, and I proved to her that what I was said about taking off her pyjamas was very true. She also showed me that my pyjamas were pretty easy, too.
But of course.
However, in the midst of our fun, I wondered if she wanted to sleep. She'd been really out of it before, and she did have a headache. Maybe she was just humouring me now, letting me enjoy myself a bit before calling it quits and going to sleep.
I was propped up over her, playing with her hair and touching her face, counting all the moles I could find. I always ended up with a different number. It was so hard to keep track...
"Are you okay?" I asked her seriously in mid-count.
"I'm fine," she replied simply.
"Do you want me to stop?" I asked, looking at her, my eyes probably wide enough to fit giant question marks in them.
She took a hold of my forearm and squeezed gently.
"Don't start things you don't intend to finish," she whispered back at me.
It was seductive and it convinced me instantly, but I had to take a stab at her first.
"You're the one who likes to do that," I teased.
She had a tendency to start lots of things - movies, books, hobbies - that she never ended up continuing. It was cute, but a bit strange. Her shelf was full of all sorts of random books that you wouldn't associate with her current tastes - oil painting, French, knitting...
I eyed her hungrily now that I had permission to continue, but she seemed to become lost in thought again. This time, however, it wasn't the same concerned distraction. It was more pensive. She even looked happy, like she was remembering something good.
"What are you thinking?" I asked her a question that was quickly becoming overused between us.
No answer.
"Aya?" I asked tentatively.
No reply again. I shrugged and then kissed her. She twitched and woke back up.
"What are you thinking about?"
"The past three and a half years," she replied. I was surprised that she actually answered me.
"And what in particular?" I asked. I wanted to believe that she was thinking about me. If she said she was, then I thought I could get through the night just fine.
"You, among other things," she replied haughtily.
Two can play at this game, I thought.
"What other things?" I asked, putting my face right up to hers in an intimidating way.
"Fun stuff we've done," was her hasty reply.
I grinned and kept my position.
"But not as fun as this past weekend," I stated, daring her to go against my words.
"No, a different kind of fun."
Like a plummeting plane, her face suddenly dropped. She looked upset, maybe disgusted.
Oh no, I thought in terror. This is it.
I thought that maybe in retrospect it was all wrong to her. Now that she could look back on a few days, she was beginning to see that it wasn't working.
For once I decided to say something about it.
"Okay, I hope the look on your face doesn't tell me how much you like what we've been doing the past few days because if it does, I'll just excuse myself and go sleep on the couch."
I started to roll off of her and get up, serious about going to sleep elsewhere, but she grabbed my shoulders and held me there. I wanted her to let go and stop doing this to me, but as usual, just looking at her won me over.
She told me that that was not what she thought. She kissed me firmly to show me what she thought, and then once more after I must have looked wary. She reached her arms around me and hugged me strongly, pulling me down so that I was almost squashing her.
"You sure?" I asked.
The physical evidence was pretty convincing. Now I just needed to hear it.
"Positive," she replied.
I could tell that she was telling the absolute truth. She may have been a good actor, and I may have clung on hopelessly to every word she said, but I had the ability to know when she was being honest. Right now, she was telling the truth. Before, when I kept asking her what was wrong, I knew that she wasn't being honest.
My heart quavered. I tried to smile through my sadness, and I drew circles on her head.
"You're still a confusing person to be around," I murmured, a bit surprised at myself. "I'll hack into your brain someday."
Aya looked happy. She was probably happy that I believed her. I couldn't understand how I was helping her. Actually, I was probably not much of a help to her at all. Maybe she was just happy about something else and channelling that happiness towards me to make me feel better about-
No. I had to stop thinking like that.
"I'm sorry," Aya whispered to me unexpectedly.
It was the most ambiguous apology I'd ever heard. Was she apologizsng for insulting me by not telling me a single thing? Did she think she'd done something wrong? Was she about to confess and tell me whatever was on her mind?
It soon became clear that the answer to the last question was "no". She didn't seem interested in pursuing the subject of the apology any further.
I grew a little annoyed, but I pushed it aside. Unconditional love, I reminded myself. I buried my anger and focused on taking care of her. I might not know what was going on, but she needed comforting. She had asked me to stay by her tonight. Stay by her is what I would do. She needed a friend now, not a police investigation. I was the designated best friend, so I did my job.
No, not my job. I did what I wanted to do. Nobody could force me to be nice to her. That was something I wanted to do from the bottom of my heart. I made her feel good because that was my purpose. I wanted nothing else in the world but to see her happy.
I dropped the previous subject completely and snuggled my face into hers, telling her nonsense. I talked about her pyjamas and the colours that looked good on her, followed by what matching colours would look good on me.
I then lowered my voice even though we were the only ones in my apartment. I wanted it to seem like what I had to say was something for her only. Nobody else had the privilege of knowing what secrets I was about to impart.
I didn't say anything too different or important. I told her that she was special to me. I told her things I'd feel embarrassed repeating to anyone else. I reminded her that I was hers only, and she breathed out her response - she was mine. I sighed in a satisfied way. Hearing her say it, even though they were just words, reassured me.
We had a pleasant night.
Maybe it would be okay...
-
Chapter 9 of 35
I feel warm as I think about that night.
I had huge issues going on, yet being there with her somehow made me feel better even though she was the one causing me to worry. It was a rough time in my life, but it was also one of the best times. A whole new exciting adventure was starting, starring familiar characters and placed in a well known setting.
Things stayed rough for a bit and then they just got better and better... until they sucked again after a few years.
I turn my attention back to the television. They're playing a clip from a PV. It's from the single that Aya released two years after the time I'm currently reminiscing about.
It's amazing how so much has changed since that time.
As if there has been no pause, I close my eyes and return to my memories.
-
Chapter 10
An alarm rang and someone pushed me. It woke me up just enough to notice that I was sleeping half on top of Aya. She wiggled her arm free from under my back, untangled her legs from mine, and nudged my shoulder off of hers before reaching right over me to the small bedside table to turn the alarm clock off with a loud thump. That action completed, she pushed the covers off, shoved me over, and got out of bed.
She didn't do a very good job of trying not to wake me up. In fact, she didn't even make an effort. That was it. I got to sleep beside the wall next time.
I considered telling her off, but I was too tired. I looked up and caught her eyes briefly, and then without a word, pulled the covers back up and over my head while turning away from her. I drifted back into sleep to the sound of her rummaging through my drawers and closet.
I was jolted awake about forty minutes later. Nothing in particular woke me up. I think I just realised that I had someone over and decided that making an appearance before she left would be nice.
I dragged myself out of bed and shuffled unsteadily to the washroom. I heard her brushing her teeth before I saw her. I rounded the corner and walked in, not bothering to knock or say anything. I was too grumpy. I breezed past her and started to brush my teeth.
I started to think about last night, and I wondered if there was a chance that today was going to be the day when the tension ended and Aya either returned to normal or owned up. I knew it had to happen eventually, and I was waiting for that time.
I was snapped out of my thoughts by a failed attempt by Aya to say something, followed by hacking and coughing. I looked up and saw her choking, toothpaste mixed with water and saliva running down her chin. She jumped to the sink to spit and rinse. I think all I could do was watch with a raised eyebrow and continue brushing my teeth smugly. I wasn't the only one who messed up stupidly.
When she was done cleaning up, I rinsed out my mouth quickly and, while pulling my head back up, I looked directly at her.
"Pardon?" I asked in a plain, polite voice.
She looked miffed, as if I was purposely trying to bug her... which I admit I was, but not in a wholly malicious way.
"I was going to say 'good morning'."
"Hmm."
"So I repeat: good morning."
"Good morning," I said back to her.
Our greetings had been made. She left the washroom and I went back to my bedroom, falling onto the bed lazily. I wished that the loud sound would attract Aya's attention and make her come looking for me. It would be easier to drag her into my bed if she was already in my room rather than dragging her all the way from the living room. I could really use a bit of waking up, and Aya was a fun alarm clock. She did a much better job than an actual alarm clock. If the day started off with even just a kiss, I wouldn't be grumpy.
No such luck, though.
I sighed and got back up. I'd have to go and find her. That was pretty easy. She was crouched beside her bag and reading a piece of paper. I stood above her and waited for her to notice me. She checked her watch and then looked up and saw me, looking mildly surprised.
"When do you leave?" I asked as soon as eye contact was made.
"Ten minutes."
Ten minutes, huh? I thought slyly. What could we do with ten minutes? We could do plenty. For example, we could-
"Miki, I don't have time for anything," she said firmly, catching on to what I was thinking.
I shot her my sad puppy dog face and looked down at the floor. It had the desired effect of making her grab my hand and pull me over to sit on the couch beside her. I snuggled up beside her and put my head on her shoulder.
She asked me what I was doing after rehearsal and we ended up making plans to meet after I'd finished my futsal practice. We'd go to her place and cook.
After that business, I studied her profile. I was suddenly terrified because of two things.
One was that I'd lose her.
The other was that I loved her so much.
What if something happened to her when I wasn't around? What if she spaced out and got hit by a bus? What if she spiralled down a depressing path and she decided never to talk to me again...?
Before I knew it she was getting up, saying she had to leave and heading towards the door. My heart pounding, I followed her. Before she picked up her bag, I zoomed in and hugged her from behind. She turned around and hugged me back. I just held on tighter and didn't let go when she tried to pull away.
"I'll see you tonight," she laughed.
She sounded so clueless. She didn't know what was going through my mind. It hurt so much that she didn't know and that she couldn't tell, but I didn't blame her. I was hiding it from her on purpose.
"Be careful, okay?" I said quietly.
"Roger that," she replied brightly.
"If you need to call me, go ahead," I reminded her, desperately trying to think of more things that I could say so that she'd be in my arms for a few seconds longer.
"Got it," she replied, this time sounding a little puzzled. It wasn't like she needed permission to call me.
"Anything. Okay? If anything happens to you or if you want to talk to me about anything, I'll pick up the phone."
This time she just nodded. I stopped talking for a few seconds.
"I don't want anything bad to happen to you," I started again. "I worry about you. You know that? I've always worried about you. I want you to get home safely at the end of the day. I want you to be happy. That's the most important thing for me. For you to be happy. So be really careful. Call me for anything," I begged her, "and don't be scared or worried about anything. I'll help you."
I repeated everything over and over.
I thought I was going to cry, but I held it in because that's the one thing I was good at - hiding things. I hugged her harder and then pulled away, still holding her at her back, looking at her in a way that I hoped showed her a fraction of what I was feeling.
She smiled at me. Her brightest, happiest smile. How she could be putting on an expression like that at a time like this I did not understand. I was miserable and there she was beaming at me.
"Thanks for being there for me, Miki-chan," she said. "I'm really okay now. I'll see you this afternoon. We can hang out during our break."
I gave her a small smile because seeing her smile always made me smile, even when I didn't feel like it. I let her go. She picked up her bag and waved, slipping out of the door silently.
I closed the door behind her, leaned against it and then slid down onto my butt. I hugged my knees to my chest and swallowed down my tears. It was too hard and some spilled out of my eyes. I grit my teeth and clenched my fists to stop them, but it seemed to only make it worse. I sighed. I'd made a fool of myself right now. She hadn't taken me seriously.
Then I realised I never got that morning kiss. I could tell it was going to be a bad day. I just didn't realise how bad.
-
Chapter 11 of 35
My stomach growls, pulling me out of that sad moment. I rub it and think about what else I can eat. More chocolate's out of the question.
I get off my lazy butt, ignoring the television again and going to the kitchen. I rummage around and find some rice crackers that somebody brought me back from some business trip a few days ago. That'll do. I grab the box and bring it to the couch, opening it on the way. I sit on the floor and lean against the couch, much like Aya and I would do when we were just sitting and talking.
When we were still happy and together.
I bite down hard on a cracker. I bite too hard and my teeth grind against each other in a painful way. I shiver. Goosebumps pop out of my skin all over my body.
And that reminds me of a very intense feeling I had shortly after seeing Aya off on that strange, dangerous summer day in 2005.
-
Chapter 12 of 35
I somehow made it to the studio on time. I spent the rest of the morning moping around and being depressed. Not even listening to my favourite music could cheer me up. Amuro-chan just made me wish I was as strong as she was. Putting up with no crap, living it up, loving strongly...
Once I got to the studio, I felt a little better. Seeing the girls cheered me up a bit, even though they sometimes drove me crazy with their silliness. At least people like Yossi and Takahashi were easy to work with. They were a little more serious, and we were able to relate more because of our similar ages.
Halfway through our dance rehearsal, a man came into the studio and whispered something to the teacher. The teacher looked surprised, whispered something back, and then turned to us.
"I'm sorry, girls. There's been an emergency. I have to go immediately. We're finished for today."
And just like that, she was gone. Everyone looked at each other curiously. I stood there thankfully. I loved impromptu breaks.
"Do you think someone died?" Koharu asked with a sad voice.
"Don't be silly," I found myself saying with a laugh. "It's probably a plumbing accident at her house."
But I found myself wondering what had happened. I decided not to dwell on it. The teacher's reaction hadn't been one you'd see on the face of someone who had just received word of someone else's death.
"Okay," Koharu said, sounding cheered up.
She always listened to what I said a little too willingly. Flattering, but a little...
"Okay, extra long break, then," Yossi announced, taking control. "Just don't be late for whatever you've got next on your schedules."
Some of the girls cheered because they had nothing left for the day. I sighed and shot Yossi a tired look. She smiled sympathetically, but didn't show her exhaustion until she walked over to me and nobody could see her. I respected that. She had to look strong in front of the group.
"At least we can rest a bit before practice," she sighed.
"Yeah," I mumbled back. "What are the chances of our coach's wife suddenly going into labour?"
Yossi laughed loudly at that and I grinned. Making her laugh was one of those things high up on my list of stuff I liked to do. She was usually the comedian, so making the funny person laugh felt good.
"What are you doing now? Want to hang out and grab a snack before practice?" Yossi asked. "We should get Konno and go somewhere good."
I worked it out in my head and tried to remember Aya's schedule. She had a break coming up soon. If possible, I wanted to see her. Maybe she wouldn't want to see me (even though she promised me), but I had to try.
"I have some things I want to do before. Can I meet you later? Like in half an hour?"
Yossi checked her watch.
"Sure. Just not too late, okay?"
I smiled and told her not to worry. I wouldn't be more than half an hour. We parted with that and I went back up to my dressing room.
I sat on my chair, puffing up my cheeks with air and leaning my head back as far as it would go. I had no time to even start thinking of anything because there was a knock at my door.
"Yeah!" I called out, wondering who it was.
I stood up and watched the door open. To my surprise, in walked Aya. So maybe she did want to see me.
"Hi," I said almost shyly.
I scratched the back of my head and tried to fix my hair a bit.
"Hi. You're on break?" Aya asked in a seemingly happy manner.
I told her that rehearsal had ended early. She said I was lucky, and I snapped back playfully that I wasn't lucky when later I had to go and play a sport for two hours.
A look of glee washed over her face, and I wondered how the heck mentioning a futsal practice could make her so happy. She put her arms around my neck and pulled me towards her so that our noses were centimetres apart.
"How much time do you have before practice?" she asked me.
I liked this question a lot. I forgot all about the morning. There was no way Aya was faking this.
"Two and a half hours," I said.
How much time did she have? I wanted to ask her, but she kept talking.
"What are you going to do 'till then?"
"I don't know. I'll probably end up going out for food with Yocchan and whoever else," I replied vaguely with a shrug.
What I really wanted was for her to suggest we do something, even if just for the brief fifteen or twenty minutes she had as a break. It could be anything. We could go outside, or stay inside...
"No fair. I want to join you guys. No, wait. I want to have you to myself," she said with an adorable pout that made me melt.
I grabbed her waist and squeezed.
"You'll get me all to yourself later" I reminded her, happy that the bad feelings from this morning were all gone. "If you even bother to pay attention to me," I added.
It was the stupidest thing I'd ever done. Twenty years of life and that's the one sentence that I think ruined everything. This one little trying-to-be-funny joke.
She stopped smiling and looked pissed off, letting go of me. I quickly tried to make amends, but it was too late. Almost like an outside observer, I watched the situation spin out of control right before me.
"Aya... I didn't mean..." I started.
I didn't know what to say. I felt so bad for making her angry.
The situation just got worse.
"It doesn't matter," she said darkly with a shake of the head.
"I didn't mean it like that," I repeated, hoping my tone would prove to her that I was really sorry.
"It doesn't matter what you meant," she bit back.
I was suddenly swept up by a wave of anger. How dare she get angry with me. It was just a joke. Besides, she'd been making me angry all this time and I'd never let her know. This was the end of the line for me.
"Well, if it wasn't true, then I wouldn't have said it."
It crumbled from there.
"I'm having a rough week. You could at least be a little more sympathetic," she whined.
I looked at her with a mix of disbelief, pain, and a dash of 'oh my god, you are so stupid' feelings.
"I'm trying to, Aya, but you won't let me."
It wasn't fair. How did she have the right to ask for my sympathy now when she wouldn't accept it before? Was she blind? An idiot?
Then her stupid phone rang. When she flipped it open, I wanted to rip if out of her hands, throw it on the floor, and make her pay attention to me, not some absent person. I watched her, seething, as she read her message, willing her to hurry up so that we could continue our argument.
She closed her phone and looked up to me.
"I have to go."
What?! I thought.
She couldn't go. Not now. Not in the middle of something like this. This was more important than anything else she might have to do.
I was supposed to be more important...
Depression gripped my heart. Tears of anger and sadness wanted to spill out so badly.
"I thought you had a longer break," I said as expressionlessly as I could.
"I do," Aya sighed. "I have to go see someone now."
I couldn't look at her anymore. I walked over to my dresser and started to rummage through the papers I had there. It was obvious that I was pretending, but I had to do something to keep my eyes off of her - my eyes hidden from hers - because I felt the first of my tears coming. I couldn't stop them.
"Come on, Miki. I'm not ignoring you. I'm not ditching you. I just have to go," she said with a sigh.
As if that was supposed to make me feel better. The angry tears fell down my cheeks, out of control as I desperately tried to retain control.
"Okay. Bye," I said quickly.
I hoped I didn't sound choked up. I was glad that my hair was long. It served as a good cover, shielding my weak state from her.
She lingered in the room for a second and then I heard her turn away and leave quietly. I waited for twenty seconds after the door closed and then I pushed everything off the dresser angrily, letting out a muffled growl. Papers and other miscellaneous items fell to the floor and I put my palms down and bent over, letting myself cry, letting my tears wet the shiny surface.
For the first time since I met her, I hated her. I hated her because she made me care so much and then shoved that care back at me when she didn't think she needed it. I hated her because I couldn't hate her.
I continued to cry for about five minutes, at which point I stopped abruptly. I had to go out and face everyone as if everything was normal. I couldn't be seen with red-rimmed eyes. I had to look my normal self. People were nosey, and they'd want to know why I was upset. I couldn't tell them I had fought with Aya because they'd ask about what, and there was no good way to tell them without giving away too much.
I sobered up and called Yossi, making plans to meet her and Konno at the front of the building. We had a pleasant time going for coffee and eating snacks, but I was distracted for most of it. My mind kept going back to the dressing room incident.
Futsal practice was what did me in. Running around for over two hours didn't purge me of these angry and depressed feelings. It worsened them. And what's more, the more I sweat and the more I moved around, the more I just wanted to grab somebody, bring them to bed with me, and do things with them that were inappropriate things to think about during a practice. Of course that somebody had to be Aya. I couldn't understand it myself. I was so angry at her, but the thought of her seemed to appeal to me even more.
Practice ended with Yossi asking me if I was okay. She'd definitely noticed my feelings. I told her part of the truth - that I had had a fight with a friend and I was just trying to get over it. She sensed that I didn't want to talk about it and so she left it at that, telling me to get some rest before tomorrow. I couldn't even smile at her, but I nodded and told her to also get some rest because she worked too hard.
I was the third of the girls to leave for the day. Everyone said goodbye. I wandered out and decided what to do next.
There was almost no question what I had to do. I felt this pressing need inside of me. It threatened to turn into something dangerous if I didn't satisfy it soon. Aya and I had promised to hang out at her apartment. The last thing I wanted to do was to hang out with her and get even angrier, but the only thing I wanted to do was to hang out with her. It was a bad situation to be in.
My desire overcame any other factor, and I found myself walking to the train line that would take me to her place. The outside world disappeared to me. I could only think about what I would do.
What would I do?
I could try to fix things a bit before moving on to other things.
Maybe I'd try that out, first. Keep my cool no matter how hard it was.
Her apartment appeared before me too quickly. I had no time to practice what to say and do. Without hesitation, though, I rang the doorbell. It was just before nine. She'd be home.
Aya opened the door and looked very surprised to see me. She had no doubt thought I wouldn't be coming over. She invited me in and I stepped in without a word, my face stoic as ever.
"What time did you finish practice?" she asked.
She sounded almost nervous, and that made me glad.
"About thirty minutes ago," I replied, my voice sounding hollow to even my ears.
I swallowed my feelings down, telling myself to be patient and wait.
She asked about dinner, but I declined. I didn't need food. I put my bag down and took a seat on the couch after being invited.
"What were you doing?" I asked.
It was like I was conducting an interview with a stranger. I let nothing show on my face.
"I was about to watch TV," Aya said in a small voice, so I grabbed the remote and found the first interesting program that I could.
I didn't watch. I kept my eyes on the screen, but all my senses were directed at Aya. I could feel something going on inside of her. Her head was churning with thoughts. Just like mine. I could tell. The air felt different, and it wasn't just me.
"If you're still bothered about today..." I muttered without meaning to.
It sounded like I was starting an apology. I cut myself off quickly and left it to her interpretation.
"No, I've forgotten about that."
I don't know if that answer relieved me or if it hurt me more. It was good that she'd forgotten we'd fought. Fights were nasty, unpleasant things. But I couldn't get it out of my mind. There were still unresolved issues. How could she forget them? I'd gone so far as to cry over it. Had she even cared? Did she care enough about me to be worried? I couldn't tell.
"Then can you say something to me?" I asked.
I wanted to hear what was on her mind. I thought that in light of having had an argument like that, she'd decide to be a bit more open. I'd practically confronted her about her issue. Maybe she had something to say about it.
"Like what?" she asked stupidly.
I kept my cool. No use messing it up again.
"Anything. Just tell me something."
"Um... I went out with the girls for dinner. Hitomi got a new boyfriend and so we went out to celebrate."
I counted to five before saying anything. If I'd spoken right away, I would've screamed at her.
"Could you tell me something else? Something about you? Not other people?" I demanded in a calm voice.
"Like what? What do you want me to tell you?" she asked, sounding aggravated.
"Anything!" I exploded. "For heaven's sake, Aya, just talk to me."
Just tell me things like you used to. Tell me anything that really matters to you. Please... I thought desperately.
I couldn't take this wishy-washy business anymore. I wanted my old Aya back, but I was becoming very afraid that she'd never come back.
And then she told me that she spilled water on herself during the day.
I couldn't believe it. I kept my mouth shut because even counting for five minutes could not have prevented me from saying something insulting in a loud voice. I must've glared at her, and I turned my attention back to the television. I didn't want to look at her.
We watched the program until it finished an hour later. I sat there with my raging anger and feeling like I was alone. I wanted to punch a wall. I wanted to slap her. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to force her to tell me everything. Force her in ways I'd never considered before.
Once the ending credits rolled, I checked to see if Aya was even in the room. She was. She turned her head to me. My eyes looked over her bedroom for the briefest of milliseconds, and I wondered how many seconds it would take me to pull her in there. I quickly looked back at her. I didn't think it would have been obvious, but her eyes widened the slightest bit. She must have been wondering what I was thinking.
I turned the TV off and we got up wordlessly, getting ready for bed. I ignored her the entire time and went through my routine as if she wasn't there. She seemed to shrink away from me, and I laughed evilly inside. It served her right. I hoped she was frightened. I hoped she was feeling lonely. She deserved it after making me feel the exact same thing.
She got into the bed first. I would have told her to not worry and that I was going to sleep on the floor, but the thing inside me told me to go to bed with her. There was more of a chance. I slipped in quickly after killing the lights and turned away from her, pulling the sheets up to my neck and hurting from the incredible tension I felt.
"Good night."
And that was it. She didn't reply. I lay there with my eyes open, trying to regulate my breathing in a calm way. There was so much I wanted to do and say. I wanted to yell at her and tell her how angry I was. How scared and worried I was. And then I wanted to literally rip her clothes off so that I could feel like I could do something. Have some sort of power. I wanted to feel like I was good for something.
I only made myself feel angrier because the thought of her keeping me around for only some physical reason was too painful to bear.
I didn't think she'd do it, but she did. She touched me. About ten minutes after I'd said good night I felt the mattress move and her body come close to mine. She put her hand on my arm under the covers and ran it down to hold onto my hand. I felt lips touch my neck lightly.
I rolled over onto my back to get a look at her face. Whatever she was thinking, I was hoping it was written all over it. I wanted to take it and use it against her somehow.
What I saw made me angrier and even more excited. She was looking meek and unsure and needy. She was looking apologetic. She was looking like a mouse would while kissing a hungry tiger. That was exactly how I wanted her. No, exactly how I needed her. I found myself starting to lose my control. Something was going to happen and I wasn't sure what.
She kissed my neck again and moved her lips up. I remained rigid, my emotions boiling just under my skin. She lifted herself up and put her hands on either side of head. She looked down at me. I stared straight through her. This didn't seem to change her mind and she kissed my lips, closing her eyes. I reacted in no way. I stared up, my eyes wide open and filled with the close up sight of her closed eyes.
I cursed her in my mind. She was such a perfectionist. Her and her perfect kisses. Even when I wasn't cooperating, she could do something like that so well.
Her hand played with the bottom of my tank top and pulled it up. I felt like I had about ten seconds before I exploded. She put a hand on my stomach. Blood started to rush through my head. I could barely think of anything else anymore. I couldn't hear anything. She pushed her hand up my stomach and an alarm went off in my head.
The dam broke and everything inside of my head just rushed out through the widening gap.
I grabbed her hand and took it away from my stomach. I pushed her off of me and onto her back, getting on top of her. I can't even remember if I was breathing or not. I pinned her hands down above her head and stared down at her. I didn't know what to do first. I didn't know what I wanted. Did I want to say something to her? Did I want to hurt her? Did I want to do something nice?
I think I wanted to do a mix of good and bad. Aya looked weak. I liked that. It filled me with that power I was looking for. I needed to show her that I wasn't going to be passive and wait for her. I had my needs.
I lowered my head and kissed her back. Hard. My eyes were wide open. I didn't want to hurt her too much. Just enough to make her remember that I was there. I didn't want her to drift off and ignore me like she'd been doing all week. I squeezed her hands and she opened up her eyes looking scared. I took my hands away from hers and put them on her shoulders. I bit down her neck making sure to suck at her skin long enough to leave marks. I didn't care how she explained the marks the next day. It was the last thing on my mind. All I wanted to do was put something on her than would stay. It would be proof that I had been there. That I had had the privilege of being so close to her.
I heard the breath catch in her throat. I willed her with my mind and my lips to say something. To cry out in pain or to complain. She did not, though. She was disciplined that night, the girl was. It just made me want her more.
I bit down on her arm. She tensed up and I thought I heard her make a sound, but nothing more.
Damn you. React, you moron! I thought angrily.
Why wasn't she giving me the responses I wanted to hear? If she didn't, I'd just keep going and pressing harder. I kissed her lips again, this time even harder.
I felt words flow out from my mouth.
"No matter what you do, you still drive me crazy," I growled to her, digging my fingers into her shoulders. "You turn me on like mad."
It was the honest truth. I moved my hands so that they were beside her ears.
Don't you have anything to say? I asked her in my mind. Don't you want to tell me that you want me? Or don't you want to tell me to stop?
She didn't acknowledge my words at all, but maybe that's because I was kissing - practically biting - her, my lips and tongue fighting for dominance. I was suffocating the both of us in as pleasant a way I could think of. She put her timid hands at my waist. I felt like I'd won a battle. She was alive and reacting. She wasn't pushing me away. She was accepting. She was paying attention.
Yet I wanted her to push me away. Or at least I wanted her to try.
I smothered her with me. All of me. I now began to move my hands all over her body. I scratched at her, although that I didn't do it too hard. It was too easy to break skin with nails and I wasn't willing to leave her with that kind of injury. Despite all the anger and all the hatred that was spilling over the surface, in my heart I could feel all my love and worry. It was buried, but still alive. I didn't want to really hurt her. Not permanently. She was my perfect Aya.
My Aya? Maybe. Maybe not.
And that's why I was angry. Because I didn't know. Because she wouldn't tell me. She told me with words, but she didn't prove it. She didn't show me.
I suddenly felt her squirm. She tried to get up. I looked at her face and saw that she was sweating. It was a hot summer evening and she hadn't turned the air conditioning on when she'd gotten home. I realised I was sweating, too, and I wondered how much we could do before we passed out from the heat. I kept my hold on her.
"I'm hot," she gasped. "I need to-" but I put my hand over her mouth, squeezing her arm with my other hand.
I didn't want her to talk. I didn't want her to do anything she wanted to do. I wanted her to be uncomfortable. If I could handle the heat, Aya could handle the heat.
I dragged my hand down her body over her shirt. I reached the bottom and took a handful of it. I then tugged up hard. The flimsy thing made a tearing sound. I dug my fingers into the hole that I'd started. I brought my other hand over and widened the hole, shredding the thing and pulling it right off of her. I tossed the ruined shirt off to the side as she looked at me in shock. I stared her down and dared her to say something. She stared back into my eyes and said nothing. I could see the fear in her eyes, though. It made me feel good. I smiled and put my hands on her bare stomach. There was a light film of sweat covering it. I licked my lips and started kissing her from her neck all the way down.
When I reached her abdomen, I licked the sweat off of her skin, and her muscles twitched. I grinned. Even her involuntary muscle spasms were under my control. I didn't stop there. She was wearing jogging shorts but I didn't care. I scooted down and grabbed her thigh with my hands. I lowered my head and bit down hard right into the fleshy part. She cried out, sounding like she was half in pain, half enjoying it, and I heard a crash. I looked up to see that her arm had swept out from surprise and hit everything on her bedside table. I scooted back up and started to bite her arm.
That was when she started to push me away. She put her hand on my shoulder and tried to force me off of her. I batted her hand away and it soon came to rest on my shoulder, only to push me again thirty seconds later.
Of course I didn't let her get away with it. She managed to push me up enough to curl halfway up, but I pushed her back down forcefully.
"Don't leave me," I whispered harshly into her ear as I kissed it, bit at it, sucked on her earlobe.
I wasn't speaking much that night, so I chose every word I said with great care.
Don't leave me, I thought. Don't go off and think that you don't need me anymore. You need me. Just as much as I need you.
That's what I tried to convince myself.
Aya tried to push me off of her again.
"Stop it," she demanded, this time struggling with a little more force.
"No," I said with my lips curling up in a sneer.
I won again. She stopped. She caved in.
In fact, she did a complete reverse. She started to sneak her hands up my shirt. I stopped her by hitting them off. She didn't get to do that. Not yet. Maybe not at all.
I continued.
I don't know how we managed to both survive so long, but much much later, after completely dominating her in every single way I could think of and making her gym shorts join the torn t-shirt somewhere on the floor, I stopped. I sat on her, although making sure not to press down with my whole weight. I leant forward and put my hands on her chest, pushing her down, trapping her underneath me.
I had a change of heart all of a sudden. I sat there looking down at her, her face twisted in a strange expression. She looked tired and hurt but awake and satisfied. She looked confused, but she looked like she knew exactly what she wanted. Ultimately, she looked like herself. She looked like Aya.
Some tender side of me busted through all my anger and I brought a hand up to her face. She flinched slightly, not knowing what to expect, but I just touched her gently, feeling my sadness take a hold of my heart again. I tried to project my pain from my eyes, but she either didn't see it or didn't care. I ran my fingers across her lips and wished that she would open them and say something to me.
I got off and lay down next to her, putting my cheek to hers, my lips near her ear. I thought of a million things to say. I said none.
At last, she reacted. I felt her finger touch my hand. It was such a small yet such a significant gesture. She picked up my hand and squeezed it in that gentle way that only she could master. I lifted my head up and looked at her, my expression unchanging.
Say something, I told her in my mind. I told her with my eyes.
But she said nothing.
The sound of rushing blood came back to my head and I felt myself become consumed by my fury again. I squeezed her hand back in an ungentle way and brought it up over her head, exposing her whole right side. I held her wrist tightly with one hand and tickled my other hand down her body. I teased her skin, giving it a break from my scratching and rubbing, letting it feel that pleasant tingle that tickling brought. At the same time, I dug my nails into her wrist. I watched her closely and saw the struggle between pain and pleasure in her eyes. I kept a close eye on that balance. I wanted to hurt her, but not really. Nothing beyond a few seconds of pain. Nothing scarring.
I let go of her wrist and my lips followed the path of my hand.
And after twenty minutes of torturing her, teasing her, making her want to kill me, I gave her break.
For about five seconds.
I then pushed down on her shoulders and kissed her wildly, violently.
"At least I can have you this way," I mumbled as I did so.
If she wouldn't give me what was inside of her, I'd take what I could. I wanted more than that, but I had to settle for second best. This fuelled the fire of my rage and I really started to hurt her, rubbing her entire body in what was a cross between a massage and torture, kissing every single inch, biting whatever parts I could.
"Stop!" she cried out suddenly in anguish.
She said she couldn't take it any more, but her voice sang an entirely different tune. It told me to keep going. It told me she wanted it more than anything. She needed it.
I slithered up her body slowly like a snake and looked her in the face. Her eyes were shut tight until she realised my presence. She opened them up. I narrowed my eyes at her and I pinched her side hard. She breathed in sharply in pain. I took her bottom lip and bit it. She gasped. I sucked on it. She whimpered. I flashed her an unkind smile and moved down. Instead of pushing me away, she clutched me to her. That was it. The final gesture that told me that whatever I did now, she'd readily accept.
And so I finished her off. I drove her off the brink. I shut her mind down. I made her see stars. Whatever way you care to look at it, though, I won. She yelled out something - to this day I have no idea what - and then her hold on me weakened. Her arms collapsed by her sides and I slowly got up to watch her. She seemed to float around, her eyes unable to focus on anything. They glazed over. I brought a hand up to her face and put them over her eyes, encouraging her to close them. It took no effort to make her do it. As soon as her eyes were closed, I was sure she wouldn't open them until the next morning. I watched as her breathing slowed down. It first hit a normal pace, and then it got slower and slower until I knew she was asleep.
I sat cross-legged beside her. I could see the sweat glistening on her body. I could see marks that had started to form. From her legs to her neck to her arms. I'd spared no part of her. As I continued to stare at her unclothed body, something in me started to grow. The anger had gone. The sadness was still there. I wondered what this new thing I felt was. I was confused. I thought I'd needed some sort of release and that I should wake her up to help me, but after further thought, I saw that that's not what it was.
I felt guilt.
I looked at the tiny marks all over her, and I realised that I'd done that. I'd made her look like that. I'd hurt her. My stomach churned in an unpleasant way and I almost ran to the washroom to throw up. How could I have done something so brutal?
I began to shiver uncontrollably as I stared at Aya. I felt my heart melt. I started to cry. How could I say I loved her when I'd done that to her? How could I ever face her again? What would I do tomorrow? Was it better to leave before it was too late and she woke up?
I couldn't move from her side, though. I had an eerie feeling that if I left, she'd never wake up. She'd die in her sleep and I'd never see her again.
Still shaking, I lay down beside her. I was afraid to touch her and wake her up, so I curled up as far away as possible and watched her. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed, and I sighed in relief because it reminded me she was alive.
I noticed that it was really hot in the room and that despite my shivering, I was sweating like crazy. I got up carefully and turned the air conditioning on. I lay back down and watched Aya.
After ten minutes, when the room started to get a little cooler, I drew the covers up quickly and covered the both of us. I rested my head on the extra pillow that Aya had bought when I started sleeping over a few years ago. She usually stored it when I didn't stay over, but I noticed that she seemed to have left it on her bed the past week. It was my open invitation. As long as the pillow remained there beside hers, I could go over to her place as I liked.
I was afraid that invitation had just expired.
I tried to calm down and enjoy what I thought would be my last night with her. That consisted of lying there and watching her sleep.
Being friends after such a night?
I was positive that wouldn't work out.
-
Chapter 13 and 35
I shudder as I remember that night. It's something I'm not proud of having done. Out of all the stupid and horrible things I've done to Aya (and I have made my fair share of mistakes), that's the worst. Nothing else comes close to it. Even though I felt at the time I didn't want to hurt her, I did hurt her. She suffered a lot because of me.
The physical pain was fleeting, lasting only a few seconds (and okay, maybe she felt a little sore the next morning, but I prefer not to dwell on that fact). However, the marks were an embarrassment to her. She told me much later when we were more comfortable talking about that "incident" that she'd received questions from Shibata about them.
Also, the psychological damage, while not lifelong, did take a while to get over. When we eventually healed our friendship and got closer again a month later, she did have a lingering fear of me doing that again. We talked about it, though, and she got over it quickly. She knew that I did not want to hurt her. But for the short while that she was scared, I felt so low...
I stretch my arms up and yawn. It's still too early to go to bed, but I'm getting tired. It has been a long day. I think of my empty bed and I'm filled with a familiar loneliness that I haven't felt for a long time.
If I had been a better person, Aya would be here beside me.
No. I cannot let myself start thinking like that again. It wasn't me.
I laugh bitterly at myself because I'm being silly. I return to my memories. For some reason they seem easier to deal with tonight.
-
Chapter 14 of 35
I didn't sleep at all. I lay there freezing cold and terrified, sometimes watching Aya, sometimes closing my eyes and trying to sleep, sometimes putting my hands on my head and squeezing it while staring at the ceiling. All the time I wondered how I could have done what I had done.
I kept an eye on the clock. I had to be up early for recording at the studio. Much earlier than Aya. There was a chance that I might have to leave before she woke up. I prayed that that would be the case.
I watched as Aya rolled over. Her facial expression didn't change. She turned to face towards me, her arms curled up at her chest, her hands crossed in front of her face. It was sweet until I noticed the little marks along her upper arm.
I began to think. If Aya had really wanted to get out of the situation, she could have. She could have used all her strength to push me. She could have kept repeating herself. She could have kicked me out. But she didn't. She'd given in, even asked for it wordlessly by pulling me to her. So in a way, couldn't my guilt be relieved a little?
But no... I'd still forced her. I'd tricked her. I'd convinced her. I'd... something. I was in the wrong.
I spent the night in torment, and I was almost glad when Aya turned away from me.
"Almost" because seeing her back filled me with sadness. The sheets slid down so that her bare back was exposed to me. It was on the whole smooth, but there was one scratch mark. Right below her left shoulder blade. I hadn't broken the skin, but it looked painful. It had been accidental. I had tried to move her more to the centre of the bed, and when I'd gripped her ribs and pulled, my nail had dug into her back, making her cry out in pain.
It was still red.
I reached out a hand and put my fingers on it lightly. This made a muscle on her back twitch, and I became ice cold with fear of her waking up. I clenched my toes as she rolled onto her back. I took my hand away quickly.
"Miki," she said out loud.
I froze in shock. I had woken her up. I was really going to get it now.
"Yeah?" I croaked out.
"Why's the sky blue?"
This caught me completely off guard. What?! I thought.
"Um..." I started.
"Is it because of the blueberries?" she asked seriously.
I wanted to laugh even in my fright. She was sleep talking. She didn't do it that often.
"Yeah," I said softly. "It's the blueberries."
She looked right at me, her eyes open as if she were perfectly awake. I couldn't hate her. Not when she looked like a child.
"Why?" she pressed.
I swallowed hard and tried to stay calm.
"There were too many here. We had to send them up to the sky and they spilled on the way," I explained soothingly as if making up a fairy tale for a six-year-old child.
"Oh," she said, her expression unchanging. "Why did the bird fly?"
For a second I thought she was messing with me. I thought she was awake and just trying to make me look stupid. I dropped my suspicion, however, because her eyes were too wide and too innocent. Nobody could act that well.
I reached out and touched her face.
"Because it was free," I answered her.
For the first time in my life I understood what it might mean to have a little kid truly dependent on you for all the answers.
"Oh," she said with a smile, and her eyes began to droop drowsily. "I wanted to fly, too..."
I tried not to frown.
"You can," I said gently. "If you go back to sleep, you can."
I took my hand away from her face and pulled the blanket up under her chin.
"I was... doing that..." she trailed off.
Her eyes closed completely and she was once again unconscious to the world.
I bit my lip to keep from crying. From sobbing.
What had I done to her?
She didn't say anything else all night. She moved around a bit, but not restlessly. The normal amount she did on any given night. I stayed there thinking and berating myself until a quarter to six in the morning.
I couldn't handle it anymore so I got up and took a shower. I got dressed quietly in her room and then went to sit on the couch. I realised I was starving, having not eaten dinner the night before.
I felt bad helping myself to her food, so I ran out to the convenience store. I bought some food and drink and brought it back to her apartment building. I sat outside and finished my onigiri and coffee before going back in. It took twenty minutes to finish eating. I lost my appetite halfway through, but forced myself to consume everything since I'd regret it later if I didn't.
I went back into her apartment (which I'd left unlocked) and decided to pack up my things and leave. I had to go into her room to get my pyjamas. I'd pack those up and just go. Not say a word, not leave a note. I'd wait for her to e-mail me in a rage, or some other such horrid thing.
I walked into her room quietly, my eyes on the various clothing on the floor, and I knelt down to collect my own. I started to fold my pyjamas when I felt a change. I looked up and saw Aya watching me from the bed. My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. I had to apologise.
"Morning" is what came out of my mouth. That sounded nothing like "I'm sorry".
"Good morning," she replied.
She sounded terrified. I didn't know what to say so I went back to folding. Within no time, Aya got out of bed and walked by me. I didn't dare look at her. I saw her bare legs and that was enough to tell me to keep my eyes on the floor. I heard her put some clothes on and then go to the washroom. I shuddered at the thought of her looking in the mirror and finding that there wasn't enough make up in the world to cover up what I'd done to her.
I finished folding my pyjamas, but I was so nervous that I started to clean her room up. There were just a few things out of order. First, I got the various pieces of clothing that I'd taken (or ripped) off of her and put them in a pile. Aya walked in while I was doing this, and without a word, she took the small pile right out of my hands before I could fold them for her. I kept one eye on her and watched as she went to fold them and found they were torn. She shoved them under her pillow. She looked embarrassed. She looked over at me and I quickly averted my eyes, moving off to clean up the mess by the bedside table. She'd knocked everything off by accident.
This is stupid I thought.
I had to talk to her. I couldn't keep acting like nothing had happened. We needed to talk. I needed to say I was sorry.
I turned around to open up a conversation with a genuine apology, but I was too late. She had just left the room. I didn't call out to her or get up to follow her because I chickened out. I couldn't do it. I couldn't apologise. The reason why was because I was afraid I wouldn't be forgiven.
I quickly organized her alarm clock and random junk on her bedside table and left her room quickly. Aya was standing in the kitchen with a glass that I assumed had been full of water or juice before she drank it all.
"I'll see you later," I mumbled to her, grabbing my bag and putting my shoes on quickly.
Without waiting for a reply, I left. I was so sure she'd never forgive me for that, too. For leaving so abruptly.
Once outside of her apartment, I ran. I ran like crazy. I don't think I stopped for twenty minutes, and I had no idea what direction I was going in. I just ran and tried not to cry.
-
Chapter 15 of 35
My phone ring and jolts me out of my mind. I stand up and walk over to it, staring at it and debating whether or not to pick it up. After five rings, I decide to go for it.
"Hello?"
It's Takamura Akiko.
From Clean Shiny Thing Service.
She's trying to sell me a gas range cleaning service. She informs me that I'll feel much safer cooking for my husband and children if my kitchen is clean. I decline her offer politely, rolling my eyes when she's shocked that I'm not married (what is it with this Nakazawa Yuuko effect? Is it so sinful to not be married at age thirty-three??). We both hang up, both feeling frustrated.
Frustration is something I've learned to deal with. The past eight years have been full of it. There have been some really good times, but there have been some really rotten ones. Sometimes I wish I'd just find some guy and get married and settle down like a normal girl. Maybe it would calm me down, tame me.
But I am driven insane by the thought of living with somebody. People bother me too much if they're clinging to me all the time. There have been very few people in my life who haven't managed to bother me by spending too much time with me. One of them is Aya.
I go and sit on the floor. When we were together, Aya drove me nuts in a bad way, too, but it was always forgivable. Even when she did the most awful things (or when I thought she did the most awful things), there was always something that made it all okay in the end...
-
Chapter 16 of 35
I got to the studio absolutely exhausted. I was sweating, my arms and legs weak. I sat down on the couch in the inner lobby and closed my eyes, waiting for the rest of the girls to arrive.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, somebody was jumping on top of me and I heard laughter. I opened my eyes to see Tsuji sitting in my lap.
"What the-" I started, but before I could continue, she jumped off and ran off screaming like a banshee.
"Wee haaaa!" came a shriek from behind me, and somebody else landed on me, pushing me back against the couch painfully.
"Sorry, Fujimoto-san!!" the girl yelled, not sounding apologetic at all.
It was Koharu. She jumped off me instantly and pursued Tsuji through the foyer. I couldn't believe it. The two were chasing each other like two-year-olds and using me as a launching pad.
"Watch where you're going!!" I yelled angrily after them.
I was beyond just a little grumpy.
"They're like wild animals," a quiet voice said from beside me.
I almost jumped in the air. I turned my head and saw Yossi sitting beside me, her legs crossed and her gaze focused on the receding figures of Tsuji and Koharu.
"Uh, good morning. Yeah, they are," I stuttered.
She must have sat down while I was asleep. I wondered how long she'd been there.
"Good morning, Miki-chan. You look like hell," she jumped in frankly. "What happened to you? Did you schmooze all night long and end up in the wrong bed?" she joked.
"I didn't sleep, okay?" I scowled at her.
"I can tell that much," she said with a roll of the eyes.
I sighed.
"I didn't party, if that's what you're thinking. I'm a little more responsible than that."
Yossi shrugged.
"Can I ask what happened?"
I laughed in my head. You can ask, but you don't want to know.
"I argued with a friend. I couldn't sleep because I was upset," I explained briefly.
Yossi crossed her arms and we were silent for a moment.
"This friend of yours. Her name wouldn't happen to start with 'Matsu' and end with 'ura', would it?"
Stupid Yocchan, I thought. Getting too curious. I got angry but kept my cool on the outside.
"So what if it was?" I asked defensively.
"I knew it!" she said triumphantly.
"Knew what?!" I spat back.
"That you guys were fighting. Come on, how long have I known you now? I just knew it."
I crossed my arms and frowned. I wondered how she could tell.
"So what's your issue?" she pried. "Why are you fighting?"
I shifted uncomfortably.
"We just disagree on some things," I lied. "Nothing big."
"Yeah, right," Yossi chuckled.
I shot her a look of death.
"Fine, don't believe me. I don't care. It's none of your business anyway."
She got the hint and shut up, looking at me blankly. I returned to my brooding.
"You're really upset, aren't you," she said after a minute.
I was surprised to hear such a soft tone coming from her. Even in serious moments, she always kept her voice strong, or at least with a light lilt to it. I shrugged.
"Best friends don't treat each other the way we've been treating each other lately," I replied honestly.
"Hmm," Yossi started. "I'm no expert, but maybe you should just talk to her about why you're upset. Maybe she wants to talk, too."
You are so wrong, I thought bitterly. So wrong.
"Yeah, maybe you're right."
"Anyway," Yossi continued, clasping my shoulder and pushing me up, "let's go warm up. We've got an important job to do."
I let myself be dragged to the recording room where we met the other girls. We all warmed up together.
My distraction knew no bounds. My exhaustion contributed to making me look like a fool. I fell asleep waiting for my turn in the recording booth. I spaced out when people were talking to me. I was personally scolded six times by various authorities.
During our breaks I checked my phone obsessively. No messages. I wanted a message. Even a message that said "I hate you", because then that way I'd know how she felt.
At the end of the day, despite having done so much work, I felt like I'd accomplished nothing. All I thought about that day was how I wanted to apologise to Aya and try to set things right with her.
I avoided everyone as much as possible. Yossi seemed to have realised that I wasn't going to say anything more to her about my problem, so she dropped the questions and was super nice to me. I guess just to comfort me in an indirect way. It was too embarrassing to say "don't worry, I'm still your friend" out loud, so instead she showed me. I always liked that about her. We had similar thresholds of tolerance for mushy crap like that.
At exactly five past six, I left everyone. Our work was done.
At six past six, I decided I wouldn't wait for a message. I would go right up to the sixth floor where the dance rehearsals took place because I knew Aya was there. I'd seen the schedule ahead of time.
I picked up my bag and went to the elevator while planning out exactly what I was going to say and do.
It was simple. I was going to knock at the door, ask to speak to Aya, pull her aside, and say plainly - but genuinely - that I was very sorry about what I did last night and that we could talk sometime whenever she was free. I would tell her not to make any decision now, but to just mail or call me when she wanted to say something. Then I'd leave.
The elevator came and I rode it up. I started to get nervous, but I swallowed down the butterflies. This had to be done. I'd been bad. Now I was paying the price.
I got out of the elevator and sensed something different. I could hear muffled talking. At first I thought it was coming from a room nearby, but the closer I got to the change room area, the louder it got.
Halfway there, I realised the two people were speaking very loudly. They sounded angry, or at least their debate was heated. One of the voices I knew very very well. It was Aya's voice. The other belonged to a girl I didn't know as well - Shibata.
I strained my ears to try and hear what they were saying, but I couldn't quite make it out. As I got closer, the words became clear.
"...can't tell your best friend that you want to leave. You put those things in your own mind. I didn't do it. Maybe you're not ready to leave."
What was Shibata talking about? Aya's best friend. That was me, right? Leave. Go where? Leave me? Shibata didn't know anything about us. Was Aya planning a trip she hadn't told me about? What was going on? I started to feel strange.
"I do want to leave!" Aya yelled.
I had no idea what she was talking about, but her voice sounded like how she'd looked for the past week: anxious, worried, scared, angry. I hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but I slowed my pace and listened to their argument.
"I want out of this Project. I've outgrown it. I have outgrown everything we're made to do. I can't stay in it any longer if I want to go anywhere in my life. I'm just worried that there'll be no place for me out in the real world."
I froze.
Out of this Project. Outgrown it. Can't stay in it any longer.
She wanted to leave H!P. And she was telling Shibata, not me. They seemed pretty comfortable arguing over the subject. It was as if they'd talked about it before. Was this what Aya was stressing out over? If so, how long had she been wanting to quit? Why hadn't she told me? It was the easiest thing to do...
I became furious. It wasn't the fury of last night. This time I didn't want to even be in the same building as her, I was so mad.
How could she? How could she...?
"Stop coming to me and telling me you want to leave. If you want to leave, go talk to our boss. Go quit like you want to. Go rise above us in every way possible!" Shibata encouraged her.
This is not happening, I thought faintly. Aya had decided to confide in Shibata. Not me.
While I considered myself to be a mildly jealous person (I just couldn't help getting jealous - even when we first became friends - if someone else took Aya's time from me), I had never felt any kind of jealousy like this. So different from what I'd felt before.
I wanted to punch a wall, punch both of them, and scream.
I stared at the two of them in their argument, and my bag slipped from my hand. I didn't try to stop it. I didn't care if they heard me. I was in shock.
Bump. My bag made a soft, muffled sound as it fell.
The two arguing girls turned sideways and looked at me.
Something rumbled beneath the surface of my skin.
For a few minutes - only a few minutes out my life since I'd met Aya - did I truly believe I hated her. No other feeling got in the way.
I looked right at her. She looked like she was about to faint. Shibata's expression... I can't remember. Maybe it had "oh crap" written all over it. I kept my eyes on Aya, unable to turn away from the one thing in this world that I truly hated at that moment. She looked over at Shibata and then looked back at me.
As if getting permission. As if she had to ask Shibata what she was allowed to say and do. As if Shibata had the power to tell her whether to stay in the Project or to leave.
What the hell.
"You're quitting H!P?" I asked quietly.
I could not believe it. I needed to confirm that I'd heard incorrectly.
She didn't reply. Guilty as charged. I asked another question.
"Were you going to tell me?"
"Excuse me," I heard Shibata whisper.
She walked away. I wanted to yell out to her and tell her to wait and help explain this situation, but I couldn't look away from Aya.
"Is this what has been bothering you all week?" I asked.
Answer me for once, you idiot.
I needed to hear it from her. She answered, but not with her voice. She looked down at the floor. I almost sneered.
Wimp.
"Why didn't you say anything?" I pressed her.
Aya finally spoke up quietly.
"It was just a thought."
"Just a thought?!" I practically screamed in a controlled manner.
Who is she kidding?!
"It's not 'just' anything. You've been distracted for the past week for reasons I haven't been able to understand. I thought it was me. I really thought it was because of me."
I swallowed my tears - tears of helplessness. I'd never felt like this before. Desperation welled up inside of me and it had no outlet. My anger had one - yelling, harsh words... But my desperation stayed inside me and ate me alive.
"I thought I'd done something you didn't like."
I thought back to all the times we'd hung out, e-mailed each other, slept together, any interaction we'd had. In the past few days I'd questioned every single second we'd spent together.
"I was wondering why you were bothering to spend any time with me and pretending to enjoy it. Ever since Monday. I haven't stopped worrying about it. You've made me so angry."
I finally told her exactly how I'd felt for the week, but I didn't think she could possibly understand how much my anger had been multiplied within seconds of overhearing her conversation. I clenched my fists, wishing to drive them through the wall. Through her stupid, hurt-looking, victimised face.
I breathed deeply trying to calm myself. I would accomplish nothing by hitting her (nothing other than possibly being charged for assault).
And suddenly it all became hazy. My memory of the next ten minutes was affected greatly. Some things stood out to me sharply and I could never forget them. The rest of the things, though, were overshadowed by my overwhelming anger. I was so angry that I went blank.
"Are you mad at me for wanting to leave?" she asked me.
I answered her honestly. No, I wasn't mad at her for wanting to leave. I was too angry at the present situation to lie pettily. Of course she was good enough for something better than the Project. Of course she could go beyond me and everyone here. That was a fact.
What she didn't have the right to do was to lead me around, lead me on, and then pick and choose what to give - or tell - me. She had no right to play with my heart like that. If she didn't want to be like that with me - closer than my closest friend - then that was okay. I would deal with the heartbreak somehow. But she had to tell me. She couldn't take it all and then not return. I gave her everything.
And she?
Did not.
"Why don't you ever tell me what's on your mind? I've told you everything on mine. I've been nothing but honest with you since, well, last Saturday. I told you everything. I haven't held back anything."
That's what I'd wanted to ask her all week. That was my issue. It was finally out.
And what did she do? She threw the stupidest thing in my face.
"You've been holding back your anger until now. Or last night."
That's all she could come up with? That I'd not told her I was angry this week?
"That's because I felt I had to!" I exploded. "If you could at least trust me, then I would have told you I was worried and angry. Things wouldn't have gotten like this between us!"
She looked offended. She said that she trusted me and I almost laughed. If she had trusted me, we wouldn't be here. Not arguing, at least.
"I don't know where you got the idea that I don't. Why would I let you stay at my place when I'm not there? Lend you my extra key? Let you do things to me like you did last night?" she continued. I shook my head as she spoke, refusing to let her ridiculous words take root in my mind.
"What do you want me to do?” she demanded in a yell. “Give you my bank PIN? Okay. It's 723-"
God, shut up!
"I don't want your damned bank PIN!" I shouted over her horrible tirade.
Did she think that's what our relationship was about? That's what trust was? PINs and money? I screamed at her and sobbed in my head.
"I don't want permission to stay over when you're not home. I don't want your extra key. It's fine if I can't have those things. What I want is for you to open up your heart to me once in a while. Lend me the extra key to that and I'll be happy. Let me stay overnight there. Don't just give me things- things like PINs and keys. That's not what I want. That's not what I've given you."
And that was it. I'd said all that I could. I realised that she had never taken me seriously. To her, this past week - since Kobe - must have been some wild experiment. Something born out of the loneliness we both felt because of our jobs. She'd confused friendship with something beyond it. Our years of friendship before... meant nothing. Or not as much as I'd thought.
I felt downright humiliated. I'd never questioned my feelings for her. I'd questioned her feelings for me all the time, but never mine for her.
I knew for sure that I'd said too much, given too much, and messed up royally again. Typical me.
I couldn't stay there any longer. There was nothing to be gained.
I left her there. She didn't try to follow me or call after me. Maybe I'd made her feel bad. Maybe she didn't care. Who knew? I sure as hell didn't.
However, as far as I was concerned, everything between us, including our friendship, was over.
-
Chapter 17 of 35
I look at the clock. It's nearing eight o'clock. I still have a few hours to wander around memory lane.
On a whim, I flip to channel four. It's time for the weather. Current conditions include clear skies and fourteen degrees centigrade. That's exactly how I feel right now.
Clear-headed but a little cold inside. I can see the past and I can see where I went wrong and where I excelled. I can remember most of it with precision. Yet not even the happy memories can take me to that time when I was happiest. Even the low points that I've been thinking about sometimes seem like they're more worth living through. At least Aya and I still talked.
-
Chapter 18 of 35
I got home after my concert. It was the worst concert in my whole career as an idol. I got all the steps perfect, I hit all my notes, I laughed and joked at the right times.
I didn't feel a thing, though.
I threw my stuff on the floor and got ready for a bath. Twenty minutes later I sank into the warm water and closed my eyes. Inevitably, Aya came to my mind. In fact, I don't think she had ever left it. She was practically the only thing I could think about, especially since fighting with her.
I didn't hate her. Not anymore. Oh, I was angry with her. I was furious. But I didn't hate her. In the end, I never could.
And that just made me angrier. The fact that I couldn't hate her. The fact that I was so weak. Such a sucky loser. I let her treat me like that. I made excuses for her and let her get away with everything because I was somehow entranced. Bewitched. Aya could do no evil.
As I sat in the bathtub, I finally resolved to do something about it. If the things she did couldn't make me hate her, I'd take an active approach and convince myself I hated her. It was better than the alternative - to love and get hurt. No, not to get hurt. To get my insides ripped to pieces and my heart shredded.
I thought of the things I could do to make myself hate Aya.
I hit upon a brilliant idea. I'd make her hate me. That would be easy. I had no idea why she ever liked me in the first place. I knew that I wasn't anything special, so it wouldn't be hard to show her my bad side.
The thought depressed me. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to hurt Aya. Even if she killed me, I really couldn't do it to her.
But I had to.
I finished my bath and spent my night planning what to do. I got nothing done. I only made myself wish that all of this had never happened.
The next morning I slept in far too late. It was my one day off that week and I spent almost half of it unconscious. I got out of bed just before noon and somehow washed my face, started some laundry, and made breakfast. Not that I was hungry. It was just something to do.
At a quarter to one, my home phone rang. I picked up after three rings. I didn't want to talk to anyone, but I thought it might be something important.
"Yeah?" I asked into the receiver, not in the mood to be overly polite.
"Hi? Miki?"
It was Aya. Any politeness I'd been about to offer to the maker of this phone call disappeared into thin air.
"Yes?" I asked hollowly.
"Can I meet you?"
No. No. No! I thought. I almost said yes. I had to be strong.
"What is it, Aya?" I asked without showing any emotion.
It might be work-related. If it was, I'd have to let her talk to me.
"I just want to say some things to you."
Vague answer.
"Does this have to do with work?" I asked outright.
"Not exactly."
Then shut the hell up and don't call me.
"Then I'll talk to you later. I don't have time for this right now."
I pushed the power button violently and tossed the phone onto the couch.
I'd done it. Step one of making Aya hate me. I'd been rude to her on the phone and denied her an opportunity to explain herself. A small victory.
If it was such a victory, why did I feel so terrible?
What if she had a really good excuse? A really good reason why she did what she did? I couldn't understand what it could possibly be, but there had to be something...
Twenty minutes later I let out a frustrated cry and stalked over to my phone. I dialled Aya's number. I would get to the bottom of it. Maybe I could inflict some damage while I was at it.
"Hello?" she asked after a few rings.
"What did you want to tell me?" I demanded.
There was a silence in which I'm sure she was surprised that I called her back. I hoped she wasn't hopeful. I didn't want to let her think that things were okay between us. I also didn't want her to think that she'd managed to tempt me with information because I sure as hell had been, and I wanted to believe that things would be okay after this phone call, but I didn't want to allow her the satisfaction of knowing.
So she jumped into what she had to say. She apologised. For not letting me in on her issues, for not trusting me enough. She thanked me for being a model example of a friend and comforting her. She told me she never lied to me except when she'd said she was okay whenever I'd questioned her during that bad week.
I believed every word she said. It made me so angry. As I sat there silently, absorbing her words, I could hear the faint buzzing of cicadas coming from her side. She was outside.
"Why'd you do it?" I rasped out.
I didn't really know what to say.
"Do what?"
"Not tell me that you wanted to leave," I clarified.
And then she went into something that pained me. She brought up my failed solo career first.
"... I didn't want you to get angry and think that I was ego-obsessed and that I thought so highly of myself that I could leave H!P far behind without a worry."
Did she think I was stupid? Did she think I had no control over myself? Did she think I was so jealous of her that I couldn't be trusted to make judgements or give her my opinions about her career? Of course thinking about my failures wasn't pleasant, but if I had to think about them for practical reasons and to help her out, I could handle it. What hurt me most, though, was that she thought I would have thought badly of her if she mentioned those things to me.
She had completely missed the point of opening one's heart to someone. You were supposed to let go of your inhibitions and trust that person to be able to see the good in you no matter what bad or stuck up things you had (or thought you had) done.
"I told you I didn't care about that anymore. I'm not going to jump in pain every time someone or something reminds me I'm not a soloist anymore," I started.
I could feel myself becoming more animated. I stood up and waved my hand around even though she couldn't see me.
"And do you think I'm going to judge you right away and call you stuck up or something because you recognise your own talent? You'd think I'd know you a little better than to automatically assume that. You think I'm stupid enough to get angry about something like that?!"
Then she told me she was insecure, and simultaneously, but passively, accused me of being insecure. Damn straight, I was, but it was no time to remind me. Anyway, how could she possibly be insecure? Insecurity was for losers like me, not perfect people like her. I yelled back at her to stop with crap talk like that. She was starting to piss me off in a dangerous way.
I didn't quite hear the beginning of her sentence, but I caught the second half.
"...I still feel insecure talking about it with you because I don't want you to dislike me. That would ruin everything. Your opinion is important to me."
My breath stopped. She sounded so sincere. For a moment I forgot that I was trying to make her hate me. I almost let her through. What she had said... that's what I wanted to hear.
No, I reminded myself. Stay strong. You've almost got her hating you.
"Don't do this to me. Don't pile it on anymore," I said.
My voice felt empty. I didn't want it to betray what I felt - that I was so incredibly close to accepting her apology.
"Miki, I don't like talking about this on the phone. Can we please just meet up?" she pleaded.
I considered it in my head. I crumbled under her appeal and I started to soften up, so I hardened my voice even more to keep her from noticing.
"Win yourself an invitation to my place by using any spectacular words you may have, if you want," I said acidly into the phone. "Convince me that I should give you a chance- if you can use that head of yours to think of something other than yourself."
There was a brief pause on her side, and I wondered if she'd just hang up on me.
"There's no need to be rude," she said in a soft, hurt voice.
She had no right to call me rude when she had committed such a heinous act of betrayal.
"Rude?" I burst out with a bitter laugh. "Rude?! Oh no. Rude would be asking something inappropriate of you. Rude would be if I told you to tell me how far you really went with that stupid boyband singer of yours."
I hadn't meant to bring him up, but the words just slipped out of my mouth.
"Miki... I told you ages ago that there was nothing. For god's sake, it was a couple of dates."
She sounded like she was whining. I was sickened.
I began to lose it.
"Yeah, but he still got house calls. Service at his own front door. Groceries and who knows what else," I spat out.
I felt my control slipping...
"M... but... your- I told... Miki!" she stuttered.
She sounded like she was starting to get angry...
"Was he any good? You never told me the details," I started.
And that set me off. I suddenly started to take stabs at her in earnest. It wasn't the cold, calculated meanness I had intended. It was fiery, spontaneous, and even more hurtful than anything I could have made up. I felt like I was in the right the whole time. That what I was saying was reasonable, sensible. I didn't realise at the time that I was being ridiculous.
"I should know so that I can have more things to be angry about. What was it like sleeping with him?" I asked intrusively.
"I told you everything already," she said in a tiny voice.
She was such a liar. There's no way she'd restrained herself like that.
"Really? I hardly believe that you only kissed him a few times."
I could picture it in my head... Aya and that guy... sitting on her couch... or maybe her bed... and slowly warming up to each other... taking each other's clothes off... him pushing her down on the bed and telling her not to be afraid and that he wouldn't hurt her...
I clenched my teeth and tried to get the image out of my head.
She asked me why I didn't believe her.
"Because I know you better than that. I know you have a taste for action."
Images of our nights together interrupted that other, sour image I'd placed in my head. It was an epileptic's worst nightmare - things changing too quickly, bright flashes, moving pictures...
"Don't lie to me and tell me you don't. I've seen it."
"Why would I outright lie to you about it?"
I could have sworn I heard tears in her voice. I almost laughed out loud.
"Maybe you were embarrassed to tell me. Maybe you didn't want me to think badly of you - that you were a slut or really easy or something for sleeping with him after 'a couple of dates'. Hmm?" I said in a condescending way.
"Stop it!" she cried.
I knew I'd won, but I kept going. I'd become lost on a terrible path, and the only way to get out of it was to keep going down it.
"Why? Why can't I know? Aren't I your best friend?" I asked angrily. "Didn't you sleep with me, too? I deserve to know."
The hatred came back. It wasn't as strong as before, but remembering how close we'd been and how much of myself I'd given up to her made me feel so ashamed of myself. It made me hate myself more than I had ever hated anything. I had made the biggest mistake of my life, and there was no taking it back.
I continued to prod at her. She told me I was being ridiculous, but I barely even heard.
And then she said that there was nothing between us when she was dating that moron.
She was the biggest liar I had ever met. We might not have been sleeping together and we might not have said anything, but there was definitely something between us. No other two friends acted like that, held each other like that, did intimate things like we did. No other.
"Nothing between us?!" my yell exploded from me. "'Closest friends in the world' means nothing?"
Not only had I made the mistake of kissing her that one night, but also of simply being her friend. I'd meant nothing to her. Nothing at all.
"You know perfectly well what I mean," she said as if I was supposed to really know.
How could I know when I kept hearing different things? So I asked.
"No, I don't. Please elaborate for me. Just to be clear. How did you think of me back then?"
"Closer to you than to anyone else," she replied.
I waited for more, but that was it.
"That's all?" I asked in a tone that must have shown my disapproval.
She didn't answer. I wouldn't settle for no answer. Not this time.
"Is that all?" I repeated slowly.
"Stop this," she pleaded in that whiney voice that was starting to make my ears hurt.
"You felt something, I know. You couldn't even believe it yourself. And you fucked him despite not even being sure where your heart was."
Something inside of me died. I recognised that I'd gone too far, yet I still couldn't stop myself.
She bit back at me harder than I thought she would. She yelled that I was being stupid.
"Now as for your insecurity, there-" she started, but I cut in.
"Insecure?" I asked.
Why did she have to bring that up again?
"Hell, yes, I'm insecure! How can I ever be sure you like me if I know you're just going to hide the truth from everyone?"
I guess that was what I really wanted to know. If she liked me or not. She could tell me that she did. She could touch me and show me that she did. But how could I ever really know if she meant it?
"It was one instance!" she almost screamed at me.
"One leads to two leads to three... Maybe I should just become friends with Shibata. Maybe she'll let me know what's up with you."
"You're sick."
No, you're the one who's sick. Not being able to trust your own- whatever I was to you, I thought bitterly.
"Am I? You're the one who trusts her more than you trust me."
She promised me that it wasn't true. I felt like I'd reached the end of that dark path. I could see light up ahead. I was almost out.
"I don't trust you anymore. Your promise means nothing."
I said it with such finality that I felt I'd stepped off the road and was falling from a cliff.
"Then it's your loss," she said.
What a snob.
"If you don't trust me, hang up the phone right now. Hang up right now and go on thinking that-"
I hung up.
-
Chapter 19 of 35
For the second time that evening, the phone rings and jolts me out of my mind. I stare at it angrily, but I go over and pick it up. The only thing worse than an unwanted phone call is having to reply to a message recorded on voice mail.
"Hello?" I ask, not bothering to hide my annoyance.
It's Shibata. Now there's someone I haven't seen in a few months. We've managed to stay friends. Not extremely close, but we have some things in common that somehow have us e-mailing each other every now and then. She's been off doing some studying in one of those African countries. Maybe Kenya. I keep forgetting because she's been there five times this year already, each time a different country.
Funny thing is that even though she entered university five years ago and then started working on her doctorate, she didn't (and still hasn't) given up singing. She still records albums and does the occasional small performance. We've worked together exactly once in the years since Hello! Project ceased to exist.
She's going to make the most interesting singing anthropologist when she finishes up her final paper.
She asks me if I'm free next week. She's back in Tokyo and she wants to talk to me about some things. I pull out my schedule and flip to next week's pages.
"I have some time on Wednesday," I suggest.
I have the whole afternoon and evening off. That's what I call extreme luck.
"That doesn't work at all for me. Monday morning?" she asks.
I shake my head even though she's not in the room.
"Impossible."
"Any time before that? "
I turn to this week's pages. There is one free day this week, but I can't give my time to her.
"Um, well..." I hum negatively.
"No free days at all?" she asks.
I hesitate for a second.
"I have tomorrow off, but..." I trail off.
There's a brief silence.
"No, it's okay. How about the week after next?"
She understands immediately. She doesn't have to say anything.
We see that late nights work best, so we decide to meet next Thursday in the evening after work. It might be late, but we won't be long. Just some coffee and chatting.
That done, I quickly ask her how she is, and she replies,
"That's part of what I want to talk to you about."
I can hear her eyes sparkling from over the phone. Something really good must have happened. I bet that she's getting married. I bet her boyfriend popped the question recently and now she has to gush to everyone she knows. I hold my tongue and don't ask, though, because whatever it is, she seems to want to tell me in person.
We decide to hold off our updates untill Thursday and we say good night.
I hang up.
It's a wonder we've been able to stay friends all these years. She's always been Aya's friend, not my friend. I suppose circumstances change. It's still all very weird, though.
I settle down on my couch and close my eyes.
-
Chapter 20 of 35
It took me two days to realise what I had done.
Part of me wanted her to keep trying. I wanted her to keep coming to me to talk. I wanted her to message me or call me again. Anything that would indicate that she was actually interested in being friends again. I don't think she understood how much I wanted to forgive her, though. I had probably been too awful to her. I don't think she understood how much I wanted her to forgive me. That had been my goal, though, so I should have been happy that it worked.
I couldn't stop brooding. I got in trouble at work. I made some of my other friends angry. Nothing seemed to work to pull me out of my miserable mood. If the rest of my life was going to be like this, I may as well have been diagnosed with a brain-wasting disease and given a week to live.
In her face, though, I had to be strong. I found out that she'd taken some sick leave, but I knew she wasn't sick. She rarely got sick. She was probably too angry (or maybe too embarrassed) to face me. It looked like even the strong ones (such as Aya) sometimes ran away from their problems, too.
When she came back, I ignored her when I saw her at lunch time. I forced myself to stare blankly at something else and chew my food like a robot. I didn't care what anyone thought about it. In my mind I wondered if she was really okay. There was a small chance that she had genuinely been sick. I wanted to ask her just to make sure.
Of course I didn't because I had a mission to complete: hate her. Have her hate me.
"Hey," Yossi said to me one day a week later.
I'd been going through my routine on autopilot. I'd barely spoken a word to her outside of work, and I realised this when I snapped my head up from its comfortable resting spot on my arms and saw her staring down at me.
"What?!" I asked, alarmed.
I'd fallen asleep almost instantly at a table in the foyer. I'd been waiting to meet her for lunch. We'd been filming the same show but two different segments, and I had gotten out earlier than her.
"Are you ready to go?" she asked.
I scrambled up and looked in my bag to make sure I had my things. I had forgotten my cell phone. I muttered a curse and told Yossi I had to go and get it.
"No, don't bother. I have to go up and get my wallet. I'll grab your phone. Where is it?"
I apologised for the inconvenience and told her that it was in the main drawer. She was off in a flash.
The night before, I had received an e-mail from Aya. It had been simple. She asked if we could talk. I hadn't written her back until the next morning. I didn't know what to say. I knew what I wanted to say ("Yes!"), but what I had to say was a little more complicated. I settled on a very plain "No, I don't think so". She hadn't replied yet. I doubt she would, but I needed to know if she by chance did. I needed to know the second if she did.
Yossi came back down a few minutes later. She looked a little surprised and she gave me a questioning look.
"What?" I asked, rubbing my chin and the corners of my mouth in case I'd drooled on myself while sleeping.
"Uh, nothing," Yossi said with a shake of the head. "Let's go."
We went to lunch quietly.
At the shop, Yossi put her chopsticks down and looked at me.
"Are you and Aya-chan still arguing?"
I almost choked on a mouthful of noodles.
"What?" I asked after swallowing them down with difficulty.
She gave me a pointed look because she knew I'd heard her perfectly clearly.
"Umm..."
"Don't you want to talk about it?" Yossi asked.
I couldn't tell if she was dying to hear a new piece of gossip or if she really wanted to help me. Maybe both.
"No," I said a bit coldly.
"Did you know that everybody knows?"
I choked again, this time on the rush of words that tried to get out of my mouth.
"WWh-g- what?!" I hissed.
Yossi shrugged at me.
"It's really obvious, Miki-chan. I think even the little kids know," she said to me with a pained look.
I bowed my head down and stared at my bowl of ramen.
"It shouldn't be anybody's business," I mumbled. "My private life is my private life."
"Not when it affects everybody's work," Yossi stated firmly.
I looked up at her with a frown.
"You might not have noticed it, but you have been really cranky and really difficult to work with the past two weeks. At first I thought it was just that bad time of the month, but this is ridiculous. What's going on with you?"
I couldn't believe I was getting a Yoshizawa-style scolding. She was supposed to scold the younger members, not me. They're the ones who needed to be kept in line. I was so embarrassed, though, that I didn't fight back like I normally would have.
"If you have issues that you need to work through, you'd better work through them. Either that, or call it quits. So you had a fight. We all have fights," Yossi said, making a small gesture to everyone around us (two people). "And we all recover. Do whatever you need to do to make up or get over it, but please don't drag the rest of the group down with you."
Being scolded by a friend was like a slap in the cheek. It stung. Aya's words and actions dug deeper into me like a knife, but sometimes a hit on the surface was enough to make me want to cry. I didn't cry, but I didn't feel warm and fuzzy either.
"Okay, Yoshizawa-san. Sorry," I said quietly with a bowed head.
I felt her hand on my shoulder suddenly.
"If you need to talk, you can come to me. As a friend, not a leader. Okay?" she said.
I didn't look up, but I nodded. I'd never talk to her about me and Aya, but it was nice to know that she was there for me.
Things got a little awkward after that. We talked about the afternoon schedule and laughed a bit about some of the things we'd done in the morning, but it was forced laughter. I didn't really mean anything to me. We went back to our building after lunch and I went and holed myself up in my dressing room for the last fifteen minutes of the break with the excuse of having to call my mom.
When I got into my change room, I noticed a definite change. There was something in the air that hadn't been there in the morning. I studied it from the doorway as I closed the door slowly. I know that Yossi had gone straight to the drawer to get my phone. She knew I kept it there and wouldn't have had to rummage around.
I looked at the chair by the table. It was pulled out. The pillow on it was half falling off of it. As if someone had come in and sat down and not fixed it the way I'd left it. I tried to remember if I'd tucked the chair in under the desk or if I'd been the one to leave it like that.
I walked over to the chair and sat in it, trying to remember my actions in the morning. Then I caught a whiff of something. A smell that was familiar, but not mine. It was like soap - shampoo or conditioner. Maybe perfume? Deodorant? I didn't know. But it wasn't mine.
It took me another minute to realise whose it was. It's not that I didn’t know what she smelled like. It's just that it was the last person I'd expected to be in my dressing room.
I wondered if it was my guilty imagination playing tricks on me, or if Aya had actually been here. If she'd been here, what for? Had she left something before and had to pick it up? Then why would she sit down? I was pretty sure I hadn't left the chair like that.
Maybe she'd come by to talk to me. Maybe wait for me to get back.
Then why had she left? Had she chickened out? Had she received a phone call?
Maybe she had to go and discuss the future of her career with her precious Shiba-chan, I thought bitterly.
But that was assuming she'd been in my dressing room at all. I didn't know. I was too confused. I caught myself inhaling deeply, trying to catch the last remains of that fruity, soapy smell that reminded me of good times. I got up quickly, gathered the things I needed and left my room fast, frazzled out of my mind and wishing that I could jump off a cliff and fall without hitting anything, free falling for eternity just so that I could think about something other than her.
She tortured me without even being there.
-
Chapter 21of 35
I stand up to get that glass of water I've been meaning to get for a while now, but I become distracted by a dirty spot on my floor. I take a detour and grab some paper towel. I wet it with water and scrub at the spot. It's soy sauce. I clean it all up, getting some on my hands, and throw the paper towel away. I look at my hands and decide that they can use a good wash, too. I go to the washroom and turn on the water, lathering up with soap. The second I smell the soap, the things I have just remembered become even clearer. This is the exact smell I had noticed that day in my change room. It's amazing how I can remember something like that.
I remember that Aya used to use this kind of soap all the time. When we had started staying over at each other's places more often, I had become obsessed with the soap and had started using it. A few years later, she had stopped using it, but I had continued. It was body soap, but I used it as hand soap, too, putting it at the washroom and kitchen sinks.
It's funny, the things that remind us of our pasts. The things that make the pictures in our heads so vivid. One simple smell opens up so many memories. I smile and go back to the couch, sitting down and crossing my arms and legs. I smell my hands once more and close my eyes, leaning my head against the wall.
A lot had happened the day after I smelled her soap in my room. Maybe it had been some sort of premonition - some sort of hint - of what was to come.
-
Chapter 22 of 35
I should have technically been excited to have a day off on a week day. There was nothing to film, nothing to practice, no meeting with any authorities. I was completely free, but I was still miserable because that just meant I'd have more time to brood on my own.
I woke up at ten in the morning, and after a quick shower and breakfast, I decided I had to get out. I needed to go and do something that would distract me.
I would go shopping. It would be therapeutic. I ignored all thoughts in my head, and I surprised myself by becoming so involved in my shopping that I forgot about Aya for a few hours.
This was bad, though, because I immersed myself in my shopping with such aggression and concentration that I ended up buying too many things. I spent a lot of money. Far too much.
I got home at half past five and dropped my bags in my room. I didn't have the energy to go through them. I went and fell onto my couch lazily, grabbing the remote control and turning the TV on. Nothing interesting was on, so I left a variety show on for background noise.
I thought back to what Yossi had said to me. I'd been dragging everyone down? I hadn't realised. How could I be such a key factor in the mood of the entire group? I tended to keep to myself and I was serious about my work. I gulped at what a bad situation I was in. I was apparently so far gone that I didn't even notice my behaviour. I had to be told by an outside person that I was basically being a pest.
If you have issues that you need to work through, you'd better work through them. Either that, or call it quits, Yossi had said to me.
How could I work through them? I had to make Aya hate me, and as that happened, I grew more and more depressed. But it was the only way. There was no other way to do it than to be depressed. If I forgave her, then... then...
I couldn't remember. What would happen if I forgave her? We'd make up and maybe be able to be friends again. I wouldn't be so depressed. We could both be happy.
For about twenty seconds, I wondered what the hell I was doing trying to make Aya hate me. What was that going to accomplish? Was I momentarily insane when I thought up that plan?!
I covered up the feelings by reminding myself that I was doing this to protect myself from getting hurt again in the future. She didn't deserve my trust anymore. She'd trample all over me again if I let her in too close.
I shook my head and sighed angrily out loud. It felt like there was a traffic jam in my head. I needed someone to come and help me sort it all out. The only person who could have helped me before was Aya. I couldn't ask for her help.
I turned my attention to the TV. I'd spent so much time thinking that it was just past six o'clock and new TV programs were starting. I flipped through the channels.
"Koalas!!"
I jumped up in delight, dropped the remote on the floor, and then bent down to pick it up. Unfortunately I had forgotten to steady myself and I slipped, doing a face-plant on the floor. I didn't stop there because the rest of my body needed somewhere to do. As luck, angles, and celestial forces would have it, my body went up and over. My final resting position after my somersault was on my back, staring up at my ceiling.
"OWWW!" I yelled to nobody but myself.
I got up and pouted, rubbing my head and my shoulders. I grabbed my remote and looked at it angrily. It looked like it was laughing at me.
"You think you're so funny, huh?" I said out loud to it. "Well you're not!"
I stuck my tongue out at the inanimate object and sat back on the couch.
I had a secret from everyone: I loved animals with a passion. I watched documentaries and read books about them. Whenever we did any work with animals, I was always at my happiest. Sometimes I thought that I liked animals more than most humans. They made me happy, and whatever mistakes they made were forgivable due to the whole "animal nature" thing. They were lucky. We weren't able to use that excuse to such an extent.
The documentary playing was going to show highlights from an observation of a family of koalas over the course of two years. I recognised the names of the observers. They were very famous in the biological anthropology circle in Japan. It was my dark, embarrassing secret that I followed their work. I mostly just liked to watch their documentaries or look at the photos in their books, but I'd inevitably picked up on some familiar names and terms over the years.
The only person who knew my secret was Aya. She'd known for a long time that I loved animals, but a few weeks ago in Kobe, I'd told her how much of a geek I was about them. How I went to the library and looked through the National Geographic magazines and used the computer to look up information on good places in the world I could travel to in order to see as many animals as possible. In fact, it was one of the reasons why I wanted to learn English so much. If I could become comfortable in English, I could go almost anywhere in the world and observe different animals.
I felt happy for the first time in quite a few days. I forgot entirely about the name "Aya" and any bad thing that had happened to me lately. I ran quickly to my room to get some paper and a pen, and I settled down in front of the TV to watch and take notes.
One page of notes and thirty-five minutes later, the doorbell rang. As that happened, a commercial break started up. I bit back an annoyed growl and I quickly shoved my notes under a pillow. I couldn't let anybody catch me taking notes on an educational program on TV.
I walked over to the door quickly, hoping that the visit would be thirty seconds long. 'No, I don't want to join the Society of Jesus, but thanks anyway', or 'I take part in NHK's Kouhaku every year. Why do I have to pay for the service?' would be short and polite answers, wouldn't they?
I opened the door.
The word "Aya" suddenly had meaning once again. I hadn't expected her to come all the way to my place to see me. What did she want? I retreated into my shell and stared her down.
"Are you busy?" she asked.
I need to watch my koalas! my mind screamed desperately.
"Yes," I said.
At least I was being honest, if not polite. She then looked over my shoulder.
"Watching something good?"
I broke out into a cold sweat. I didn't want her to see what I was watching. I didn't want to show any weak side of myself to her. Loving cute, fuzzy animals was weak.
"What do you want?" I asked her quickly. I wanted her to say something so that I could have an excuse to kick her out. She squared her shoulders off and I had a sinking feeling that this would take a while.
"I need to talk to you because it's very unfair how I haven't had a chance to explain anything. I know that I was supposed to say brilliant things to convince you to let me have a chance, but I really have nothing. I'm not a brilliant person when it comes to matters of you, so you're going to have to put up with that," she said in her determined tone of voice. "Right now I want five minutes. If you have no interest after that, you can kick me out - literally if you want - and I'll never ever bother you again for your entire life."
She sounded serious. She sounded like if I didn't give her those five minutes, she'd kick my butt.
Strangely enough, I wasn't worried about that. I was mostly worried about getting her out of my apartment as quickly as possible so that I could watch my program in peace. I debated what to do and then decided that a few minutes wouldn't hurt. It's what I really wanted. I couldn't resist. I let her in and moved off to stand a few metres into my apartment. She took her shoes off and we stood facing off at the entrance of my home. I had my usual blank expression on. I wanted to make her a little uncomfortable.
She, however, was the one making me uncomfortable. She looked behind me and I thought she might burst into laughter. I heard the narrator of the documentary start up again, and I bristled up slightly in embarrassment.
"So talk," I said loudly to remind her I was standing in front of her.
She looked scared and then focused on her words.
"Miki, I lied to you, but only once. Only about one thing. Nothing else. Ever," she said firmly.
I didn't change my expression, but inside, a storm ripped through my innards and tore everything apart as I questioned her statement.
"And I did it because I didn't want to cause you any concern or pain. I didn't know how to tell you what I was thinking," she continued. "I wasn't exaggerating when I told you I feel insecure around you. You put me up on this pedestal that I can't possibly get down from, so I try to be perfect in order not to disappoint you. I'm afraid to be less than that because then you'd see through me and stop liking what you see."
"That's absurd, Aya. You don't have to act perfect. To me you're just as good when you mess up as when you're faultless," I said.
I didn't mean to really compliment her, but it was hard not to. I wanted to, but it was also the simple truth. She was perfect even when she wasn't. My mind screamed out for an opportunity to push her away.
"Then why are you so angry at me if you know I'm not perfect? Why is it that I make one mistake - I withhold some information from you - and suddenly I'm a monster?"
I wanted to scream at her to stop trying to confuse me and recognise the wrong things she'd done. Instead, I answered her question.
"I told you already before. You stopped trusting me. It wasn't just that you didn't tell me you wanted to leave H!P," I said.
It wasn't the result. It was the means. Or some sort of thing like that. It didn't matter what information it was she was withholding. It was the act of withholding it that mattered. The trust had disappeared.
And she finally looked guilty. She looked down at the floor. I didn't smile. I felt that I should smile in order to make myself an even more vile character, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I just wanted to touch her shoulder and tell her to sit down so that we could talk more comfortably.
"That's not really how I meant to come off sounding..." she trailed off.
"Yeah? Well you did."
"It's not what I meant."
I laughed in my head. This was going nowhere. Maybe it would be better to just kick her out. I couldn't keep up this charade any longer. In all honesty, I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted her to be sorry. I wanted her to realise what she'd done to me. I wanted her to hate me. I wanted to hate her. I wanted to scream at her and then touch her hand and tell her to never hurt me like that again. Make her promise.
"Is this going to go around in circles? 'Cause we could stay here all night and argue back and forth like this, but it's not going to fix anything," I sighed bitterly.
I'd forgotten all about the koalas. When Aya was in the scene, everything else became a secondary concern.
"So what will? What will fix everything? If I tell you that you can trust me without a single doubt, will it make things better?"
Yes.
"If I tell you that I'll never keep something like that from you again, will you stop hating me?"
I don't hate you.
"If I tell you what I've told you before - that you mean so much to me - will it all be okay?"
Yes.
"Will you believe me?"
Yes!
I wanted to answer her questions, but nothing came out of my mouth. I was still struggling to figure out what was best. Make her hate me and depress myself for life... Make her like me again and get hurt again... Or maybe I could make her like me again and somehow not get hurt. Yossi told me to solve the problem. What was the best way??
"Don't ask me something like that," I said shakily and quietly.
I couldn't come to a decision this quickly. I wasn't smart enough to do it on my own.
"Why not?" Aya demanded of me.
"Just don't," I repeated, getting angry.
"Miki, why not? I want to know."
She just had to say my name. She had to let my simple name pass out of those perfect vocal chords of hers, through her perfect neck, and out of her perfect lips. I hadn't looked at her closely in a while and my heart was starting to ache because I was remembering all the things I was missing. If I wasn't careful, I was going to forgive her and quite possibly try to drag her into my room to make up for all that lost time.
"I think you should go," I said quickly, getting ready to usher her out before I did anything I would regret.
She was about to fight it, but she gave in quietly.
"Well, thanks for listening to that much."
She sounded so disappointed. She backed away and went to the door. I let myself frown as I followed her closely to the door. I didn't have any reason to follow her so closely. She bent down to slip on her shoes and I stared at the door. It was unlocked. She could easily make her own way out. But no. I had to be there to let her out. She straightened up and was about to open the door when she whipped around to face me again.
"Just tell me why. Please," she pleaded.
I looked into her eyes and all that I could see was pain and sadness. All this hurt that I had caused her by being mean.
Perhaps it was my nature, a special Fujimoto Miki nature, but I couldn't let her go. Not that easily. I needed her by my side to make me normal.
"Because I don't hate you," I rasped out before that stupid side of me tried to say something rude. "And because if you say those things to me, I have no choice but to believe you."
Instead of looking happy, she looked confused. I was offended. Hadn't I just said something she wanted to hear?
"I don't understand. Then why did you say those things to me the other day? Why did you insult my entire character if you don't hate me? Why are you so quick to change your mind?"
Oh. That's what she didn't get. How could I explain what I had been thinking? How could I ever ask her to forgive me for my outburst? I couldn't. I couldn't dare ask. But I could try to explain, if that's what she wanted. I didn't know where to start.
"I didn't- I didn't mean them," I admitted. "You made me say them."
It was cryptic, but I didn't realise that she couldn't quite read my mind. She looked shocked. I had to explain it all.
"I don't see-" she started, but I cut her off.
"Aya," I started, knowing that once I finished my first sentence, there was no turning back. "I love you more than air or water or whatever. More than myself. I don't want to tell you that too much because it's weird and creepy and you can't possibly feel the same way even if you say you do."
I watched her eyes carefully. They were wide, almost in wonder. And when I told her that I loved her that much, something flashed in them. I didn't know if it was good or bad. I just hoped that if it was bad, it wasn't too bad.
"So when you hurt me, it's like I die. I don't like dying..." I continued sadly.
I couldn't look at her anymore because I felt too bad. I looked down at the floor between us.
"I said those things because I wanted to hate you. I thought by saying them, I could believe them. And maybe you'd hate me for talking to you like that. Then it would be easier to learn to hate you. Then if I hated you, I wouldn't care so much if you hurt me. And then I thought that I'd no longer have to cut off or at least suppress any part of me that you didn't like or that wasn't useful."
I kept my eyes on the ground. I didn't want to see her reaction. She was probably very angry at me for doing that to her.
"I don't hate any part of you. All your personalities, all your sides, are what make you you. And... I like you," Aya said.
I heard her perfectly clearly. She didn't hate me. She didn't hate any part of me. How was that possible? Not even I could stand everything about myself.
"I don't see how you can," I mumbled.
She must have been being nice. She must have felt sorry for me. There was no other reason to speak like that.
I felt my shirt being grabbed, and I panicked. Maybe she was changing her mind and was about to beat me up (or try). It was a silly thought, but I had lost all sense of judgement.
"Even that stupid part of you that makes you say dumb things like that. Even that part I like," Aya said firmly to me.
"That's the part I can't stand," I whispered with a wince.
I tried to pull away.
"I say things at bad times and ruin things. I can't control it. I'm unreliable."
"Then you should learn to trust and like yourself before trying to trust me," Aya suggested in a soft tone.
I looked at her to see if she was mocking me. She wasn't. She looked absolutely serious.
Learn to trust myself? I thought. Of course I already trust myself.
"I trust myself," I echoed my thoughts.
Aya shook her head slowly.
"I don't think you do..."
My eyes widened open in despair. Was she right?
Maybe she was...
I looked right at her, not trying to hide any of my feelings anymore. They poured out through my eyes and I finally understood something - I didn't trust myself enough.
She let go of my shirt and I breathed in deeply. I'd stopped breathing for a while.
Aya started to talk about my past. How I'd been a soloist and how I'd been let down and put into a group. How I'd lost my confidence, how I'd been held back by a bunch of fifty-year-old men in suits.
I thought back to the time when everything was new for me. TV performances, concerts on a real stage, talk shows, private rehearsals... I'd felt like I was on top of the world back then. Then I thought of when they'd suddenly announced my joining Morning Musume. I'd cried in secret. I'd even called up Aya and ranted for hours about it. Eventually I'd swallowed it down like a painfully enormous pill and gone with the flow, and I somehow ended up enjoying it (or convincing myself I enjoyed it) more than being a soloist. I'd forgotten the happiness I'd originally had and replaced it with another, maybe lesser happiness.
I stared right back into Aya's eyes as she psychoanalysed me on the spot. I couldn't protest because she sounded like she was right.
"Do you really believe that? Do you believe that you're not good enough? Do you let it get to you whenever you say or do or decide things? Do you question every move you make because some people didn't need another soloist in their company a few years ago?"
I didn't answer for a long time. I didn't want to answer because then I'd be admitting something scary to myself - that my life the past few years hadn't been as great as I'd thought.
"Yes," I said hollowly.
Admitting it to myself hurt more than admitting it to her.
"Don't. Don't let them convince you that you're anything less than outstanding," Aya said angrily to me.
My natural instinct was to protest, so I tried. She cut me off.
"Miki, what happened to that overconfident, funny, stubborn soloist that I met? Was she defeated by a change of situation?"
I told her no, but that I didn't think about it. Then she told me to start thinking about it.
"If you don't believe in yourself, as stupid and cheesy as that sounds, then you can't believe in other people. Not properly, at least. It's fake. And if you don't like yourself, then you can't like others properly."
I thought about it. How could I have not noticed? How could I have tried to give myself to her when I didn't even understand myself? As a result, I acted so foolishly when there was a misunderstanding, which led to me saying all those hateful things to her...
"I'm sorry," I apologised, looking at the floor again.
"Don't apologise to me for it. Just be-"
"No, not about that," I said, shaking my head.
Again, she wasn't a mind reader. I'd jumped from Point A to Point C without explaining Thought Process B.
"I mean for yelling at you last week and... saying those things and just being... really rude to you."
Part of me didn't want her to forgive me. I felt so bad that I thought she should be angry at me for a long time to come because I didn't deserve any better.
"Just promise me that you'll try and let the past be the past and learn to trust yourself," Aya said quietly, her voice full of something that sounded like forgiveness.
It made me feel warm again, hearing that voice from her. I relaxed a bit. One of her charm points was that she relaxed me - disarmed me - completely with that exact tone of voice. I never knew if she knew that particular tone worked like a charm on me and therefore used it, or if it was just the kind of tone that came out naturally when she spoke with me. Nevertheless, it worked. I looked up at her
"It might take some time," I said honestly, unsurely.
She reached out a hand and touched my hair. I wanted to cry because she hadn't done that to me in far too long.
"You have plenty of that."
No, I told her. "Life's too short."
I didn't have nearly enough time on Earth to live. Even if I lived until I was over one hundred, I would never have enough time to do everything I wanted to. More importantly, it wasn't enough time to figure out how to tell Aya everything I wanted to or to do all the fun or simple things with her that I wanted to do.
"Mmm. Maybe," Aya conceded. "But there's no sense rushing through it and messing up everything when you can take it slow and get everything right."
I felt my lips curve up in a small smile. I guess that made sense. If I lived till I was three thousand and did and said all those things poorly, it wouldn't be worth it. I wanted to get it all right, even if I couldn't finish it.
I felt Aya's hand run through my hair and then touch my cheek. I became a little dizzy because I wasn't sure what she was doing. Two weeks was a long time. Maybe she also felt some sort of uncontrollable urge. She put her hand on my shoulder and drew her face to mine, and I think I gulped a lump of nervousness down. I watched her move a bit to the left, and she then planted a kiss on my cheek. She drew back with a calm expression on her face, taking her hand away from my shoulder so that no parts of us were touching at all.
I looked at her and tried to figure out what she was thinking. It seemed like a final kiss. Like this would be our last meeting ever. And there I had been thinking that things were going to be okay between us. Then she went and did something confusing like that.
Then right before my eyes, she winked. Winked and smirked. That was her silly, 'chill out' face. The face she made whenever she told me not to worry about something small and trivial. The face conveyed to me that everything was okay and that I should not look on the dark side. With that look, I knew that she wasn't saying goodbye. I wasn't quite sure what she was saying, but it wasn't the worst thing I could think of.
"Best friends, right?" she asked brightly.
Best friends? Really? But what about anything else? Did that include everything, or was it just regular best friends, the kind that good friends all around the world claimed to be?
No. No more. I could tell that we weren't back to where we were a few weeks ago. We were back to a pre-Kobe level. In all honesty, that was disappointing. I couldn't just stop my feelings for her. I couldn't look at her without remembering what she felt like and how she touched me - my heart and my skin.
But wait, I thought. She's right. We had to cut that part out because I wasn't ready for it. I knew that she also wasn't ready. I wasn't entirely to blame, but I did have more issues to work through. Issues about myself. She could help me, but I had to make the biggest effort.
"Yeah," I agreed.
We were best friends. We'd just gone through some hellish times and things still weren't entirely okay between us, but our job as best friends was to work through it in a civilised, rational manner. I had to quit with my hypersensitive, paranoid way of thinking and she had to stop holding back important things about herself that were okay to tell just to me.
I smiled at her, this time bigger and happier. She smiled back.
"Well, I'll get going now," she said, and my heart sank.
I'd thought she'd stay and that we could talk. I could skip a koala documentary if it meant getting to talk to her.
"Oh, okay," I said out loud, trying not to show my disappointment.
"Yeah, it's getting late. I'd better prepare for tomorrow," she said with a hint of nervousness in her voice.
It could have just been my hope, but something made me think she also didn't want to leave. She ended up taking off, though. We said goodbye to each other, and we agreed that we should get together soon to talk. I let her out and watched her walk down the hallway until she turned the corner, not looking back at any point. I closed the door quietly and rested my forehead against it.
I hadn't succeeded in my mission of making her hate me. I was glad because I didn't want to ever have to hate her back.
For the first time in years, I felt inspired. Truly inspired. Aya was on my side. She believed in me. If she could believe in me, I could believe in myself, too. I could make myself better and stronger. It wouldn't just be an act anymore. I'd outshine my current self.
I had forgotten what self-respect was. I demanded respect from everyone around me, but I never gave myself any. But now that I was remembering the past, I could feel that confidence coming back. It wasn't an instantaneous thing, but I could almost taste it, it was so close. I had forgotten that it was there. I could see that it wouldn't be too hard to get it back.
I locked my door and walked away from the door, back to the couch. The koala documentary was in its final moments. The narrator was making a conclusion. I smiled and watched the last minute, turning off the TV when it was done. I sat on my couch and looked through my notes. They were messy and mostly just doodles. But I liked to think of myself as having some sort of deeper layer that nobody (except Aya) knew about. I picked up my pencil and it hovered over the paper, wondering why I had an intense desire to write something.
I let my hand go naturally. A-YA. I wrote out her given name neatly at the top of the page. I drew a very poor smiley face beside it.
And then I put the paper down and went to prepare dinner.
-
Chapter 23 of 35
I feel warm thinking about that moment. The relief I had felt after Aya's visit had calmed me down for days. Yossi noticed a change before I even opened my mouth to say hello when I walked into the studio the next morning.
"Time flies," I say out loud to myself.
The times I'm thinking about happened so long ago. I can hardly believe I'm over thirty years old. I've experienced so many things since I was twenty. So many amazing things.
I sigh and begin to remember more good things. I need to pull myself out of the dampened memories and think of all the good that has happened.
We had that talk that evening. The next few days we chatted a bit on the phone, and a week later, we were able to go out for coffee. I remember the whole time I wanted to tell her that no matter how many issues we had between us, I just wanted to bring her home with me and make us both forget anything bad had ever happened.
I waited about a month to tell her that, though. I knew we needed to chill out. I knew that we couldn't jump into anything right away because we had to mend ourselves. We did that well. We apologised countless times to each other. In fact, we almost started arguing because we wouldn't stop apologising.
So on a night a month later, I let her know that I had never stopped thinking about her in the way I did before our rough times. I had been pretty certain that she felt the same. The way she looked at me and acted around me was my hint. I could tell when her heart started to beat fast and when she got nervous being close to me. I knew that she wanted more, and so I was the one to take that step.
And it worked. That Hokkaido trip was one of those pivotal points in my life. It was so refreshing.
I sigh, and for some reason, that memory reminds me of another great time about a year later. June twenty-fifth. Her birthday again.
-
Chapter 24 of 35
I woke up that morning and automatically turned onto my side to hug Aya. I'd developed the habit over the months, and it was a hard one to stop. Even on mornings after we'd argued (which were thankfully few and far between), I'd do the exact same thing. I think it actually helped us. No matter what the situation had been the previous day, the new day would start positively. With a hug. And if I was lucky, more. But the hug was important.
So I did that again. I reached out and didn't feel her, so without opening my eyes, I started to inch towards her. I kept going and kept reaching... until I fell off the bed.
CRASH!
It hurt so much that my eyes never had a chance to open. They stayed closed as I winced.
"Fujimoto-san...?" asked a husky voice from above.
I freaked out, opened my eyes, and scrambled up to see Niigaki looking down at me from an extra bed that I didn't know I had in my room.
No, wait. I wasn't in my room. I wasn't in Aya's room. I was in a hotel room in Fukuoka and I was partnered up with Niigaki. How could I have forgotten?
"I'm fine," I groaned, getting up and getting back into bed.
"What were you doing? It's like someone put a piece of candy on the end of a string and taunted you with it while you tried to grab it," she laughed.
Or rather, rasped out. She had been sick for a few weeks. She was all better now (no longer contagious, or else I would never have slept in the same room as her), but her voice was still affected. It sounded sexy, but it didn't really go with her image.
"I... ugh."
I didn't have to explain myself to her.
"I was sleeping, stupid," I said lightly, turning around and burying myself under the covers.
I heard her snort and then I heard the rustling of paper. A page turning. What a freak. She was reading at - I checked the clock - six-oh-six in the morning. We didn't have to be up for another twenty minutes. I closed my eyes and sighed.
It was Aya's birthday. On a day like this, we were supposed to be able to spend the whole day together just having fun, me spoiling her... but she had two concerts and I had to work, too. We wouldn't meet until later in the evening.
I smiled, though. It had been one year since her nineteenth birthday. One year since I'd made the trip down to Kobe to go and see her concert. We'd gone through a lot in that year. Lots of bad at the beginning, and then pretty much perfection for the rest of it. I'd grown up a lot and gained so much confidence. She'd levelled up in just about everything and opened up her heart completely.
I snoozed for twenty minutes before our alarm went off. Niigaki turned it off and I got up to shower and get ready. Once I was dressed, I started packing my bag. My roommate joined me in packing (her own stuff).
"You talk a lot in your sleep," she said casually.
"What?" I asked sharply.
Oh great I thought. What kind of secrets had I spilled? I couldn't remember my dream from last night.
"Yeah," Niigaki smirked.
I wanted to wipe that look off her face with a slap, but I restrained myself.
"This time I think you were trying to chop up a chicken."
"What?!"
"You kept telling someone you had to slash its neck, drain the blood, and then pluck it before you could take out the guts."
That was disgusting.
"Ew! I said that?!" I asked in disbelief.
"No," she laughed and I glared. "You didn't say anything. Hahaha!"
I rolled my eyes and kept packing. Revenge would be swift... as soon as I thought of something good.
Once I was finished packing, I sent a message to Aya. She was probably just waking up, too. It wasn't anything fancy. Just a good morning, a happy birthday, and a reminder that I'd see her later that evening.
We met up with the rest of the girls for breakfast. I found Yossi and we had a serious conversation about the future of Morning Musume. We didn't usually play up to our roles as leader and sub-leader, but lots of things were happening in the project lately and we were wondering what kind of things we could do to become more active in how we were managed. We got through a lot, although Koharu kept interrupting us because Sayu kept daring her to do it. Yossi was starting to get a little annoyed, but I didn't mind. Koharu felt like a little sister to me. She was cute, and the fact that she adored me certainly helped my opinion of her stay high.
The minute I got back upstairs I checked my phone. I had a message from her. Nothing fancy. A good morning, a thank you, and a smiley... and then something I'd rather not repeat. I blushed and looked around quickly to make sure Niigaki wasn't around. She was in the washroom so I was safe. I quickly fired off a message and told her not to send me mail like that because if anyone ever saw it, it would be so bad.
Niigaki came back out as I sent my message, and I quickly put my phone away, trying to look composed.
The rest of the day dragged on. We had so much to do - take the plane back to Tokyo, go to some studio, go here, sit there, dance here, put on this costume. It didn't stop. Lunch time was twenty-five minutes.
Justice was self-served when Niigaki spilled milk all over her shirt and skirt during lunch break. She'd flown into such a panic that I figured watching her scream about how cold it was counted as sweet enough revenge. After that brief interlude, however, the craziness continued. I barely had time to breath until they let us out at ten past seven. I'd reached my limit. I was exhausted.
I said a quick goodbye to all the girls. They all wondered where I was off to in such a rush. I hadn't told them I'd be hanging out with Aya that night. They didn't need to know.
I ran out of the building and made my way straight to Shinjuku, trying to avoid the heavy crowds (which was impossible). The trains seemed to take forever, but there was nothing wrong with their scheduled arrivals. They were all on time.
I got to the concert hall. I went in through the back, presented the pass I'd gotten my hands on before, and headed for backstage. They all knew who I was, and they let me be. I watched the very last minute on the monitor in the back. Aya waved to the crowd, the curtain went down, and it was over. My heart fluttered when I saw her. This time she was wearing her own concert t-shirt and cute pants. Casual yet still really really (really really) nice.
I thanked the guys at the monitor and then went to her change room to wait. I let myself in and sat down on the couch. This one was even more spacious than the one in Kobe. I hadn't gone to wait for her backstage since then. I didn't feel so bad intruding on her space. We had an agreement.
I rummaged through my bag and made sure my present for her was in there. It was nothing like what I'd given her last year. It was a bit less flashy, but I thought of it as better.
I started to nod off after fifteen minutes of waiting when the doorknob turned. My head snapped up. The door opened slowly, and a tired and sweaty, but happy-looking Aya walked in. She closed the door behind her and sighed, satisfied.
"Good work," I greeted her.
She jumped up and looked right at me, a huge smile coming to her face instantly.
"What are you doing here?!" she asked.
I grinned and stood up.
"I got out a little earlier than I thought I could. Unfortunately I couldn't see the show."
She skipped over to me and initially took my hand before bear-hugging me.
"Happy birthday!" I cried out cheerfully, wrapping my arms around her.
She jumped up and down excitedly and squealed that she was so happy to see me. I laughed and lifted her up. Well, I tried. It kind of flopped. No matter.
"Thank you for coming."
And then despite all the singing she had just done and how thirsty she must have been, she kissed me. It was delicious. We continued for a few minutes until I pulled back, patting her on the head playfully.
"Go get changed. We're going to get out of here."
"Yeah, yeah, okay. Wait a minute," she said impatiently.
She then pushed me down and got on top of me. My head banged against the carpeted floor and I winced, rolling my eyes at her hasty apologetic look. She started to kiss me again, and I honestly thought for a moment that it was my birthday and that she was spoiling me. And it occurred to me that we were in an old change room at a theatre. Was that really a nice place to be all close?
I grabbed her wandering hands.
"Don't you want to save this for later?" I asked.
Stupid me.
"Why?" she asked breathlessly as she shook my hands off of hers and continued to try and take my clothes off. "We can do it again later."
But... I thought.
Then I realised she was right. We could always do this again later. I had thought briefly that it wouldn't be so "special" if we just lost control on the floor of such a place...
But it was thrilling. On the floor of a change room in Shinjuku, co-workers nearby, thousands of fans just outside... She and I were in our own little world, light years away from anyone else.
In the end, it didn't really matter where. It didn't even matter when (such as occasions like a birthday). All that mattered was who.
My mushy thoughts made me want to want to crack my own head open like a coconut and scold my brain for thinking like that.
"Miki," Aya whined, peering into my eyes, "since when have you been like this?"
"Huh?" I asked, genuinely confused. "Like what?"
"Not in the mood to jump me no matter where we are. Usually I'm the one who has to make you control yourself."
I laughed. She was right.
"Okay, okay," I said, grabbing her. "I'm back to normal."
"I'm sorry. It's just that concerts get me all..." the trailed off.
I knew exactly what she meant. All that moving and dancing and sweating... It could get to anyone.
"I don't know what I'd do without you," she breathed out.
Hmm, I thought as she started to get all over me again.
"The feeling's mutual."
We didn't really need to tell each other that anymore, but it was nice to sometimes hear.
"Miki?" she asked in a small voice.
"Yes?"
"Don't ever leave."
She sounded so shy that I actually pushed her away so that I could get a good look at her face. It had an unreadable expression on it. Maybe it looked a tad like relief. Relief that she'd finally said something she'd wanted to say for ages. Maybe she'd been thinking about it all day - even all week.
"Okay. I promise," I replied in my trademark casual way.
I added on a big smile. Then I pushed her off, much to her protest.
"Get off me," I laughed. "This isn't my birthday. Hang on."
I crawled over to my bag and reached in, pulling out the present I'd painstakingly wrapped for her. I crawled back to where she was. She had sat up and was looking on curiously.
"Here," I muttered.
Giving presents to her made me feel very weird. Like I was bribing her to be my friend and to stay interested. But on the other hand, I liked giving her things because I loved seeing her happy. It was an annoying dilemma - to give or not to give.
She took the package from me. Although I'd spent lots of time finding the best way to wrap it, it was still very messily done. That was because the thing inside wasn't a smooth shape. It was all lumpy.
"You want me to open this now?" she asked.
I nodded twice. She carefully peeled the paper off and then shrieked in delight.
"Mr. Monkey!"
I laughed at her reaction. She held the stuffed toy animal in her hands and looked at me in disbelief.
"You can't give me him. He's... he's your favourite."
She was right. I'd had Mr. Monkey since I was seven years old, and he'd ended up coming to Tokyo with me. He always sat either on my bed or on my shelf.
When Aya had first come over and seen him, she'd fallen in love with him. Maybe it was his big, innocent eyes. Maybe it was his cute, long arms and legs and furry head. Every time she came over, she made a point of greeting him, too. She'd beg forgiveness for her intrusion whenever she slept over. She always loved that monkey. More than she loved me, I suspected.
For her twentieth birthday I had decided to give her something she loved and was familiar with so that she had something to hang onto while entering a new territory of her life - official adulthood. It was also a part of me (having been with me for thirteen years), so giving it to her was a bit like my own promise. A gift full of cheesy symbolism. I hoped she wouldn't ask.
"You love him, Aya. I've wanted to give him to you for a long time," I replied calmly.
"Won't you miss him?" she asked sadly, probably wondering how I could give him away so hastily.
"Come on, I'll see him all the time," I laughed. "You and me practically live with each other."
She looked up at me, her eyes twinkling, her smile big and grateful.
"Thank you," she said simply.
Words were almost useless to us. It was a nice feeling.
"You've given me a lot more than just a toy."
She set Mr. Monkey down on a chair and crawled over to me, pushing me back to the floor. Without another word, we finished what she'd started, Mr. Monkey watching us from the chair.
It was oh so good.
-
Chapter 25 of 35
I need action. Like, desperately. I have all these sexy memories that I can't forget, and they torture me, dangling something in front of me. Kind of like that candy on a piece of string that Niigaki mentioned all those years ago. I can reach and try to get, but I just can't have.
I check the time. Far too late.
But Aya's still on TV.
I flip to the channel she's on and torture myself some more by watching her chatting and singing and doing all that stuff that we had had opportunities to do together.
As I watch her, I start to become angry. Despite all the good memories, I can't help but feel rage at how it has all turned out in the end. I'm sitting alone on a couch and watching TV. This just shouldn't be.
I think back to the day when it all went wrong. That day was eight years ago, autumn.
-
Chapter 26 of 35
The day started off brightly. I woke up, brushed my teeth, and went for a walk. I called Aya and asked her what time she was going to come over. She had a meeting in the late afternoon, but she said it wouldn't be more than an hour. She'd come over right after. I said okay and we hung up. Simple and sweet.
I did some mundane shopping and some cleaning at home. Then I puttered around, doing nothing interesting until I heard a soft knock at the door.
"It's open!" I called out.
Aya walked in and she locked the door behind her. I sat on the couch and waited for her to take off her shoes. I watched as she walked slowly towards me and I smiled. I took a look at her face, though, and she seemed to be pondering something. Something big. There were no opening pleasantries. No "how was your meeting?" No "how are you?" No playful banter.
"Miki," she said, looking right at me and sitting down beside me on the couch.
I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but for some idiotic reason, I grinned at her and kissed her on the cheek. I pulled back and saw that she hadn't reacted at all. My grin dropped, but I kept a soft expression on my face. I wasn't going to get worried quite yet. My days of paranoia were long past.
"Miki..." Aya repeated quietly as if I'd forgotten my name and she was reminding me.
"Yeah?" I asked in a purely curious, quiet, and ready-to-listen tone.
It was my innocent voice, but it wasn't just an act. It was real. My gentle voice that existed only for her. She sounded like she had something important to say, and I wanted to give her my full attention.
"They're sending me to Italy," she said in the same voice.
"Oh," I replied with a smile, thinking how nice it would be for her to have a small trip overseas.
Of course she'd be working and probably have a busy schedule, but there was something refreshing about being out of the country, seeing the sites of a foreign land, eating the food, shopping at the brand name stor-
"For three months."
My thoughts simply cut off when I heard that. The Colosseum, fettucini, and Versace never seemed so trivial before in my life.
Three months? But...
"But..." I said aloud.
And that's when she finally reacted. She sighed, frustrated, and wrung her hands, letting them fall into her lap.
"I know," she groaned. "I thought it was just going to be for a short time, too, but no. Three months. Three months..."
It had to be a mistake, right? Maybe three months on and off? Commuting between here and there? One week there, one week here...?
"How- why?" I croaked.
She'd be away for three months? I wouldn't see her for three months? Three days was annoying enough. Three weeks was painful. Just barely doable. But three months?
"Voice training. They say I've reached a plateau. They found a school that's going to take me in as part of a special TV program. They're going to do intensive voice training with some of the world's greatest singers," she mumbled.
And that was where I lost all that calm that I'd perfected over the years of knowing her.
"What?!" I exploded. "Plateau?! If everyone was at your level, we'd all be billionaires! What the hell do they think they're saying?! Do you have to go? Don't you get a choice?!"
She would normally try to calm me down, but this time she was too affected.
"I have to go. Miki... my company practically owns me. They tell me where to go. It's like a job transfer in any other company. Besides, it's pretty much a done deal. I can't back out. I can't even quit my company. There's this really weird catch in the contract..." she trailed off and started to cry.
The last time I had seen her cry had been a year ago when her grandmother died and she was under tremendous pressure at work.
Correction. We watched a sad movie two weeks ago and she'd become a bit misty-eyed... but that was different.
I reached out and squeezed her shoulder with my arm, forgetting my own anger and trying to calm down so that I could calm her down.
"Okay," I said soothingly. "I understand."
I didn't know what to really say, though, because underneath my skin I was irritated. Not with her. She didn't seem to want to go. I was annoyed with the unfairness of life. Three months was a long time. I was selfish, and I would readily admit it: I wanted her to stay. I'd be lonely without her. And the look on her face when she'd told me she'd be going for three months made me want to lock her up and make her miss her flight.
So I just hugged her.
"Three months, Miki. Three months," she said in disbelief. "I don't even speak English, let alone Italian."
I almost laughed. It seemed ridiculous to be worrying about what language she'd have to use when it was obvious that the problem that lay at the forefront of our minds was that we'd miss each other like crazy.
"I can help you, but I'm really not good at both languages either."
And I think she probably almost laughed at me because she knew how I could barely hold a basic conversation in English, let alone Italian.
"When do you leave?" I asked, scared.
If she said it was tomorrow, I'd scream and go kill someone.
"A week and a half," she replied with a sniff.
A week and a half was better, but still too soon.
"And that's it? You just- you just go?"
She breathed in deeply and let her breath out slowly, unsteadily.
"Seems like."
We just sat there, no longer talking. Three months. I started to think about the dumbest things. How much would my phone bill be? What would I do with all this free time after work? What would I do when it got cold at night in November and I had nobody to hug?
"I don't want you to go," I said out loud what we were both thinking.
"I don't want to go," she replied blankly.
I looked at her and saw that she was still crying. One and a half weeks?
"Come on..." I said, trailing off.
I had been about to say that it wasn't so bad, but I couldn't lie. It was pretty crappy, to say the least. There was no way I could go with her. Instead of continuing, I gently put my cheek against hers and let her tears fall on my face. I didn't want her to know, but when I pulled back a minute later, it wasn't just her tears that were on my face.
But I had to be strong. She was the one being shipped out of the country for a quarter of a year. At least I got to stay in my familiar surroundings. I wiped at my cheeks with the sleeve of my shirt and then wiped her tears away, too. I stood up and got her a glass of water, which she took a few sips from. Then we watched TV together. It wasn't what one would think of as a healing, calming thing to do, but there was nothing else we could do. We found a semi-amusing program and watched it while talking and trying to forget that she'd be halfway across the world soon.
We ate dinner, watched more TV, took a bath, and then sat on my bed and talked. We hadn't just talked like that in so long. Maybe months. It especially reminded me of years ago when we first became friends and had sleepovers. We had ended up staying up all night talking up a storm so many times that we tried to refrain from having sleepovers because we didn't know how to shut up, and we really needed sleep in those busy idol days.
That night we stayed up until four o'clock in the morning nattering on. We didn't try to avoid talking about her leaving. We talked about every aspect of it, from the technicalities (I was surprised to learn Shibata and Masae would be joining her two weeks after her arrival. I hadn't thought it possible for two less popular, former H!P members to join the Matsuura Aya on such an adventure), to the experience of living in a foreign country, to the wistful "I wish we could just stay together" mush.
At four o'clock, she fell asleep. We'd laid ourselves down side by side and facing each other. I'd been watching her eyes droop over the past minute, and it had made me sleepy. Finally, she murmured something about flying custard that hadn't made any sense and then was quiet. I watched her breathing slow down until she seemed to be completely out.
"Good night," I whispered, and I closed my eyes, joining her in dreamland.
-
Chapter 27 of 35
I think about it now and I still believe that week and a half passed by too quickly. Much too quickly.
We had realised what big babies we were being, and we realised that three months would go by quickly. We cheered up considerably, and we decided to see the situation as something good for the both of us, especially for her. What a lucky opportunity to go on a free trip to Italy for vocal training. So we couldn't touch each other for three months. That was okay. We'd live. Besides, she'd have a couple of familiar faces there with her. Shibata and Masae would be doing their own things, but they'd be able to meet up all the time.
An uncontrollable itch makes me start scratching my calf. I look down and swear. It's a mosquito bite. The cold weather hasn't completely defeated the pesky insects yet. I pull my sock up over it and suppress the urge to scratch.
I keep thinking about that last week and a half. Of course nothing could stop me and Aya from going nuts that last chunk of time we were together. We were barely apart. We stayed up very late each night, making sure we didn't forget a single thing about each other. By the end of the week, I was jokingly praying for her to leave quickly because I was so exhausted. We giggled about it and then just kept staying up late at night.
I helped her finish packing up the night before. I stayed overnight at her place. Her flight was in the evening, so we had a little time to relax the next day. She gave me instructions on how to take care of her apartment (it was my goal to keep her plants alive so that I could laugh at her and say "I told you I could do it" when she got back). Then we went to bed and cuddled up under the covers. It was getting a little colder outside at night time. I faced away from her and let her hug me from behind, and a few silent tears ran down my cheeks. I didn't want her to see me crying, so I stayed quiet, not uttering a word. The tears dried up quickly, and maybe half an hour later when I turned to face her, I felt much better. I didn't want her to cry. I wanted her to be happy on her last night.
I sigh heavily, eight years later, sitting here, cold, alone.
That next day was the real beginning of the end.
I think back in detail...
-
Chapter 28 of 35
The dreaded morning finally came. It started off in a very funny way. I had turned around in my sleep so that my feet were on my pillow and my head was at the foot of the bed. I somehow managed to kick Aya in the jaw before waking up. She didn't get angry at me, though, and I guessed it was because it was pointless to get angry (even if it was a joking anger) on our last day. I turned myself around and made it up to her by hugging her. We fell asleep.
Three hours later, I woke up again. Aya was already out of bed. I got up and looked for her. I heard the water running and my mind was filled with devious thoughts. She was taking a shower. I needed to take one, too. Easy solution.
Just as I put my hand on the doorknob, my cell phone rang. I struggled for three rings, my hang on the doorknob, wondering if it was worth answering the phone or not. I finally sighed and went to my phone. I had been expecting an important call for work.
I answered and was irked to find out it was a co-worker calling to gush about a date. She didn't even usually talk to me that much, but for some reason she was my best friend that morning. I listened for four minutes and then quickly interrupted, telling her I had to catch a train. I told her to write me an e-mail about it later, and left her hanging in the middle of a sentence.
When I hung up, Aya walked in. I swore I'd strangle my co-worker if she ever called me again. She made me miss my chance.
The atmosphere between me and Aya wasn't sad or depressing. It was a little heavy and a little pensive, but we weren't bawling our eyes out. We seemed to have come to the point of acceptance, and we exchanged smiles as we went about our morning routines. I helped her pack up the rest of her things. Everything ready to go, we put her luggage by the door and went out for lunch.
It all seemed so normal. We talked and joked around like we always did, we went and did purikura at a nearby arcade, we ate crêpes loaded with all sorts of unhealthy ingredients, and then we went back to her place. We sat on the couch and waited. We had a bit of time left before the airport taxi would be at the front to pick her up at five o'clock. More than an hour.
-
Chapter 29 of 35
My cell phone rings. I'm surprised because I thought it was on silent mode. I check the message. It's from Shibata. She asks if we can meet an hour later than we've planned. She adds in a ridiculous amount of smiley faces, hearts, and stars, and I become angry. Why does she have to suck up to me? She acts all nice, but it's probably not because of my personality. It's like she's guilty of something. It's like it's got to do with Aya.
I scowl and put my phone down, wishing Shibata had never existed. Maybe my life wouldn't be a mess if I didn't have Shibata there to remind me of everything bad that has happened.
I hug my knees to my chest and immediately feel guilty. I'm a dreadful person. Shibata might not be perfect, but she's far from the monster I've just painted her to be in my mind. She's human, and no matter what, she can't help it if I associate my bad memories with her. That's my problem, not hers. I guess I just get so riled up because I see her enjoying her life. She gets the good deal. I get the crappy one.
I apologise to her in my mind and send her back a really nice e-mail saying that it's no problem, we can meet an hour later.
My stomach growls and I get fed up. I have to solve this hunger problem.
I get up and make rice. It takes a while, but it's well worth the wait. I watch that special TV program. Aya's still on it. That girl has always been able to be everywhere simultaneously. Invade the minds of everyone. When she used to do all those commercials all those years ago, I swear I saw her on every vending machine and billboard in the city.
My rice is finished cooking.
Bowl of rice in hand, I go back to the couch and eat and think about that last hour we spent together before she left for Italy.
-
Chapter 30 of 35
I hadn't meant to start the goodbyes so early, but I couldn't help it when the words slipped out.
"Aya, I'll miss you."
I took her hand and squeezed it without looking at her directly. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw her look at me. She squeezed my hand back.
"Don't start with that already," she teased me gently.
The corner of my mouth twitched upwards, and I looked at her with a half smile. My smile dropped when I saw her face fall and her eyes start to water.
"No, don't cry. I'm sorry," I said desperately, wiping away her tears carefully. "Your makeup will get smudged."
"I don't care about that," she said bitterly.
"Don't cry, Aya-chan," I repeated, trying to make her smile.
I scooted out and lay my head on her lap, looking up.
"Don't cry."
I reached my hand up and wiped away more tears. She smiled grudgingly.
"I know," she sighed with a sniff. "I just can't help it. I'm leaving so much behind. It feels like I'm leaving for three years, not three months."
"If you were going for three years, I'd move there with you!" I laughed.
I succeeded in getting her to stop crying. If she had continued, I would have started, and it would have all been one big mess.
"Did you call your parents?!" I cried out, abruptly terrified.
She'd asked me to remind her in case she forgot. We seemed to have both forgotten. Something had reminded me.
"Yes, I did that last night. When you fell asleep on the floor," she replied with a hint of a glare.
Lately I'd been unable to control where and when I fell asleep. I was usually pretty good at keeping awake at key moments, but in the past few months I'd gotten bad at it. Maybe it's because I was getting old. I was already twenty-five!
The previous night I'd passed out for about half an hour in the middle of a conversation. It wasn't that she was boring or anything. It was more like her voice was so soothing. We were sitting side-by-side on the floor, backs against the couch. I was warm and tired out from the day, and I just closed my eyes for a few seconds... and had woken up to Aya smacking me, yelling things about how I was a horrible excuse for a friend.
I coughed embarrassedly.
"Oh, yeah. So how are your parents?"
"They're fine," Aya smiled.
She liked it when I asked about her family, and I liked asking her about her family because she loved them so much. It was nice to watch her face light up when she talked about them, especially her mother. "They're going to miss me, but it's a little easier for them because I don't see them for months at a time anyway."
That was true, but there were still things that would make it inconvenient to keep in touch. The big time difference, for example.
"I'll go and visit them next month and make sure they're getting on fine without their precious star of a daughter," I joked.
Aya hit me lightly on the cheek.
"You're the best."
I hadn't expected her to say that. I thought she'd have an insulting comeback. I laughed as I thought maybe she actually expected me to keep my word about visiting.
"You tell me that so much. I can only believe it if that means I can say you're better," I replied with a wink.
She didn't deny it, but her smile told me that she thought I was being silly.
And so this was how we spent that time. Just chatting. Maybe anybody else would have expected us to do something else, but chatting was enough. We never actually said "good bye". We didn't want anything to seem out of the ordinary. It was just a business trip.
At four-fifty-five pm, after we looked out the window and saw the black taxi that would take her to the airport just pulling up outside her apartment, we looked at each other solidly one last time and smiled. She put on her jacket and shoes and then stood at the doorway. She handed over her key to me.
"Don't forget to water my plants."
I laughed like a maniac because it seemed like the funniest thing to me. My nerves were a bit frayed, which could explain why I was a bit of a spazz. I grabbed her and hugged her tightly, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to feel everything I could with every sense I could use. I opened my eyes and studied her, remembering the clothes she was wearing and how she smelled and what she felt like. I kissed her to remember what she tasted like (melon, according to her lip balm) and then I opened the door and shooed her out.
Well, not really. But she wouldn't let go of me.
"You're going to miss your flight," I insisted, trying to shake her hands off of me.
She grinned foolishly at me.
"Then I can stay here."
"Come on, just go already!" I laughed.
She pulled me to her and hugged me again.
"Don't forget me!" she cried out with a hyper laugh, and I wondered briefly if she had been possessed by an insane spirit.
"Stupid, of course I won't forget you. I can't."
I said it seriously because I meant it.
She sobered up and slowly let go of me. We checked my watch. Five-oh-six. The driver would be growing impatient. Aya took her bags from the ground and stood out in the hallway as I stood at the entrance of her apartment.
"See you, Miki," she said with a longing look.
I smiled and waved.
"Take care, Aya."
She turned around and went to the elevator. Once she was in, I waved at her and she waved back. The door cut us off.
I went back inside, locked the door, and went to the window. A minute later, Aya appeared. I watched as she greeted the driver. My heart swelled up. I thought I'd cry as I watched the driver help her with her luggage.
Then just before she got into the taxi, she looked up. She knew I'd be watching her from the window. She gave me the most loving smile and then got in.
I watched the car drive off until it turned a corner. Funnily enough, I didn't feel like crying anymore. She wouldn't have wanted me to be sad, so I respected that wish.
That evening I had no plans. I went out for a short walk and then went back to Aya's apartment. I'd stay there for the night since it was a bit late and getting chilly outside. An hour later, my phone rang. I scrambled up to get it and was not disappointed. It was a message from Aya.
Just wanted to say thank you for helping me pack all my things.
Silly. She didn't have to thank me for that.
My plane takes off soon. This is the last chance to contact you before I get to Milan. Behave yourself. I promise to call you tomorrow.
I laughed at the little intimidating smiley that she added on.
And water my plants!!
I snorted out some more laughter.
Goodnight, Miki. Talk to you tomorrow.
And a big red heart.
I smiled giddily (despite knowing her for so long, mail from her always made me giddy) and wrote her back while muttering my message out loud to myself.
"I'll be good if you send me cool souvenirs. Take care. I look forward to your call tomorrow. Call at four am if you want to. No matter how grumpy I get, you know I still kind of like you." I laughed at my joking understatement. "Later." Big red heart.
I put my phone away and that was that. I went to bed feeling happy and calm, looking forward to the phone call.
-
Chapter 31 of 35
I never got that phone call the next day, and I'm filled with anger again because of this. Aya left me hanging. She broke her promise. She didn't care enough to overcome whatever big problems that forced her away from the phone. She didn't care enough to contact me. I clutch the remote control tightly and curse her, looking at her happy face on the television screen.
I want to call her now and tell her how pissed off I am at her. I want to scream at her for ditching me, leaving me in a world of sadness. I want to yell at her until she replies. Until she acknowledges that she understands my heart is broken. I want her to know that for all these years I've ultimately been miserable because of her.
I want to call her up and tell her all these things.
But I can't. I don't have her number and there's absolutely no way to get it.
I don't think anybody knows the number for heaven.
I've dropped some rice on the carpet so I pick it up and mash it between my fingers, subsequently wiping it up with a napkin that I toss on the table. I continue eating. The rice is a little hard because I cooked it on the fastest setting. I hate hard rice, but I'm too hungry to care. I chew well.
After the accident I didn't speak to anyone. Well, no, that's not true. I did speak to someone. I spoke to Shibata. Funny, she and Aya had this huge, deep friendship going on and I barely knew the girl. I felt bad about that.
We talked and cried together. It was weird because she comforted me so much, but the only way she really knew things about me was through Aya, who must've complained about me a lot. We both knew that I was the more broken-hearted one. We'd never say that out loud, though, because it sounds so cold to brush off someone else's sadness.
Shibata had known about me and Aya for a long time. She was never clear with me whether she figured it out before she was told or not, but it seemed like she knew how Aya and I felt about each other long before Aya and I even knew. I could see what Aya had seen in her. Shiba-chan, as she was usually called by Aya, was thoughtful, well spoken, and simply brilliant. I don't think many people we worked with knew that. Saddled with the job of being the looker of the group, she and her intelligence went around inconspicuously and unpretentiously as nobody paid much mind to her brain.
The first time we talked was a painful but liberating experience. It followed three dark days where I thought the lights had been turned out all over the world permanently.
-
Chapter 32 of 35
I sat in my apartment still in shock. It had been three days since I'd learned that Aya would never be coming back. Never was a long time. I didn't think I could hold out that long. I ignored my phone and didn't eat for those three days. I didn't do anything. I couldn't read or watch TV or videos because everything reminded me of her.
It's not like we hadn't been apart for long periods of time. We had our jobs that took us to different places. We went overseas to different countries, and did stretches of crazy filming that messed up our hours. There had been entire weeks when we were both in the same city but couldn't meet because our hours didn't match up. I was no stranger to sleeping in a bed or eating dinner alone. And that was fine. Those were our tests. Our challenges. It injected reality into life. It made the times we were together just a little more special.
But it was different this time. I knew that she wasn't filming a drama or gallivanting around Hawaii. I knew she wasn't coming back. I knew that this was it. This was life without Aya. It started suddenly three days ago.
And it would never end.
It hurt so much that I wanted to rip my heart out and scream and cry and destroy the world for taking her away from me before we'd had enough time together. I wanted to stand at the bottom of the mountain three days ago where the plane went down and catch her, saving her from a fiery death and giving us a bit more time on Earth together. I wanted to go around to everyone I saw and tell them what I'd lost and what a wonderful person she'd been.
But most of all I just wanted to see her. One last time, at least.
I wasn't even able to do that. They couldn't display the body. There was none. Just some teeth and other fragments.
I slammed my fists down on the floor, curled up, and cried. I didn't bawl. I didn't scream and shriek. It felt as though my throat had hardened like a block of cement. The tears forced their way out. I tried to stop them but I gave up. They had wills of their own.
I felt thirsty. I had dehydrated myself the past few days, and I would soon be in actual danger if I kept it up. I forced myself to drink water. I choked on it, but kept going until I had downed half a glass.
And the doorbell rang. I reacted by throwing my glass at the door, spilling the remainder of the water all over my apartment floor. The glass didn't break, but it made a satisfying crash sound against the door.
"Fujimoto!" called out a voice desperately.
Who was that? It sounded familiar. I scowled. I didn't want to talk to anyone I knew.
"Please. Open."
Her voice was unsteady and I knew who she was. I owed it to her - to Aya - to open the door and talk.
I forced myself to stand up and walk to the door. I moved the glass out of the way with my foot and unlocked the door, opening it slowly.
Shibata stood there. Her usual thoughtful expression was replaced by one of anxiety.
"Can I-" she started.
"Come in," I said before she could finish.
I made way for her. She walked in and took off her shoes. I closed the door, locked it, and turned to face her.
"Miki..." she trailed off.
I nodded, and then we burst out crying. We hugged each other tightly and sobbed. We must've stood in the entrance hall for a good fifteen minutes just hugging and crying. I hadn't cried this hard since... ever. I'd cried plenty in the past three days, but seeing a living being who had known Aya was the last straw for me. It was the final proof. It converted all my remaining rage into sadness and then made it burst forth from my eyes in the form of tears.
It was strange because we'd never truly hugged before. We hadn't been close at all. Death brought us to an understanding, and suddenly the most important thing in the world was to be touching someone else that had known Aya.
We broke apart and I told her in a shaky voice to come in and have a seat, offering her some water. She declined the drink, but she came in. She sat on the floor and I sat across from her.
"When did you find out?" she asked me.
"Three days ago. On the way to a morning meeting."
"I just found out last night. I was away..." Shibata trailed off.
Right. She had been on a rare overseas vacation with her family. Nobody could have reached her.
We were silent for five minutes. All that was heard was sniffing.
"What are you going to do?" Shibata asked. She sounded so lost.
I laughed bitterly.
"What can I do? I can't do anything. I can't bring her back. I can't see her body. I can't- I can't do anything..." I choked up and the tears fell down my cheeks silently.
I tried to wipe them away but there were just too many.
"Miki-chan, I know how much she means to you."
No you don't! I wanted to scream, but I didn't. It was not her fault. And she really did understand in her own way.
I nodded silently.
"She told me about you. About you two."
"I know," I replied. "She told me she told you."
A silence that would have been awkward in any other situation was just filled with sadness.
Shibata looked right at me.
"She was crazy about you," she said softly with a nostalgic smile on her face that overshadowed the tears that had been falling minutes before.
"I know," I replied in the same tone as her.
"No, I mean, crazy. She never stopped talking about you once the subject of you was brought up. Your opinion mattered so much to her. Your well being... Everything. She was a truly spectacular human being."
Hearing this just made me sadder and angrier. How could such a person be erased from existence just like that?
"She was. I was a better person because of her. Now I'm nothing. Nothing's ever going to work. It's broken forever. I don't even think my heart works anymore."
Shibata came and sat beside me, putting a hand on my knee.
"It's not going to work for a while. Maybe a long while," she told me honestly, piercing me with a freakishly intelligent look. "But it will get better," she said slowly and so confidently that I almost believed her. "It will. If Aya-chan taught us and the people on this world how to do something, it was to love and how to use our hearts. I think you've learned the most out of all of us. Don't let that knowledge go to waste."
A few tears made their way down my face as she said Aya's name. I didn't know what to believe. All the insecurities that I'd battled and put behind me for good were starting to creep up on me. Aya had kept me strong and I always knew that, but I guess I had never realised how much I had depended on her. She was really the happiest thing in my life. The best thing.
Shibata and I talked and cried for a bit more before she decided to leave. She had to go to her boyfriend's house before going home. She'd taken some days off from work and the Italy tour had been cancelled. She would be sticking around, and she told me she'd call me later.
From the moment she left, I did something for the first time in three days. I put on some music. Not Aya's music. I couldn't handle that. But I listened to some generic pop music that we'd listen to together when we were lounging around doing nothing in particular. I lay down on the floor beside my stereo and closed my eyes, imagining she was right beside me and doing the same. Just like we always did.
I listened to music for hours on end, remembering everything I could about us. When a CD finished, I'd pop in a new one. They were all randomly selected, but I made sure to steer clear of the little section devoted to her music. I couldn't listen to those recordings. They were made for her fans. For the people of Japan and other parts of the world that had heard of her. She may have been singing with me in mind during some of her later songs, but they weren't as special as having her right in front of me and singing something to me and only me.
"Never leave my side..." sang some unnamed singer.
I repeated that phrase over and over and started to cry again. Aya had left my side. She hadn't meant to, but she did.
She'd never be back. Never. Never was too long.
I sang along with the music. It was all that made me feel alive. If I stopped singing, I'd die. I'd forget how to breathe. I'd wither up and disappear, but I couldn't let myself. I had to live for me and for her. I had a double responsibility.
-
Chapter 33 of 35
I put my empty bowl of rice down and stare forward at the television. I've muted the sound, but I can still see Aya's face. She's smiling. It's an old clip from her twenty-fourth single. My favourite of her Hello! Project singles.
The pain in my heart feels as fresh as it did eight years ago.
After that first meeting with Shibata I'd really got it into my head that music was the answer. I became obsessed with it. I bought immeasurable numbers of CDs and DVDs, and I was either listening to something on my headphones or watching something on my TV whenever I had a free moment.
I threw myself into my work with mixed results. I improved so drastically that they promoted me at the big company I'd been taken into after Hello! Project had disintegrated. But I didn't fit in anymore. I was too affected to be a carefree pop idol. My boss was surprised when I went to him to discuss resignation, but he said he understood and let me go without a fuss. He was so surprised because he said he would never have guessed I was unhappy with my job. I guess I've always been and always will be good at hiding things. It's my special point.
I didn't go to work for another big company. I settled for small, and I have had a steady career ever since. I've gotten out of the big spotlight. People don't bother me a whole lot. A lot of my fans at the time of my quitting were sensitive to how I must have felt losing my good friend.
They had no idea what it was like, and for a while I hated them all.
But hating wouldn't bring Aya back and it wouldn't make them understand. And it certainly wouldn't honour her memory in the least. I dropped the hatred and just distanced myself from them.
I turn the volume up on my television set in time to catch the narrator's words.
He concludes the two hour special with a solemn soliloquy about the tragedy of Aya's premature death. I watch sceptically as he says that the world today misses her, and that she was one of the greatest women of our time, and blah blah blah. Shut up.
The title of the two-hour special that has just finished flashes across the screen.
Matsuura Aya Memorial: Thank you for the memories, "Ayaya".
I turn the TV off. I had always sworn not to look to the media for information about her. I have indulged myself for one night. The night before the anniversary of her death.
I wonder what the world would think if they knew everything about Aya. How she really reacted. How she thought about me. How she was perfectly happy in her life because she could keep her two most important things close to her - her music and me.
But no, wait. Me and Aya- we weren't perfect. Not always.
Sometimes we were far from perfect. We had our arguments. We were two hot, stylish girls. Of course we were going to argue. But we always made it a point to resolve our disputes before bedtime. We didn't like going to bed angry whether we were spending the night together or not.
There were a few times when we argued overnight while staying in the same apartment. What usually happened the next morning was we'd wake up and face each other awkwardly and try to figure out what we'd been thinking, apologise for being too harsh or for not listening, and then snuggle into each other, laying there peacefully and forgetting that we had to go to work. We had to make up for lost time.
But there was one night where I got genuinely angry and took it out on her.
-
Chapter 34 of 35
We'd been bickering all evening. We were both running on very little sleep and too much work. It had been a really bad idea to stay together that night, but it was one of those colder December days where sleeping in a bed with a friend must have been a warming thought to many people in the country. We met after our respective rehearsals and had gone over to my place because I had a better heating system.
On the way there, we started snapping at each other about everything - what to eat, what side of the street to walk on, who got to sleep on the right side of the bed (it was further away from the window), and other stupid things like that. We ended up not buying or cooking anything for dinner despite being hungry.
We got to my apartment and she accused me of being too messy (I'd left a bunch of CDs spread out on my floor), and I shot it back at her because the minute she came in, she'd thrown her bag down in the middle of the floor and just left it there. We took baths. We were barely talking by the time we got to my room. Aya raised a fuss about the mess. I'd left clothes from the other day on the ground. We got into bed, stomachs rumbling with hunger.
Then out of the blue, Aya started complaining about things. Not just things about me. She hated this new dance teacher, I was a slob, and blah blah blah. I was fed up with listening to her voice so I told her to shut up already and to just go with it, we'd had worse instructors, I wasn't a total slob, and so on. She got so offended that she shot back that I shouldn't talk about things I haven't experienced. I laughed wryly and told her I'd had plenty of sucky dance and vocal teachers. I told her to just be quiet if she had nothing good to say, and to stop criticising every one of my imperfections. She was getting on my nerves and I really did want to sleep.
I could feel the anger boiling inside her, and she told me that I should be the one shutting up. I whipped around in a rage and yelled at her to quit it already and to go to sleep. She shushed up but she looked really pissed off. She had that angry pout. The one that made me almost unable to take her seriously when she was genuinely angry. It annoyed me at first, but then I fell for it. I reminded myself I was still angry.
I stared at her for a while, and she noticed.
"What?" she asked rudely, rolling her eyes and starting to turn away, but I grabbed her shoulder and pushed her back where she'd been and kissed her.
It was like I was trying to asphyxiate the both of us. I broke off and she gasped for air, giving me a "what the hell are you doing?" look. In a way it made me angrier because, well, what the hell did she think I was doing? Kissing her. Duh. We usually did that at night or in the morning... or really at any chance we felt like during the day when there was nobody around.
I got on top of her, really close, and held her arms down, kissing her again. She tried to move, but I didn't let her. Gravity once again assisted me. She tried to struggle a bit and made little sounds of complaint, but she didn't try in earnest. She kept kissing me back.
We slept together, and it was different. It wasn't like that time I completely brutalised her (I'd made a promise never to do that again), but it wasn't our normal exchange of feelings. It was a bit harsh. Grown up - too grown up - and not gentle in the least.
The next morning we woke up and looked at each other awkwardly. Neither of us wanted to say anything or apologise about the previous night because we felt stupid for having let it happen. I started the apology and she finished it.
"Um, Aya-chan..." I said quietly as she was brushing her hair.
"Hmm?" she asked, looking up expectantly.
"About last night," I said hesitantly.
She put her brush down and listened.
"I was, um, not really..."
I stopped because I wasn't sure what to say.
"Me too. I'm sorry," Aya said suddenly.
I looked at her and we exchanged knowing looks. I smiled a small smile and looked down at the floor.
"I'm sorry," I echoed.
We didn't need to say much more than that. I just told her that I'd been a bit cranky the night before, but that it was no excuse to treat her like that and tell her to shut up. She accepted it and told me she, too, had been cranky and shouldn't have gotten angry at me for wanting her to stop complaining.
We were once again okay as usual, and the rest of our brief time together that morning passed by much more smoothly and pleasantly.
The things we usually argued about were in a way trivial, but in a way things that really showed we loved each other. My usual complaint was that she was working too hard and that it was bad for her health. Her complaint was that I wasn't being aggressive enough in trying to get what I wanted out of my career. We wanted to help each other so much that we fought about it.
It was funny, but I rarely got jealous. I actually mellowed out quite a bit the year after Kobe. I was never upset when Aya spent time with other friends, I never got jealous when I saw her talking in her flirty way to the stagehands and cameramen (I knew it was just the way she was and that she wasn't actually propositioning them; but I also just felt better about myself so that even if I knew she was ever flirting with them purposely, I'd feel confident that she'd remember and come back to me because she couldn't lose me for anything).
I actually apologised to Shibata, too. We didn't talk much, but a few months later I ran into her alone during a big meeting and I pulled her aside for a few minutes to apologise for abruptly interrupting her and Aya's conversation. She said that she understood perfectly, and she apologised to me, which I refused to accept. She owed me no apology. We shared a laugh and we were okay with each other ever since.
And then when Aya died, it was like we grabbed on to each other to keep from falling into a deep trench. We helped each other because I don't think anybody short of her family knew Aya as well as the two of us did.
-
Chapter 35 of 35
So here I sit, eight years after my life was ruined.
What have I done with my life?
Well, I've got a good career singing, and I am doing a bit of acting. I've matured and grown up. I live alone. I've got myself a nice condo in the heart of the capital.
I have a few friends, some from the Project, some from my work nowadays.
I don't date. I ignore any advances because I can't bear to let go of a precious memory. How could I explain myself? How could I explain the depth of what I had and what I lost? It wouldn't be fair anyway. I'd be able to give nothing. All those cute boys who wink at me at bars or on the street? No. They get nothing out of me.
I've lost love. I can't love. At least not anything new. I can only love memories. I'm only half alive.
I check my watch. It's late. I've been reminiscing all evening. I should go to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. A sad day.
I go through my simple routine and smile as I snuggle into the warm blankets. I like going to bed. Bed means sleeping means dreaming.
Aya often comes to me in my dreams. We meet halfway between the real world and the world of death. I always think it's the real her at the time, but when I wake up, I know it's just my memories and senses playing tricks on me.
One of these days I'm going to meet up with her, hug her, and not let go. Maybe on that day I won't wake up ever again.
-The end of story 4
-
This story requires that you to suspend your disbelief for a bit. This is an alternate version of events that take place just before Aya is slated to go to Italy.
Love x 2 = ∞
story 5
Chapter 1 of 16
"Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday dear Aya-chan... Happy birthd... a...ghhh..."
I woke up to the sound of muffled singing. I groaned and opened my eyes. All I knew was that it was too early to be waking up. What in the world?
I turned my head sideways and was surprised fully awake. Lined up with my head, rested on the pillow beside mine, was a pair of bare feet. I slowly followed the line of the legs up (down?) the body until I reached the end. The end was a neck. Beyond the neck was a pillow, under which, I assumed, was the head that was attached to that neck...
The off-key singing started again.
"Happy birthday... you to... Happy... Thursday... to... s... snuu..."
I groaned and rolled up. I grabbed the pillow and pulled it away from the head revealing a sleeping, muttering Miki. A sleeping, muttering, drooling Miki. I scrunched my nose up and considered wiping her chin with a tissue before waking her up. She was such a messy sleeper, although turning all the way around was a new one for her.
"Hey, wake up," I said solidly.
I poked her neck with my toe, aiming carefully so I didn't stick my foot in her mouth. Ew.
"Maammpph," she muttered.
She turned her head away from my foot. I poked her again with my whole foot.
"Wake up," I said a little more loudly.
"Uhhhh."
Miki rolled over onto her side and pushed my foot away.
"I said wake up!" I repeated with a laugh, grabbing her foot in my hand and tickling the sole.
This turned out to be a very bad idea because she suddenly woke up, kicking out her foot with a yell and clocking me violently in the jaw.
"Agghh!"
"What-?!"
"Owwwww..."
"What are you doing?!" Miki cried out, scrambling up.
I was nursing my chin and not paying attention to her. I curled up on the bed in a tight ball and groaned in pain.
"You kicked me," I managed to say.
"What were you doing? How'd I get here?" she asked in confusion.
"You were sleeping the wrong way," I complained, looking up.
"That's ridiculous. No I wasn't," she scoffed, wiping at her chin. "Why would I do that?"
She looked at her hand, scrunched up her nose, and wiped her hand on the sheets.
What was ridiculous was that she was trying to convince me that she had been sleeping the right way while she knew she had woken up the wrong way...
I shot her a look.
"Okay, so I was sleeping a little funny," she conceded. "What were you doing to my feet?"
"I was trying to wake you up. You were singing."
She became quiet and frowned, trying to remember if she had been singing or not.
"What was I singing?"
"Happy birthday to me."
"I was?!" she asked in surprise. I nodded. "It's not even your birthday for another- uh, I can't do math this early..."
I shrugged at her.
"Don't tell me that," I sniffed. "Now get back up here. It's still early. I want to sleep."
Miki grinned, happy that I wasn't angry at her, and quickly lay herself down the proper way, snuggling into me and kissing my jaw carefully.
"Sorry for kicking you."
I patted her head and played with her hair.
"It's okay. I should know better than to shock you awake like that."
"You don't think it'll bruise, do you?" she asked worriedly, inspecting my face. I laughed and pushed her head away playfully.
"It wasn't hard enough to bruise me. I was more surprised than hurt. I'm okay."
She snuggled into me again, putting her face on my neck and closing her eyes (I felt her eyelashes softly brush downwards against my skin. I lived for subtle sensations like that).
"I've never seen you turn around in your sleep like that before," I commented.
"There's a lot you don't know about me," she replied mysteriously.
I laughed nervously.
"That's not exactly something I like hearing..." I said with a bit of apprehension in my voice.
Miki lifted her head up and opened her eyes, staring directly into my eyes.
"I was joking," she said in a monotone.
I cracked a smile and let the worry slide off of me. I reached a hand down and grabbed a hold of her leg, squeezing it gently.
"Good," I mumbled as she kissed me.
She then rested her face in the crook of my neck again, putting a hand over my stomach and rubbing it, holding on to me possessively.
"Go to sleep," she whispered. I closed my eyes and smiled.
"Mmhmm."
We held onto each other until sleep came.
-
Chapter 2 of 16
When I woke up again, she was gone.
"Miki?" I asked aloud, turning around and looking for her. "Miki-chan!" I called out again.
There was no reply and I sighed, wondering where she had gone off to and if she would be returning anytime soon.
Checking the clock, I decided to stay in bed. It wasn't time to get up yet.
Twenty minutes passed before I fell asleep. I woke up much later. Miki had left bed again. I had been hoping she would be around when I woke up. It was better waking up beside her so that we could both be lazy together
I didn't want to wait, though. I was getting antsy and hungry. Despite not wanting to travel thousands of kilometres away from home, I was a bit excited (and a bit nervous) about going to a new country. The light streaming in from the window also made it difficult for me to fall back asleep. In the end, it would be better for me to get a head start on final preparations.
I left the comfort of my room and padded over to the kitchen. No signs of Miki anywhere in my apartment. I took out some tea from the fridge and put it on the counter. I looked over at the entrance and noticed that Miki's shoes were gone. I wouldn't have thought this unusual had I not noticed her bag was also missing.
"That's strange," I said out loud to myself.
Maybe she had gone out to the store for a moment.
I walked over to the entrance and double checked. Nothing. I walked back into my room and saw nothing of Miki's. The clothing she'd worn last night had been taken away. Oddly, my clothes were still piled messily in a corner. Usually when one of us got up before the other, the least we did was throw the clothes in the laundry hamper or at least neatly arrange the clothes that could be worn again without a washing (it had taken me a year and a half to teach her to do that). Maybe she'd been in a hurry this morning to get somewhere. Maybe she'd come back.
But wait, she would have told me the night before if she had to go off and do something early in the morning. And I knew for a fact that she didn't have any appointments or business to attend to that day anyway. If something had come up, she would have woken me up (and pissed me off) and told me.
Which led to the question - where was Miki and where was all her stuff?
Slightly bothered but not yet worried, I went to the washroom to splash some water on my face. Cold water first thing in the morning usually helped to wake me up completely and to start thinking more efficiently.
As I was reaching for a hand towel to dry off my face, I noticed something else a little off. Everything in the washroom belonged to me. The toothbrush, the toothpaste, the hair products, the contact lenses...
Usually Miki kept some of her stuff here (and I at her place) because we commuted a lot between our places since we spent a good chunk of our time together. We had an agreement (and this was for a while since before anything remotely mushy happened between us) that it was easier that way. Why would she suddenly take everything away? There was no need to. I was leaving for three months, so she could have taken over my entire apartment with her things if she had wanted.
Frowning, I put the cloth down and went back into my room, opening the doors to all the closets and drawers. I looked through all my remaining clothes. Things were missing. They were Miki's things that I had borrowed and conveniently "forgotten" to give back or just clothes that she had brought over to store here. All of it was gone.
Starting to breathe a little faster, I went over to my bookshelf. Miki had bought some books last week and hadn't taken them back to her apartment yet. I sought them out. They were not there.
Panic set in. Where was Miki? Why had she taken all her things and run? Was this a bad dream? A joke? It wasn't funny. I had to leave that evening.
I searched my entire room and then my living room for any hint - a note, a strand of hair, a footprint - that Miki had just gone home for a bit and would be returning. I started to have horrible visions of people kidnapping her while I lay oblivious and sleeping. I wondered if they had her bound and gagged somewhere, waiting for the ransom money to come in.
I found that panicking wasn't helping, so I urged myself to calm down. There was a reasonable explanation for everything. Miki had not been kidnapped. Kidnappers wouldn not have made her collect her toothbrush and hairspray.
That left me with very few reasonable explanations. I tried not to think about it, but the thoughts came to my mind like an unstoppable flow of water.
What if this was it? What if it was over? Between us. What if this was her way of saying "so long" to me? Three months was too long to ask her to wait?
My heart broke to think such things. I felt weak and sick.
No, that couldn't be it. I would have seen it coming. I would have noticed a change in her behaviour. In our chemistry. I had noticed no change at all.
Or was it that simple? Maybe I'd been so smitten, so head over heels and lost in this fantasy world for years, that I didn't notice something bad happening. Maybe I'd created something in my head and let real life go winding along a path angled downwards.
No!
I shook my head furiously. There was a simple way to find out. I took my phone from my bedside table and wrote a quick message.
Hey, where did you go?
I typed in the address and pressed "send" as soon as it was ready.
30 seconds passed and my phone started ringing. I sighed in relief as I flipped it open and checked the message.
Invalid address. Message sent: October 2-
The phone dropped out of my hand out of my own volition. Had she changed her address on me? Or had I just typed it in incorrectly? I picked up my phone again, going into my inbox where I knew I had messages from Miki.
Sister, sister, mom, manager, manager, Maki, Tomoko, Maki, Tomoko, Sayaka... Where was Miki? I knew she'd sent me at least a couple of messages yesterday. They should have been displayed on the first page of messages. I went into the address book and looked up her address, but there was no entry for her.
Had she erased her address book entry in my phone?
I was starting to become furious. There was no need to be so cruel. Breaking up and walking out was one thing, but erasing your existence was an entirely different thing. How could she be so... so horrible?
Livid, I punched in her cell number. At least I knew all the information off by heart. The phone rang three times before it was picked up.
"Hello?" asked a high pitched voice that sounded like it belonged to a ten year old.
"Uh, is Miki there?" I asked stupidly, not expecting this.
"I'm sorry, you have the wrong number," the reply came.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
I repeated Miki's number into the phone and asked if that was the number I was calling.
"Yes, but there's no Miki here. I'm Nao."
"Oh... okay," I said with a tremor in my voice. "Sorry about that. Bye bye."
I hung up.
What the hell was going on?!
I dialled Miki's home number next. There was no answer for many rings until an answering machine finally picked up.
"You have reached the Katsuragi residence," said a loud, gruff-sounding man in an unrecognisable dialect. "Leave a message after the tone."
The tone sounded and I just sat there, shocked. Where was Miki? Why had her presence been erased? I lay down on my bed. I didn't know what to do next. I had no other way of contacting her from here. I turned onto my side and looked at my bedside table. There was an envelope there. I had forgotten about it until now. It was full of the purikura we had taken last month. I reached over and emptied the contents of the envelope in front of my face.
Despite the desperation I felt, I smiled at the happy pictures of me and... Abe-san??
I shot up to my feet and grabbed the tiny pictures, studying them. That was Abe Natsumi all right. No sign of Miki anywhere. What the hell was going on?!
I had this sinking feeling that I was going crazy. I tore out of my room and went to my bookshelf in the living room, grabbing my latest photo album. A quick look through revealed no pictures of Miki at all. For all the pictures I could have sworn we had taken together, another person stood in her place. Sometimes it was Shiba-chan, sometimes Maki, sometimes Ueno, sometimes my mother, sometimes some other friend. But no Miki.
What had happened? I soon became convinced that Miki couldn't have done this. There was no way anyone could have done this.
I was going crazy. That had to be it. I was still asleep. I was dreaming. Nightmare-ing. Whatever.
But when I didn't wake up, I got scared. I scurried back to my room and grabbed my phone, hitting speed dial. Maki. Maki would know what to do. We had stayed pretty good friends since H!P fell. I could talk to her about almost anything.
"Hello?" asked a tired-sounding voice.
I sighed in relief. It was Maki's voice for sure.
"Maki-chan, it's me," I said quickly.
"...Aya-chan? What brings you to my receiver this- not fine morning?" asked the girl.
She sounded like she had a hangover, and I didn't doubt that she did.
"Have you heard from Miki-chan at all?"
There was a pause.
"Um, no."
"So... she hasn't called you or mailed you this morning?"
There was another, longer pause.
"I'm sorry... but why? I haven't spoken to Korenaga-san in years. Did you even know her?" Maki asked.
I started to shake but I held it together.
"Not Korenaga Miki. The other one."
"I only know one Miki in common with you... Oh, and then there's Miki who used to be the assistant manager at studio C6, like, five years ago..."
"If you're messing with me, Goto-san, I swear to god you'll regret it."
"I'm not messing with you," Maki replied harshly in a genuine show of truthfulness. "Maybe it was the alcohol last night that's making my mind fuzzy now, but I haven't a clue who you're talking about."
I gulped. She sounded dead serious.
"The name Fujimoto Miki means nothing to you?" I asked in a small voice.
"No," came the blunt reply. "Should it?"
I wanted the world to swallow me up because it would be easier than trying to figure this out.
"Uh, no?" I stuttered, trying to strengthen my voice. "Sorry to have bothered you. I think I'm really out of it this morning. Like, waaaay out there," I said with a fake laugh.
Maki made a sound of agreement and we said goodbye.
Once finished on the phone, I collapsed on my bed and curled up, hugging my arms around myself for comfort.
What was going on? Why didn't Maki know who Miki - Fujimoto Miki - was? Why were all of my pictures different from what I remembered?
Where was Miki? I refused to get on a plane and leave the country before I found out how this had all happened.
-
Chapter 3 of 16
I had one more thing I could do before I gave up hope. I dressed myself hastily and set out for Miki's apartment. I'd called her, but maybe the lines had gotten crossed.
I can't remember how I got there, but it was a success. I arrived at the door feeling positive that Miki had to be home. There was no other choice. However, deep inside I felt a fluttering, sinking sensation.
I rang the doorbell and waited, holding my breath. I heard footsteps - slow, lazy ones. Was it...?
The door creaked open and an old lady popped her head out, peering into my face curiously.
"Yes?"
Lost for words, I took a step back and looked at the apartment number. I was at the right place.
"Uh... Is there a Miki living here?" I asked.
The old woman shook her head.
"No, not here."
"Um... Are you new here? I mean, how long have you lived in this apartment?" I asked, trying to be polite.
"Twenty years. I moved here from Kawasaki with my son. Dirty city is what that place was. I thought here would be cleaner, and it was initially. But lately, things have been getting loud and dirty, and young people are always disrespecting everything that came before-"
"Oh, I see," I said loudly. "I'm very sorry for disturbing you, then. I'm in a rush. Excuse me."
With that, I left as quickly as I could, most likely leaving the lady with an impression that I was one of those disrespectful young people. I didn't care about images, though.
I got back out onto the street and I knew I should have been hearing the sounds of traffic, but all I could hear were the thoughts in my head, the rushing of my blood, and the pounding of my heart. What the hell was going on?
There was only one last thing I could do at the moment. I pulled out my cell phone and dialled a number, praying that the girl existed...
"Hello?" she asked.
I almost started to cry when I heard the familiar voice of reason and good advice.
"Shiba-chan, it's me," I croaked into the phone.
"Aya-chan?" she asked in surprise.
"Are you busy right now?" I asked outright.
There was a brief pause.
"Nothing I can't do later. What's up?"
"I need to meet with you."
"Right now? Don't you have a flight today?"
"I do... but I have to see you if possible."
There was another pause and a rustle of papers.
"Okay. Come on over," Shibata said.
"Really?" I asked, relieved.
"Really. How long will it take you?"
"I'm close. About fifteen minutes."
"See you then."
We hung up
Twenty minutes later I knocked at Shibata's door. I heard footsteps and the door swung open.
"Come in," she said immediately, making room for me.
I said hello and went in. Her apartment was familiar to me. I often went over to chat and have tea. It struck me how housewife-like we acted, while neither of us remotely resembled housewives.
She gestured for me to sit at the table. I did so, and she brought over tea that she must have just made.
"What's on your mind?" she asked, sipping her tea.
I took a deep sip and let the hot liquid pour down my throat. I wondered how to open up the topic.
"Shiba-chan... What happened on my nineteenth birthday. In Kobe. After our concert. What happened?"
She screwed her face up in a strange expression like she was thinking hard, but confused about why she had to think so hard about such a question.
"Um... That was more than five years ago. I don't remember exactly. We ate cake, we went to the hotel, hung out at the restaurant upstairs, and then went to bed. That's it. Er, I think. Nothing special? Oh, well, Hitomi gave you that crazy whatchamakalit with the yellow legs... I remember that. It was funny," she related.
I gulped.
"So nobody visited me? Nobody came to see the concert?"
Shibata frowned.
"I think you mentioned your old teacher from elementary school went. Oh, and I know that Tsunku-san was there."
"I see..." I muttered.
"Aya-chan, what's going on?"
"Uh.. Em..." I stuttered.
What to tell...
"What if I told you that the world today is very different from the world yesterday?"
"I'd say you've got it right!" Shibata laughed. "The world is always chang-"
"No," I interrupted quickly. "I mean... It's like a whole different world. The people aren't the same. Our experiences are not the same. Do you think that's possible?"
"Um..." Shibata tread carefully around my topic. "You mean like we've travelled to another dimension??
"Yes!" I cried out, suddenly getting it in my head that that explanation sounded perfectly reasonable. "That's exactly what I mean! What if that's happened?"
There was a mystified pause.
"Aya-chan, have you been drinking?" Shibata asked seriously. "Smoking?"
"No," I said, frustrated. "But really... Can I tell you something that you promise not to laugh about? Or think I'm crazy because of?"
"O... kay..." Shiba said tentatively.
"There's this girl that I know. That you know, too. Her name is Fujimoto Miki. She's an idol like us. She used to be in Morning Musume, although she was first a soloist. She and I are the best of friends," I said calmly and evenly. "This girl... There is one."
It took about a minute for this to compute in Shibata's brain.
"No there isn't," Shibata said with a frown.
I smacked my hand on the table.
"Yes there is. She and I, we're like this," I said, crossing my fingers. "There is no way I made her up in my head. I've known her for more years than I care to count. We sang in units together back in our H!P days - just the two of us. We've made DVDs together. We hang out every day of the week. It's just that nobody today seems to remember her. Her cell phone and home phone numbers connect to different people, and some grandma from Kawasaki is living in her apartment!"
"Okay, Aya-chan. Let me get this straight. You have a friend who worked with us in H!P, but we've all somehow forgotten who she is?"
"Yes!"
"Except you remember her."
"As clear as day! We were just together this morning, even!" I cried out, and then wished I hadn't said that.
"So what happened? Did she just vanish in front of you over breakfast?" Shibata asked with no trace of mocking in her voice.
"No," I mumbled. "I fell asleep and when I woke up, she was gone."
Shibata tried to piece it all together.
"So what clued you in that she was gone?"
"Well, all her stuff from my apartment was gone, some purikura we'd taken recently were all changed, and the more I looked, the more I didn't find her."
"...And then?"
"I went to her apartment, but the lady had been living there for years. I called her home, but some weird family's answering machine picked up. Her cell phone number is owned by some twelve year old. Maki-chan doesn't even know who she is."
"...And did I ever know her?"
"Yes!" I exclaimed. "You weren't best buddies with her, but you talked with her sometimes."
"...Okay, Aya-chan. As good as a friend you are, I think there's something really weird going on with you."
I held my hand out to stop her from saying anything else.
"I know you're going to say I'm crazy, but I'm not. She does exist. She did exist. Anyone who knows me knows of her. She's-" I was going to say "my life", but I decided not to use such a strong phrase as it might worry this clueless Shibata, "-she's my best friend in the whole world. And she's somehow disappeared. I need to find her."
And then I did the worse possible thing - I started to cry. Shibata patted my shoulder and comforted me.
"I don't know what's going on and I can hardly believe it, but I'll help you. Whatever you need, I'll help you with it."
For the next two hours we talked about what was going on. We reached no conclusions, but after hearing me relate several stories about Miki in detail, Shibata was convinced that something strange was going on and that I couldn't possibly have made up or dreamt it all up. I think the final kicker was when I sang selections from Miki's songs and we did a search on the internet for the lyrics. No search results turned up, and Shibata had never heard any of the songs. I couldn't have written them all on the spot or in a state of insanity.
"If she doesn't exist, then who in the world is my best friend?" I asked suddenly.
If Miki didn't exist to the rest of the world, I wanted to know who the world saw me hanging out with most. Was there anyone that important in my life? In a way I didn't want to know because I was scared of what I would hear, but the other part of me that needed to know was stronger.
Shibata looked a bit confused and a bit offended by the question. I had a sinking feeling I'd just insulted her in the biggest way.
"Well, I kind of thought that I was," she started.
Shiba-chan wasn't one to lose her temper and get angry easily, but with a blow like that, I'm sure it was a little hard to keep smiling.
"You really get along with Tomo-chan and Ueno-san, too. But if I had to choose one, my answer would be me."
I gulped. I felt terrible. How would I feel if my best friend suddenly asked me in an oblivious way who my best friend was?
"Sorry, Shiba-chan," I said quietly, staring at my hands. "I do know that we're good friends. I just can't- I don't know. I can't remember everything."
"It's okay," Shibata said in a tone that was trying to remain calm, but I could hear that she was a little let down. "Um, but don't you have a plane to catch?"
I suddenly remembered Italy. I'd been so engrossed in our conversation and so obsessed about finding Miki that I'd forgotten there was one thing I had to do. I swore out loud and stood up to grab my things and put on my shoes. Shibata asked me where I was going.
"I'll get in touch with you later. I'm not going to Italy," I told her, and before she could reply, I ran out the door, dialling a number on my phone.
I heard her calling my name, but I ignored her.
I cancelled Italy. I called my manager and told him I wasn't going and that was final. He thought I was joking until I told him that it was his problem how to figure out how to tell the TV show producers. I was out. I hung up. He called twenty-six times after that. I ignored my phone twenty-six times.
I hurried back to my apartment and opened my suitcase. I tore through everything and found what I was looking for. A small box wrapped in a plastic bag tucked neatly between a stack of skirts and a pair of jeans. I all but tore the plastic from around it and took out the small card that was stuck to the box. I opened it up. I read the card out loud.
"Dear Aya-chan. Good luck in Italy. You'll do fine. You're a shining star that could make anybody proud. Thinking of you."
It was signed by four people, all friends of mine.
I'd never received this card from those four people. Miki had given me a card with the same message (she was really bad at writing meaningful things, which made it even more meaningful) a few nights before, along with a present - a cheap Pingu clock (she was also the antithesis of a romantic when it came to random presents, which I loved because fun was better). On the back of the card she'd written her reason why she gave me such a present. I turned the card over. Blank.
Miki was gone.
I dropped the card and went into my room, looking around. I was lost somewhere. I had no idea how to get out.
I took off my clothes and got into bed. I swore that if I woke up back in my world, I wouldn't question this strange dream. I would make myself forget about it.
I closed my eyes and wished myself out of there. I wished myself to wherever Miki was, even if it was hell on Earth. At least we would be in it together.
-
Chapter 4 of 16
My cell phone rang so much that afternoon that it ran out of battery power and shut down. I woke up when it was dark outside. There was knocking at my door. A man called out my name repeatedly. The clock read six pm. I was supposed to have left an hour ago. I stayed quiet and didn't move. All my lights were off. I was hoping the man would think I wasn't home and leave soon.
My wish was granted. He left and I felt the silence consume me. What would I do now? I was going to miss my flight. I had directly disobeyed the rules. I felt like a fugitive. A fugitive in desperate search of another fugitive.
Where was Miki?
I fell asleep again. I slept right through until the next morning, waking up with the sun. I rolled over onto my side and looked at the empty space beside me. My heart fell. I had really hoped that it had all been a weird dream. I could tell, though, that it wasn't. Everything felt exactly the same.
I grabbed my phone and hooked it up to the re-charger. I checked my address book, and sure enough, there was no Miki.
I sat cross-legged on my bed for thirty minutes. I pondered and pondered. I reviewed everything in my mind, making impeccable mental notes of who had ever spoken to Miki, what Miki had ever done, where she'd worked, where she'd lived...
I spent the rest of the morning writing down my list. I spent the afternoon calling these people.
Nobody knew who she was. At first I treaded carefully, making sure to only casually bring up Miki's name. For the last quarter of my list, however, I gave up on subtlety and asked about her outright. By the time I crossed off the last name from my list, the sun had started to go down. I was mentally exhausted.
As if knowing that I was idling, Shibata called me. I frowned and picked up.
"Yes?" I asked.
"Aya, where are you?" she burst out angrily. "Your boss called me and got on my case about you."
I clutched the piece of paper that held the list of crossed out names.
"Sorry," I mumbled. "What did you tell him?"
"Nothing, of course. I said I hadn't heard from you."
I sighed in relief. Best friends stuck it out for each other, I guess, no matter how insulted they felt.
"Thanks, Shiba-chan," I said gratefully.
"What's going on with you? Where are you? Do you need help?" she asked, disregarding my thanks.
"I can't get help from anyone. Just trust me. I have to do exactly what I'm doing."
"What are you doing? Are you searching for someone who doesn't exist?" she asked. I flared up.
"She does exist," I snapped, "And I'll prove it."
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"Aya-chan, are you willing to throw away your work to do that? You know you can't just quit the Italy project, but if you go back now, there's a good chance you won't face any consequences."
I thought about it, deeply struck by her wording.
She continued, "Can you give up your career for a girl who doesn't exist?"
Put like that, I had no choice. I was reminded of long ago when I had almost thought my work was more important than Miki. I didn't want to return to those days. I was stupid and childish then. Now I knew exactly what I had to do.
"Yes," I responded.
I knew what I had to do and where I had to go.
"Okay, than," Shibata said quietly.
I felt my heart swell up with love for my friend. Always supportive until the end.
"I have a feeling there's more to this than you're letting on, but I won't ask. You've got to do what you've got to do. Just be careful."
I had the certified Shiba stamp of "OK". She was a fantastic friend.
"Shiba-chan, please don't tell anyone about this. I need to go somewhere far away for a while. I might be out of touch for some time," I confided in her.
"My lips are sealed," she said worriedly
She told me to drop her a line soon. I promised to do that at least, and with a thank you and a goodbye, I hung up.
I put on my sharpest clothes, and left my apartment, keeping a low profile in case any of my company's henchmen were waiting in hiding to jump up and drag me off to Italy. I went to the closest travel agency I could find and bought myself a plane ticket. If Miki had never existed where I was going, then I'd accept that this was a Miki-less world.
I went back home and re-packed a new bag, including my warmest clothes. Hokkaido would be cold at this time of year.
-
Chapter 5 of 16
The flight was smooth. I think. I couldn't really remember it because I was distracted the whole time. In fact, I was more than distracted. I was terrified. I felt like I was on the moon or Mars. The world without Miki was foreign to me. Not just because she wasn't there (although that was about ninety-five percent of the reason), but also because everyone was different in that they had none of the same memories as me.
Waiting for the plane, I used the internet on my cell phone and tried to find out about past work that we'd done together. Gomattou had never existed. It had just been me and Maki. Same song, same dance, same outfits, but no Miki. GAM had never existed. Instead, Shiba-chan and I had done a lot of duet work, but we had no official name together. Miki and I had never done our special graduation concert mini-tour together. I'd done it with Takahashi. I was scared that someone was going to ask me something about my past, a past about which I knew nothing.
Once I landed in Sapporo, I had to stop and regroup my thoughts. I stood inside the airport, my bags in hand and no direction in mind. It was late. I couldn't make the journey to Miki's hometown. It was too dark and cold. I shivered when the doors opened, and I wished I had kept a pair of gloves in my handbag. They were packed away in my larger bag.
I finally decided on staying at a hotel for the night and then setting off bright and early the next morning. I'd only been there a few times, the last time being two years ago, but I remembered how to get there, and if I was really on the ball, I'd be able to find her house.
The hotel was expensive but I didn't care. I paid for the convenience. I was hungry, but nothing appealed to me. I turned out the lights, my stomach growling a little. I ignored it, which wasn't hard to do. I had a lot to think about.
I worried about the next day. What would happen? Where would I start? Miki's house, of course. That was the best place. But what if she wasn't there? What if the house didn't exist? The thing that really made me anxious was this: what would I do if I couldn't find her? I had told myself that I would accept the world as it was if Miki wasn't in Hokkaido, but could I really? I didn't think I could.
I fell asleep worrying about these things and my dreams reflected this.
I woke up the next morning in a cold sweat, breathing hard and gripping the sheets tightly. Habit had me curled up on one side of the bed, the other side empty. And I cried for the first time since I found myself thrust into a Miki-less world. I cried because I was so scared, and I cried because I missed her. I didn't know if she'd ever come back, and this was suddenly hitting me now. What made it even more painful was that nobody knew who she was, so they understood neither what I was missing nor the extent of my sadness.
I may as well have been travelling to the Arctic in a summer dress and sandals. In fact, I felt like I'd have a better chance surviving there than I'd have trying to find Miki here. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, but there was no guarantee that there was actually a needle in the stack.
I finished crying and got ready to leave. It wasn't going to be easy, but I sucked it up and left the warmth of the hotel. To be perfectly honest, though, I hadn't felt warm since the night before Miki had disappeared. Something cold lay in my gut and I couldn't get it out. Like a cancer, it grew inside me and threatened to freeze my entire body and mind.
Why was she so important to me? I asked myself this over and over, and each time, my answer was "she just is". There was no one reason. I tried to snap myself out of my funk and get myself to realise that one person should not have such a huge effect on me, but maybe Miki had become too much a part of me to be able to do that. It was like I was telling myself a joke by saying I shouldn't hurt so much. The more I thought about it, the more I thought about the things that I loved about her, and the more it made me miss her.
Nobody else could make me laugh so much. Nobody else could annoy me so much by being so cute and silly. Nobody else knew exactly what I was thinking when sometimes I wasn't even sure what I was thinking. Miki had an incredible range of feelings and countless sides, some of which I was still in the process of discovering. I had known her for almost a decade, and yet once in a while, she still managed to surprise me.
This time she'd surprised me by pulling the perfect disappearing act. All these memories and feelings - they couldn't possibly be dreams or delusions. They were as real as the bags I carried. As real as the old, rickety train that I was going to board.
The trip to Miki's hometown took me almost two hours and involved a few train transfers. I was nervous the whole time, and I almost started to cry from the stress. I could feel my jaw locking up. I started to panic. If I overstressed myself, I'd have to go and see a doctor, and that would not be good. I wanted to lay low and not let anyone know where I was. It was a bit difficult when you were famous and your face was plastered all over the country's walls and billboards, but I had to try.
I fell asleep on the train and had the most confusing dream. All that I remembered from it was a boat, sweet-smelling smoke, me yelling my sister's name, and the overwhelming feeling that some disaster had happened. When I awoke with a jerk, I felt that if I didn't find Miki, bad things would start to happen to everyone I loved. Maybe they'd all disappear one-by-one, erased off the face of the planet without the dignity of being remembered. I bit my lip and kept composed in front of the handful of people on the train.
Finally, the train reached Takikawa station. I gripped my bags tightly and got off at an almost abandoned platform. I'd never been there alone before. Hopefully the next time I set foot in this station, it would be with good news. Or with Miki.
I went outside to brave the cold streets alone, terrified, but determined.
-
Chapter 6 of 16
The very first thing I did was find a cheap hotel to stay in. Upon my asking, the front desk said that since it was out of season so the place was nearly empty and I'd have no problem extending my stay at the last minute. I settled for three nights, after which I'd either find another place to stay or extend my stay... or leave.
I was given the key to my room and I was able to go up before check in time. It was a very simple room. A tiny bed, a television set, and a bathroom. Not much room to move around in, but I didn't need much. I'd be out most of the time. I quickly unpacked some of my things and changed into warmer clothes. I then set out. I was going to find Miki's house.
I wandered around the town for over two hours. It seemed to be devoid of anyone under the age of sixty. Since it was a workday, everyone was off at their companies or restaurants or schools, while the old, retired people were left to wander around town and putter about. This was good for me because none of them recognised me. I could go about my business in peace.
At just past one o'clock, I found Miki's neighbourhood. I'd taken some wrong turns, so while the town was quite small, getting lost made it seem quite big.
At half past the hour, I found the Fujimoto residence. Or at least the Fujimoto residence of my memories. The nameplate read "Saito". I tried not to break out into hysterics, but it was really hard to do that. When your best friend's family home suddenly didn't exist anymore, things got a little hopeless. I circled the neighbourhood countless times looking for the Fujimoto nameplate that I remembered. I couldn't find it anywhere.
I grew more and more hopeless and I decided to give up while I still had a thread of sanity left. I walked away slowly. I spent the rest of the day walking. I probably covered the majority of the town. It wasn't very big. I recognised some things - shops, restaurants, and parks that I'd visited before - but no Miki, no Fujimoto family members. In a town of just less than fifty-thousand, it wasn't a great surprise. However, I'd been silently hoping that I would run into someone familiar who could give me a clue as to Miki's whereabouts.
It began to grow dark, and I started to feel hungry. I hadn't eaten anything in a long time, and my hunger was getting to the point where I was in pain. I felt faint and my stomach began to growl ferociously in protest against my refusal to stop and eat. It hit me like a wave, and I almost fell over.
Clenching my teeth, I dragged myself down the street and to the first restaurant that I saw. It was just past six o'clock.
The outside of the restaurant looked plain. There was something almost dodgy about it, but I didn't care. I needed food. The inside was surprisingly warm and light. It looked friendly and not at all like what the front of the building had suggested. The only somewhat negative point was that there was nobody in the room save for an older woman sitting behind the counter. She reminded me of my late grandmother, and I felt a twang in my heart as I remembered the dear old woman whom I'd loved so much.
"Welcome," the woman greeted me, standing up politely.
I greeted her with a warm smile and took a seat at the counter. I picked up a menu and ordered the first thing I saw - an eggplant and ginger stir fry. It sounded like it could be whipped up quickly. The woman set off to prepare it after bringing me a glass of water. I drank half the glass and felt sick as it poured into my empty belly. I decided not to drink anything else until my food came.
I watched the woman out of the corner of my eye. She moved slowly, and I wondered if she worked alone. As if in response to my question, someone walked out of the backroom. It must have been her husband. He looked about her age and carried himself with the familiarity of that of a husband. I could instantly tell that he was a friendly man. I noticed him smile when he saw me. He went over to the grandmother and muttered something to her. She responded. He picked up a squash and went back where he came from. I continued to watch the cooking process.
It took longer than expected. I caved in and drank more water, although this time it didn't shock me like the first few gulps had. My food came just in time to prevent me from gnawing off my own arm, and I dug in ravenously. After the first bite, I cried out that it was delicious. Grandma looked pleased and thanked me. I had never eaten something so tasty. Then again, I could have been eating raw asparagus and I would have been happy as a clam. Hunger really was the best sauce.
I was about halfway through my meal when the outside door slid open violently, sending a loud crash sound reverberating throughout the tiny restaurant. It also managed to freak me out of my mind. I didn't jump, but I jerked up and dropped a chopstick on my plate.
"I'm sorry I'm late!!" a girl's voice practically yelled.
I choked on a bit of eggplant after trying to gasp.
Long, messy, brown hair, my height, half-closed eyes, hastily done makeup, clothes thrown on in a rush... Miki.
That last word stuck in my mind.
Miki was standing at the entrance of the restaurant where I was eating. She was messy, sweating, trying to breathe at a normal pace, and a little skinnier than I remembered her, but she was undoubtedly Miki. I just knew.
My jaw dropped open, but I quickly closed it before all my half-chewed food fell out.
How?? What??!
Miki didn't seem to notice me at all, though, and she launched into a panicked rant.
"I swear I just meant to take a twenty minute nap. I didn't mean to sleep past-" she went on and one, making up every excuse under the moon.
My eyes were practically bulging out of my sockets, and I was ready to scream something out loud (although I have no idea what. Probably a mess of random syllables and unintelligible noises).
"It's okay," Grandma said simply, cutting Miki off with a smile.
The girl's shoulders relaxed, and she stopped talking a mile a minute. She shrugged her jacket off and turned to see me for the first time. I thought she would look surprised, maybe run at me and hug me and ask me what happened... but nothing of the sort occurred. She hardly acknowledged me. She gave me the barest hint of a nod and then moved off behind the counter to put on an apron while I sat there gaping.
What the hell was going on?!
This had to be Miki. She didn't just look like her. She was her. But somehow she didn't know who I was.
I looked down at my food. Eggplant. An eggplant was an eggplant. I knew that from experience. I'd seen an eggplant once, and from that point on, I knew what an eggplant looked like. Miki was Miki. I'd met Miki once, and from that point on, I knew who Miki was. It was simple.
I was so distracted that when someone appeared beside me, I almost jumped again.
"More water?" Miki asked.
I looked up at her and nodded dumbly. My behaviour didn't phase her, and she poured me a new glass of water. She moved off behind the counter and started to clean up the mess of eggplant remains. I kept an eye on her, occasionally poking at my food to make it look like I was still eating.
The old woman left the front room after ten minutes, telling Miki to take care of things while she went into the back to help Gramps.
It was just me and Miki. I couldn't hear any of my thoughts because there were three trillion of them playing at the same time. It sounded like radio static.
I watched Miki's every move. She had sat behind the counter on a stool, and she was reading a big book. Once in a while, she looked up to see if I needed anything, and then continued reading. When she did this, I quickly looked away and pretended to be observing the decorations in the room. Then I would go back to staring at her once she'd become engrossed in her book.
She looked very tired. As if she hadn't slept the night before. And she was definitely skinnier. Not enough so that just any person would notice, but I arguably knew her better than anybody else, so I could tell. I kept staring until she put her book down and stood up. I quickly refocused my eyes on my meal and forced myself to eat a bite. I heard her walk up to me.
"What?" she asked.
I had thought that she would refill my water and then leave. I hadn't expected her to confront me like that. I began to sweat.
"Huh?" I shot back at her weakly.
Instead of backing off, she took a seat beside me, and I wondered if she liked to intimidate all of the customers. No wonder the place was empty.
"What is it? You keep staring at me," she elaborated.
Her voice didn't sound offensive or challenging. She sounded simply curious. Not any more curious than I was, however. I had so many questions.
"I, um-" I stuttered, "-you look like someone I know."
The lamest excuse in the history of time. If I'd been a man, she would rolled her eyes and shot down a line like that.
"Really?" she asked with a bored look.
Her voice belied her interest, however. She wanted to know more.
"Really," I replied unnecessarily.
There was a pregnant pause in our conversation. I hummed one of my songs in my head, replacing every lyric with the word "awkward".
"Sorry," she finally said. "It's the first time that someone like you has come here."
She looked away nonchalantly and scratched at her nose.
Someone like me? What was that supposed to mean?
"Someone like me?" I asked with a frown.
She looked at me with a strange expression.
"Yeah. Someone like you," she repeated.
"What does that mean?" I asked, genuinely confused and wondering if I should be offended.
"Well, maybe you didn't notice," she started tentatively, "but you are kind of famous. Right? Or did I mistake you for...?" she trailed off.
Oh my god. Of course. She knew who I was. But to her I was a celebrity, not a friend. This cruel, cosmic joke was going on far too long. I wanted to scream out to the sky for it to stop.
"Oh," I said, looking down disappointedly. "Yeah. Me."
"It's a bit hard not to recognise you when I see your face six times a week on our fridge," she shrugged, gesturing towards the refrigerator behind the counter.
I looked and was surprised to see an old tea advert that I'd done years ago. The edges of the picture were a little yellowed with age, but the face was intact.
"Oh," I said with surprise.
Miki stood up and backed off a bit.
"Um, sorry to disturb you," she said quickly, moving away.
She'd most likely taken my disappointment as an indication of me not wanting to talk.
"No, it's not- um, a problem. I was just surprised. I haven't seen those pictures in a long time," I said quickly.
There was another awkward pause. Miki smiled warily and headed back behind the counter to wipe what was most likely an imaginary dirty spot off the counter while I tried to think of a way to keep talking to her.
"So what about you?" I asked into the silence. "What is someone like you doing here?"
She stopped "cleaning" and looked over at me with her eyebrows furrowed in the cutest way that made me want to squeal and hug her. Had she been my regular Miki, I would have. However, it was quickly sinking in that this girl in front of me was not the Miki I knew. Maybe it was true that everyone in the world had a twin. Maybe this was an unrelated girl?
"What do you mean someone like me?"
I shrugged.
"You don't look like the type to work in a restaurant."
She shrugged back. We did a lot of shrugging that day.
"I go to school. I have to make money somehow."
She went to school? What school? What was she studying? Why so late? She was twenty-five already. Shouldn't she have finished school by that age?
"School?" I asked.
It didn't strike me as weird to be asking someone who was supposedly a complete stranger these questions. My curiosity outweighed my social etiquette.
"Yeah. School. I'm a part time university student," she explained just as two customers walked in.
She gave me an apologetic look as she went to tend to them, give them water, taking their orders, and so on. I stared in front of me as she bustled around. She finally called for the elderly woman to help her with the cooking, and I watched amazedly as Miki chopped up meat like an expert and did all sorts of fancy things with it that my own mother couldn't even do.
This couldn't be Miki. Not my Miki. My Miki couldn't cook that well. My Miki didn't have the patience to study at university. And yet her attitude, mannerisms, and looks were exactly the same. She was laid back, not afraid to talk to strangers (which I unfortunately was to her)...
I wanted to wait until things slowed down at the restaurant, but they only got busier as more customers came in. I had to eat and get out of there, or else I'd be there all night. Frustrated with my situation, I stood up and went to pay the bill. As my poor luck would have it, Miki was off somewhere doing something, so the woman rang up my bill. I thanked her and tried to prolong my stay, but I had to eventually leave.
I stepped out of the restaurant, dejected and in a state of disbelief. I had found Miki, but everything had been out of my control. There was nothing I could do but try again later. The next day.
Or maybe I could wait until later in the evening. Maybe if I stayed outside and waited for all the customers to leave, I could go back in under the pretence of... of...
I thought hard. What sort of non-creepy excuse could I use to go back in there to see Miki again? I could pretend I'd forgotten something. The old tried and true method. I'd do that.
But I couldn't stand still and wait outside. My warm Kansai blood was starting to freeze up. I went for a long walk. For the whole time I threw out theory after theory in my head. I was certain that I had gone crazy. It had to be true. There was no way this could happen. There was no other reasonable explanation. I must have bumped my head really hard somewhere at some point and wound up in this world. Maybe like that girl in that American movie about scarecrows and lions. The name eluded me at that moment, but I could remember that the girl had travelled to a colourful world and had journeyed all around it, only to wake up back at home and find out that it had all been a dream induced by a bump on the head. The same must have been happening to me. I was dreaming and would wake up soon. Maybe Miki would wake me up and I'd be able to tell her all about this silly dream.
But I knew this wasn't true either. It felt too real. I pinched my skin. It hurt and left a white mark on my arm for a few seconds. I shoved my hands into my pockets in order to stop myself from repeatedly pinching myself to see if I'd wake up. I'd mutilate myself if I kept it up.
The streets were deserted, but I felt no danger. I kept up my brisk walk so that I'd stay warm. It lasted for an hour. I ended up back at the restaurant. I didn't want to go in because I was sure it was still full. I tried to peek in through the frosted glass of the door, but I had no luck.
Just then, I heard movement coming from the alleyway. A can was knocked over and there was the sound of rustling plastic. Alarmed, I looked to my side and took a step back. Out from the alleyway walked Miki. She was carrying two bags of trash. She noticed me immediately and let out a surprised "oh." She crossed the street, dropped the trash off in the collection area, and then came back to me. I stood there, my hands in my pockets, absolutely still.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
That was a Miki-ish thing to do. Get straight to the point.
"I, uh-"
I was going to lie and say I'd dropped my wallet somewhere, but I found I couldn't stand lying to someone who acted and looked so much like Miki.
"I wanted to say thanks," I continued. "For the meal and for the chat."
I sounded like the world's biggest moron, but was slightly comforted when she smiled.
"You're welcome, although all I did was pour water for you and annoy you by recognising you."
We stood there silently. She wiped her hands on the butt of her jeans and I crinkled my nose in distaste. She should really wash her hands after taking the trash out...
"As for your question about what a person like me is doing working at a place like this," she continued. "The answer is that it's actually a family friend's restaurant. These folks are friends with my grandparents, so they let me have a job to help me pay my way through university."
One thing that struck me odd about this girl was that she was being too open with me. The Miki I knew wouldn't talk to strangers like this. But I wasn't going to complain. If she wanted to talk to me, I wanted to listen. I wanted to know if she was the Miki I knew. Or part of her.
"What's your name?" I asked out of the blue.
"Fujimoto," she answered without blinking. "Miki."
"Nice to meet you. I'm... well, you know," I said in a defeated tone. She laughed loudly.
"Nice to meet you, Matsuura-san."
There was more silence. This silence was really getting to me.
"Miki-chan!" came a low, muffled voice. "We need some help."
It was Gramps. Miki smiled in apology for the second time that day.
"Duty calls," she said, ducking away.
"Oh, wait," I said before she went back inside.
She turned around and looked at me questioningly.
"You live in this town, right?"
"Yeah."
"Can you recommend some things around here that I can do now?" I asked, desperately trying to keep her outside for any extra time I could manage.
She thought hard.
"No," she finally said.
My face dropped.
"But if you want, I can show you some things tomorrow. That is if your schedule's not full. It's a little hard to get around this town when you don't know anything about it."
Never would I have guessed that I would hang out with this strange, otherworldly Miki. I had a feeling it was a bad idea, but I nodded.
"That would be great of you to help me. I have nothing on my schedule. At all," I assured her.
Miki studied me closely. Did she believe me? Why was she offering to hang out with me?
"Well, then. Meet me here at eleven tomorrow," she said, and without waiting for my answer, she turned on her heels and went inside the restaurant.
That evening I returned to the hotel even more frazzled than I'd been upon my arrival that morning. Nothing made sense. I had found a Miki who didn't remember me. A Miki that was almost the exact same Miki, but with some key differences.
And despite the fact that it was clear she was not the Miki I knew, I found myself helplessly and utterly nuts over her. Spellbound in the most pleasant, scary, stomach-tingling way.
-
Chapter 7 of 16
I barely slept that night, and when I finally did manage to fall asleep, I had a nightmare. It had nothing to do with Miki directly, but musings of the subconscious were almost always entirely symbolic. For all I knew, the desk in the room in my nightmare could have been a metaphor for Miki as an ever-present, stable presence in my life (which, up until recently, I had always believed), although I had a little difficulty figuring out what meaning being kidnapped by Swedish pirates had.
I woke up at eight the next morning. I felt as though I hadn't slept at all. I took my time getting ready, making sure I was warm enough before heading out. I dropped into a small restaurant for some breakfast before going to the restaurant I'd been to the previous night. I was fifteen minutes early, so I stood in front of the closed door, eventually resorting to pacing out of boredom and chilliness. Miki was ten minutes late. She arrived on her bicycle, breathing hard and sweating from exertion.
"Sorry I'm late!" she called out the moment she was within shouting range.
This certainly sounded familiar.
"Don't worry," was my response as she pulled up beside me and got off her bike.
If she had been the normal Miki, I would have (playfully) cussed her out for making me wait in the cold. But she was not the Miki I knew, so I reigned in any comment which could have been seen as either rude or flirty.
She parked her bike in front of the restaurant.
"How long have you been here?" she asked me when she'd locked up.
"Not long," I replied, playing down my twenty-five minute wait.
"Good."
Another one of our pauses.
"So, what are you interested in seeing?" she asked awkwardly.
"Um..." I trailed off.
What was I into? I had no idea how to answer that question. I hadn't been real sightseeing in a long time, especially not in such a tiny town. When the other Miki and I had been here before, we'd skipped most of the touristy things since she was a native of the place. I got to see another side of the town that tourists (which numbered in the few anyway) didn't.
"Anything," I finally said.
Miki shifted uncomfortably.
“I don't know where to take you. I mean... well, what are you doing here in Takikawa? Do you want to see something related to that?" she asked, quickly adding, "Um, but if you're under contractual obligation not to tell me any information, that's okay. I understand."
"I'm not here for work," I said, surprising her. "Personal reasons. Vacation."
Looking for you.
"Then... that leads us back to the question: what do you want to do here?"
This was all too weird. A little too perfect. I'd found Miki in a restaurant and she'd offered to act as my personal tour guide the next day. What kind of messed up, over-trusting, perfectly-revolving world had I been thrown into?
"Why are you doing this?" I asked suddenly.
I really had no control over what I said when I was around Miki, and this had apparently not changed.
"Why are you taking a complete stranger on a tour of your hometown?"
Miki looked at me and then looked away thoughtfully. If she was like my Miki, this meant she was thinking of how to correctly phrase what she wanted to say.
"You're not a total stranger," she started. "I kind of admire you."
This hit me hard. She admired me? So that meant she listened to my music and followed my work? In a way this was good, but it was also terrible. I didn't want her to think of me as someone different or beyond her. Someone unreachable or perfect. I wanted to be approachable, a friend on her level.
"And my weekdays are so boring that I would honestly risk doing this rather than study."
I laughed. One thing was for sure: this Miki was just as honest as the other one.
"I hope I'm not keeping you from any important work," I said apologetically.
Miki waved her hand.
"Nothing I can't do later. I don't have class till Thursday," she reassured me.
I started to loosen up and feel more comfortable. I just had to pretend that I'd never met this person before. Then I could be myself. Of course her face and her gestures were distracting because she was entirely Miki in those respects.
"So," I asked aloud. "What are you studying that you hate so much?"
"Oh. That. Economics with a side of bookkeeping," she replied with distaste.
I blinked. Miki and economics mixed as well as mushrooms, strawberries, and cream. That was to say, not at all. And bookkeeping? I wondered what she was planning to do.
"I guess I'll work as a bookkeeper for some business. Maybe my parents' restaurant once they retire," she went on.
I was surprised, but I thought it through. With her cooking skills (the ones that I'd witnessed the previous night) coupled with her ability to manage her accounts, she could take over her parents' business and make it really successful.
I stared at this girl in front of me and wondered how many more surprise layers she was going to shock me with. I started to wonder about her history. How much of it did she share with the Miki I knew? How much was different? Why didn't her family live in the same house? Was her favourite meal still yakiniku? Did she have that cute little freckle on her tummy, just above her belly button? What had she done all those years between high school and university? Where had she travelled? Did she still love animals?
"I see," was all I could really say in response to her statement.
That brought an end to that topic.
"I'm going to ask you a third time: where do you want to go?"
This time I blushed. I wasn't usually this indecisive, but I had a lot on my mind. I came up with a hasty reply.
"Just take me somewhere touristy."
She thought for a second, shrugged, and then walked off in a direction. I followed quickly.
"So?" I asked.
"There's a history museum a few blocks away. I'm taking you there," she replied in an almost brusque manner.
A history museum? I tried not to gag at the thought. The last thing I wanted to do was to spend a boring hour inside a dull museum looking at pictures of people about whom I knew nothing. However, I didn't want to offend this Miki and her choice. If she recommended a museum, we'd go to the museum. My goal was to find out as much about her as possible.
I hushed up and walked by her side, trying to think of a conversation starter. There was no need to. She was talkative enough.
"Do you have family here?" she asked.
"I, um, I used to," I said.
It wasn't a lie. I considered Miki a part of my family, and since the one that I knew seemed to be missing, it was safe to say that I used to have family in this town.
"Oh. I guess you never visit them much."
"Not much."
Painful silence was quickly becoming a theme for us. Or rather for me. I bet I felt more uncomfortable than she did. I wanted to ask her so much, but I didn't want to get overly personal. I didn't know where to draw the line because I never drew a line with Miki. Or at least I hadn't needed to for many years.
"What do you do for fun around here?" I tried.
"Fun? Well, not much. I either stay in and watch DVDs or go and hang out with friends in the evening after work. Laugh, eat drink, sing..."
She didn't sound too thrilled. It probably got tedious after a while.
I tried to imagine what her friends were like, but I couldn't get an image in my head. Her friends in Tokyo were all over the chart, no two alike. It didn't really fit her image since she was essentially a very laid back, calm, almost lazy girl who didn't seem the type to make the effort to go out and meet a whole slew of people (and I meant that in the nicest and most loving way). I assumed the selection was smaller in Takikawa, but if this Miki was at all a Miki, she'd have chosen the most diverse group of people she possibly could.
"What about you? I mean, when you have any free time," she laughed.
She knew I was very busy.
"The same thing. I have this friend," I took a deep breath, feeling weird talking about her in front of herself (far too confusing), "and we usually hang out and do boring stuff when we have time off."
"I guess an idol doesn't get to experience normal life, huh?" she asked.
I couldn't bear to have her thinking of me as some superhuman entertainer anymore.
"Please don't do that," I said.
She looked alarmed and I quickly clarified.
"Don't think of me as an idol. I'm a regular girl. I just want to make friends and be normal."
Miki stopped walking and I passed her by a few steps before reacting and stopping. I looked back and silently wished that she'd start walking again because I was cold.
"Sorry," she said abruptly. "I shouldn't do that. You're absolutely right. You're no different from me."
And that was when I truly relaxed. I smiled and told her it was okay.
We then became involved in a discussion about me. Just to stroke my ego a little more. I found out that when she was younger, she'd listened to my music. That matched up with the other Miki.
Over the next few hours, I slowly pieced together this Miki's history. By the time we'd gotten through the museum I found out that this Miki's history was not similar to the history of my Miki.
It was identical.
Right down to her junior high school pet goldfish's nickname and cause of death, everything she told me up to her turning seventeen was exactly how I had heard it told before.
Seventeen was when things started to veer away from her history as I understood it. The major turning point? The Morning Musume audition. She confided in me that she'd been prepared to go. I asked her why she hadn't.
"I got sick that day. Freak bug. Twenty-four hour influenza. I missed my shot. Not like I could have gotten in anyway," she said with a chuckle.
"No, that's totally not true," I blurted out.
She smiled at me, taking my words for polite encouragement. According to her, I'd never heard her sing or seen her dance.
"So here I am, stuck in this aging village. Did you know our population has steadily decreased since the beginning of Heisei?"
I shook my head uninterestedly and got her talking about her life after her failure to make it to the audition. From what I could piece together, her family had moved houses after it was decided she'd live at home and commute to university. They had not foreseen, however, Miki missing her entrance exam. Twice.
"I slept in the first time. That was really stupid of me," she laughed, obviously having gotten over it by this point. "But the next year, I woke up two hours earlier than I had to. I think that was my undoing."
"Why? What happened?" I asked, completely captivated by the tale.
Miki trying to take an exam for university? Weird.
"It meant that I caught the train at rush hour, and when I stepped off the train, I was so off balance from the crowds pushing into me that I tripped on the platform, fell into a salaryman and then onto the ground. I broke my leg in three places and sprained my wrist."
I looked into her eyes to see if she was making it up. She looked deadly serious. The corner of my mouth twitched upwards.
"Are you joking?" I asked uncertainly.
"If I'm joking, then tell me why I'm reliving the memory of the pain right now," she grumbled.
I winced and wondered just how painful it must have been.
"Anyway," she continued, smiling to show that she wasn't angry, "treatment cost my parents an arm and a leg, so I had to find a job and then go to university only part time. That's why I'm not finished yet."
"Well, at least you passed the entrance exam eventually and got in, right?" I said optimistically.
She guffawed.
"You really are optimistic!"
"One of my numerous charm points," I said, turning my nose up.
She rolled her eyes, and I lost myself in that moment as things between us returned to normal.
I fell out of that cloud quickly enough, though, and I returned to prying into her life after seventeen. We talked about dreams and what we had wanted to be when we were young.
"I always wanted to be a singer," Miki laughed.
While I already knew that was the answer she was going to give, I couldn't stop something in my heart from breaking. She'd missed out on her chance once. She should have been able to do it, but luck had not been with her that day.
We left the museum and went to get some lunch. I couldn't even remember what we had seen. Ancient pottery? Dinosaur bones? I didn't care. I was busy reconstructing Miki's past. For the first time since being thrown into this world, I wondered if that was the right term - thrown into "this world". What if this was the real world? It was too real to keep dismissing as wrong.
After lunch, Miki took me around outside. The scenery was stunning. The skies were clear so that we could see the mountains perfectly. The leaves that remained on the trees had turned red and yellow and were constantly falling, blowing in the wind. The air was clean. I couldn't ask for a better vacation from the stuffy, dirty capital and my stressful job.
The day ended too quickly. While crossing some famous bridge (or at least to the local people it was famous), Miki checked the time and let out a string of expletives that surprised even me, and that was saying a lot. I was used to her sometimes losing control and speaking her mind crudely.
"I was supposed to be at work an hour ago," she said by way of explanation.
We ran back into town. It took fifteen minutes. Luckily we were both in shape, I from my constant dance training, her from being a small town country girl who rode a bicycle and took lots of walks (or so I guessed).
Once we reached the restaurant, we exchanged contact information and said goodbye. I thanked her for showing me around town, and she told me that if I ever came back in the dead of winter, she'd have to give me the outdoor tour because it was supposedly beautiful when the snow had fallen. She quickly went inside as I walked away wondering what sort of excuse she was going to use for being late.
I dropped by a convenience store before going into the hotel and picked up something to drink and some snacks. I wasn't very hungry. I was on an excitement overload. I had found Miki, and maybe it was almost the same Miki that I knew. She seemed a bit less jaded, a little more trustworthy and open. Yet at the same time I could sense something under her skin, close to the surface but not showing. Something that maybe wasn't so happy and carefree. Something that she was worried or upset about.
I wanted to get to the bottom of it. My mission slowly morphed from one to find Miki to one to figure out the Miki I had found. I believed I had all the time in the world to do this, so that's what I would do.
-
Chapter 8 of 16
I woke up the next morning to find an e-mail that had been sent to me late at night after I'd gone to bed.
What are you doing tomorrow?
It was from Miki. I replied quickly that I was doing nothing. I asked her if she had an idea. Twenty minutes later, my phone rang.
Meet me in the same restaurant at 3:20
I wondered what we'd possibly do at the restaurant. I hadn't thought it was open that early. I sent back an "OK" message.
I spent the day walking by myself and doing some sightseeing around town. I found a science museum for children that had recently been re-opened after a few years of redesigning. It kept me entertained for quite a few hours, although I felt a bit lonely. There was a group of elementary school children with their teachers on a field trip, some elderly couples, and a handful of young couples around my age. Everyone had someone. Everyone except me.
At a quarter to three, I left and headed for the restaurant. When I walked in, I was greeted by a Miki wearing an apron, her hair tied back loosely. She looked like she was ready to do some serious cooking.
"Let's cook!" she said cheerfully to me.
I wondered if I'd been thrown into yet another world because I had never seen or heard Miki act like this before.
"What?" I asked.
She rounded the corner and came up to me, handing me a light blue apron.
"Don't worry, we have permission. I do this a lot. Usually Inaba-baachan joins me," she explained.
"Wait. We're going to just cook for fun?" I asked.
"Why not?" Miki asked, a twinkle in her eyes. "Of course we've got to eat anything we cook. It'll be our dinner, so you'd better be good."
Oh, I was good. I'd show her.
I laughed, took the apron graciously, and put it on. I washed my hands and we began to cook and chat.
I was a good cook. Miki was better. It wasn't a natural ability, but it was a well-learned and practiced one. I supposed that all the time she didn't devote to being an idol she used to learn how to cook.
Our conversation wasn't complex and involved. It was casual, calm, slow-paced. We talked about some of our interests, and I found that yakiniku was indeed this Miki's favourite food.
We were in the final throes of a delicious-looking mushroom risotto when Inaba-baachan walked in. She saw Miki first and greeted her. Then she saw me.
"Oh, you girls are friends?" she asked, surprised.
Miki laughed.
"We just met the other day when she came to the restaurant."
"I see. That's nice," Baachan said pleasantly, and she began to clean up without any further questions.
Miki and I finished our risotto and then helped to clean up. Once done, we spooned the food out into three bowls and sat down to enjoy our meal. It was the best risotto I had ever tasted in my life, and I felt proud that Miki and I had made it together. It just went to show that no matter what dimension Miki came from, she and I still made a great team.
When the first customers came at six-fifteen, I left, bidding my two new friends good night. I walked home slowly, barely noticing the cold air. I felt good. I felt like this had been a brief interlude in the drama of my life. We'd cooked, eaten, and said good night. Nothing more complicated than that.
I got back to my hotel at seven and I went to the reception desk. I extended my stay for another week. I couldn't leave. Not yet.
-
Chapter 9 of 16
My stay lasted much longer than one more week. I went out and got a better, cheaper hotel to stay at.
Four weeks passed. Miki and I hung out, ate, drank, cooked, and chatted together throughout this time. Baachan often joined us in our cooking, and the three of us became a powerful and efficient kitchen unit. Nothing ever went wrong when it was the three of us.
It eventually started to snow heavily. In fact, this region of Hokkaido had so far received the heaviest snowfall since detailed records began to be kept. Miki told me I was lucky to be there because the snow made everything perfect. I felt undecided about that. On the one hand, I agreed that snow was beautiful, but on the other hand, I hated the cold, especially when my feet got wet and frozen.
After the heavy blizzards (of which we had an unnaturally high number), Miki would take me out to see the snow-covered view. We often ended up romping around in the snow together, de-aging ourselves by fifteen years by having snowball fights and pushing each other into deep snowbanks. Miki usually won. She was always the stronger and quicker one.
I enjoyed the time we spent together just talking. I learned a lot more about her, filling in the blanks in my memory. I still struggled with my old memories, but they were slowly becoming less important. Each time I saw this Miki smile, I was filled with the kind of love I'd felt for the other Miki. That's how I slowly came to believe that maybe they were the same person. Two copies of Miki could not exist in the universe. Only one could. This one in front of me - the one laughing, her neck swathed in a scarf, nose running from the condensation of her breath - had to be the only one.
As the weeks passed, she began to open up to me, especially starting in the first week of December. She slowly told me things that I'd suspected: while she was happy in her town with her family, she wasn't entirely satisfied. She wanted something more. She needed fast-paced excitement and adventure. Even though she went at her own, slow pace and didn't like the craziness of the world, she recognised that she needed it to balance everything out.
And then I learned one shocking thing about her.
-
Chapter 10 of 16
We were hiking through the hills one Sunday afternoon, talking about winter holiday plans. Miki asked if I would return home. I had explained to her earlier part of the real reason why I had come to this place (the reason being that I was escaping from my stressful life and work and that I couldn't go back for a while). This time when she asked about me returning, I gave her more information. I confided in her the Italy plans that I'd bailed out on. Upon thinking about it again, it seemed like that had been much more than just one month ago. Miki admitted that she'd suspected something like that had happened, but she was surprised at the enormity of the project I'd up and quit right in the middle of.
"I'm always getting slammed for not staying interested in things long enough," I said.
She ssexy beasted.
"I can see that."
We found a solitary sheep's set of footprints and followed them up a hill, wondering if the poor little thing had gotten lost. When we reached the top of the hill, though, the footprints ended and there was no sheep. We couldn't find any sheep as far as our eyes could see. I commented on how mysterious it was.
"Kind of like my boyfriend," Miki laughed.
"Excuse me?" I asked with a polite smile.
I must have heard that incorrectly.
"Oh, I mean, like, I see traces of him, but when the trail to him seems so warm, it always ends cold. He disappears. It's like a wild goose chase," she explained.
Oh, this is priceless, I thought.
I began to giggle. I laughed at myself for ever having thought I could have a chance with this world's Miki. I laughed at this Miki for having a boyfriend who disappeared like that. I laughed at the guy and even felt sorry for him for having to deal with Miki's quirks, temper, attitude, frankness...
Miki asked what I was laughing about.
"Oh," I said, catching my breath and wiping my eyes, feeling myself going a little insane. "I just assumed that you were single, but of course someone like you wouldn't be," I explained.
My laughter turned angry in my head.
"I guess I never mentioned him before. He goes to university in Sapporo, so I don't get to meet him often."
Never mentioned him before, I repeated in my head.
I stopped laughing. To punish myself for ever thinking that I could win this Miki's heart, I asked her to tell me all about him. How she met him, where, when, what the status of their relationship was, and so on.
She wasn't so forthcoming with all the details, but I managed to squeeze some out of her. The two had gone to junior high school together, but they hadn't hooked up until much later. Next month would be their two year anniversary.
"But he's a bit out there, ya know?" Miki said with a laugh, tapping her head. "A bit crazy in the head. I don't know if I could marry him."
I became insanely jealous as Miki explained that he was working on his PhD, that he was a month younger than her, that he played basketball on the university team...
I wanted to find him and knock his teeth out, and I wasn't one to usually get violent.
I tried to quell the fury within me. The only way to release my energy safely was to start running through the snow. I took off sprinting down the hill.
"Hey! Wait!" Miki called out.
"Let's see who's faster!" I yelled over my shoulder.
Miki was the faster runner, but I had anger and disappointment to fuel me on. We raced with no set finish line, kicking snow up everywhere. Once we topped our second hill, I started to get tired. My anger couldn't give me anymore energy. I stopped suddenly, and Miki, hot on my heels and not ready for it, crashed into me and bowled me over. I fell to the ground with an "oof!" and she bounced about a metre away, landing on her hands and knees.
She began to laugh loudly, but I couldn't join her. I lay on my back, the snow chilling me, wondering what I could do to go back to a time when my life had been perfect. I heard the snow crunching and turned my head to the side to see Miki crawling over to me with a big grin on her face.
"You're pretty fast," she complimented me.
I shrugged.
"Only because I'm cold," I lied.
She got up and grabbed my forearms, yanking me up before I could do anything to help make it easier. I caught my balance quickly.
"If you're cold, don't lie in the snow," she scolded me like a mother.
She turned me around and dusted the snow off my back. One thing I missed terribly was her touch, even if it was through a thick pair of gloves and involved more hitting than caressing. She was finished too quickly, though, and she hit her hands together to knock the snow off her gloves. She crossed her arms, inspecting me.
"Maybe we should go back so you can change. You don't want to catch a cold."
I mumbled that it was a good idea, so we set off for town. We were silent. Usually I would have a question or something to ramble about, but I didn't feel like talking to her. An unreasonable part of me (tiny, albeit existent) was angry with Miki. That part of me felt a little betrayed by her, even though I knew that wasn't the case.
Miki took my silence as a pensive one. I noticed that she looked cheerful as we walked over the hills, not bothered by my lack of things to say. I hoped she wasn't thinking about her boyfriend.
We reached town and stopped off at my hotel.
"I'll wait here," Miki said as she sat herself down in the lobby.
I nodded and left her there, taking the elevator up.
I changed my clothing quickly, but just before going back downstairs, I stopped and looked at the room that had become a home to me. It was an expensive room. I'd worked out a deal with the manager of the hotel since I was staying for an extended period of time, but it was still costing me a bundle. My savings wouldn't last forever.
I couldn't stay here, I decided. It wasn't the money. That had nothing to do with my decision. I had to start thinking about going back because there was nothing for me here. There was friendship, but I doubted that it could ever mean the same thing for her as it did for me. We were too old now to share that naïve adoration we'd had for each other when we were teenagers in my warped memories. We were in our twenties, I had a job, she had a serious boyfriend, and while she said she didn't know if she could marry him, the fact that marriage was an option at all was a huge deal.
I concluded that even if I didn't leave right away, I had to keep it in mind. In the meantime, I would make the most of the time I spent with Miki.
I filed my issues away in a cabinet in the back of my mind for later review, and I went back to the lobby with a smile. Miki asked if we could drop by her house quickly because she also wanted to change. I agreed that it was a good idea. I had been to her house a few times in the past month. A couple of times just briefly to pick something up, and once to eat dinner with her and her parents (out of the Fujimoto siblings, only the youngest, Miki, still lived at home).
We trudged through the snow for half an hour before we reached Miki's house. She opened the door and let me in. I took my shoes off and wandered into the living room. Miki's mother was sitting there reading a magazine. She said hello and we began to chat like two old friends while Miki dashed to her room to change.
I really liked Miki's mom. We got a long well because she was fashionable and cool, much like Maki's mom, much like my mom... and not at all like Shiba-chan's mom (lovely lady, but kind of strange). She was an impressive cook, too.
We chatted, of all things, about the weather. I told her I had never seen this much snow in my life. Not even when I'd come to Hokkaido in the winter before. I told her that Miki had been taking me out to basically play in the snow all afternoon, and she laughed. She said that when Miki was very young, she'd dragged her and her husband out to play in the snow all the time. She warned me that if I let myself be dragged out every time Miki called upon me, I'd eventually get exhausted and regret ever having gone out the first time. I laughed and told her that would never happen. She sighed about how nice it was to be young.
Miki finished quickly and I said goodbye to her mom, promising to come over for dinner again. We set off. The whole Fujimoto residence stopover had seemed like a dreamy interlude.
Baachan was at the restaurant early, so the three of us cooked ourselves dinner. I was getting used to our cooking time together, and I had surprisingly learned a lot from Miki. It was during those times that I felt I was living in an impossible world. Miki the Cook was becoming familiar to me, but I still sometimes felt like it couldn't be true. It was as if I expected her to cook something bad one day so that I could go, "ah, yes. That's more like it."
As usual, when the first customers appeared, I left. I took a walk in the dark and suddenly wondered how much time Miki spent with her other friends. She didn't talk about them much. She must have seen them a lot on the days she left Takikawa to go to school.
And that boyfriend of hers. I wondered about him. What was he really like? I wanted to meet him, but then I doubt I'd be very polite to him. It was better that he stayed in Sapporo rather than returning to his hometown and making me go berserk. This town didn't need an Aya on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
I shook my head and banished all thoughts of him. I thought about Miki the student. There was another thing that surprised me. Her schoolwork. Not only was she a good cook, but somewhere along the way, she'd developed a bit of book smarts. She got a lot of reading done on the days she had to go into school, and she never spent too much time on assignments. Part of it was laziness, but part of it was because she didn't have too much difficulty understanding what she had to do. She didn't get perfect marks, but she never had moments when she stared at something and had absolutely no idea what to do. Or at least that's what she told me. She might have been bragging, but bragging wasn't something Miki tended to do. I had seen her concentrate on her reading before, and I'd looked over some of her papers that she left on the table in the restaurant. It all flew right over my head, but she seemed to know what she was doing.
But what really got me was that despite having more intelligence than I ever gave her credit for before, she was still a childish dork who sometimes was too clueless for her own good. It made me just a bit crazier about her. Just a bit.
And as I took a bath and got ready for bed, I imagined a perfect world where she was both smart and stupid, sexy as ever, and crazy about me.
-
Chapter 11 of 16
Another two weeks passed. I couldn't bear to tear myself away from this place I'd found. I sent Shiba-chan a few e-mails to let her know I was well. She wrote back and told me what was going on in her life, and she worried over how I was doing. I also sent an e-mail to my manager to tell her I was all right but in the middle of an important family emergency. She sent me back a serious e-mail saying that if I wasn't back by the end of the month, there would be harsh consequences. Perhaps even legal action taken against me.
I completely ignored her warning. Being with Miki was more important than my job. I would face whatever punishment they dealt me if it meant I could spend one more afternoon cooking with Miki.
Two days before Christmas, I met with Miki. We went for our usual walk around the hills. It had snowed two days before, so there was a nice, fresh, thick blanket of powder covering the ground and the trees.
"Any Christmas plans?" I asked, lightly kicking some of the snow up in front of me and watching the breeze carry it away gently.
"Hm. I'm going to Sapporo to visit Hiroshi for a few days."
The name had taken on the sound of a curse word to me, but I tolerated it. She didn't talk about him often, and that was fine with me.
"That's nice," I forced myself to say.
"And you?"
"Nothing," I said with a shrug.
"That sounds lonely," Miki stated sadly.
"Actually, it's a nice break," I answered honestly. "I'm usually working on Christmas. I haven't had time off in years."
We talked about Christmas for the rest of our hike - from our worst memories to the best place to see illumination to the best Christmas cake we'd ever eaten.
As we talked, the things I had crammed at the back of my mind - my thoughts about leaving - came back to the surface. It was getting to the point where I had to make my decision. I had reached an impasse and I saw no light ahead of me. As a result, I was a bit distracted during our walk back into town. We went to the restaurant and cooked up a storm, but it didn't seem as exciting to me.
The first customers came early at five-thirty. Miki saw me out of the restaurant through the back. As we were saying our goodbyes, I realised I wouldn't see her for four days. I told her to take care and have fun and to mail me if she had time. I really did want her to have fun. I wanted her to have the best Christmas that she could. Seeing her happy was what was ultimately important. I turned around to go back to my hotel.
"Wait!" Miki called out.
I stopped. My heart stopped. I turned around slowly. Miki was looking at me excitedly. I stared at her.
"Wait there a minute. There's something I forgot to give you."
She ran into the restaurant. I laughed at myself in genuine amusement. What had I been expecting? A sudden confession of love?
Miki came back out holding a plastic bag. She stuck her arm out and handed it to me.
"It's not much. It's not even wrapped properly. But here. Open it on Christmas day."
I felt light-headed and weak as I took the bag. She'd bought me a present? I was touched. I thanked her very much and gave her the warmest of smiles.
"See you later," she said a bit hastily, probably embarrassed about giving me a gift, and then went into the restaurant to do her job.
I went back to my room with a light heart.
The next day, my mood changed. I moped for the first half because I pictured Miki getting on a train, travelling to Sapporo, meeting up with Hiroshi, going back to his apartment, him sweeping her up in his arms...
I lay on my bed scowling, staring at the present that sat on the small desk. I wanted to throw it out without looking at it because whatever it was, it would make me love her more.
I received a surprise phone call at two-thirty in the afternoon. It was Baachan. She asked what I was doing for Christmas Eve, and upon hearing I had no plans, she told me to come down to the restaurant and have dinner with her, her husband, and her son and his wife. My heart welled up with love, and I almost started to cry, moved by the kindness she showed me. I said I'd love to go, and she told me to be there at six. I spent the rest of the day shopping for a small gift to bring.
At six o'clock, I arrived at the restaurant wearing my best clothes, clutching a Christmas cake in my hands. I had never bought a Christmas cake on the day it was needed. Like the rest of the country, I had to order. Takikawa was small enough that the lines weren't too long at the stores. I lucked out.
I greeted the group of people, who had arrived already. Baachan's son was a young-looking and handsome man, and his wife was equally young-looking and pretty. In a move that surprised me, Baachan led us behind the counter and pointed to a huge pile of raw ingredients and said, "Let's cook." We were going to make our Christmas dinner together.
The others were not surprised. It must have been a typical Baachan thing to do. I couldn't imagine many families celebrating Christmas at all, let alone like this. I loved it.
We all helped, and as a team, we made the most delicious dinner that could ever have been. I came to realise that cooking to this family was a bonding activity. They had a family love born from the kitchen. It brought them together despite hectic lives and age differences. It was something they could all understand.
I began to understand why Miki had invited me to her cooking sessions with Baachan. She must have picked up on this lesson while working at the restaurant and wanted to share it with me.
That Christmas Eve was truly one of the best nights I had ever spent with anyone. We ate, drank, laughed, and were merry together for the whole night. Nothing of the bad sort came to my mind at all. I forgot my troubles and felt like I belonged. I didn't even think of what Miki and Hiroshi were doing at ten at night because I was enjoying myself too much.
The wine flowed generously, and even Baachan got a little tipsy. The night ended just past midnight. We wished each other an official merry Christmas, and then the son and wife walked me to my hotel. The night wrapped up with me thanking them and agreeing that we should have dinner again someday.
I got into my room, took a quick shower, and changed into my pyjamas. I sat cross-legged on my bed and looked out the window at the snow-covered streets. I stared and became hypnotised by the darkness. I began to think about my life, about Miki's life, and just exactly where I was headed. It seemed to become a degree colder as I thought.
-
Chapter 12 of 16
I must have only spent about five minutes looking out the window. I remember turning off the light and getting under the covers, laying my head down on the pillow. Right when my head touched the pillow, I heard a sound. My heart jumped up into my throat. I heard the door open slowly, quietly. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming in fear. I tried to control my urge to run. There was nowhere I could go. I would never get the window open in time. Maybe if I stayed very still, whoever it was would just steal my money and leave, not bothering to hurt me because I was supposedly asleep.
I controlled my breathing, making it as slow as possible. It was the first and only time I regretted coming all the way up to Hokkaido alone. I wished I'd thought to at least bring a tennis racket or a golf club.
I lay there helplessly in a state of desperation, wondering whether I'd live to see another day. Actually, the thing I was most worried about was that I might never get to see what Miki's present to me had been.
Oh, the small things in life.
I couldn't help but hold my breath as I heard the door close. When I heard the lock click shut, I knew I was in trouble. The thief (or rapist or murderer or whoever) was here to stay. I wanted to cry, but I was too scared to even do that.
I heard footsteps sneak towards the bed. I shut my eyes tightly. I wished I wasn't facing away from the door because I wanted to see my murderer in the eyes. I felt him get closer and closer and closer.
I felt the sheets move. He'd taken a handful. I felt them being pulled away. A tear worked its way out of the corner of my eye. I didn't want this to happen. I didn't want to be there. I'd give up anything to get out of this situation.
Someone slipped into the bed with me, and I almost lost it right there. I prayed for a miracle.
None came.
I felt an arm encircle me.
And I was surprised.
"Aya-chan," whispered a voice.
Upon hearing the voice, I almost screamed. My fear rushed out of me and was replaced by surprise and relief, leaving me a weak, shaking mess. My muscles refused to work, so I couldn't even turn around to yell at her for scaring me like that.
"Her" being Miki, of course.
"Wha... what are you doing here?" I stammered.
I was still recovering from the thought of almost being attacked by some stranger.
"I missed you," Miki said, moving right up against me and hugging me tightly, putting her nose on my shoulder. "I couldn't stay in Sapporo so I came back."
I gulped and rolled onto my back. What was she thinking? Did she have any idea that what she was doing was making me go insane with all sorts of crazy feelings that I'd tried to repress for two months?
"How did you get in here?" I asked.
She didn't answer, and I suspected that she had either sweet-talked the person at the reception desk or she'd performed magic. Given my experience two months ago, I didn't count out either possibility.
"I want to be here with you. Always," she whispered.
She kissed my shoulder, and even through two layers of shirts, I felt some sort of warmth from her lips, as imaginary as it may have been.
I was quiet for a moment. I was pretty sure what she was telling me.
"What about me?" asked a voice from beyond the bed.
I jerked my head up in fright and saw a figure standing by the window. It was Miki. The other one. The first one that I remembered. I looked at the Miki in bed with me. She didn't seem to notice the other Miki at all. She was smiling, her cheek resting on my shoulder calmly.
I looked back at the Miki standing by the window and opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I was having another "what the hell is going on?" moment.
I watched as Miki1 walked over to the other side of the bed that the other Miki was on and peeled the sheets back, slipping in.
"You know I still exist," she said, brushing my hair back with a hand.
The other Miki was silent, content to hold me quietly.
I knew that this had to be a dream. This was not really happening in real life. I'd had too much to eat and drink. That, coupled with the anxiety I was feeling over slowly letting the old Miki go, was what was making me hallucinate.
"Where are you?" I asked desperately.
"Look for me," came Miki1's reply.
"I did," I said, frustrated. "And I found you. Didn't I?"
Miki smiled and shook her head, looking over at the other Miki.
"That's not me."
"Yes it is," I insisted.
"Then how can we both be here?" Miki shot back. I looked between the two.
"Because this is all in my head. My imagination. I'm dreaming."
Miki suddenly grinned devilishly.
"You've got a hell of an imagination," she laughed. "One Miki isn't enough to satisfy you, huh?"
I choked on my words while trying to deny it. Miki laughed some more. The other Miki stirred and hugged me more tightly. I looked helplessly at Miki1.
"She doesn't want you. Not like that. Not like in the way I want you," she said.
I frowned and tried to protest, but I could only think my words, not say them.
"I told you she's not me. She has her other life."
And then as if to soothe the pain her harsh words caused, Miki1 lay down beside me and hugged me, kissing my cheek.
"You'll always have me, though," she whispered into my ear. "I'll be here forever."
Forever? Here? In my memory? I couldn't live like that.
"And you can dream about me as much as you want. Do whatever you want with me," she continued in a dangerously seductive voice.
I swallowed the lump growing in my throat. I didn't want that. I didn't believe it.
Meanwhile, the other Miki, Miki2, put her hand on my stomach and began to tickle it. Miki1 started to kiss my ear. I lay there wondering why I was dreaming about being in bed with two of them, not just one. I was thinking just as perversely as the Miki1 that I used to scold did. I couldn't stop it, though. I couldn't stop them. It's like they occupied two different dimensions. They never touched, never got in each other's way, but I felt them just as equally. I had no control because whenever I tried to protest, my voice conveniently disappeared, swallowed up by silence. I was sure that each time one of them kissed me, they took a little bit of my voice - and my protests - with them.
Of course the majority of my mind told me that this was great. Two Mikis. One me. Double the fun. But I felt guilty and I felt dirty thinking about and enjoying the situation. It made me more and more confused about who meant what to me, and who was who.
As the dream continued and I started to sweat, I wanted it to end. Not because I wasn't enjoying it. Rather because I was enjoying it. How could I look Miki in the eye when she came back from Sapporo? She'd be oblivious to what I'd let her do in my dreams. She'd suspect nothing. I couldn't stand the thought of that. It was like lying to her.
And then the miracle that I'd prayed for earlier came. I woke up.
I shot up, gasping for breath, sweating, shaking. I looked to either side of me and saw no Miki. I looked around the room. There was nobody there. I let out a frazzled breath and flopped back onto the bed, feeling my flushed face with my hand. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths to calm myself.
Get a grip I thought. Miki wasn't in my room. Miki. Singular. There had to be only one.
... right?
I still wasn't sure. My subconscious wasn't quite sure either.
-
Chapter 13 of 16
I slept unexpectedly well for the rest of the night. My head hit the pillow and I was out like a light. It was a deep, dreamless sleep.
The next morning I was awakened by my phone ringing. Someone had sent me mail. I rubbed my blurry eyes and rolled over to check the message. It was from my mother.
I'd done something terrible. I had lied to her. I had told her that the Italy project had been cancelled, but that I had to work in Hokkaido for a few months and I would be out of touch. This e-mail from her was a check up. I hadn't written in a few weeks and she was worried. I sent her back a message telling her that I was fine, that work was busy, and merry Christmas.
I then turned my attention to the plastic bag that sat on the table. The gift from Miki. I rubbed my head and wondered what I'd been thinking last night. How could I have had such a dream (or hallucination)?
I crawled to the edge of the bed and grabbed the bag, sitting back down cross-legged. I reached in and pulled out something soft. It was a pair of oven mitts and a piece of A4 paper with a note scribbled on it.
The oven mitts were adorable. They had patchwork of snowy mountain scenery and some children playing in the snow by a decorated Christmas tree. I looked at the note.
Dear Aya-chan.
So that you never forget cooking, Takikawa's snowy mountains, or me! I hope when you look at these mitts, you'll remember us playing in the snow together.
Your friend, Miki.
I hugged the mitts and lay back down on the bed. My heart ached for something I couldn't have. I was so happy but so torn. I wanted to stay forever, but I needed to leave. Soon. I could not keep living on the fringe of her life forever. Lying there that morning, I made my decision. I would leave before the new year.
Instead of relaxing that day, I got dressed and went to the travel agency to book my flight to Tokyo. December thirtieth, one-twenty-five pm. I then went to sit in a deserted coffee shop, and I wrote to Miki, thanking her for the gift and telling her that I loved it and could never forget the past two months. I was surprised when she e-mailed me back right away saying that she was having a great time but that she would be coming home one day earlier than scheduled. She asked if I was free to meet the day after she came back. I mailed her back right away and told her I was free. I wondered why she was coming home early if she was having such a good time. I discounted the possibility of a break-up. She would have sounded depressed. Right?
I waited those two days, moping and staring at my ticket, walking outside alone. Waiting for Miki. I laughed. Wasn't there some French play with a similar name? And didn't the guy that the people were waiting for never show up? Maybe that could be used as a metaphor for my waiting. Waiting for something that would never come. Waiting for the part of someone that I would never get.
I sighed. I was far too much into metaphors and symbols these days.
December twenty-seventh rolled around eventually. I got a message from Miki telling me to meet her outside my hotel in half an hour. I complied.
When I saw her, she looked rested and refreshed. We greeted each other happily and started to walk.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
It seemed like she had a plan, but all she did was look at me and smile secretively. She kept walking and I kept following dutifully. I could handle a bit of a surprise.
We left the town and walked in a familiar direction. We climbed up a hill that I recognised, but we took a detour from our usual route. I wondered what she could possibly have to show me. The snow could only get so beautiful. It wasn't sunrise or sunset time, and no flowers were blooming. Maybe she and Hiroshi had broken up after all, and she was going to confess her undying love for me...
Why would she do that out in the cold? I rolled my eyes in disgust at myself. I had to stop getting my hopes up like that.
The path ended suddenly, and we came to a small clearing in the middle of a circle of trees. It looked like a square flying saucer imprint from those strange science fiction movies about aliens.
Without a word, Miki pointed at something in the distance. I squinted and looked in the direction of her finger. At first I wasn't sure what to look for and didn't see anything. Just snow and trees. But then I saw an off-white flurry of movement. A small black foot. I realised that I was looking at a sheep. I smiled crookedly. Miki had brought me there to see a sheep? I couldn't tell if it was some sort of joke (we never found the sheep whose prints we followed that day long ago), or if she was genuinely impressed with herself that she had located a sheep.
I turned my head to her and was about to make a teasing comment when suddenly a look overcame her face that made my heart jump. It was a look of pure love. I looked back at the sheep to see what it had done to make Miki go all soft. Behind the sheep popped a tiny head. Then a tiny hoof. Eventually, a baby sheep walked from behind the protective cover of its mother. I could have died on the spot from the cuteness of such a scene, but also from the cuteness of Miki wanting to bring me to see such a thing. I looked over at her again and she looked at me with a satisfied smile.
"Cute, isn't it?" she asked.
"Adorable," I said in a quiet, happy voice.
We went back to observing the sheep. The lamb became a bit braver. He was energetic and started to frolic in the snow as we watched from a distance. We were far away enough that the mother didn't think we were a threat.
We must have sat there for an hour just watching the mother take care of her little baby. We barely talked. We didn't need to. It felt like we were at a movie theatre.
When I realised how much time had passed, I feared that we would catch pneumonia. We climbed down the hill and went back to town. On the way, Miki explained.
"My dad told me that a baby had been born recently. He told me the mother took him to that clearing often, so I wanted you to see it."
I really wished she hadn't said or thought that because I could barely contain my heart within my chest. It wanted to explode with love.
"That was really cute. Thank you," I said.
We went back to Miki's house to change. Our clothes were wet from sitting in the snow for an hour and she had offered to lend me some dry clothes just so that we didn't have to go all the way to my hotel. We got changed quickly, modestly. I refused to look at her until I was certain every part of her was covered up. I was still feeling strange from the dream I'd had a few nights ago. I didn't need to add fuel to the fire.
Once finished there, we headed for the restaurant. We greeted Baachan and began to cook. Baachan and I told Miki about our Christmas Eve dinner, and Miki whined about how jealous she was and that she wished she could have been there with us. We joked and said that next year we'd do it again all together. I felt a pain in my heart because I had no intention of being there next year.
We ate dinner, and when the first customers arrived, I didn't want to go. I needed to talk to Miki seriously. I needed to tell her I was leaving. There hadn't been a good opportunity to do so during the day. I pulled her aside before things got busy.
"When do you get off work?" I asked.
"Things usually die out around ten or eleven. Why?"
I breathed in.
"Can I meet you back here after that? I just, um, I get a little bored in the evenings these days."
She smiled and nodded, saying that it was no problem.
I went back to my hotel for a few hours. I changed out of Miki's clothing and put them in a bag so that I could give them back to her. I read a comic book from cover to cover and watched TV for an hour, urging time to pass more quickly.
I went back to the restaurant at ten-thirty. There were no customers, and Miki was cleaning the tables. She looked up in alarm when I walked in, but sighed in relief when she saw I wasn't another customer.
"I sent Baachan home early. It's really cold tonight. I'm locking up," she explained.
She wiped some spilled soy sauce off a table. She looked annoyed when it wouldn't come out easily.
I sat down at a table, crossing my legs and watching her. She had seemed relaxed in the morning, but I noticed that now she was lot more tense. It must have been work. It wasn't easy working at a restaurant and dealing with customers
"Hey Miki," I said suddenly.
"Yup?" she asked.
"How about a drink?"
She stopped and turned around with a big grin.
"What an excellent idea."
I didn't know what I was trying to accomplish, but I really needed to relax at that point. It looked like she needed to, too.
So we sipped giant, quickly-prepared cranberry vodkas. Miki left for a moment to close up the front and make sure that no other customers would come by. No one was likely to come on such a cold day, but one never knew.
She came back and chugged her drink down, surprising me with her speed. She went off to make another two for us while I was still only a quarter of the way through mine. She came back and sat with me and gulped down her second drink within minutes, moving on to the third (the one that she'd made for me). The drinks were strong. I could taste the bitterness of the alcohol. I wondered how many it would take to make her drunk.
When she went off and made a fourth and chugged half of it down in one gulp, I immediately became worried. I knew that Miki liked to drink quickly, but this was a little strange. She was never that fast. Something must have happened.
"So, anything interesting happen in Sapporo?" I asked casually.
I played with the little umbrella that she'd put in my drink ("to make the tropical girl feel at home" was her reason). Miki gulped down the second half of her fourth drink and put her glass down, looking at me squarely in the eyes before going off to make a fifth drink. She drank half of that before speaking.
"He asked me to marry him."
Juice and alcohol spilled out of my mouth as I tried to exclaim my surprise in the middle of swallowing. Miki jumped back and threw me the cloth she had left on the table behind her. I wiped my chin and then the table.
"H-he did?" I stammered.
"Mmmhmmm," Miki replied, nodding a few more times than necessary, the alcohol starting to take effect. "On Christmas Day."
The breath caught in my throat.
"And?" I croaked out.
Miki put down her empty glass and curled her legs up, hugging them to her chest.
"I dunno," she slurred. "I told you before that he's a little out there. I don't know what he's thinking all the time. You know?"
I nodded.
"So I told him to wait for the new year. He was upset, but I think he understood the next day after some sleep."
So they were still together.
"I came back a day early because my parents asked me to, not because I wanted to leave him."
I sighed and put on my best concerned face.
"Do you love him?"
It hurt so much to ask that.
"Of course," she said with a silly smile. "You think I'd put up with his crap if I didn't?"
I couldn't help myself and I laughed. Of course.
"But it's not enough, Aya-chan," she added on quietly.
I looked at her in surprise.
"I need a lot more in my life," she confided in me.
I began to suspect what her real problem was, and as she began to open up, I began to understand.
"My life is so fucking boring," she groaned.
I frowned as she went to make another drink, this time not even bothering to mix it properly.
"I work, I study, I go to class, I eat, I sleep."
It hurt me to hear her say that. It hurt me to hear that she was not enjoying herself as much as she could be.
"But lately, you know, I've been able to have more fun. I guess because you're new here and I got to show you around and get to know you. We click, you know?"
I smiled and nodded.
"And I wonder what I'm doing here. I don't even like business and studying," she frowned. "I don't like serving customers. I want to be doing something like you. What you do - that's cool. That's what I'd love to do."
I listened to her ramble and I couldn't hold my opinion in any longer.
"Then go out and become something good. Come to Tokyo with me. You have a good chance," I said hopefully.
She shook her head several times.
"There's too much holding me back. My debts, my parents, my job..."
I grit my teeth.
"You have to take the chance," I insisted. "You never know until you try. You've got to make yourself happy, too."
Miki looked down at the table.
"I know. It's hard, though, when you're this age. Too many roots are starting to go down, you know?"
She was right. It had been much easier for me back then, a young teenager, to leave my life behind and move to Tokyo to become a star. At the age of twenty-five, one would naturally start to feel more grown up, more responsible towards ones parents...
"Well, if you ever decide to pursue the kind of life I live, you'll always have a friend in Tokyo," I told her, pointing to myself.
She smiled and patted my hand gratefully. I grabbed on to it, pulled her towards me, wrapping my arms behind her shoulders, kissing her for the first time in-
I snapped awake.
"Thanks," Miki said, patting my hand gratefully.
I groaned in frustration in my head, but smiled back at her as she retracted her hand. We sat in silence for another minute before Miki stood up, teetering over dangerously.
"Whoa. Really hits you when you stand," she said, going off to the washroom.
I decided to do the right thing that night. I stood up, rinsed out our glasses, and grabbed our coats. When Miki came back, I threw hers to her.
"Let's go home," I said.
She slipped her coat on and we left. She fumbled with the key and locked up, letting me check to make sure she'd done it right. I linked my arm around hers and walked down the street slowly through the biting cold.
The half hour walk was quiet. Miki seemed to sober up a bit. Not that she had been that far gone.
When we got to her house, I let go of her arm and gave her the bag with the clothes she'd lent me and asked her if she'd be all right. She said she'd be okay.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I said.
"See you tomorrow," she echoed with a watery smile.
My escorting job finished, I went back to my hotel and slipped into bed, staring at the ceiling.
I could have done something if I had wanted to. I could have made her drink more. I could have pushed her down on a table in that restaurant and made her realise that she didn't want to marry Hiroshi.
But I didn't for several reasons. The main one was that that would have been taking advantage of her. That was the saddest, cruellest way to get something I wanted.
The other reason was more complicated. In a way, I didn't want anything to happen because that would mean I had fully accepted the world I was in as reality. This Miki would be the only true Miki if I so much as touched her with more than friendly intentions. I wasn't sure if I was ready to give up so many years of my memories. However, it was becoming tempting.
I never did end up telling her that I was leaving. I would have to make sure to the next day.
I closed my eyes and pictured Miki in my head. I found that when I did this, there were no longer two images like before. There was only one.
-
Chapter 14 of 16
The twenty-eighth of December was nice and normal. We met up that afternoon to chat and cook. Neither of us mentioned the previous night, but when we first saw each other, I sensed that the smile on Miki's face was thankful, perhaps even a little apologetic for having been a nuisance. Not that I thought she had been a nuisance. She was probably embarrassed by her outburst.
We cooked with Baachan, ate, and then said goodnight. This time I didn't tell her that I was leaving the day after next because it completely slipped my mind. The day had felt so normal that I hadn't thought anything out of the ordinary was coming up.
The next day - my last full day in Hokkaido - Miki had to take her sister to the hospital. The eldest, married Fujimoto sibling had injured her foot seriously, and her husband was away on business. This left Miki, the only person who could drive and was free during the afternoon, to take care of her. This, in turn, meant that it was only me and Baachan cooking at the restaurant that afternoon. As we worked on a special regional nabe and chatted, my heart felt like it had broken in two. My last afternoon had been ruined.
At around six, before the first customers, Miki appeared at the door of the restaurant looking exhausted. She had had to wait at the hospital with her sister all afternoon before a doctor could examine the foot. She had left as soon as her sister went into the examination room, and she would have to go back to pick her up afterwards. I watched her sympathetically as she pulled her hair back and put on an apron, getting ready for another night of serving customers.
I was able to hang around until six-thirty, desperately trying to find a way to squeeze in that important piece of information - I was leaving the next day. No opportunity presented itself, and I grew desperate when a hungry-looking couple walked in the door. Miki seemed to read my mind.
"Do you want to meet up after I drive my klutzy sister back home?" she asked.
I nodded eagerly.
"Yeah."
I left the restaurant with her promising to call me. I felt bad that I was going to make her stay up late and meet me when she probably wanted to collapse in her bed and sleep for a million years. I went to my hotel and dozed off until my phone rang at just past eleven-thirty. Her message was simple - to meet her in the lobby in fifteen minutes and to dress warmly.
I got ready quickly and went downstairs. Miki was already there. She looked even more exhausted than before, but she spared me a bright grin.
"Why 'dress warmly'?" I asked.
Miki smiled secretively and I laughed at seeing this gesture come from her a second time. She liked to keep me guessing.
We set out in the dark. Like last time, she led me out of the town and into the hills. I briefly wondered if we would be eaten by bears in the dark. I had heard of such things happening in remote parts of Hokkaido. I shivered involuntarily.
We didn't talk as we began to climb one of our usual hills. The air was cold and crisp. It felt good going into my lungs, but it didn't inspire me to breathe too much for fear of freezing my insides. I wondered what Miki was going to show me this time. I was sure it couldn't be another baby sheep.
She stopped at the top of a hill.
"This'll do," she said.
I looked around and saw nothing but snow and trees.
"Do for what?" I asked.
She looked at me, smiled, and then looked up, pointing to the sky.
I craned my neck and looked up... and was astonished. It seemed as though billions of stars had gathered in the sky for my final night. A chunk of moon shone down on us and made it even brighter. No wonder we had been able to see in the dark on the way up the hill. The light from so many stars had guided us.
I twisted my neck to look at Miki. She was staring up at the skies with a longing look in her eyes, and I guessed that she was thinking about the things we had talked about the other night. She noticed me looking over and she turned her head.
"This is the reason why I love winter," she said quietly, as though to speak any louder would break the spell that held the fragile web of stars together. "Clear skies."
"It's beautiful," I said in the same tone. "I've never seen a sky like this."
We went back to looking up.
"Takikawa's best kept secret," she sighed.
As we continued to look up, I realised I had to get it over with.
"I'm leaving tomorrow."
I closed my eyes tightly and kept my face pointed to the sky. She didn't seem to move for a whole minute.
"What?" she asked in her normal tone of voice.
I felt that some sort of spell did break right then. I opened my eyes and looked at her. She was looking at me in disbelief.
"I bought my plane ticket a few days ago."
"But..."
She paused for a long while.
"Why didn't you tell me before?" she asked, looking confused, maybe even a little hurt.
"I wanted to, but there was no time. You were busy," I said.
"Why are you leaving?" she asked.
It was funny. The question should have been "how come you've been able to stay so long?" She knew I didn't live there. She knew I was living in a hotel, and that that could not continue forever.
"I need to get back to work. I've been away too long," I replied.
Not the reason why I was leaving, but it was good enough. She looked down at the ground.
"What am I gonna do without you here?" she asked sadly.
"Oh, come on," I chided her. "You'll get along fine."
"But I'm losing one of my best friends."
The fact that she considered me one of her best friends after only two months was a strange mystery. There must have been something naturally trustworthy that she saw in me.
"You're not losing one. There's just going to be a bit of distance between us. That's all," I comforted her.
"You should have told me earlier," she grumbled.
"Sorry," I said, looking down. "But it would only have made you think about it more."
Miki reached over and tugged at my sleeve, pulling me down into the snow. She sat down normally while I flailed my arms out and fell onto my side, unprepared for the sudden change. I rolled up and glared at her as I crossed my legs and positioned myself in front of her.
"When can you come back again?" she asked hopefully.
What was I supposed to say to that? I didn't want to come back. No, of course I did. But I couldn't. It hurt too much.
I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn't find the right words.
"It gets really nice in the spring," Miki said, starting to sell the place to me. "And the summer isn't that bad. And the fall... wow, you think you have nice falls in the south? No way. You've never seen one up here."
I smiled and shook my head.
"I don't know when I'll come back," I told her truthfully.
"Well, if it's a problem with a place to stay, you can always stay at my parents' house. There's an extra room," she said, starting to sound a little on the desperate side.
I wanted her to stop with her ideas because they were just that - ideas. No weight in them. There was no deep reason why she wanted me to come back again. Or rather, there was a deep reason, but it wasn't as a deep as I wanted it to be.
"It's tempting," I said, looking right into her eyes, "but I really can't say when I'll be back."
She sighed and was quiet. I looked back at the stars. Their beauty made me sad.
"Then promise you won't forget this place... or Baachan, or the restaurant, or me."
She sounded like her Christmas message.
"Are you kidding me?" I laughed. "I could never forget."
"And I'll come and visit you. Someday. I'll move to the capital," she said determinedly.
If she put as much effort into trying as she did into saying she would try, she would do just fine. She would easily succeed.
"Fine. I'll be waiting for you," I said.
Maybe a little suggestively. Maybe. But she did not catch on.
We continued to observe the stars. No more words passed between us, but it felt like we were communicating by just sitting in front of each other.
I started to shiver after a while, and I noticed Miki was just as uncomfortable.
"Let's go," she said quietly, standing up.
I stood up, hugging my arms around myself, and we walked back into town.
We got to my hotel and went upstairs. I went through my packed bags and pulled out a few pairs of jeans so that we could change out of our wet ones. It hadn't been my idea to sit in the snow, so I blamed her if we suffered from hypothermia. I threw a pair at Miki and she caught them in surprise.
"But how will I give them ba-" she started.
"Don't worry," I said quickly. "When we meet again."
I had no idea when that would be, but if it would make Miki get out of her wet clothes and into dry clothes, the answer satisfied me. No sense in letting her die of a terrible cold.
We changed, and I felt much better. Miki checked the time and winced. It was nearing two in the morning, and she told me so.
"What time is your flight?" she asked.
"One-twenty-five."
She did the math in her head. We wouldn't be able to meet before. This was it. Our goodbye.
I didn't expect her to, but she started to cry. She always had a way of surprising me. I stood there watching her awkwardly, not sure what to do. I would normally hug a friend who was crying, or at least pat her on the shoulder, but it seemed wrong for me to do so. I was trying to pry myself away from the grip she had on my heart, not trying to get all touchy feely with her.
"Bye bye, Miki," I said quietly.
She couldn't even say goodbye back to me, which I thought was funny. It should have been the reverse. I should have been the one bawling my eyes out. Instead of speaking, she walked over and hugged me tightly.
At first I went stiff as a board, but then I told myself to chill out. There was no harm in a hug. I hugged her and rubbed her back in a soothing way.
"Don't worry," I said.
I wasn't really sure why I was saying that. It sounded like something nice to say to someone who was crying.
"I'll visit again."
It was probably a lie, but it was a white one.
She stopped crying after a minute or two. She sniffed a few times, but she refused to let go of me. At this rate, one of us was probably going to fall asleep before she decided to let go. I pried her off of me gently and looked at her to make sure she wasn't actually asleep.
She was looking down, unable to look at me, most likely ashamed to be reacting so emotionally. She had stopped her actual crying, but a few tears still clung to her face - her cheek, her nose, her lip.
And because I was foolish and selfish and a whole ton of other bad, self-deprecating adjectives, I kissed that one tear off her bottom lip. Ever so softly. But it was enough to make her neck jerk back in reaction. I wished I could have shot myself in the most painful way possible for having done that.
I let go of her, looking at the door, urging her with a gesture to leave. I could see her face twisted with confusion and quite possibly disgust as I resorted to pushing her towards the door. She obeyed my physical commands and began to walk on her own. She picked up the pants she had changed out of and I silently handed her a plastic bag to put them in.
She slipped on her shoes, I opened the door, she stepped out...
And just when I thought I was home free, she turned around.
"You know," she said in a surprisingly strong voice. "I've never tried that before..." she trailed off weakly.
I knew exactly what she was talking about. I wasn't going to play dumb. But I wasn't going to make this easy for her. It was hard enough for me.
"That's nice," I said none too politely. "Good night."
I tried to close the door, but she put a hand in the doorway. I couldn't slam a door on her dear hand. I stopped five centimetres short of sending the youngest Fujimoto sibling to the hospital with a broken hand to match her sister's broken foot.
"If you're going to do something, don't do it halfway. Typical you," she said in a voice full of scorn.
She sounded very angry with me, and I thought that she might like to slam my hand in the door.
I was reminded of something I said to someone long ago.
Don't start things you don't intend to finish.
And that person had replied that I was the one who usually did that.
But that moment was blurry. It was like a dream. I had had one long dream. One long, clairvoyant dream.
"Halfway..." I muttered under my breath.
I looked up at her. She did look angry. But she also looked desperate, and suddenly I knew what a huge mistake I had made. I had convinced her that she wanted something that she really didn't want. I had made her think that the gap in her life could be filled by me, when in fact her problem was a different one.
She was so desperate for something fresh in her life that she would consider all ways to find some sort of excitement, controversial as it may be. That meant giving herself to me. I had given her the tiniest hint of leeway and she had grabbed onto it. She was refusing to let go.
I was angered because I had thrown her that line. I was angered because she had pursued it. And I was especially angered because it meant I had to be cruel to her and deny her anything that she so urgently thought she wanted.
So I did something even worse than denying her. I pulled her back into my room and closed the door, locking it. I gave up on my selflessness. Two months of careful control amounted to this failure.
Or was it? It certainly did not seem like I was failing anything as she took her shoes off and I backed her into a wall. She looked surprised, but I was beyond that. She had asked for it.
She started to look a bit terrified as I transformed from a thoughtful friend who enjoyed afternoon walks in the snow and happened to be a national idol, into some sort of starved human who had reached the last straw and was dying for action.
I pulled back and asked her if she was scared. She shook her head, although she did look a little shocked. I was pretty sure she had not been expecting this from me, especially when my cold hands made direct contact with her warm skin.
She loosened up quickly enough. The more relaxed she became, the more I lost control, and the more I lost control, the more clothes needed to come off. The more clothes that came off, the sexier it got.
And the sexier it got... well, the better it felt.
She was shy at first, but after showing her I had no shame, and after groping at her in just about every way possible, her hands began to move, and the side I knew that lay dormant in her began to emerge.
There's my Miki, I thought as I pushed her onto the small hotel bed.
"Wh-" she started to ask a question, but I shushed her up.
"No talking," I insisted.
As I expected, she didn't listen and began to ask her question again. Luckily I knew her well enough, and I knew exactly how to make her shut up.
How I knew, I couldn't quite piece together. That Miki that I thought I knew... must have been a dream. A long, detailed dream. Or a hallucination. Or a prophecy. Or maybe I was plain crazy. But all I cared was that this right here, right under me, was the real Miki. The only one that could exist. The only one that did exist. The only one that would ever exist for me.
I didn't know what had made me think I had known her. I didn't think about it because it didn't matter. Only the moment mattered.
I just enjoyed every single delicate - and not so delicate - moment this one-of-a-kind Miki inspired.
Before I fell asleep early that morning, I touched the skin of her back. She made a sound indicating that she was still semi-conscious. I drew a heart on her back and she made the same sound again to tell me to stop. I put my hand flat on her back and could feel her heartbeat faintly. I fell asleep as I adjusted my breathing to match the slow and steady thump-thump... thump-thump...
The last thing I remember was breathing out something about finally being happy.
-
Chapter 15 of 16
I woke up. In an unfamiliar bedroom.
No, it wasn't unfamiliar. It was my bedroom. In Tokyo.
Startled and confused, I looked around. The clock read just past eight am. The sun was coming in through the cracks in the curtain, the room was warm, and my jaw smarted for some reason. The bed sheets were in disarray, half tucked around me, half falling off the bed. I was lying on the left side of the bed, the right side empty save for a pillow beside mine. In the corner, I could make out a messy pile of clothing.
The setting felt familiar.
I breathed in deeply. It smelled like how my room usually smelled, but with something slightly different in the mix. It smelled familiar. Like the smell of someone I used to know... Like...
I shot up from my bed. I knew what this place was. What this time was. This was the day my old Miki had disappeared. This was the day everything changed. The day I went on a wild journey to retrieve someone who had, according to everyone I knew, never existed. I had somehow come to this place again.
But... how...?
I looked around. She wasn't even here. The bed was empty but for me. I felt my stomach churning. I wanted to scream out for this to stop. For this power playing with me to leave me alone and let me be happy. I had found her again. The real her. And I had given myself up to this fact. I had accepted my new reality. I had let go of the other world in my head...
Maybe the two months in Hokkaido had been a detailed dream. Maybe I had gotten it wrong. Maybe I had fallen asleep after realising Miki was missing and I was making up crazy theories.
Stunned, I walked out of my bedroom, exploring this familiar yet baffling setting. There was nobody in the kitchen or the living room. I shouldn't have been upset about that, but my face fell. I felt more broke-hearted than ever before.
Whether this was a dream or the other world was a dream, I could never be happy. Not really. I could never be satisfied.
And then I heard water running in the washroom. I bolted for it and there I saw a figure leaning over the sink, hands cupped under the water.
It was her.
I forgot everything and grabbed her from behind. She let out a yell, and all the water that had collected in her hands went splashing down the front of her pyjamas. I paid this no heed and I clung onto her with a tight hug, squishing my face against her neck.
"Aya!!" she hollered.
"Don't you ever leave me again!" I yelled furiously, and I started to cry, clinging on for dear life. "Don't do that again. Don't ever disappear," I said through my sobs.
She backed away from the sink, but there was very little room. My back touched the other wall. I moved my hands up and grabbed her head, feeling it. I turned her to face me as I desperately felt her cheeks, her ears, her hair... She looked at me, eyes wide open in fright and confusion.
"Don't go anywhere," I whispered, kissing her.
She muttered that I was the one leaving, and she kissed me back, but she obviously had no idea what was going on as I hung on to her. She finally pushed me away from her.
"Listen, if you wanted to start something, you could've waited till I went back to your room, you know," she laughed.
I didn't laugh along. I just stared at her as if I hadn't seen her in months- which was quite the case.
"Aya, what- are you all right?" she asked.
She was starting to realise that I wasn't just being silly or dramatic or crazy. Well, maybe I was being crazy, but not the usual kind.
"Where did you go?" I asked her, my voice trembling.
I didn't even know what to say to her.
"I just came here to wash my face. I felt grimy," she said with a frown. "And you, little miss whacko, got my pyjamas all wet because you decided to go postal on me when I wasn't paying attention. I'd say that qualifies you for an award. Maybe-"
"Shut up," I said, grabbing a hold of her again and hugging her.
"Ok, whoa whoa whoa. What is going on with you?" Miki demanded, pulling back again.
She stood there frowning - no, glaring - at me, the lines on her forehead quite pronounced. She looked like she was going to box my ears in if I didn't explain myself to her.
And my heart sang.
While I'd found an almost identical Miki after the one I knew had disappeared, she wasn't the same as this original one. There was something special about this one. She was more blunt, a little more jaded, but there was something extra-lovable about her. In the end, I wanted her no other way than the way she was now.
"I missed you," I said quietly, running my hands through her hair.
She didn't complain about my hands, but her glare stayed.
"I was gone for twenty seconds at the most. You were asleep. Are you that obsessed with me?" she questioned half in earnest, half tongue-in-cheekily.
"Yes," I said, allowing myself a small smile. "I'm definitely that obsessed."
I pushed myself up against her again and kissed her slowly, remembering what it was like. It had been so long. Miki wrapped her arms around me and pushed me out of the bathroom. We ended up standing in the living room. She pulled away from me again and sat me down on the couch, taking a seat beside me.
"As much as I love it when you're all excited in the morning - and I really do love it - I think there's something bothering you. Am I right?"
She had a thoughtful look on her face, which made me melt.
"I'm not bothered anymore. Trust me. Everything's perfect now."
"So it was just a bad dream?" Miki asked with a smile.
"Something like that," I responded, returning the smile in full.
But I wondered if it had been a dream. It had felt too real.
"A bad dream where you weren't there and I had to go and find you."
"Did you end up finding me?" Miki asked playfully.
She was humouring me, but also just being silly and sweet.
"I found an echo of you," I laughed despite my confusion, "but not the real you."
"That's depressing," Miki commented with a pout.
"No, I learned things from that echo. Then reality came back to me and you were here. The same old you. So I did find you in the end."
Miki threw her head back and laughed a hearty, pure laugh.
"You must be exhausted after your journey. Are you sure you wouldn't like to go back to sleep?" she teased me, but then she held back a yawn.
She was the one who wanted to sleep. I started to shake my head to say no, but then I thought better of it.
"Yeah, let's go back," I said, taking her hand and pulling her back to my room.
But something caught my eye. I pushed Miki ahead and ignored her questioning look. She shrugged and went back to bed. I went into the kitchen and over to the stove, my jaw dropping in awe.
Hanging on the hook was a pair of oven mitts. The picture on the mitts was that of a snowy mountain, some children playing in the snow, and a tall, brightly decorated Christmas tree.
Memories flooded my mind, but I couldn't be sure what was true and what wasn't. I was certain that I had only seen these mitts before once in my life. But how could they be here with me now? The time didn't match up. It was still October. The reality didn't match up. This Miki - the original Miki - had never given these to me.
I shook my head. Why question it? It had happened. Whatever it had been, it had been a truly remarkable thing.
I went back to my bedroom feeling lighter than before. I lay down in bed and faced Miki. Finally able to relax now that I was back, she closed her eyes and I took her hand and held it between us. We remained there silently for some time. I couldn't sleep, so I just watched her. I had no idea what had just happened, but two months undoubtedly had passed since I'd last seen her, and I was going to enjoy looking at her for a long time in order to make up for it.
"Are you really going to Italy today?" she asked me suddenly, opening her eyes as she spoke.
Italy?
Italy!
I had forgotten about Italy.
There was no way in hell I was going to go. I would pull out. I would quit my job. Whatever it took. I couldn't go. Right now I had to stay here and be with the important people in my life. I had spent two months of my life searching for her and I had finally found her. There was no way I was going to let go within hours.
"I'm not going," I said.
"What?" Miki asked with a blink and a laugh. "You just woke up and decided that?"
I nodded. I couldn't explain. Or at least not yet.
"I don't want to go. I decided this, um, recently. If it means having to quit my job, I'll do it. Right now I just want to stay here. I finally have a life here. A real life with you and my friends, and my family's not too far away."
"But-" Miki started to protest.
"No, I've spent too much time living for other people and obligations. Right now I need to take a break," I insisted.
Miki's face softened.
"Come and work with me and my company," she said with a childish smile.
I laughed and squeezed her hand. While it was unlikely I could suddenly get a job where she worked, it was a cute suggestion, and it showed me that she would not mind at all if I stayed in Japan. I'm sure she had her selfish reasons, but I knew that she also backed me one hundred and ten per cent in my decisions. She'd been ready to let go of me for three months. She was now ready to keep a hold of me.
Her eyes began to droop, and I could tell that she was going to pass out on me at any point. I could hear her breathing start to slow down. She murmured something under her breath about being happy that I had chosen to stay. I watched as awareness of the outside world began to slip from her face.
"Go to sleep," I said, echoing the same words she'd said to me so many months ago when I'd last seen her.
I felt her grip on my hand loosen.
"I'm right here, Aya. Right here..." she muttered, warming my heart and sending an instant smile to my face.
"I know."
-
Chapter 16 of 16 (Epilogue)
She woke up with crazy talk about me disappearing. She seemed completely serious when she started to grab at me and sob her eyes out. What sort of dream she had had, I didn't know, but it must have been pretty realistic to make her react like that. My strong Aya who always comforted me when I had nightmares. This time it was the reverse. I didn't consider myself very good at comforting people, but since it was her, it was okay. She knew that. As usual, I tried to make her laugh to forget about any bad thing. It was easier than I thought, because she suddenly perked up.
Then she told me some ridiculous plan to skip out on her upcoming job. I let her say it, but I didn't really believe her. She would sleep for a few more hours and then change her mind. I told her she could come and work with me. That would be nice. We could hang out during our breaks like we used to when we worked for the same company.
Sometimes I wished I could write a magazine article. I would call it "How it Really Is". I would also write a follow-up book. "All About Us". I would explain how Aya was a nutso. A real whackjob. Sometimes that's what I honestly thought about her.
I told her as much when we woke up again, this time at eleven-thirty am. Sometimes we were such lazy slobs. She ignored my comments regarding her sanity. She had heard them a million times before from me.
She was serious when she had said she wouldn't go to Italy. I was flabbergasted and delighted when she picked up the phone and dialed her boss' number. She told him right away that she refused to go to Italy. Their conversation continued for a while until the point where even I, sitting on the bed, could hear her boss' frantic voice from the the cellphone receiver, located across the room where Aya was standing. The call finally ended and Aya clapped her hands together, looking at me.
"He wants a meeting right now," she said.
"Will you go?" I asked worriedly.
"Sure," she said with a shrug. "It's the least I can do for the inconvenience I'm being."
'Inconvenience' was hardly the word I would use to describe her. If I were her boss, some of the ways I would describe her would be 'completely unreasonable', 'traitor', and 'extreme pain in the ass'.
"I guess I should start figuring out how to be that powerful CEO I'm always claiming I want to be," she mused.
I was infinitely glad that I wasn't her boss.
"You're amazing," I whispered in awe, standing up and walking over to her and hugging her tightly.
Was she not amazing? Nobody could say she wasn't amazing. There was something about her that was so... Aya. It was the only way I could think of it. She was stubborn to the level just below stupidity, and she was motivated by who knows what. It was strong, though. Sometimes she told me I was her motivation, but I didn't believe her all the time. Sometimes something drove her to do drastic things, and it wasn't me. It was something in her. It was, as I told her, amazing.
"You really are amazing," I repeated.
She laughed and pushed me away.
"Don't talk like that," she said with embarrassment. "All these years and I still can't handle mush from you."
It made me feel so good to hear that. No matter how many years it had been, we still could have these fresh moments where we surprised each other. I let her go and went back to sit on the bed.
"When is your meeting?" I asked while inspecting my toe nails. I needed to get them done soon.
"He told me to go there right now," she replied.
I looked up from my toes.
"Now?" I whined. "Aya, this is so messed up..." I complained.
"Why are you complaining?" she asked me in monotone. "It's my neck on the line."
I grinned stupidly and looked back down at my toes.
"Okay, okay. Go to your meeting," I said, smiling at my toes.
"Come with me?"
Not an order. A request. A plead. But it could have been a bossy order and my reply would have been the same.
"Of course."
We got ready quickly and headed off to the office where Aya's boss worked. I could hardly believe any of this was happening. I had spent the past week and a half preparing myself for Aya's departure. I had done everything I needed to do short of saying the words "goodbye." I had even bought her a stupid Pingu clock so that she would wake up on time overseas. And now she was planning not to go.
The minute we stepped into the building, the secretary picked up the phone. Aya was calm, but something under the surface of her skin was jittery and nervous. She must have known that this was a very important meeting. I waited in the lobby while Aya went upstairs for her meeting. I mailed a bunch of my friends and then flipped through a fashion magazine while I waited.
And hour and fifteen minutes later, Aya came back down. I had fallen asleep, but she tapped me on the knee, sitting beside me and making the couch move. I awoke with a jerk and my heart lurched for a second when I saw her. She was going to tell me that she was being forced to go to Italy...
"Let's go home."
That's all she said. She offered me a hand and helped me stand up. I straightened out my clothes and we left the building. A block away, I stopped and turned to face her.
"What happened?"
She stopped walking, so there we stood halfway down the sidewalk, the occassional pedestrian walking by.
"They tried to convince me to go. It didn't work," she replied with a pleasant smile.
"Okay..." I trailed off with a frown. "And then?"
"And then they offered me alternative suggestions like cutting the length of time by half a month, higher pay, and more benefits. All of which I refused."
"And then?"
Geez, I thought. It was like pulling teeth.
"And then they accepted my decision and told me that I was being suspended for six months."
I gulped.
"Six months? Aya, that's a long time," I said softly.
"Wrong answer," she said with a glint in her eye,
"What?" I asked.
"You're supposed to ask..." she said, making a gesture with her head.
A "you know what I mean" gesture. I had no idea what she meant. She stuck her head out even more and her eyes bulged from her sockets more than they usually did.
I got it.
"And then?" I asked.
"And then I quit."
This time is was my turn for my eyes to do a bit of bulging.
"Are you serious? You actually quit?"
"Mmhm. I told them that my happiness was more important than making billions of yen for them."
She quit her job. Her wonderful job that she loved to bits and pieces. The one that she had worked so hard to get.
"How- why?" I asked.
She reached out and poked my stomach with her pinky finger lightly.
"Because. My life here and my family are more important to me than anything else."
"But..." I didn't even pay attention to her words. "You can't quit. Go. Accept the half-month-less deal. Or- or more money so that you can waste it on visits home, or..." I babbled nonsensically.
Aya grabbed my hand and led me away from the main street so that we weren't surrounded by people. We started to walk along a much quieter sidewalk.
"Shouldn't you be a little happier?" she questioned me with a smirk.
Of course I was happy that she was staying. But I didn't want her to sacrifice her wonderful job just so that she could stay in Japan.
"But why, Aya? You have such a good thing going on," I said sadly.
We stopped walking and Aya faced me squarely.
"Exactly," she said, my sadness not affecting her in the least. "And that's why I have to quit my job. I don't want to go to Italy and miss out on this good thing that I have."
And then it struck me that maybe she was talking about me. Me and her family and friends.
"But if you stay because of me, I'll feel bad."
"Fine. Then don't think about it," she quipped.
I didn't know what to say, so I looked at her sadly. She mimicked my face, pouting like me.
"If you get like that, maybe I'll turn around and go get my job back. I don't want to be stuck here with a depressed Miki," she joked.
I tried to smile, but I still felt guilty. I didn't want to be the one to hold her back. The pout disappeared from her face.
"You're not holding me back."
She said it quietly. Almost mumbled it. She had read my mind.
"The reason why I'm staying is mainly because of you, but I consider that a good thing. A great thing. Life without you is just... just not worth the bother."
That frightened me a little to hear. I thought to myself that I better not die any time soon. She had been acting strange since morning. Her and her sudden obsession with me. Maybe she had been thinking about death or...
"ARG!" I said out loud, shaking such depressing thoughts out of my head and scaring Aya.
"What...?"
"Sorry," I apologised sheepishly. "I was thinking of bad things. Let's go home."
We walked down the street and in the direction of the subway station.
"Hey, Miki," Aya mumbled suddenly.
"Hm?"
"Do you mind if I stay in Japan? Are you happy?"
Was she really asking me that? We had known each other for almost a decade and she was asking me if I minded if she stuck around?
No words could properly express the huge amounts of 'okay' it was for her to stay, so I smile broadly, took her hand, and swung it, looking foward at the path we walked down.
The end.
-
My Own Private Funeral
story 6
Chapter 1 of 10
My eyes opened slowly, naturally. No alarm clock woke me up this morning. I looked around my room in the darkness. The sun had not yet risen, although the faint beginnings of light were showing themselves. The sun was just below the horizon, waiting patiently to appear. Everything was still young, untouched by the aging light of day.
I rolled over onto my side and stared at the wall, my mind a blank. The whiteness of the plaster was going to be bright within half an hour. Bright like a fluffy cloud in the sky. Now, though, it was a muted off-white, looking no more appealing than the sky on a cloudy day.
I took a deep breath in and closed my eyes in order to properly picture such a sky.
I looked up at the grey sky and saw the light struggling to get through but failing. A slight shadow was cast on the land and the trees, but not a depressing one. It simply dulled the shininess a slight bit. People could hardly notice it. The uniform cloud across the sky was not threatening, but comforting. Protective.
I continued to stare up at the sky, imagining I could see through the clouds and out into space.
I looked back down to the land and saw trees, grass, and mountains. A river in the distance.
It was a foreign land that I had never been to, although it did not surprise me to be here. It was interesting. Everything had a different smell, and the mountains were huge. Much bigger than the ones I grew up around. I looked at them, awed by their enormity. The tops were capped with snow. They were impenetrable fortresses. The perfect border for a country with so much to protect.
The clouds that covered every corner of the sky seemed to bend and shape themselves around the mountains in a blatantly impossible disregard of the rules of weather systems and nature. I was not a scientist, however, so I did not particularly care. "It looks neat" was the best way I could describe it.
I carried on watching the sky. I saw a break in the cloud cover. A sole ray of sunlight thrust itself through, and as if setting a trend, more rays followed, seeming to widen the tear in the cloud. A bit of warmth emerged and touched my face. I smiled as the heat travelled through my skin and into my bones, heating them up in a pleasant way. I felt at peace with everything in the world. I was comfortable where I stood, comfortable in my skin. I was truly and simply happy.
My peace was shattered by a terrible sound - a loud rumbling like a train - making me cringe. From behind me it came like a charging bull out of control, rabid, leaving behind it a trail of dust so thick it could choke up an ocean.
As the plane passed overhead, it seemed to screech out words I could not understand. Maybe it was the people inside yelling. I watched in horror as the plane headed straight for the mountain. I knew that it would never clear it.
I was proven right when the plane crashed nose first right into the side of the mountain, high up where the snow started. It hardly made the sound I thought it would. It was so far away that it sounded like someone had blown up a paper bag, popped it, and then muffled the echo. A few mini explosions occurred and I saw a small fire start up.
Watching the scene unfold, I stood paralysed with fear, my stomach churning and making me feel sick. I could swear that I heard screaming from the wreckage. People begging for help... But it would have been impossible to hear any voices from such a distance.
I was helpless. I could do nothing. I did not even have a cellular phone.
I overcame my paralysis and started to run, mapping out in my mind an impossible mission to scale a mountain with no equipment, no proper clothing, and no experience. Each step I took I felt the sinking fear in me become worse and worse. I was going to find something I did not like.
This did not stop me, though, for every step I took also made my sense of urgency increase tenfold. I needed to get to my goal. I needed to know some things.
I somehow scaled the mountain. It was like I flew. The wreckage of the plane was in my line of sight. We were on the same level now.
I crawled over to it, exhausted, my hands and legs freezing up in the snow that covered the ground.
The fire I had seen break out was on the opposite end of the plane. Conveniently, the side I was on was untouched by the flames. There was a huge tear in the body of the plane where the wing had once been attached. There was a perfect space beside it to crawl inside. I did so.
The plane had been tipped over so that the wall of windows had become the floor. As I reached the entrance, I could see bodies scattered along it. They must have not had their seatbelts buckled up properly. I ignored the disgust I felt welling up at the back of my throat and I crawled through the bodies, which I soon found were in fact dead bodies.
I kept going, looking for something.
I heard a whimper. I looked sideways immediately.
There she was strapped into her seat, hanging from the "side" of the plane like a dead rag doll.
But she had made a sound. She was alive.
I stood up quickly and undid the buckle at her stomach. She started to tumble down, but I grasped at her, my hands slipping unexplainably as I helped her down safely. I put her on an empty space on the windows, resting her on her back.
Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing. Shallow, infrequent breaths. She whispered something.
"What?" I asked, my voice sounding hollow.
"Water..." she rasped out.
I could not help but break out into a smile. She could at least speak and evaluate her position. She felt thirsty. She knew she needed wa-
"W-water?" she repeated, this time in English.
I frowned.
"And... ex...tra blanket? Please..."
I felt her forehead. She was burning up. She was delirious with what felt like fever but what was more conceivably shock and pain. She did not know what had just happened. She was speaking nonsense, probably repeating the phrases from her Learn English in 20 Minutes Per Day CDs.
When I brought my hand away from her brow, I noticed sticky blood on my fingers. There was a lot. Oddly, I did not feel hurt. I inspected my hand for a cut, but I could find none. I realised with a sinking heart that it was not my blood.
I pulled back to take a full look at the incapacitated girl. Her shirt was wet. Scared, I reached out to touch it. It was cold and sticky. When I pulled my hand back, my fear was confirmed by the blood that coated my fingers. This was why my hands had slipped about when trying to help her down.
I pulled her torn sweater and shirt up ever so slightly and peered under, almost gagging in horror. Something must have fallen in her lap during the crash. There was a vicious, gaping wound in her stomach that I knew could not be repaired in time. I pulled her clothes back down and looked for something to stop the bleeding. I found a blanket and pressed it into her stomach. I was sure that was not what she had wanted when she had asked for an extra blanket.
"Just keep breathing," I said quietly as though I were a paramedic.
"Water," she choked out, this time in her native tongue.
Then a miracle happened - she opened her eyes and looked right at me, tears of pain in her eyes.
"Help me," she pleaded in a weak, pathetic voice.
Gone was strongest girl in the world, replaced by a feverish child who could barely breathe on her own. My heart, had it not already broken, would have broken at that sight alone.
What did you say to someone when you knew her fate was sealed? She knew what was to come, too. I could tell. The fear in her eyes was not born from nothing.
I nodded and I could not help starting to cry. The tears overflowed and fell as I blinked them away. My vision became blurred from too many tears. I had to wipe my eyes quickly with one of my blood-covered hands. My other hand took hers and squeezed.
"I'm helping you," I cried, my voice breaking.
"Water..."
I shook my head.
"I don't have any."
She suddenly gripped my hand in a surprisingly tight hold and looked directly into my eyes, her eyes wide open. With a reserve of strength like that, maybe she would be all right and pull through...
"Mama," she whispered. "Mama, I'm scared..."
I could not even begin to react to being mistaken for her mother because her hold on my hand slackened in an instant and she stopped breathing.
I shook her gently and then put my ear to her chest. I could hear nothing. No heart beat. I put a hand over her mouth, but nothing happened. No warm breath emerged.
She was dead. No hope.
I knew it. I knew it before I had reached the crash site.
That is why I did not scream out her name, nor tell her to hang on and demand that she wake up. She was fated to have gone, and nothing I could do would change it. I resigned myself to this fact.
I touched her forehead once and then stood up, looking down at her. She looked like she was in such pain. Her eyes open in terror, her body twisted in an awkward position.
But she did not feel a thing. Not a thing anymore. She was off somewhere, flying to some other place where nothing could hurt her anymore. Somewhere where she did not have to remember the pain she had just gone through. It could be endless darkness and nothingness or it could be eternal light and bliss. I did not know and did not presume to judge what did or did not happen after death. All I knew was that she was there and I was not.
I left her body there. I was not meant to bring it with me. I walked out of the plane and out into the cold mountain winds.
I walked away from the plane. I knew that it would eventually burn up. The remaining fuel in the engine's tanks would make certain of it. It would convert everything in that small flying machine into the elements that would float up into the sky and become smaller parts of the universe once more. In a way comforting, in a way upsetting.
I walked to the edge of the cliff and looked out across the Italian Alps, mountains being all I could see. The sun had fully emerged from the curtain of clouds that had held it hostage, and it now warmed my cold hands. The blood on them began to dry and crack. The snow below me became saturated with little red flakes. I knelt down in the snow and put my hands in it, scrubbing them vigorously. The snow at my knees turned a pale red. I stared and thrust my hands deep under, keeping them there until I felt such burning that I had to pull them out. Tears of pain came to my eyes, but I ignored them.
I stood up and looked behind me. The whole plane was on fire. I could feel the heat on my back. I watched as Aya's body floated up to the sky as smoke.
Bye bye, I thought.
I blinked away more tears.
It was like my own private funeral. Saying goodbye. Burning the body. Seeing off her ashes.
All the things I never had a real chance to do.
I opened my eyes. I had dozed off and had had the same daydream.
Correction. It was a new dream, but it was a variation of an old dream of eight years.
The wall in front of me had become brighter. The sun was peeking out over the horizon, signalling a new day.
A sad day for me. The anniversary of a loved one's death was never a good day. It seemed my subconscious was trying to help me overcome some of that remaining grief by giving me a sense of closure (albeit a strange one), but the grief would never be fully removed. It could never be.
I turned over for the second time that morning and looked at the sunlight coming in through the blinds. I lay in bed lazily, wishing that I had someone that would come in and yell at me for being so lazy.
But the one person who I would allow to scold me like that (besides my mother) was gone. She had burned up into tiny atoms and floated into the sky along with two hundred strangers and a few tonnes of metal and fuel.
Maybe at night when I looked up at the stars, the brightest ones contained a bit of her in them. She had always looked over me and taken care of me. Maybe now she was in the position to take on the duty fulltime from above.
This was how I comforted myself. Or maybe tricked myself.
Because I knew deep down inside that my dreams meant nothing. My thoughts had no effect on the outside world. Romantic ideas of souls surviving and guardian angels watching over me would get me nowhere.
So I heaved a sigh, rolled out of bed, and went to brush my teeth. It was all I could do. I was living in the world.
-
Chapter 2 of 10
I had never smelled burning flesh before and I had never seen a dead body, yet these things seemed so familiar to me. I did not dream of them every night, but often enough to remind me of mortality. My own, as well as that of all the people around me. We were fragile things.
But I had learned long ago that the thing more fragile than the body was the heart. Especially mine. I had always thought I was so strong. That I could keep my real emotions packed tightly within me, hidden from view.
My opinion changed when I met Aya. I am sure she never meant to, but when she started to become my friend, her mere presence made me realise how weak I was. How fragile my mind was. Instead of seeing this as a bad thing, I came to see it as something special. Something that was so human and essential. It made me feel more like a person who was worthy of the pleasures of life. As simple a thing as smelling a sweetly-scented flower became more of a treat when I thought of it her way.
Aya had two sides to her personality. One side was incredibly easy to please. That was the side that I appealed to more often, whether I needed to tell her something important or I just wanted to make her laugh. That side also influenced me, relaxed me, made me realise that basic things had great value.
The other side of her was tougher than me, and I wished anyone trying to reason with that side a dry "good luck." That was the side that I appealed to when I needed strength. That side also reasoned with me when I was doing something stupid. It kept me balanced when I overreacted. She was not always right, though, and I learned how to tell her that. I learned how to talk to her so that she would listen to me and understand me. Perhaps my greatest accomplishment in the world was that.
However, I only let myself become like that around her. To the rest of the world, my attitude was closer to the cold and calculating bitch that I am sure many of my coworkers wished to publicly label me as. If my natural reaction was too strong or too personal, I would hide it and pull out one of my set expressions or responses. I tried to appear in control of myself every second of the day, although I did not go so far as to alienate myself from everyone. Of course I had my moments of weakness. Moments when I would cry, laugh uncontrollably, or show a friend or co-worker pity. Genuine displays of those were infrequent, though, and after they happened, I would quickly revert to my composed self. It was my coolness. I gave myself a little more leeway on television. Everybody knew TV was mostly an act anyway and that we were ordered around and scripted to no end. I could not be held entirely responsible for the things I said and did there.
Over the years, Aya had been my unwavering post. A dock where I could land and roam around free, anchored by nothing. Thinking about it now, it was very therapeutic, especially after I became fully comfortable around her. In all the years we stood together, I grew into a respectable person because of her. I learned to love properly because of her. Even if I had not been in love with her, she would have taught me how to use my heart. If it had not been her I gave my heart to, whoever I did give my heart to would have Aya to thank for its ability to work. We had a special connection that transcended everything else. One that had nothing to do with romantic love. We had just happened to take it that way.
If Aya-chan taught us and the people on this world how to do something, it was to love and how to use our hearts. I think you've learned the most out of all of us. Don't let that knowledge go to waste.
Shiba-chan's words echoed in my head. She had spoken those words eight years ago, and I had forgotten them until recently. Until last night, in fact. I had taken a trip through my memories and had finally had the courage to sit quietly and think about my first conversation with Shiba-chan after we had found out about Aya's death. Before yesterday, it was one of my most reviled memories. I never let myself fully recall all of its details. Since remembering every little detail the previous night, however, it had remained lodged like a stubborn thorn in my mind. Those few sentences repeated themselves over and over in my mind.
With a start, I realised where I was. I was kneeling on the floor of my kitchen and picking up some uncooked grains of rice that I had spilled the night before. I had become lost in thought, something that happened often around this time of year.
I got up and threw the rice in the sink.
Aya always yelled at me when I did something like that even when there was a little net in the drain to catch unwanted particles. I smirked. She was probably screaming her head off now if she was watching me. I wished I could tease her about how uptight she was about that sort of thing, but of course I could not. I felt a chill go through me as I sobered up and went off to make my bed.
Shiba-chan was absolutely right, I thought as I tucked the corners of the sheets under the mattress. I should not let the valuable lessons I had learned from Aya go to waste. I knew I would never find someone I could connect to the same way I did with Aya, but that should not have been something to stop me from finding new friends and finding a new environment for me to get along with people in. I knew at the very least I should revive those feelings, remember how they tasted, and channel them into something useful.
It was easier thought than done.
I found myself standing beside my bed with the pillow in my hands. I shook my head and continued fixing up the bed, putting the pillow where it belonged.
At seven o'clock am I took my jacket and left my apartment, walking briskly to the station. It took me almost forty minutes and two transfers to get to where I was headed. It was worth it, though. The powerful feelings that welled up in me were a welcome change from the constant drone of halfway feelings.
I walked up to the concert hall doors and put a hand on one of the handles. I knew it was locked so I did not try to open it. I looked up at the building and tried to remember a day about fifteen years ago. The day that I first met Aya. The concert we had attended. How we happened to find each other there and recognise each other. We had clicked. I had been polite and civil to her, but some sort of excitement had rumbled beneath my surface. I knew who she was, and I had my assumptions about the kind of person she would be, but I had thrown away my expectations after a few moments in her presence because she was so much more than what people saw on television. It felt like instant friendship.
I was wary for a while, of course, hardly able to believe that she could be such a good person. I waited nervously for the day she turned on me and transformed into a horrific purple monster. That moment had never come, and my fears dissipated and were forgotten. She became my best friend. I had never had one like her before. Back home I had called some friends my "best friends," but they did not come even close to what Aya and I had.
I moved away from the doors and walked around the complex.
The first meeting. Fifteen years ago. We had lived on the earth while knowing each other for seven years. That was hardly anything. A couple of footsteps along a thirty kilometre long road.
I grit my teeth in anger. I fought my anger on a regular basis. I had been getting better at keeping it in, placating myself when I became distressed over the unjustness of the world, but it had a habit of lashing out from within at bad times.
My anger turned to pain and then into sadness. I did not hold back my tears, however. Not today. I was allowed to cry, and so I did. I stopped walking and sat down behind the building near a fire exit. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my chin on them, letting my tears flow with no worry of being discovered.
But I had trouble figuring out what I cried for. Was I crying for Aya, a girl who had died prematurely? Or was I crying for myself? For my situation - my loneliness, my numbed state, my loss?
I grimaced at the thought of such selfish tears. I was sickened. I hoped that my grief went beyond that. I tried to bring up my least favourite memories and aspects of Aya and cried harder because there was nothing I did not like about her. Our most vicious of fights was better than nothing. Her most biting words would be like a warm bath to me now.
I began to cry harder as I remembered her. I let out a sob. A little too loud. I looked around to see if anybody was around. I could not see a soul, but I began to not care. I put my face down and wrapped my arms around my head, crying loudly into my knees.
The harder I cried, the more I began to understand that I was crying for the both of us. I cried for myself because I was lonely and miserable without her. I cried for her because she had been in the middle of living with such vigour and happiness when it was all torn away from her in a few minutes. I cried for the both of us because if we were not together, then there were two hearts in the world that were incomplete and crying out for something.
"It'll never..." I squeezed out of my tight throat as tears wet my lips. "It'll never..."
I could not finish my sentence because I was choking. My throat constricted and I started to breathe spasmodically as I tried to control myself. I was crying so hard I could not catch my breath. I heard Aya's soothing voice in my head.
"Calm down. Shhhh... shhh.... You're safe here."
She stroked my hair slowly and held my hand as I lay curled up in pain on my bed.
"Shhhh. I'll stay here." .
Whenever I became so depressed that I felt like I was going to suffocate, I would remember times when Aya had calmed me down when I was sick. They were some of my most vivid memories because she was so perfect in them. She did not tease me or make jokes. She gave me one hundred and fifty per cent of her caring attention and would sit beside me, hold my hand, and tell me it would be okay.
My breathing slowed down and became steady again. I stopped sobbing so hard. I concentrated on the memory and imagined that Aya was here with me, leaning her shoulder against mine and letting me know that I was not alone.
I took a few minutes to compose myself before I stood up and continued to walk around the building. My eyes must have still been red, but at least I could breathe again.
Aya was not coming back. She had died eight years ago in a fiery plane crash in the Italian Alps after the plane had lost control in a bad weather system and veered off course. When I had wordlessly said my goodbyes to her in Tokyo before she left for her three month business trip, I had not known that it would be goodbye forever.
My circle around the concert hall complete, I left without a look back. Being there was too painful. I wandered to my next goal.
I had done this same thing for the past seven years. I had visited the places that had meant something to me and Aya. They varied from year to year, but I always did go to a few. I would visit where we first met, first took purikura, first went for coffee... One year I had even travelled down to Kobe and stayed at the same hotel we had stayed at after her nineteenth birthday concert. Many firsts there, too.
That had been the most painful day. I barely succeeded in containing my tears until after I had gone through the check-in process. When I had reached my room - the same room we had stayed in - I had broken down and not moved for the entire night. Maybe I had overreacted. Now that I was on Tokyo soil, I could think so. But I knew that once I was in the situation, it was hard to keep a level head and judge my behaviour. In layman's terms (my preferred way of thinking), bad things happened and I got sad.
My next destination was reached. It was the one place out of all that I went to every year. I entered the coffee shop and ordered tea. The place was one that we had gone to often because it was quiet and out of the way. I could not remember the first time we had discovered it, but apparently we liked it enough to keep patronising it for many years. I often wondered how it could still be in business after so many years. I had expected it to suddenly go out of business and disappear without a word, much like many things in this city.
The owner of the place was somewhat of an enigma. She had come to know me and Aya by sight, but she rarely spoke to us. Occasionally she would ask if we were well. When Aya had died, I did not visit for a year. After, I would go infrequently. At first I had been afraid that the staff would start acting strangely around me. Aya's fame was not a secret from them, and neither was news of her death. They did not say a word, however, and they treated me no differently than before. The owner asked no questions about the girl missing from my side and continued to putter about behind the counter, asking me how I was every few months.
There was one thing that the owner did do for me. She had probably pieced together my tradition after the first two times, and from the third time I went there, I noticed that for that dreary week in October, she put fresh floral arrangements on all the tables. Simple white flowers in small glasses. Neither of us had said anything, but my continued patronage at that place said enough: I appreciated the gesture.
This year, the owner came and sat with me for the first time.
"Mind if I sit here?" she asked in her whispery voice.
She reminded me of an American hippie from the olden days.
I did mind, but I did not want to be rude. I shook my head and she took a seat.
"I have a bone to pick with you," she started.
I sighed. I did not want to fight on this day.
"What?"
"Why don't you ever order the recommended desert?"
"What?" I asked in surprise.
What kind of question was that?
"You order all of them except for the recommended one. Why?"
I was at a loss for words. There was no reason. I just did not look at that part of the menu where the recommended desert was written. I told the owner as much.
"Fujimoto-san," the owner began, addressing me by name for the first time in the ten years I had been going to her shop, "for the past six years I have struggled to come up with the most appropriate desert for this day especially for you, yet you have snubbed my efforts six times. I've had enough!"
I looked at the woman in horror. Had I snubbed her? I had done no such thing!
"I'm... sorry?" I apologised unsurely.
"Don't apologise. Just order the damned recommended desert!"
I made an "eep!" sound and ordered the dish.
It was brought out quickly and placed in front of me. The owner looked on proudly as I inspected it.
It was a slice of vanilla cake with white icing, served with white powdered sugar on a shiny white plate.
I'm sensing a white theme here, I thought sarcastically.
"I made it myself."
I nodded my thanks and tried it. It was delicious.
But why had she been making deserts for me for the past six years? Because I had lost my friend? Was I really important enough a customer to be slaving away at the kitchen over?
I looked up at her to ask, but she was gone. I looked around and could not spot her. Had she disappeared into the back? How had I not noticed her leave the table?
I poked at the cake with my fork. At least the fork was silver.
But the cake was entirely white. The flowers were white.
The colour reminded me of Aya. Or rather, the interpretation of the colour reminded me of her.
There were two ideas. One was the obvious. Death. White was the colour of death. Aya was dead.
The other was along the lines of pure and innocent. Now, Aya was never the little goody goody everyone thought her to be, but her heart was good. When she felt things, she did not go halfway. She gave everything her all. I could give a hundred examples (all involving me) of her complete lack of innocence, yet she had still sometimes retained a childlike view of things that would make me laugh as our roles reversed.
Sometimes I would picture her dressed all in white, floating above me like an angel in a movie, but without the religious connotations of one. She would watch over me, guide me through trouble, celebrate with me in times of happiness, hold my hand when I was sad, and laugh at me when I was silly.
It was the same role as the one she had had when she had been alive. That was part of what she had been for me. A guardian. She had taken care of me.
She had taken care of me!
I took a quick bite of cake and chewed thoughtfully.
She had taken care of me, and in my own way, I had taken care of her. Now that she was gone, there was nobody there to take care of me. Conversely, there was nobody for me to take care of.
That meant....
I chewed some more cake.
That meant...
The giddiness in me started to fade. I had thought I was on the verge an idea. Some sort of revelation that would make life from now on as perfect as it could get without Aya. I was excited for nothing. Nothing came of my thoughts. There was no meaning behind the white flowers and white cakes. The owner of the coffee shop was simply being hospitable and showing her respect, not trying to send me a message.
With a sigh, I finished my cake quickly, swallowing down my tears, and I left the shop without trying to find the owner to thank her.
I went back home and lay on the covers of my bed, staring up at the ceiling. The white ceiling. I turned on my side and looked at the wall. The white wall. I closed my eyes in frustration, but all I could see was the imprint of the white wall. This presence of white was beginning to annoy me. It meant nothing. It was an empty symbol.
Except...
As I lay there with my eyes closed, I remembered a day almost ten years ago. It was winter and we were lying on the carpeted floor, covered in blankets and reading magazines.
"Hey, Miki."
I looked up from my horoscope.
"It says here that when you die, all you see is white."
My eyebrow twitched.
"Why are you reading an article like that?" I asked.
"It's interesting. You've read about near-death experiences before, haven't you?"
I nodded carefully.
"This talks about seeing white at the end of the tunnel. Some people have survived it, but they guess that when the time comes and you die, you're thrown into a room of white light."
I had no good response.
"What do you think? Don't you think that would be strange? Closing your eyes and finding yourself in the light?"
I squirmed uncomfortably.
"Why are you thinking about this? You're not dying anytime soon," I said, trying to brush off the scary topic.
"What do you think?" Aya insisted.
I shrugged.
"I think when you close your eyes, you see what you always see: black. And bits of colour. But eventually just black," I murmured. I shook my head. "Anyhow, when you die, your eyes stop working and you can't see anything. The question is meaningless. You wouldn't see white or black or anything."
"There you go being all practical," Aya grumbled.
Funny, that was usually my complaint about her.
"I just don't want to talk about dying. It worries me," I said in a small voice.
She took the hint right away and closed her magazine, leaning over my shoulder to share mine. I forgot about the conversation as she read horoscopes with me.
A room of white light.
Is that where Aya had gone? Had she seen white after she took her final breath?
I thought about it hard.
I wanted her to have seen that white light. To have seen black would have been too gloomy. Too unforgiving.
I wanted her to have been happy in her final moments.
I wanted her to have smiled and to have had no regrets.
I wanted her to have known that I would never forget a thing about her.
I would never know what really happened, though. Thousands of kilometres and eight years lay between me and her. An eternal distance.
The only thing I could do was remember.
So that is what I did on that day. I remembered everything. I remembered and cried.
Forever goodbyes were too hard.
-
Chapter 3 of 10
That memorial was a big waste of time.
That is what someone looking from a cold, rational point of view would think.
I did not believe that was quite true. Yes, I got nothing practical done and I spent the entire day essentially moping, but it was cathartic. I was able to cry it all out.
The following day was always hard to face. This year I had to go into work, but bits and pieces of sadness still lingered in me.
Shibata e-mailed me. She said hello, asked if I was well, and confirmed our late evening coffee date for next Thursday. She mentioned nothing about the anniversary of Aya's death, but the act of sending an e-mail on that day (when she could have sent it much later) said it all. Why say "I'm sad, too" or "I thought of Aya yesterday" when she could just poke her head in and remind me that I had someone to talk to. Like I said time and time again about my friends, they knew what gave me comfort and what made me uncomfortable. If Shibata had sent me an e-mail saying "I'm thinking of you", I would have felt embarrassed and she would have lost points. She knew that.
Not once had Shibata asked what I did on that sad memorial day. I had always preferred it that way. I did not want to talk about something so personal. However, for the entire week, all I had wanted was for Shibata to ask me. This perturbed me, but made me even more eager to meet her.
I wrote back and said I was fine and that I would see her next Thursday.
The week passed by in a blur. Thursday came quickly and I found myself standing in front of an Italian restaurant, waiting for the tardy Shibata. We had both changed our coffee date to a dinner one at the last minute since neither of us had eaten yet. She arrived running and her evident happiness outshone my own eagerness to talk to her.
We greeted, went inside, and ordered dinner. As we started sipping white wine, we began to get into the meat of the talk. I started us up.
"Okay, enough pleasantries. What's your news?"
I was certain I knew what it was. Certain.
"Well, you know I've been dating Yuya for four years," she started, her tone giddy, her face absolutely beaming.
I smiled because of it. I looked down to pick a piece of fluff off the table and then looked back up at her.
"Yes," I urged her on.
He asked her... He asked her...
"I asked him to marry me!"
My prepared exclamation of "congratulations" got stuck in my mouth and never made it past my lips.
I had not expected that.
"Whh... you...? You asked him ?"
"Mmhm," she responded in a peppy voice.
"And he said... yes?"
"Of course! We've set the date for next summer," she grinned.
I groaned.
"Shiba-chan, you forgot the first rule. Never ask him. He's got to ask you. That way you can be sure he approves of the idea. Marriage is a big, scary deal for guys."
"I thought you'd be way more open-minded than that," Shibata sighed.
"Well, no. I mean... It's sort of..."
It was just the way I had grown up. The way I had been taught to think.
"Besides, what would you know?" she deadpanned teasingly.
Double ouch. She had a point. But oh, how uncharacteristic of me it would be to simply accept my loss.
"I've been proposed to!" I cried out defensively, taking a nervous gulp of wine.
"Yeah. By your sixty-three-year-old boss," she continued to tease.
"He was serious at the time!"
"You mean he was drunk at the time," Shibata corrected. "But did his asking mean he was ready for marriage?"
"He was already married..." I said, feeling the need to argue dwindle.
I was losing this one fast.
"And your reply to him?"
"Was no..."
I shrunk in my seat.
"Because?"
"I wasn't ready for it," I said defiantly.
Shibata laughed at my dismal attempt to save my pride. I let her have her laugh before we moved on.
"I'm happy for you," I said genuinely.
"Thank you."
We made a toast to happy summer weddings, and then I made her tell me all the details. For twenty minutes I grilled her with questions and she answered. Everything from the month of the ceremony, the proposed honeymoon destination, and even the wild idea of having children.
When our food arrived, we ate in silence for a bit, both hungry from a long day of work. All the while, I begged some higher power to make Shibata ask me about last Tuesday.
"So what about you?" she asked.
I looked up and finished chewing.
"Anything new in your life?"
I knew she meant to ask anyone.
"No," I replied. "Busy with work. I'm recording an album. No time for play."
I winked, but I guess the smile fell off my face a little too quickly.
"You know..." she said, her voice going into a certain zone that I knew was serious. "I think you need to lighten up."
Talk about being frank.
"I take plenty of time off. Last Tuesday, for example."
It was my subtle hint to ask me what I had done, but she did not go for the bait.
"Ever since Aya died, you don't make any real effort," she said bluntly.
My stomach twisted at hearing the abrupt mention of her death and at the sounds of a fight I heard building up in Shibata’s voice. We had had this argument before.
I sighed.
"That's not true. I make an effort," I responded, getting ready to list off my examples.
I could not get another word in edgewise, for she continued.
"No, you don't. You sit around and think about the past. You cry about it, but you don't make any effort to change it."
Never before had she bitten into me with such aggression. It hurt me enough to make me want to cry, but of course I did not. My defence mechanism started up.
"Well, what else can I do about it? I can't change it. The past happened. You know that," I retaliated angrily.
"You could stand to learn from it. Eight years, Miki-chan. Eight years and you haven't grown up one bit."
Why was she ragging on me now all of a sudden?? I hushed up and did not speak a word. I sat there staring at her, fuming.
"You're still the same. No... gloomier. Destroying yourself bit by bit."
I swallowed my fear and looked at her through narrowed eyes. She put her fork down and stared back. We sat, locked in a battle of wills in a cosy Italian restaurant in Shinagawa. It was not exactly an ideal situation.
What she had said... she was right.
But what did she know? What kind of connection did she have with Yuya? What did she understand?
"And if you think I don't understand what you and Aya had," she said, displaying her ability to read minds, "then you're right. I don't. But it doesn't mean I don't appreciate it."
I fought the urge to walk out of the restaurant.
"I know you hate hearing this kind of thing, but I do care about what happens to you. There are lots of people around you who do. If you would give us a chance, you could be happier. Maybe be able to love some people a bit. Don't think that associating with other people and being happy is some act of betrayal."
Inside I cringed. Yet deeper insider, I agreed.
"I don't think it's a betrayal," I spoke tentatively. "I just... I can't let go. It hurts too much."
I was comfortable enough to admit that much.
"Of course it does," Shibata said, her tone doing a one hundred and eighty degree flip and turning soft and sympathetic. "I told you already before that it's not easy. But after a few steps, it gets better. You have to make an effort."
I remembered her words. Eight years ago.
"Remember how you told me that Aya had taught us - me - how to use our hearts?"
She smiled knowingly and nodded.
"And how you told me not to waste what I'd learned? I think I've wasted it."
I could tell that she knew my admission hurt me.
"No you haven't."
But she gave me no further evidence. I must have blown it big-time.
"Do you know what I did last Tuesday?" I asked, finally opening up the touchy subject myself.
Shibata shook her head, so I explained. I went on to tell her that I had done it every year for the past seven years. She listened, holding her comments back.
"And so my whole life revolves around that one day. My year is spent preparing to go on my little walk down memory lane. You're right. All I do is sit around and cry," I said bitterly.
"Miki-chan, I had no idea you did that every year. All alone?"
"Yup."
She looked sad.
"You need to share it with someone. You need to talk to someone," she said passionately.
I arched an eyebrow.
"The last set of friends I had that tried to convince me to see a shrink got the eternal brush off," I warned her.
"No, not a shrink," Shibata said in a repulsed way as though such a thought would never occur to her. "I mean friends. Friends! Me, whoever else you talk to, family. We can help you. A shrink can't give you love, but we can."
I sighed for the nth time that night.
"I'd love to, but not many people know the whole story. My best kept secret, remember?"
"I know it. But people don't have to know the whole story to help."
"I can't," I said dejectedly, lowering my voice.
"Can't what?"
"Confide in you."
I truly could not. The only person I could talk to did not exist in this world anymore. I was unrelenting in my opinion about that.
"What do you think, Miki?" Shibata sighed. "That Aya's going to come back? That the universe is going to go 'oops, mistake!' and spit her back up?"
Gone was the niceness. Back was her cold, hard tone.
Aya still alive? I knew it was impossible.
But what if something crazy happened? I did not go so far as to believe she would be resurrected, and I did not believe any sort of conspiracy theory that claimed Aya was an intelligence officer who had faked her death in order to go into deep cover (I had actually read a piece in a magazine that had suggested something so idiotic).
But what if...
What if this was all a dream? A nightmare, rather.
Or what if she had survived but had lost her memory and was now living in a reclusive northern Italian village with a kind, adoptive family that had never seen an Asian before?
No, that was unlikely. All I knew was that I could not let go for reasons that were unclear even to me. It was a gut feeling that told me remembering Aya was important. It was all that I was familiar with anyway.
"She's not coming back."
Hard words that felt like sandbags in my ears.
I knew it. I understood it. But the irrational part of me had had too many years to grow bigger and stronger.
"I know that," I scowled darkly.
We were silent as we ate for another few minutes.
"Miki-chan, have you ever been to Italy?"
"Excuse me?"
"Italy. Have you ever been?"
Another one-eighty. This time no anger. Just curiosity.
"No," I answered.
"You should go. It's a beautiful country. I've been once."
Shibata took a casual bite of lettuce, the crunch clearly audible.
I nodded blankly.
"When Yuya's finished his dissertation, he's going to move to Tokyo."
More words out of the blue. If she had been anyone else, I would have thought she was desperately trying to change the subject to keep the awkwardness away from our table. But this was Shiba-chan, and she would never do something trivial like that. She always had a point. The trouble was sometimes it was hard to get.
"Oh?" I said politely.
I knew that Yuya was studying in a university in Kyushu. He had six more months before his final paper was due. Shibata's was due a term later.
"Then we can live together once our papers have been judged and the decision has been made. We're just waiting for our universities to seal our fates,” she said with a chuckle.
"I see."
She smiled at me.
"And you're wondering why I'm suddenly saying all this."
I gave her a silent, affirmative look.
"Come on," she said, looking down at my plate to see I was finished. "Let's get out of here and go for a walk."
She drained her glass of wine, wiped her mouth carefully on a serviette, and stood up. I scrambled to copy her, following her to the cash register. We paid for our meal and left.
We did not speak for some time. Without warning, Shibata linked her arm around mine and walked in stride with me. I became very uncomfortable. She was not usually the overly-affectionate type.
"Why don't you take some time off work?" she asked.
"And do what?"
"Travel. Go somewhere. For example, Italy."
The symbolism of travelling to Aya's final resting place was not lost on me.
"Now's not a good time," I mumbled, reminding her that I was recording an album.
"Now is a perfect time," she insisted, playfulness working into her voice.
I shrugged out of her hold and walked alone once again.
"What are you angry at?" she asked as she walked a pace behind me. I looked back at her.
"I'm not angry with you," I said quickly to kill any misunderstanding.
"No, you're angry at something. What is it? The mountain for being in the way?"
What a cruel, tasteless joke! I could not believe she had just said that.
And yet she was right. Was I angry at plate tectonics for creating the mountain that Aya's plane had crashed into? The Earth for not being a flat plain? The plane's manufacturer? Whose fault was it?
Nobody's.
"No, it's not anybody's fault," I said quietly.
"And you don't have some sick, hair-brained idea that it's all your fault, do you?"
I laughed involuntarily.
"No, I'm not that stupid."
I had learned my lesson about being that insecure.
"Then why the anger?"
It was the only question I did not try to deny or answer. I just looked at her without expression to show her I did not know the answer.
"Don't be scared," she said.
The last person who had said those words to me and had meant them was Aya. And now, today, someone was saying them to me again and she meant them.
Suddenly I felt like a rotten, selfish, blind, hypocritical moron. Here I was ignoring all of this girl's attempts to help me, while inside I was crying out for someone to listen to my fears. Could I have been any stupider?
But I could not tell her this. I did not know the words and the correct way to say it, so for the time being, I concluded, I had to keep silent.
But perhaps I could do something - say something - to hint at what I was thinking. To show her that I was going to take her advice from now on.
"Where in Italy do you recommend?"
She smiled widely and took my arm again, a hold that this time I willed myself not to squirm out of, as she began to single-handedly plan my trip.
I think she got my hint.
-
Chapter 4 of 10
The next day, Shibata skipped out on an important dinner gathering with several professors in order to help me plan. I knew what that kind of sacrifice could cost her, so I tried to be as amiable as possible as we sat at the computer in her apartment. I doodled on the pad of paper I had brought with me and then put my pen down as I was filled with doubt.
"Are you sure I should go?"
"What do you think?"
Ug, that infamous Shibata expression. Trying to make me think for myself!
"I guess it'd be nice to see a new place..." I said hesitantly.
She grabbed my shoulders and shook me enough to wake me up.
"Go. It'll be good for you. And if you don't go, I'll never talk to you again."
She was starting to sound a bit like Aya, which creeped me out more than making me feel warm and fuzzy.
"I don't even know where to start," I whined.
"How about Rome?" she said simply, and I groaned at the relaxed attitude showing through in her words.
"Fine. So I'll go to Rome. Then what do I do? Look at churches and fountains all week?" I asked caustically.
"No, you don't have to stay in Rome. Travel around a bit. Maybe go up north to the mountains," Shibata said with such nonchalance that I put my foot down right there and pierced her with a glare.
"Oh no. No, don't start with that. I'm not going to go on a pilgrimage to some plane crash site so that I can make peace with the ghosts of the past and come back refreshed and ready to open my heart to the entire world," I snapped, foreseeing where her suggestion was going.
"I never suggested that," Shibata said quietly. "I went up to the mountains when I was there. It's beautiful. I thought you might like it, too."
I could not tell if she was lying or speaking the truth. Because I remembered I was trying to be nice, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I grudgingly backed off.
"Any place in particular?"
Shibata thought briefly, no doubt sifting through the great amounts of information in her brain, and then nudged me over to type something on the keyboard.
"There's a tiny place right on the border. It's where I went with my team."
"Team?" I asked, getting us off topic.
"Mmhm. My photography team," she clarified as she took the mouse and started to go through some websites.
Shibata had a photography team?!
"Since when did you join a photography team?" I asked in surprise.
She stopped clicking on links and looked at me.
"It's one of my hobbies. I joined a group a while ago, and every few years we go somewhere new in the world and take pictures. Just an amateur thing, really. I thought you knew."
She went back to surfing the internet and I looked around desperately for a hard wall to bash my head into. Was there nothing this girl could not do? I bet she had climbed Mount Everest, too. She resembled one of those overactive, eager-to-please high school students that joined every club and every cause. She wasn't as peppy and obnoxious as one, though.
"Here," Shibata said, pointing to a webpage. "It's small, but comfortable. The people there were fantastic."
I stared at the words on the page. They were meaningless to me because they were all in Italian. I told Shibata that, and after apologising in advance for her lack of Italian skills, she proceeded to translate the entire page for me.
Her modesty was far too exaggerated, but at least it was genuine and better than the boastful alternative.
"It sounds nice," I said with a little less apprehension in my voice.
As I looked at the pictures of snow-covered mountains, I felt an indescribable chill pass through me.
"Okay, then how about you start in Rome for a few days and move up to..."
We spent the evening planning out my trip, Shibata making suggestions and giving me advice as I absorbed it all and tried to make decisions.
When I went home that night, clutching a neatly folded piece of paper with price estimates, recommended hotels, and names of tourist sites to see, I felt a mixture of confusion and relief.
I was relieved because Shibata had helped tremendously. She had helped me map out an approximate route for my week-long stay, and she had provided me with helpful information and even the names of some Japanese friends she had in Florence.
I was confused because I still was not sure why I was going. I had gotten angry at the thought of being sent there just so I could go and make peace with the mountains.
The mountains that had caused so much pain for me. They jutted out violently from the earth and towered over me, terrifying me, threatening to devour me, swallow me up into the rolling, never-ending cold and darkne-
I shut my eyes tightly. I saw specks of colour dance across a backdrop of blackness.
I don't want to go and see where she died, I screamed in my mind.
I did not want to be reminded of it anymore. I was sick of seeing it in my head and in my dreams.
I sat on my couch, shaking at the overwhelming feelings in me that triggered an urge to run away. My fingers trembled as I tried to smooth out my hair a bit. I needed a semblance of order in a world that I thought had become a chaotic and spinning mess of all that was negative. I sat on my hands when they would not stop shaking and I took deep breaths, trying to push out of my mind the familiar vision of a plane crashing explosively into a mountain, people screaming in fear and pain, bleeding all over themselves and strangers, moaning for help, dying in unceremonious, disgraceful heaps on the freezing cold floor of the plane, burning into little bits as the flames consumed them indiscriminately, being forgotten by everyone that survived them...
I grit my teeth, closed my eyes again, and lay down on my side, curling up into a tight ball and holding my knees to my chest. I trried to conjure up images of ice cream, cherry blossoms, my parents' faces... Anything pleasant in my life. Anything that would flush out the nightmares that lived in my head.
Maybe my disowned friends were right. Maybe I did need help.
-
Chapter 5 of 10
For the first time in four years, I overslept and was late for work. We had a meeting first thing in the morning with bosses from our two main sponsor companies. I was supposed to be present at that meeting for reasons I could not understand. Maybe they wanted to check out the goods to make sure it was worth keeping their money in our company. They were always a bit sleazy like that, but I could not complain. It was business after all. We used them in other, worse ways.
I ran into the building at half past ten, trying unsuccessfully to catch my breath. The meeting had been slated for nine o'clock sharp. It was supposed to go for two or three hours, including a break at the midway point.
When Tanaka, the secretary, caught sight of me, she jumped up and grabbed me, ushering me into a little room beside the meeting room while scolding me for being so careless. I outranked her in our company, but she was older than me and I really respected and liked her, so I hung my head down and allowed her to unleash sharp words about how I looked like a mess and was not presentable to the rest of the world and that the inevitable fall of our company was entirely my fault, etcetera, etcetera.
When she finished her scolding, I found myself feeling bad. She took pity on me, smiled, and told me that I still had a chance to save everything.
"Just be yourself. Everyone likes that tough Fujimoto charm."
I snorted.
"Don't try to fool me. Nobody likes that."
She looked like she had been caught in a lie and then laughed while patting my shoulder.
"Well, they might not like it, but they'll definitely fall victim to it. They all do."
So I went into the meeting room. Feeling a bit stronger because of Tanaka, I bullied the two big bosses - by sweet-talking and complimenting them - into agreeing to a three-year binding contract with us. I had perfected the art of passive aggressive coercion, and I could see my boss almost tearing up with gratitude.
When the talks were concluded, my boss came up to me in private.
"You did a wonderful job here. Thank you very much."
I smiled and nodded. He lowered his voice.
"If you are ever late for another meeting again, I will fire you."
I sighed as he walked out of the meeting room. I knew he did not mean it, but this would be all over the company within hours. I could just hear the conversations now...
"Miki got the big boys to sign a three-year contract, but she was late for the meeting!"
"I heard Bossman threatened to fire her."
"Where'd you hear that?"
"From his secretary. She overheard."
"That Miki. She's got it coming to her."
"Yeah. What's up with her anyway? Always so stoic. Gives me chills."
"But she's so hot. I mean, she's two years older than me, but she doesn't look it."
"Huh! Yeah, I'd do her. I don't care how old she is."
"I hear she's single."
"Haha, I bet she goes through 'em like fire through tissue."
"Well, I heard she hasn't had a boyfriend in over ten years."
"Yeah right. She's probably been fucking the boss. Why does he always get the hot girls and we don't?"
"Because we're only security guards. And you're married, you wanker."
"Yeah, but that didn't stop me before."
"You two are horrible!"
"Uh... ah... Fujimoto-san. H-how can I help you?"
"You can start by confessing to your wife and apologising to her!"
"AAAAAAA!!!!"
Screaming ensued.
I smiled as I imagined scolding them, unleashing my sexy and dangerous words on them.
Sometimes I let my imagination run wild with the conversations that the people around me must have had regarding me, and they often ended with me bursting onto the scene and scaring them.
"Fujimoto-san. Call on line two!" Tanaka's voice called out, breaking me out of my reverie.
I walked out of the empty room and over to the phone at Tanaka's desk. My heart sped up to insane speeds and I swallowed down my fear as I picked up the phone, pressing the button for the correct line.
"Hello?"
"Have you done it yet?"
I groaned.
"Shiba-chan, leave me alone."
Last night after my strange fit, Shibata had happened to call me to give me a final pep talk just before going to bed. She had made me promise to tell my manager the next day about my upcoming trip and then she said good night and hung up while I sat there wondering why I felt like a tamed lion that was being made to jump through the hoops that she held.
Since when did I get totally and completely owned by Shibata?!
"You haven't, huh? Do it now!" she encouraged me.
Ordering me around like she's my master.
"I'm gonna do it in a second. Relax!" I snapped in reply.
Nobody but one person had ever owned me.
"I am relaxed. You're the one who's uptight," she laughed lightly.
Teasing me. Nobody got away with teasing. Just one person.
"Why didn't you call me on my cell phone?" I demanded.
I always insisted that calls to me on the main line at work were in the case of emergency only. Emergencies like having to notify me of a sudden death...
"I did but you didn't pick up."
I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder and used both hands to search through my purse. I could not find my phone.
"Shit," I swore quietly. "I left it at home."
I tried to picture in my mind where I would have left it.
"-an, are you okay?"
Did she just call me Miki-tan? If she did, I'm going to kill her!
"Miki-chan?"
I'm hearing things. I'm hearing things...
"I'm fine!" I barked into the phone, quite obviously not fine. "Don't call me again here. I'll call you later."
I slammed the phone down on the hook and Tanaka jumped.
"Get drunk and give your work number to a stranger last night?" she asked jokingly, but I was in no mood for kidding around.
"A really annoying friend," I growled, and I stalked off, probably killing my chances of ever becoming friends with Tanaka.
I headed to the little alcove they called my office and I sat down on my chair, turning the stereo on and plugging my earphones in to listen to music. The digital readout said that my files were being played randomly. Old Christina Aguilera music started to screech into my ears and I picked up a pen and doodled on a piece of paper on my desk.
Christina switched to Suzuki Masako. Suzuki Masako switched to Koda Kumi. Koda Kumi switched to Matsuura Aya.
I hit skip.
Britney Spears' earlier works. Two tracks played.
It switched into Matsuura Aya.
I hit the skip button.
Natsukawa Rimi. Boring. Not in the mood. Skip.
Matsuura Aya.
SKIP.
Matsuura Aya.
SKIP.
Matsu-
SKIP!
I yanked the earphones out and slammed my hand down on the stereo's power button. I got up and went over to the window, opening the blinds.
"It's not funny," I mumbled to the city that lay before me.
I had a good view of Shinjuku from the twenty-fourth floor.
"Stop playing with me. Stop it."
I was not quite sure who I was addressing. Maybe a higher power.
Maybe a ghost was playing with me. A mischievous spirit.
She was always mischievous. Always liked to cause me grief. Maybe she was here controlling my stereo, urging Shibata to call me at work, filling my mind with visions of her death.
I hit the glass of the window and turned around slowly. I knew what I had to do. I walked to my desk and sat in my chair again. I thought carefully about what I was about to do. I did not like it, but I needed to do it.
I took a deep breath and then picked up the phone.
I dialled a number that I had not dialled in months. Quite possibly a year.
The phone rang five times. I was about to give up when a never-changing, sweet and cheerful voice answered.
"Hello?"
"Hi," I said shakily. "Can I talk to you?"
-
Chapter 6 of 10
"Mi... ki...?"
Uncertainty and disbelief filled her voice.
"Yeah."
"It's been a long time."
She spoke quietly, probing for an explanation. We had not spoken for a year for a reason. She wanted to know why I was calling her out of the blue.
"It has."
I felt guilty. I could not offer an explanation.
"What... What can I do for you?"
She became cheerful again. All the questions were swallowed down. She could tell I had something serious to say. She could sense it with some special sixth sense.
"Listen, I, uh... I want to ask you some things. Do you have time now?"
"Yes. I don't have any appointments this morning. What is it you want to ask?"
She had no idea what was coming.
"Eight years ago," I started, pausing to let her mind go back eight years. "That year was a bad year, don't you think?"
I cringed at my own words. They sounded so stupid.
I knew that she had realised what year it was I was talking about when the air between us changed for a second. Even on the phone, I could feel her small intake of breath.
"It ended very badly, yes," she said solemnly.
"You know what I'm talking about," I said just to confirm.
She hummed a response in the affirmative.
"I want to ask you something. After that happened - after Aya-chan died in that accident-" I forced myself to say it, "did I change?"
Deathly silence.
Her cheer was evidently not perpetual. She could laugh at gunpoint, make a co-worker giggle after a break-up, make everyone look brightly into the future after a disaster, but never had I seen her able to talk about Aya's death with the same sanguine attitude with which she addressed all things in life whether depressing or joyful.
"Change? Um..."
"Be honest. You know I can take it," I added in before she could find some diplomatic way to answer my question without offending me.
"Yes, you did."
Her tone was resolute. Besides being a very happy person, she was also a very determined, very firm person. She was strong. It may not have seemed that way on the outside, but I had gotten to know her much better since we first worked together, and I could say without a doubt that she was so much more than what met the eye at first sight. She was more than just a pretty, sweet face.
"Was it for the better?"
A pause.
"No, it wasn't."
I knew that would be the answer. I did not want to hear it, but I knew it was the truth.
"Did I push you away?"
"Yes, you did."
"But we were still friends, right?"
She hesitated and I swallowed. I had thought I would have had a chance of her saying "yes". I guess even my worst predictions had not been pessimistic enough.
"Yes," she said, uncertainty in her voice, "but we drifted apart eventually."
"Because of me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Pardon?"
I blinked and decided I had to stop being so cryptic. Talking with Shibata so much was making me go a little loopy.
"Sorry. I mean, why do you think I changed like that? Why did I push you away? I want it from your point of view."
It was a huge thing to ask of her, and I understood that, but I needed to hear it from an outside party. Someone who had known me and Aya fairly well but who had not known the extent of our relationship. Someone who was close, yet kept an arm's length away.
"Well, I always assumed that you were affected by the, um, accident. I mean, she was your best friend."
That she was, I thought sadly.
"And then maybe other stuff happened to you. I know that the next year was kind of hard for you with having to move and switching your job. I guess somewhere along the way, you lost touch with your old life."
It sounded reasonable. Anybody could have told me that. I could have gone to a shrink, told half my life story, and then had him tell me those exact same words.
"Yes, that's true, but that could happen to anybody. What is it specifically about me?"
There was an uncomfortable pause and I realised that she knew exactly what I was asking her but was too nervous to say it.
"Be honest," I reminded her. "I'm Miki the Blunt. You can't topple me."
I tried to insert a bit of humour into the situation to comfort her, but it was obvious that I was just desperate to hear what she had to say.
"Honest truth?
My silence told her "yes".
"The truth is that you've never been an easy person to get along with. I mean, at first. You and me... we clicked together as well as, um..."
She searched her brain for an appropriate image, having obvious difficulty.
"... as well as soap and a cookie," she finished.
I smirked. What a silly image. No doubt I was the soap and she was the cookie.
"Yes, I remember," I said.
I felt a bit nostalgic at the mention of our past. Our Morning Musume days...
"I know you didn't like me so much-"
"No, I never didn't like you," I protested weakly.
"Okay," she said, re-evaluating. "Then I wasn't your favourite person."
"Hmph."
"But after a while - I mean after I grew up a bit - we got along much better."
I could not deny that. Quite a few years had matured her and had mellowed me out.
"I think - and this is just from me observing and from trying to get to know you - that it takes a while for you to trust someone.
That was not too hard to figure out.
"And I think Aya-chan was one of those people that you really trusted. Like, really really. I think she changed you a lot."
"How so?" I asked, curious to hear her opinion.
"You calmed down a lot. You became a little easier to get along with. You, um, got nicer..." she trailed off nervously, thinking I would chew her out for saying that.
She picked up her courage again when I did not complain, and she kept going.
"And then when she, um, when she was gone, you got sad and then I think you just never recovered."
"What did I do? What exactly?"
She hesitated again.
"You just seemed to lose interest in the world around you. You seemed to not care. You drifted away from your friends and your family. You became obsessed with your job and your music."
She spoke as though all of that should have been crystal clear to me. I knew that those things had happened, but I had not noticed the scope of what had happened had been so obvious to everyone.
"And to you? I did what?"
"To me... You seemed to lose interest in keeping in touch, to put it simply. A few years after Aya-chan - you know - you didn't call so much. I always called you. And then we had that argument a year ago."
She stopped talking. She probably reckoned that she had dragged up enough of the past to the surface.
I thought back to the quarrel we had had. In retrospect, it was based on something stupid and was fully my fault. I had asked her for a professional favour, she had refused with good reasons, and I had gotten angry and lashed out. I said some things that we both knew were not true, and we had not spoken since.
"I'm sorry about that argument," I said.
Apologies killed me, but this one felt liberating.
"I'm sorry, too. I couldn't help you..."
I smiled because it was so typical of her to feel bad for something that was not her fault.
"No, you were doing your job," I reassured her.
"But I think you wanted that argument."
My ears perked up.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I was getting too close."
This was interesting. She sounded determined, filled with fresh courage.
"Maybe to you, Aya-chan was the only person you would let get that close. Maybe you wanted to keep it like that even with her gone. Not let anybody else have that role 'cause it was special. Hers only."
"I, um..."
No clue what to say, I shut up and listened. I had not expected her to be that observant. She was like Shibata the Second.
"And maybe," she continued, on a roll, "Aya-chan's, like, your soulmate."
"What? Soul... huh?" I asked, starting to sweat.
"Oh, but not, like, in an icky way," she giggled and clarified.
I rolled my eyes.
"But some people find their soulmates in their best friends, you know."
I had read plenty of magazine articles about soulmates. I was fully aware of everybody's theories on this or that or the other. All complete nonsense. You could not define that kind of thing on paper with words.
"So you push people away because nobody's worthy of having that place of honour."
I thought of my actions the past few years. I thought of how the closer Shibata tried to get, the harder I pushed. I thought of my mother complaining about how I never called just to chat like I used to.
"But you end up really sad 'cause then you have nobody, uh, to talk to."
Had I really been that self-destructive? That stupid?
"How could one person affect me so much?" I mumbled out loud accidentally.
It was a question I sometimes I asked myself, but only myself. Not others.
"She was special," came the reply. "She affected all of us. Some more than others. I mean, look at Rika-chan."
She had a point. Rika had taken it upon herself to improve her singing after Aya's death, inspired by the girl's life and wanting to help contribute to the world of music that Aya had loved so much. She had come a long way over the years. Even when she took up acting fulltime, she continued to sing.
It seems like that was what I heard from everyone - Aya had a big effect on the people around her. Since I was around her the most, she had had the biggest effect on me.
I sighed.
"Do you think I'm a bad person?"
"Well, you're certainly not a good one!" was the reply. "You've always been so baaaad."
She burst into a fit of giggles and then caught her breath.
"No, you're not bad. I think you were just, um, like, misguided. You got a little confused. But you know what that says about you?"
"What?" I asked apprehensively, scared to hear it.
"That you're like a soft little rabbit," she announced with glee.
"Oh brother," I muttered.
"And you just act like a meanie. But it's all a ruse! I should've noticed that sooner when I met you."
I had to give it to her. She could always make me laugh. I had not laughed with so much ease in such a long time. Years, it seemed.
"But really, no. You're not a bad person. I don't hate you. I always looked up to you even though you ignored bratty little me. You'll always be my big sister no matter how many fights we have."
Me? Her big sister? I never would have suspected that was what she thought of me. She had never told me, never spoken about it in magazine interviews, never mentioned it to any of the other girls. Her unanticipated words touched my heart, and even though that wannabe-cool-cat part inside my mind threatened me with bodily harm if I got sappy over it, I felt my eyes become a little misty.
"Thank you."
There was a pregnant pause in our conversation. It seemed to signal the end had come.
"Now that I've helped you, you have to answer a serious question for me. Be honest."
She sounded very serious, and I wondered if she was having issues, too.
"Of course. Anything," I said kindly.
"Who is the cutest girl in the world??"
My face twitched and my brain went into spasms.
"You are. Of course you," I groaned.
Nothing like an old joke (in her case, it was not a joke) to bring us out of that mood.
"I know! Just wanted to hear it!"
I thought of letting loose and pushing her around a bit, insulting her for fun like I used to. But then I remembered that I was, after all, talking to one of the biggest media moguls in our country, the head of the hottest fashion magazine to ever hit the Japanese market in all of printing history, and the woman who could make or break my career with a single nod of her pigtailed head.
I settled for gratitude.
"Thanks, Shige-chan. You've helped a lot."
"You're welcome," she replied happily. "I hope this means you'll call again before the next millennium."
"Sure," I laughed.
I meant it. We said goodbye and we hung up.
-
Chapter 7 of 10
And so that was what propelled me towards Italy. Talking to the self-proclaimed cutest girl in the world had given me that final push.
It cost me a lot, and not just money. I had to take one week off from work, my manager was furious (although perhaps more perplexed about my sudden desire for a vacation), and my co-workers were all jealous. I battled my way through it, shamelessly reminding them all that I had just secured for our group a re-contracting agreement from the biggest companies we did business with, also reminding them that I was the uncontested star of our company and that if I wanted a rest, I would get it. Nobody could disagree with that. I hated to play the diva, but this was important.
Or so I thought.
The minute I set foot on the plane, all my doubts hit me.
All that was for what? Wandering around in a foreign country all alone and ripe for getting mugged, not to mention being in the same place where Aya died. If anything, this was going to depress me, not make me feel better.
How did I let Shibata talk me into this?
I asked myself this question twenty thousand times. I spiralled back down into that dark tunnel where nothing was sure.
By the end of the second week of November, I stood on a quiet street corner in Rome, a map in one hand and nothing in the other, trying to find my way to the famous Trevi Fountain.
Rome was, simply put, breathtaking. The history that lived in the streets was overwhelming. It seemed like there was more in one neighbourhood of Rome than there was in all of Japan.
I could not find this famous fountain. It was supposed to be easy to find huge tourist sites. All one had to do was follow the hoards of people. But somehow I had wandered off and gotten lost. In a huff and feeling very lonely, I turned down a wide, empty street and walked into the first church I saw, Shibata's words of advice echoing in my head.
"If you get lost, find a church. Church people are usually nice. You're guaranteed hospitality. Just point out on your map where you want to go and they'll know how to get there. They're helpful that way."
The church was devoid of any signs of life, and my footsteps echoed loudly in the cavernous room. It had looked so small from the outside. It seemed as if I had willingly walked into the belly of a camouflaged beast. The dim lighting did nothing to help.
I approached "the main part of the church where all the things were". I did not know the name, but it had all those statues, a stand from where the preaching was done, and a bunch of candles and other decorations. On the back wall, there was a huge sculpture of a barely-dressed Christ hanging on a cross, his head slumped to the side. I shuddered at the thought of dying like that and wondered why people would want to hang that grim sculpture in an otherwise pretty church.
Dazzled by this close-up view, I did not notice that someone else was in the church with me. He must have come from the back. I noticed his presence beside me suddenly, and my heart jumped in fear.
"Good afternoon," he said in a deep, rich voice, speaking the only Italian word I knew (not including food-related words. I knew my pastas and my meats).
I tried not to gape. The man standing beside me was a handsome priest. He was tall, had broad shoulders, a well-defined jaw, could not have been much older than me I, and, possibly the most captivating thing of all, he looked Japanese.
"Ah... um... I'm..." I stuttered, unable to recall any of the useful phrases from my Italian guidebook.
"How can I help you?" he asked with a warm smile.
He spoke in fluent, accent-free Japanese.
"Yo-you're Japanese?" I asked in surprise.
He nodded, his smile still on his face.
"I..." the words would not come. What was a Japanese man doing dressed as a priest in a Roman Catholic Church in Rome?
"I'm lost," I blurted out.
"I can see," he chuckled. "Where are you going?"
I brought out my map and pointed to the area I was trying to find.
"Ah, Fontana di Trevi."
I nodded.
"Now let's see. Where are we...?"
He studied the map as I stared at him brazenly, wondering how he had come to be here. He looked up without warning and caught my eyes. I looked away casually.
"You're wondering what I'm doing here playing priest."
I looked back at him and I did not apologise for my actions, although I did feel a bit bad for prying. I was definitely guilty as charged.
"I grew up in a small village along Osaka Bay," he said, ploughing through my shame in a move that surprised me.
I wondered if I was about to get a full life story.
"My parents were strict Buddhists, but I knew I wasn't meant to follow in their footsteps. I had always been enthralled by the Italian language and the Catholic Church," he said
He gestured to the grand church we stood in and I took a cursory look before he continued.
"My calling was to study and teach the words of God, and so that's what I worked towards."
"But how did you end up here in Rome?" I asked, bewildered.
He smiled at my curiosity, but his smile carried some sort of weight to it. It was not entirely happy.
"A terrible tragedy eight years ago," he said softly.
My heart skipped a few beats. Well aware of the pain it caused to speak of tragedy, but my mind suddenly alert, I probed.
"What kind of tragedy?"
"Eight years ago, my younger sister was caught in a terrible plane crash on her way from Japan," he explained quietly.
My heart stopped. I felt weak.
"There were no survivors and I was unable to bury her body. She wasn't Catholic, but she left everything up to me in her will. She trusted me more than anyone else in the world."
He took a deep breath and clasped his hands behind him, looking at the crucified Jesus.
"So I came here to serve God and the people. To watch over this land that my sister had died in. To be close to the place where she spent her final moments on Earth. It was the anniversary of her passing a few weeks ago," he finished with a sad smile.
I swallowed down my fear and disbelief at this utter coincidence, and suddenly, without warning, I started to speak.
"I lost a friend in a, um, plane crash in the Alps eight years ago," I said.
He looked at me in surprise.
"She was coming here from Japan. She was very important. She was like a sister to me."
We looked at each other for a moment. It had to be the same plane crash. Commercial airline planes did not have a habit of frequently crashing into the Italian Alps. Certainly not more than once within the same few weeks. Our dates seemed to match up.
"When did-" he started to ask.
"October," I jumped in quickly. "October twenty-sixth in Japan. Twenty-fifth in Italy."
He smiled unexpectedly.
"It seems God has brought us together. I have never met any of the other families or friends of the poor victims on board that plane."
I smiled nervously. I was sure his god had nothing to do with it, but I did not want to be rude.
"Tell me about your friend. This sister of yours."
I took a breath to ease my mind. It was all going by so quickly.
"She loved music," I started. "She was very dedicated to her job, but also to her family and her friends. She worked hard and never cut corners. She was confident in herself. She believed in me..." I trailed off.
Speaking in the past tense made something inside me ache. It started as a dull pain, but it grew worse and worse.
"Everyone around her loved her so much. And then she was torn away from us."
The priest kept his silence. I looked down at the wooden floor, thinking about the last day I had seen Aya, thinking about the last words we spoke to each other.
"See you, Miki."
"Take care, Aya."
The last time I had ever heard her voice.
Stupid Aya, I thought. You didn't take care...
Why could I not stop this torture? It was driving me to the brink.
I let my words slip out.
"I miss her."
"I understand completely."
The priest put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. At that moment, nothing else in the world existed but us. We stood at the front of the sanctuary of one of the world's most powerful religions, this stranger touching me, both of us sharing sad memories. I did not shy away from him because I felt like he was the only one who could understand me. I let him hold my shoulder and enjoyed this human contact. No questions of indecency between priest and visitor were raised, no cries of sexual harassment were heard. Those were childish, irrelevant things that we were beyond at that moment in time.
"What was your little sister like?" I asked.
"She was bright and cheerful and had a rogue streak you would never believe possible."
He flashed me a smile and I chuckled. It was nice that he could talk about her so easily.
"She always had to question authority. She was not God-fearing like me, but she never questioned my path. She loved me very much, and I returned that sentiment fully. She was my best friend. The one human who really understood me."
"Sounds like me and Aya," I said nostalgically. "Uh, except neither of us are - were - God-fearing," I amended quickly.
"Aya was her name? My sister's name was Naomi."
"Naomi," I repeated reverently.
I felt like I had just been privy to a secret that only the worthy were meant to know. I studied the large podium at the front for a bit before I decided to ask.
"Are you still sad?"
"Hmm, that's a hard question," he said thoughtfully, crossing his arms. "Of course I miss her. And the memory of her death isn't a happy one, but I've made peace. I've accepted her passing. She's in a better place now."
"How did you get over it?" I asked shakily, hoping to find a miracle cure.
Maybe there was a magic word that I could say to erase all the pain.
He smiled secretively at me.
"My boss helped me," he said.
"Your boss?" I asked, befuddled.
How could a boss help him get over the death of a family member?
He nodded, smiled, and pointed up. I followed his finger with my eyes, looking up and expecting to see someone standing on a balcony up above. However, his finger pointed to an indistinguishable spot on the ceiling. Beyond the ceiling. I realised what he meant.
"I see."
"She is with Him now. He will take care of her for me. I'm greatly comforted by that."
He looked absolutely convinced, and I sighed in my mind. He had his religion to help him, but that kind of thing was not for me.
"Shall we say a prayer for the souls of our sisters? Come," the priest said
He led me to the front. I followed, shocked by the bizarre request.
He knelt down, so I copied him, kneeling beside him carefully. He clasped his hands together and closed his eyes. Out of respect, I did the same.
We kneeled there for eternity. I did not pray, but I did think about what I was doing there.
Easy. Shiba-chan sent me.
... No, that's not it exactly.
Maybe I had secretly wanted to come here all along. Maybe I had hidden that fact even from myself. Maybe by seeing the mountains that killed my number one, most important, most loved and treasured person, I would somehow be healed. I could move on.
Maybe that would work.
I decided on that. If I saw the mountains, I could be healed.
I'm not here to forget Aya. I'm just here to... to tuck her in.
I smiled at the image. Cute Aya in her silly pyjamas that were not one bit sexy but that she looked so hot in, especially when she rolled over sleepily in the morning and they hung a bit loosely on her as her eyes opened slowly, her expression looking almost sultry in its laziness... The impish look she got when she saw me already awake and watching her wake up with a grin that spoke of both the appreciation I felt for being able to start yet another great day in a great life and all the different ways I could think of to say good morning...
I opened my eyes quickly to banish any further thoughts. I was not Catholic, but it still felt wrong to lust after a now dead girl while kneeling at the front of a church with a kindly priest at my side praying for his younger sister's soul.
I looked sideways at him, but he was still praying. I closed my eyes again. I decided it would not hurt to express my gratitude to the people closest to me now. Speaking in my mind, I thanked my family and my friends, Shiba-chan especially. Then I thanked Aya. I would not be half the person I was without her.
I opened my eyes and the priest was looking at me.
"Would you like to join our church?" he asked.
"Uh, me?" I asked, startled. "Oh, well, it's a bit... I'm only visiting for a few... uh..."
His laughter echoed throughout the room.
"It was a bit of a joke. You seemed so involved in your prayer."
I flushed and looked up at the front again. This place was not for me, but I had found something important during this odd interlude: quiet and kindness. This place was silent and this man was gentle. It had been a good pause for me. I had been able to regroup and hear all my thoughts clearly. And I had found out what to do in order to have a chance at coming to terms with my loss.
"Where is the mountain the plane crashed into?" I asked, my words a cold dagger in the warmth of the church.
The man looked at me gravely, and then without asking for my reasons, he wrote down the exact location of the site.
"These directions will take you to the base of the mountain at the front of the section the plane crashed into."
With a trembling hand, I took the paper from him. It was written in Italian and Japanese.
I read the name of the place and was filled with a memory. I had read the name once long ago, but I had pushed it out of my memory. I had not wanted to hear it ever again.
"I hope you can find the peace you're looking for," he spoke slowly. "I will pray for you and for the soul of your sister."
That was the best kind of encouragement that could come from a holy man like him.
"Thank you."
I stood admiring the decorations some more when the priest waved something in front of my face. It was my map.
"By the way, I found the best route," he said.
I had forgotten all about my quest to find the Trevi Fountain. I almost did not want to go anymore. I wanted to go up to the north and seek out these mountains. I forced myself to be patient. The mountains would still be there the next day.
The priest showed me the simple way (a straight line, really), and he walked me to the door. I thanked him for his time and help. He reached into his pockets and pulled out something rectangular-shaped. A business card.
"If you're ever back in Rome, come visit again. Or if you need to talk to somebody, drop me a line. That's my work e-mail address."
I gaped at this tiny card that proved I knew nothing. I had no idea priests carried business cards, let alone had e-mail accounts. I had always assumed that church people all wore brown robes, lived in bare cells, ate only bread and drank only water, and spoke in an archaic language.
I studied his card. "Hiroshi Sato" and "Roma" were the only words I understood. That was enough, though. I scrambled to get one of my own cards. I had two left, so I handed him one.
"You're interested in music, too?" he asked immediately, recognising the music label.
I was surprised. It was a relatively small company.
"Yeah. I'm a singer," I replied simply.
His face burst into a beautiful, radiant smile.
"Keep the music alive. If that's what your friend loved, carry it on for her."
I was filled with warmth by his caring, and with a bow, I walked off, away from this small, unknown church and back towards the bustling crowds.
I felt renewed. I had a new purpose. I was no longer afraid of being here in this country. The pull of the mountains, a pull that I had resisted for all this time, now had a hold on me.
I resolved to head up there the first thing next morning.
~~
disclaimer: I don't know much about religion in general. What I know about the behaviour of priests and of "church people" is from watching movies and TV and reading books. I'm sorry if what I've written is unrealistic... although I can't imagine it would be offensive to anyone... would it? I just wanted to try something I've never tried before.
-
Chapter 8 of 10
That evening, I muddled my way through buying a train ticket to Campodolcino. That would set me down almost directly under the mountains that I was searching for. It turned out to be about fifty kilometres east of the place Shibata had recommended to me.
The train station employee did not speak Japanese. I did not speak Italian. We could not understand each other's poor English. Hand gestures, emphatic shakes and nods of the head, and exclamations of delight or disagreement served as our language. It worked splendidly. I would depart the following day at eight sharp.
When I got back to my hotel room, I made a phone call right away.
"Hello?" asked a hurried voice.
"Hi, Shiba-chan."
"Hey you!" she cried, sounding pleasantly surprised. "What's up?"
"I'm in Rome," I said.
"That was way too much information to handle," she said sarcastically.
"I'm heading up north. I met someone who told me where I can find the crash site."
I spoke the words so easily, so calmly, that it surprised even me.
There was a deathly silence on the phone. All sarcasm and joking left Shibata's voice when she spoke next.
"Are you sure about that?"
It must have sounded as if I had gone a bit nuts since I had yelled at her only a few weeks ago when I thought she had implied I should come and visit the crash site.
"Hmmm, I think it's the only way," I said quietly.
"If you really want to, Miki-chan," she spoke up, "then I back you up completely. I think it's a good idea. Go there and - you know."
She did not have to say it. "Come to terms" or "accept" both worked. So did so many other words and phrases. I knew what I had to do. She knew what I had to do.
I thanked her and told her the name of the place. She encouraged me some more, but she had to cut the phone call short as to not be late for a meeting.
I spent the evening packing up my things and taking a quick bath. Drained after such a day, the warm water took away my tension and I dropped into bed, my body and head sinking deep into the soft mattress and pillow.
That night I had a disturbing dream.
This time I had already climbed the mountain before Aya's plane crashed. It dove into the rocks and snow not too far from where I was standing. I ran to it immediately and ripped open a door that was hanging already half-open. I crawled in on my hands and knees.
The aisles were littered with fallen people. The stench of death was all around me, my hands and knees becoming drenched in blood as I tried to navigate through it all.
I found Aya as I usually did. This time she was lying on her back in the aisle. Her eyes were closed and there was a nasty gash on her forehead that was bleeding profusely.
I knew that one was not supposed to move an injured person, especially someone with a head injury, so I kept my hands off of her. I leaned down a bit.
"Aya! Hey!" I called out. "Are you awake?!"
Her face twisted in what looked like exasperation as she opened her eyes.
"Stop yelling," she groaned. "You're too loud."
"Oh my god," I gasped. "You're fine."
"I'm not fine," she said as a matter of factly. "I'm hurt. And I can't see."
"Can't see...?" I trailed off, wondering what sort of horrible thing had happened to make Aya go blind.
"Yeah. There's blood in my eyes."
My stomach twisted when I saw that she was right.
"Here," I mumbled, reaching over to wipe her eyes as carefully as I could.
When my hands reached her face, however, she grabbed my wrists and pulled me forward.
"Whuuha!" I exclaimed, letting out a strange noise.
I pulled my hands out of her grip and managed to steady myself on the ground before I could fall on top of her and crush her.
"Take it easy. I'll help you get up in a second," I said soothingly.
"I can't get up," Aya said darkly.
"What?"
I started to sit up again, but she grabbed my hands and pulled. I pulled back, but she was surprisingly strong.
"You can't leave this. You can't leave me. You have to come. No choice."
"Aya, what are you talking about?!" I yelled desperately. "Stop being stupid and let me help you."
She pulled me forward roughly again, and I struggled to keep my balance.
"Stop it. You're going to hurt yourself," I reprimanded her.
If anger did not work, common sense might.
"There's no use. It's over," she laughed bitterly. "But I'll take you with me if I have to."
"What...?" I bit off my words. "Stop it. Let go."
She refused to listen to me. I tried to overpower her, but no matter how much strength I used to pull away, her icy grip held me like a vice did a piece of wood. Her nails dug into the delicate skin on the backs of my hands, and it hurt like crazy.
Why is she hurting me? I wondered. Why won't she let me help her?
"Aya, it hurts," I whispered sadly, looking down at our violently entwined hands.
"Then stop fighting it," she sneered.
I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying again to pull my hands out of her hold.
"Just think of it. This way be can be together forever," she sang out in a mocking tone, and I felt the burning pain around my eyes that meant I was about to cry.
With a final tug, she overpowered me and pulled me down.
Just as my chin was about to collide with her nose, I woke up. Instead of the sickening crunch of cartilage breaking and the searing pain of my chin hitting something hard, I heard a car driving quietly down the street and felt the softness of the hotel bedding surrounding my body. I opened my eyes, breathing fast and sweating.
I had no idea what to make of it. Why would I dream of Aya doing something cruel and insensible like that? In the dreams I had of the plane crash, she was never like that. Never angry at me and never mocking me.
I thought carefully.
I knew that even in death, she still held my heart tightly.
But why did I dream of her hurting me while she was dying?
It made no sense, so I tried my best to do what I always did with dreams that made no sense - ignored it and went back to bed.
-
Chapter 9 of 10
It was a bit colder in Campodolcino because of the elevation.
It took quite a while to travel there, but I could not sleep. I looked out of the window as the train traversed the land at a high speed. The land looked very bare in some places, the leaves having fallen off the trees, but the sky was picture perfect. It was bright blue and clear, friendly and fluffy white clouds scattered across it.
When I saw the mountains for the first time, my heart leaped a bit in the anticipation of what I was going to feel. They looked so much more impressive than they had in my dreams and in the pictures on the internet. Tall, cold beasts...
For an hour I was captivated by these giants that became taller as the train approached. I did not want to blink or breathe in case I missed something.
Those mountains. That's Aya's grave, I thought.
But I could not feel anything. I was blank with what was probably shock. I had travelled such a long distance to come and see this scene before me. I did not know what to do, so I stared and waited for the train to drop me off at my stop.
Once I was off, the wind nipped at my exposed skin and I shivered, tucking my chin into my jacket.
I found a taxi cab and said to the driver in English, "hotel."
He asked what I assumed was, "which one?"
"Whichever," I replied.
He got my message. I was lucky to have found a nice driver who was neither about to rip me off by taking "the scenic route" nor drop me off at some seedy dump (although in a town of one thousand, it must have been hard to have a sleazy part of town).
The hotel the driver chose had some vacancies.
"How long?" they asked (I assumed).
I held up two fingers.
"Two nights," I said in English.
And all was settled easily from then on.
I went up to my room and unpacked a few things. I inspected the facilities. Very simple. I checked and re-checked my bags to make sure I had brought everything. I turned on the television set and spent five minutes flipping through the channels. All two of them.
"Ug," I mumbled, tossing the remote control on the bed.
I was stalling. I knew what I had come here to do, and I was doing the exact opposite. Instead of climbing the mountain for real instead of in my dreams, I was wasting my time pretending to be interested in my surroundings. I was filled with apprehension at the thought of what I might feel if I went up there.
I put on my jacket and went outside for a walk around the small town. I needed a little more time before I did anything decisive.
I wandered around, looking and shivering. I had an early dinner at the hotel and went back to my room, contemplating what to do. I did not want to go up the mountain any more than I had wanted to a few hours prior. I fell asleep at six o'clock while watching TV that I did not understand.
This time, no dreams came to me.
-
Chapter 10 of 10
I woke up a few hours later. It was dark in my room. I checked my watch. Eight-thirty in the evening. My brain felt groggy, but something in it willed me to get up and straighten myself out.
I brushed my teeth and my hair, put on my jacket, and walked out of the hotel. My legs took me for the ride. I did not purposely go. I was being taken almost against my will.
The sky was clear that night, so the stars and three quarters of the bright moon supplemented the few street lights that lined the sidewalks and let me see where I was going. I found myself going to the town's general store. I bought two bottles of mineral water and a flashlight and continued walking. I was soon outside of the town and heading towards a path that would take me up the mountain.
The plastic bag with the two bottles of water swung and hit my leg every now and then.
One of the bottles was for me. The other was for Aya. I was going to meet her.
My flashlight switched on, I started to ascend. It was a subtle slope. I went up and up and up. I did not think, I did not make any sudden changes in my pace or my mental attitude, I did not stray. I remained focused on my goal.
An hour later I drifted away from the path and into a clearing with a steep, dangerous-looking cliff. I was fairly high up and I had gone far enough that I could no longer see the town. The path had twisted enough to make sure of that.
I sat down in the clearing and took out a bottle of water, placing it on the ground in front of me. I took out the second bottle and opened it up. I took a long sip of water while I sat staring at the empty space in front of me. A space that should have been filled with a smiling, drinking human being.
I sat there for a long time. The mountain scenery was mostly dark to me, only small parts of it lit up by my weak flashlight and the light from the stars.
I was finally on the mountain above which Aya had taken her last breaths, perhaps saying my name with one of them.
I was finally there on the mountain with a mind ready to witness something happen. I waited for that feeling of acceptance to fill me.
It would not come.
I had come with my offering - water, the purest thing a human could consume - for her because I could not have a proper funeral. We would drink together one last time to conclude... something. Conclude what? Our association? End it? To say that I had gotten over her?
A lie. I had not. I could not. I would never. A cruel lie that I could not utter.
I took another sip of water and then put my bottle down beside hers.
I looked at how far the mountains continued and I felt so small. It made me feel smaller than I had ever felt before. It was not its height, but the memories. I closed my eyes. My entire life flashed before me. My life before Aya, during Aya, and after Aya.
After all these years, that was still how I measured time.
I envisioned my heart as a flower. It had grown slowly and blossomed with vigour. It had been far too short-lived. It had shrivelled up one day, and it felt like it had been pickled, preserved in a constant state of grief.
After all these years, I still would not let my heart out of that glass jar.
I thought about the tears I cried far too frequently. Something would happen, some sort of flame would be lit, and it would ignite intense emotions in me that I could not bottle up lest they kill me from the inside.
After all these years, I still felt like I was being eaten alive from within.
I imagined her walking into my apartment unexpectedly one day. I would ask no questions. I would not care where she came from, how she had survived, and why she had not called for eight years. I would let her come in and we would pick up right where we left off as if that gap of painful years had never occurred.
After all these years, I still could not stop fantasising that she was still alive.
I wondered if that priest - Father Saito, I supposed I should call him - dreamed of his sister Naomi coming back into his life.
I opened my eyes and a tear fell out, followed by another and another. They slid down my face quietly in a solemn procession.
The tears were not for her, for as I sat on that mountain, I saw the truth with startling clarity.
Aya had not been the only one to die that day.
I had thought that coming to the mountain would help me find the peace I was looking for. I had hoped to come to terms with the past and find a way to stride forward against all obstacles.
No luck. It only showed me the permanence of my situation. My state was eternal, my sadness an oppressive weight chained to me, my life a dismal, bleak light that was slowly fading as I grew older.
These thoughts assaulted me, weakened my legs. Luckily I was sitting down.
I looked up at the beast before me and saw it consuming me. It felt familiar. I was on that plane, I was crashing. I could see her face contorted in horror, her eyes shut tightly, not wanting to watch her own end. Yet I sat beside her, transfixed. My eyes wide open as I drank in everything. Everybody on that plane screaming, dying...
And then I was out of the plane and back at the base of the mountains, sitting there eight years later, my heart no longer beating, my senses dulled.
Suddenly it was all clear.
I had a thought.
It was a defining revelation. One sentence echoed in my mind, and it made sense. The past eight years made sense. The rest of my life from now on would make sense.
I held onto it and pulled myself up to my feet, leaving my half-empty water bottle beside the full, unopened one. I walked away. I walked back down the mountain, numb.
I had come searching for something else. Not the revelation I had just had. I had wanted resolution. All I got was confirmation of what I had been afraid of for so many years.
In a trance, I walked and walked until I reached my hotel room.
I looked at the time. It was late.
The next day I checked out of the hotel. I took a train straight to the airport in Milan. I had my ticket changed for the next available flight. It was highway robbery on the part of the airline company, but I just threw my bills of money down as is they were a few grains of salt. Money meant nothing to me.
During my four hour wait, I made my second and final phone call of the trip.
Shibata's answering machine picked up.
"I'm coming home. My flight gets into Narita at five twenty-three in the evening. See you."
I hung up and then I sat and stared at a white wall until it was time to board my flight.
When I left Italian soil, I felt nothing. I looked out the window, but night was already falling and it was dark. I could only see faint outlines of land and mountains. I pulled the cover down over the window and fell asleep, cold and empty. I did not wake up until the landing.
When I reached Japanese soil, I still felt nothing. No excitement to be home. No relief.
I dragged myself through the disembarkation process, found my luggage, and walked out of the doors.
"Miki-chan!" I heard a name call out.
I looked up. There was Shibata in the waiting area beside the exit, walking towards me. She looked like she had run all the way to the airport.
"Welcome back," she said with a worried smile.
I did not return her smile. I just nodded and began to walk. She kept up.
"How was it? Are you all right?"
I shrugged.
"Fine."
I could not muster up any enthusiasm. I could not even put on a show of being all right.
We walked in silence until we reached the platform for the train that would take us into Tokyo.
"I came right after my seminar. I wasn't expecting you for another few days."
Maybe she wanted an apology. I did not say anything. She fell silent. We did not speak for ten minutes as we sat waiting for the train.
"Miki, say something to me," she said quietly.
I did not want to say anything. There was nothing to say. No point.
I heard her sniff. I looked at her face and noticed that she was crying. I had never seen her cry. Or perhaps I had once in the days when we used to play futsal together and we had won some sort of big event. But those were tears of joy. The ones now were not.
"Why'd I let you go there?" she wondered out loud, uttering such protective words that I did not know what to say in response.
I knew that she knew something had happened and she was feeling guilty for egging me on to go.
It was not her fault. I would have gone eventually anyway. She was not responsible. I was an adult and I had the capability to make decisions for myself.
"I'm okay. I found peace," I lied.
She had no more grounds to continue. She did not want to call me on my lie.
We did not talk for the rest of the ride into Tokyo. She came with me to the platform where I would catch my train for my final station of the evening. When it came, I thanked her for picking me up at the airport. She said she would see me later, and I had a feeling she would be calling, mailing, and coming over a lot in the next week in an attempt to cheer me up.
We said goodbye.
I got home. Everything looked exactly the same as I had left it.
I put my luggage in a corner of the living room, took a quick shower, and went straight to bed. I was not tired, so I just lay there, my body in my bed, but my mind back on the mountain the previous night.
I remembered that one thought I had had. That one defining thought when all had become clear.
No, Aya was not the only one who had died that day.
I died, too.
With her. Death did not tear us apart. It tore me apart as I followed her into the realm of shadows.
No light. Not for me.
Maybe I had sacrificed myself. Maybe I had taken all the darkness within me so that she could have all the light and would not be scared. That would be why I could never escape the sadness and the thought of her.
I was dead inside. I walked the world with a shroud of darkness around me. It got darker and darker each week.
I had gone to that site in the Alps where most of her had burned up and been scattered in the winds to have my own version of a funeral for Aya.
Instead, as I had walked down the mountain to go back to the hotel, and just like the tears that had trailed down my cheeks, I walked the path of my own funeral.
My own private funeral.
My own death mourned.
-the end of story 6
-
What Needed to be Done
story 7
Prologue
"Do you believe in miracles?"
Miki stops walking and I follow suit as she brushes my hair back from my forehead and smiles softly, looking at me genuinely.
"No."
Birds chirp cheerfully as the sun sets quickly, and we carry on walking through the quiet park.
"You don't think our meeting was a miracle?" I ask.
She shoots me a sideways glance.
"No."
"Do you think it was fate? Destiny?"
My question stops her again. I stop, too, and wait for her answer.
"Definitely not."
"Why not?"
"Because it makes it more special if it wasn't predetermined," she answers quickly with a lopsided smile. "I can scare myself by thinking of what it would be like if we hadn't met."
I already know all her answers, but I like to hear her say them anyway. I often ask her things I already know the answers to.
But in light of my ordeal that just ended this morning when I woke up in my own bed in my proper reality, I'm seriously reconsidering my previous stance on miracles. Maybe they can happen...
"We're cooler than destiny," she laughs.
Of course she's Miki and she has to insert her silly humour into the conversation. I look at her and let myself laugh like I want to. I've missed her far too much to give her a tough time. I'll let at least one evening go by where I don't nag or tease her unfairly in the way that I love to. I'll spoil her with attention and share with her nothing but the purity and benevolence of the feelings in my heart.
But just this one night!
Tomorrow I'll have to go back to being myself and scolding her for being a child, for being silly, and for bothering me.
But I'd never do it if she didn't like it or let me. The scolding, that is.
And I'd never do it if I wasn't confident she knew I cared so much.
She's my dorky little Miki and I'll have her no other way but the way she is.
-
Chapter 1 of 28
The morning after I quit my job, I get up and smash my head against the wall. On purpose.
"Whaddaryoudoing?" Miki mumbles sleepily from my bed.
I've woken her up partially. She's sleeping over at my place because I wouldn't let her go home last night. I haven't seen her in months. There's no way she's going to be anywhere else but beside me.
"Punishing myself," I mutter, letting my forehead crash into the wall again.
"Oh, no. Don't. Let me do that for you," she says in a calm, reasonable manner.
She is obviously still half-asleep or she either wouldn't have said that or she would have said it in a dirty way.
I choose not to reply to her. I finished up with the wall and slip back into bed. Miki has woken up fully by the time I settle in under the covers.
"What were you just doing?" she asked, confused, a vague, incomplete memory probably tugging at her mind.
"Hitting my head against the wall as punishment," I reply crisply.
"...Why?"
The perplexed look on her face is so cute that I want to make a mould of it and bring it out every time I need to smile.
"'Cause I basically quit my job 'cause of you," I reply bluntly.
There is silence until Miki moves. She hugs me.
"Thank you Aya," she says in a sweet, spoiled, childish voice.
She sounds like a naughty little girl whose mother had just slapped her on the wrist and told her to thank Aunt Yuka for the delicious cookies. It's obnoxious and it makes me want to... melt.
"You understand this means I have nothing to do all day, right?" I inquire sharply.
"You'll find something," she says optimistically, her voice muffled because she has her face pressed into my side.
"It'll take too long."
"Hm. At least this means I can expect you to surprise me at my place more often and clean up and cook me delicious meals when I come home from work."
I can hear the sneaky grin in her voice.
Without a single word, I peel her hands and face off of me, get up, and stroll out of the room.
"Hey, where are you going?" she calls out after me.
I don't reply.
"Come back!" she laughs.
I walk calmly into the bathroom, lock the door, and begin to run the water. I hear the door handle shake a bit as Miki tries to open the door.
"Come on, let me in," she whines.
I smile victoriously as I undress quickly and step under the spray of water.
"Come on, Aya. I'm sorry I said that. I was just joking."
I smirk and lather up my hair. I hear her sigh in exaggerated frustration.
"I didn't mean it. In fact, I'll do all your cleaning and cook for you."
My shower is short and sweet, but it feels like it stretches for hours because she stands right outside serenading me with compliments and apologies.
When I'm finished and dried off, I wrap the towel around me and open up the door. Miki is sitting beside it patiently, and she shoots up to her feet when she sees me.
"I'm sorry, Aya," she says cutely.
I press the tip of her nose with my finger.
"Breakfast for fifteen days in a row," I demand.
She knows exactly what I mean. If she wants forgiveness, she has to earn it. Since I'm the world's worst morning person, breakfast is the meal I most often skip and thus the meal I appreciate most. Having her cook it will be a good penalty.
"Does that mean I have to stay over here with you for two weeks?" she asks with a grin.
I can't help but smile back.
"If you want."
She lets out a cheer and then uncharacteristically runs off to the kitchen, leaving me to get dressed.
What a strange girl.
I put on my clothing for the day and then make my bed, rolling my eyes at how Miki's side is always so much more wrinkled and messy because of her restlessness. At least she doesn't drool all over my sheets. No, she usually does that all over me because she ends up sleeping half on top of me anyway. But at least it's easier to clean myself and my pyjamas. I'm kind of glad we don't live together.
Once my bed looks presentable, I sit on it and take a breather, thinking about this "miracle" that has just happened to me.
I can't concentrate, though, because I can hear noise coming from the kitchen. Miki is fumbling around doing who knows what with all my appliances. I can hear her muttering from time to time, singing out the names of things she's looking for - salt, sugar, a spoon. It's cute, and it reminds me of cooking with her and Baachan in Takikawa just a few days ago but a few realities over. The only difference is that the other Miki is put together, organised, and smart in the kitchen. This one here is silly, clumsy, and likes to burn things.
I laugh at how I can like such a person so much. But I accept the truth. I'd prefer to eat burnt toast made by this Miki everyday for a year rather than fluffy rice and tender salmon made by a professional chef. It doesn't matter what the food is. As long as whoever makes it puts all his or her care and love into making it.
My face turns red in embarrassment at thinking such mushy things, and I lie back and roll onto my stomach, covering my face with my hands and groaning in pain.
"The hell are you doing?"
I flip over in fright and see Miki standing at the doorway to my room. She's leaning against the frame, her arms crossed and her face screwed up in amusement. I take my hands away from my face and sit up.
"Uh..."
I was thinking silly things about you and I embarrassed myself, I think. I don't want to tell her that. Then she'll just make fun of me and I'll get all flustered.
"Were you thinking about me again?" she teases me.
I roll my eyes. I also don't tell her because it’s redundant. I know she knows. It's so obvious.
"No. I was... tired," I reply defensively.
She comes over and sits beside me, putting an arm around my shoulder.
"You know, you were really different yesterday. Really nice to me and not at all like my mother, who you normally try to be," she said.
"I didn't notice," I say indifferently, looking down at my hands.
"But you know what? I honestly missed this you that treats me poorly and doesn't let me have any fun."
"I don't treat you poorly!" I gasp in offence. "I tolerate things nobody else in the world would put up with!"
"Pshht, maybe if everyone else in the world had the same views as you and was just a little less nice," Miki snorted. "I bet I could find fifty people in this neighbourhood who don't find my behaviour quirky."
She knows exactly what to say to send waves of jealousy through me. Harmless, playful jealousy, that is.
I clamp my arms around her possessively.
"No. Nobody else. Me," I pout like a child.
She giggles her insanely dorky giggle and pats me on the head.
"Okay, okay."
I revel in this soft moment.
"Hey," she says, breaking the silence.
"Hmm?"
"We should move in together."
I sigh.
We've had this conversation before and it never ends well. Not because we don't agree. Just because there are so many factors we have to consider that we become irked and confused and don't end up coming to any conclusion.
First of all, we have way too much stuff. We'd have to find a big enough place where we could both fit the mounds of shoes and clothes we both own, and unfortunately, while we make good money, we're not billionaires. Housing is expensive in this dense city, and finding a big enough place is difficult because of the lack of supply. Second of all, it's rather convenient to have apartments in different neighbourhoods. It's like having two headquarters rather than one from which to base our operations. Third of all, we're getting too old to be moving in together like that without people starting to question us. It's not something we talk about often because it makes us uncomfortable, but it's true that when your age starts to plunge into that "should be married soon" range, you don't start moving in with your friends and having slumber parties every night. According to the people around us, that is.
But then again, it would make life easier. If we could find a place with enough space for our shoes, that is. We'd have all our belongings in one place. We wouldn't have to waste time and money going back and forth to our different places to pick things up. We would be able to see each other a little more often. Every night, in fact. And it might save us some money on utilities (if the rent doesn't eat us out of a home).
Many things to consider.
I don't even have to open my mouth to remind Miki. She knows all of it.
"But I guess we have to think about it more, huh?" she says resignedly.
She tries not to sound dismayed, but I know she is. I am, too.
"It would be nice," I say in a quiet voice with a soft, honest smile, dropping my holier-than-thou act.
I absently pick at a thread that's poking out of the hemline of her pyjamas.
"Who knows," Miki starts in a mysterious voice. "Maybe it's safer to live apart. My life might be in danger if I piss you off too badly."
"Hahaha."
I continue to pull at the loose thread. It suddenly starts to unravel and I slap my hand down on it in fear and surprise.
Unfortunately, the hemline of Mki's pyjamas lies on her hipbone.
"Ow!"
"Ehh... Sorry," I cough, patting her hipbone lightly and secretly tucking the thread, now longer than the length of my hand, under her pyjama shirt.
"Anyway," I say quickly, "we can think about it more. We still have lots of years ahead of us."
And thus I say something she likes to hear. My words remind her that I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. She's got power over me for what I think is going to be forever. She grins and bounces giddily on the bed, sending me bumping against her and the wall in a painful but kind of fun way.
And that's when I smell something burning.
"What are you cooking?" I ask in a low, dangerous tone.
"Shi-"
She's out of the room before she finishes her word. I hear her run to the kitchen and crash pots and pans around.
"ARG!!" she yells as if engaged in combat with the enemy.
I put my head in my hands and wonder if she's killed something. I'm afraid to find out.
I get up and poke my head out gingerly from my room. I walk out and round the corner.
Miki is fanning the contents of a frying pan with a towel while jumping up and down. I look on the ground and see that there's steam rising off the soaked floor. In the corner is a pot that has spilled its contents - half-boiled eggs and water. Her feet are burning.
"Miki, put that down and get over here!"
She doesn't think twice about it. She throws the pan in the sink and skips to safety as the hot metal hisses, leftover water in the sink sizzling instantly from the heat.
"I'm sorry," she whimpers.
I bend down and pick up one of her feet, making her yell out a series of curses as she wobbles around. I look at the sole. It looks fine. A little red, but not burned. I do the same with the other, and she claws at my back as she tries to stay upright.
"The good news is that your feet aren't burned," I inform her as I straighten up.
"Thanks, doctor," she grumbles, fixing her hair.
"The bad news is that you've burned whatever you were frying and you've destroyed two eggs and gotten my kitchen floor wet."
There's a long silence.
"But you still love me, right?"
I burst out laughing and move off to clean the mess. We work together, and in ten minutes, the floor is dry and everything is put back in its place.
"Let's skip breakfast for today," Miki says shyly.
"Right," I agree. "Go take a bath."
I point her in the direction of the bathroom and slap her on the butt to get her started. She shoots me an inviting look that I try my best to ignore and I go to my room.
While she's off in bathland, I look through the things in my room. I inspect all my photo albums. They are all back to normal. The pictures of Miki all exist, and I enjoy looking at them again. I look through my drawers and find some of her clothes there. The books she bought a few days ago are still on my shelf.
I shake my head and laugh. I've missed this life so much. I admit that Hokkaido was refreshing, but it really served as a reminder of how great my life is here and how much I need Miki around to keep me sane and make me feel whole and normal.
"And whoooooo would I beeeeeee if I couldn't beeeeee beside yoouuuuuu!?"
I hear horrendous singing coming from the bathroom. I cringe. Miki's singing a song that she's been trying to write for weeks now. She's been obsessed with trying to compose her own deep lyrics, but it still needs work.
Secretly, though, I like her cheesy lyrics. She shows them to me sometimes and I make fun of her, but they do touch my heart deep down inside. She writes them just for me.
"Whyyyy would I eeeeeeeeever leaaaaaaaaave if youuuuu are heeeeeeere!?"
I grab Mr. Monkey from the shelf and lie on my bed, hugging him tightly and looking up at the ceiling while listening to Miki screech out her song.
I'm definitely glad to be back.
-
Chapter 2 of 28
On Day Four, breakfast is divine.
We both wake up early, but I stay in bed lazily. By the time I get up at seven o'clock, my simple but fresh meal is waiting for me on the living room table. I sit on the floor and eat, positive that Miki could not possibly have prepared this on her own. It's mostly cut up fruit, but it looks so nice sitting there. How can a girl who can barely use a pencil properly handle a knife so skilfully?
Thinking of Miki, I wonder where she's gone off to. She's not in the apartment.
I start to panic and imagine that she's disappeared again - or rather I've been flung into another alternate universe.
But she comes bustling in fifteen minutes later carrying a bag and still wearing her pyjamas with a jacket thrown on over. She has, of course, also already done her make up. Heaven forbid we leave the house without our faces on!
"Sorry. Convenience store," she says quickly, her voice a little strained.
I suppose she's tired. We stayed up until two in the morning. She looks a little worried. It's as if she feels bad for potentially having frightened me.
"Thanks for the meal," I say, pointing to the empty bowls
Her expression softens and she smiles.
"You're so spoiled."
I giggle and lick the last traces of yoghurt from my spoon.
"And you're trying to be sexy again. Stop that," she laughs, turning around and going into my bedroom.
How insulting! I didn't mean to try and be sexy. I was just licking the spoon. And what's with this "trying" thing? I don't try. I am.
I put my dishes in the sink and follow Miki into my room.
She's opening a drawer and looking through it carefully, trying to decide what to wear. I forget about giving her a hard time because my love for fashion and dressing people supersedes all the other loves I have. Except, of course, the one I have for her.
I sidle up to her to see her holding a grey skirt that belongs to her. My mind runs through all the clothing in my drawers and closet, racing to decide what matches and what doesn't.
"What about this?" I suggest, opening up another drawer and taking out one of my favourite tops.
She holds it up to the skirt, holds it up to herself, thinking a bit, and then puts it down.
"Something with a little more colour, maybe?" she says uncertainly.
We repeat the process several times patiently, pulling out various pieces of clothes, holding them up to her face, discussing them in short sentences of only a few words, and conferring with each other through looks. Miki finally settles for a smart, conservative top, but one with a hint of playfulness in its colours.
"I have a meeting today," she explains.
Miki and her meetings. Lately she's been having more. She's quiet about them, but I wonder if something big is going to happen. She's only been working at this new place about a year, but it seems that lots of good luck has been going her way. Many opportunities have presented themselves, and she's been able to reach out and grab them. I am, to say the very least, very proud of her.
"That'll look good," I assure her.
I move off to my bed and lie down on my back, my head and shoulders propped up against the wall. I watch Miki start to take her pyjamas off when she stops and throws me a dirty look.
"All the lazy butt can do is sit and watch me strip?" she asks bitingly.
I turn my nose up.
"It's my room. I can be here if I want," I reply in a snotty voice.
She scoffs, and in one fluid motion, she pulls her pyjama shirt off. The movement doesn't stop there. She keeps going with the momentum and lets go of the top. It goes sailing through the air and lands right on my face. I wince in surprise. Before I can take it off, her pants come flying over to join.
By the time I've untangled the clothing from my head, she's already doing the clasp up on her skirt.
She's unbelievably fast. One of her special talents is speed dressing. If it was an Olympic sport, she would hold the world record. This talent is born from oversleeping and waking up ten minutes before she has to leave the house. She's a demon when she's on a mission.
I prefer it when she's not rushed, however, because that way she's calm and smooth. She takes her time, takes it slowly, savours every minute and everything... and I stop that train of thought before it can get dangerous.
I notice that Miki is struggling with the clasp of her skit. I watch with interest as she fails and fails again to get it right. Finally, she looks up at me sheepishly and saunters over.
Smiling kindly and without a word, I roll up and help her.
"Thank you."
I don't stop there. Having thrown her clothes on in such haste, it looks chaotic on her, dishevelled and untidy, so I tug here and there at her clothes to straighten them out. She looks at me suspiciously at first, but I keep a neutral, if not helpful, expression on my face and she lets me do what needs doing.
"There!" I announce, pushing her back one step and looking at her like she's art. "You are ready to face the world."
Miki grins and twirls around once to present herself.
"Oh!" I gasp in horror. "But not those earrings. No no no. Nothing circular. Not with that top."
I grab her hand and pull her over to my jewellery box where I present her with much more suitable earrings to wear. She thanks me again and puts them on.
"Now," I say with finality, "you are ready to show your face in public."
I turn on my computer to let Miki check her e-mail. She takes a long time, typing up a storm while I read an article in a newspaper from three days ago. When she's finished, she looks weary from all the effort, but she has no time to rest. She has to leave. I look up from the article I'm engrossed in to say goodbye. She picks up her things and leaves with a jaunty goodbye. I return to my reading.
Four minutes later, someone barges in through the unlocked door. I jump up in surprise and my heart races until I see that it's just Miki.
"I forgot," she mumbles in an embarrassed way.
I'm about to ask what, but she comes up to me. She hugs me for a few brief seconds before pulling away and picking up her things.
"Okay, all better."
She looks happier as she leaves again, and I sit down feeling tingly inside.
I finish reading the article and get up feeling giddy. Time to find a job.
News of my quitting has travelled far and wide, and I have received some offers from various labels that are begging me to join them. None strike me as any good. They're too plain. Uncreative, unoriginal labels.
I pick up my phone and check my messages, something I didn't have time to do yesterday. I've got three new ones.
I almost drop my phone when I hear the third message. It's a familiar voice that I haven't heard in a long time.
"We're thinking of a reunion. I heard you're free these days. Call me back and let's talk. Later."
Always cool, always hip, always to the point. That's Tsunku-san for you.
A reunion? I wonder.
This could be interesting. It's been a while since Hello! Project went under. I wonder what sort of things Tsunku has under his sleeve. A reunion under his own personal label? Some other label? Needless to say, I'm curious to the point of feeling instantly antsy. I decide to wait until nine o'clock to call him back, all the while wondering if he's left a similar message for Miki.
I call him a few minutes before nine, and he's happy to hear my voice, he tells me. We catch up for a few minutes. Even though we've grown apart since we worked together, he still feels like an uncle to me. He was, after all, the guy that discovered me. The man who started me down this path. I can even say he's the reason why I met Miki, because if she had never come to Tokyo... Well, I don't have to imagine. I know what would have happened.
After the pleasantries, Tsunku gets down to business and starts to talk about his plan with vague and mysterious airs that he seems incapable of ever outgrowing.
"Mostly big names," he says. "You, Goto, Abe, Takahashi, and so on."
"What about Mikitty?" I ask in an off-handed manner, using a nickname that I rarely call her by anymore these days.
"Of course her, too. You still keep in touch?"
"Yeah, still the same old thing," I reply.
I've always had the feeling that Tsunku knew just how close we were when we were in the Project, and that he never said anything to us about it because he trusted us to be responsible. I can never be sure, though. He seems to me like another Shiba-chan - omniscient and very sensitive to the things going on in the people around him.
"Good to hear."
He sounds genuinely pleased.
We discuss a few more points, he asks if I've received a phone call from a man named Matsushima ("he wanted to get in touch with you a few months ago, so I directed him to your company," is Tsunku's explanation, but I have to tell him I'm afraid the man never called), and then we hang up with promises to keep in touch.
I figure I can take a break from looking for a new job for a few days. If the reunion is a go, that'll make my plate quite full. I still receive some royalties from various other projects I've done, so for now I'm okay for money. I shouldn't rush to find a job and then find myself in a situation that's less than desirable.
Maybe I do need a break. The thought of spending some lazy time at home for the next while agrees with me. As for Miki, I'm sure she also likes this break of mine. She's a conniving little weasel, so while she pretends to be excited about cooking me breakfast, I'll bet she's engineering a plan right now to turn the tables and have me cooking and cleaning for her by the end of the week. I promise myself not to let that happen.
I giggle. Sometimes I view us as having not just one kind of relationship, but several. One of them is like a never-ending war between two strong, opposing wills. Another is like a telepathic link where we don't need words to communicate. Yet another is like a counselling office where we go to unload our problems and worries in exchange for comfort and kindness. Then, of course, there's the whole physical side of it, which kind of embodies all the aspects of the aforementioned... and then some.
Oh my.
Time to find something else to think about.
I grab that three-day-old newspaper and read. There's a terribly sad article about a plane crash, but I skip it. That last thing I need to do is depress myself. There's no pleasant news, so I throw the paper down and go out for a lazy walk, wondering what time Miki has a break. I want to call her and talk about Tsunku's plan, but I guess it'll have to wait until later.
She's a busy girl, and right now I’m the complete opposite. Not that I mind. I like all this extra time I have now. I’ve been through a lot and need some time to settle back into my life. Thankfully, I’ve got Miki here to do what she does best - make me whole.
-
Chapter 3 of 28
"Miki Miki Mikkiiiiiiiiiiii!" I cry into the phone.
"Hi, Gaki-san," she sighs.
I pause.
"Let's make that twenty days of breakfast, not fifteen," I say in a monotone.
"Okay, okay!" she squeaks. "Sorry. What's up?"
"You haven't checked your messages yet..." I assume.
"Um, no, not yet. I haven't had time to," she says quietly.
"Check them, call whoever you need to call back, and then call me back. Okay?" I say, chipper.
"What's-" she begins, but I hang up on her with a sneaky smile, excited about the news she's about to find out.
It's lunch time for most working people, but I've already eaten. I sit on the couch and nod off while daydreaming about Miki, my phone still in my hand.
About half an hour later, my phone starts to ring and vibrate.
"And I was just getting to the good part," I say into the phone.
"Hi...? Of what?" Miki asks, sounding serious and confused.
I love to bother her at work. She gets very focused there, so when I call her in the middle of a busy day, she always seems a little thrown off balance if I say things that aren't appropriate for the workplace (or things that plain don't make sense).
"Never mind. I'll show you later."
I grin to myself because I can imagine her nodding thoughtfully and not thinking about anything unclean.
Or maybe that's just what she wants me to believe. I bet her composed demeanour at work is all an act. Maybe somebody is within hearing distance and she needs to remain cool.
"Ah, right!" she speaks up. "Aya, I talked to Tsunku-san."
I let out a laugh.
"Isn't it great? This idea of a reunion?" I ask.
My enthusiasm may be born out of boredom and lack of work, but it feels real enough to me.
"Yeah, it's a great idea..." Miki mumbles and trails off.
I can sense there's a 'but' coming.
"But?"
She hesitates to answer, taking a few breaths and trying to start her sentence a few times over.
"I don't know, Aya. I'm really busy right now. I mean, not right now now, but in general. These days. I don't know if I could handle what I've got going on now, plus a Hellopro reunion."
My heart cries out to her because she suddenly seems so stressed out. Before my otherworldly Hokkaido ordeal, I noticed that the stress was piling up on her, but now I think it's about to reach a critical level. The kind of level where it's my duty to step up and give her a hand.
I forget about the Project reunion for a minute.
"Don't worry about it, Miki. How about we talk later? Tonight or something," I suggest.
She sighs, maybe feeling bad because she thinks she's let me down.
"That would be good," she says.
Maybe there's something else bothering her. She sounds so tired. I don't ask, though. I've learned that if she has something to tell me, she'll tell me.
"Can I do anything to help you?"
There's a pensive silence for a moment.
"Just be home when I get back?" she asks in a tiny, hopeful voice that almost sounds a bit nervous.
I want to tell her not to worry and that I'm not about to go out and walk into the middle of a gang fight.
"Sure," is all I end up saying. "I'll be here."
"Thanks, Aya. Dunno what I'd do without you."
She sounds a little cheered up, and we say goodbye.
Once the phone is disconnected, my day's mission changes from one of lazing around to one of thinking up ways to cheer up my number one Miki.
Miki gets to my place just after eight in the evening. I study her face carefully and decide that she looks more relieved than anything else. It's been a long day for her, and I bet she's looking forward to lying down and passing out in comfort.
"What's for dinner??" she asks right after removing her shoes, jumping onto my back excitedly and almost making me fall over.
So much for my "Miki wants to chill out" theory. I've never seen her more lively.
"Watch out!" I cry as I fall forward and catch myself on the wall.
She gets off of me and goes to the kitchen without any apology.
"I'm starving," she sings, opening up the refrigerator and popping her head in.
I chase after her, muttering under my breath about children and behavioural problems.
"How old are you again?" I ask her, grabbing a handful of her jacket and pulling her out of the fridge.
"Twen-ty-fiiiiive," she sings, taking four steps towards me and backing me up against the sink. "And how old are you? Thirty-two?"
I jab her in the stomach hard. She doubles over in exaggerated pain, but stays put, not letting me get away.
"I don't approve of your sadistic values, Aya-chan," she says in a lecturing tone.
I start to laugh in disbelief. As if Little Miss Aggressive should be talking.
"Anyway," she smiles saucily. "I..." she moves her face in closer to mine.
"...just..."
Closer.
"...want..."
Closer. Her nose touches mine and my lips tingle with anticipation.
"... dinnerrrrrrrrr!"
She jumps away from me and goes back to the fridge, humming an unrecognizable tune to herself.
I feel like I'm in a drama where the woman finds out her boyfriend is an alien, but has to live with him because of some clause in some cosmic contract that states she can't leave him lest the world come to an end.
If I really did write that book about my life, it would be a bestseller, I think, remembering my plan to one day prove to the rest of the world that Miki is clinically insane.
Since I'm bound by many things, though, I follow Miki back to the fridge and put my chin on her shoulder as she studies my food.
"You're in a good mood. What happened?" I ask.
"I came home and got to see you," she replies as she opens up a container that's holding the last few umeboshi that my mother sent me a few weeks ago from my hometown.
"Home? This isn't your home. This is my home," I tease.
I reach my arms around her from behind and take the container out of her hands, closing it and putting it back where it came from. I'm saving those for later.
"'Home is where the heart is!'" she quotes in English.
I know that one. When she learned it half a year ago, she wouldn't stop saying it to me. While it annoyed me, it did prove that repetition is the best way to learn a language.
"Indeed," I say, putting my nose into her hair.
"Oh! What's in here?" she ponders aloud, opening up another container.
It's the leftovers from my lunch.
"Can I have this?" she asks like a starving little puppy dog.
I nod and tell her she can finish it off. I let go of her so that she can heat it up in the microwave.
"You sounded really stressed out today on the phone," I say, leaning against the counter and folding my arms across my torso.
"Oh, yeah. That. I've just been having a few rough days lately," she says, now rummaging through the fridge again and taking out an apple. "I had some disagreements with some, um, colleagues."
She takes out the cutting board and a knife and starts peeling the apple.
"Did you have a fight?" I ask, knowing that Miki is well-known for finding herself in the middle of an argument because she's too stubborn to back down.
"No, not a fight," she says, not looking at me, but focusing on her apple. "But he and I didn't see eye-to-eye. It was... unpleasant."
That's Miki's polite way of saying "I almost ripped his head off."
"Is everything else okay?" I ask, moving to stand beside her and gathering the peeled apple skin in order to throw it out.
She shrugs.
"Life is life."
I figure there must be something going on.
"Come on, Miki. I know you better than that," I say lightly, reaching over to toss the apple skins into the trash.
She stops chopping and looks at me directly.
"These meetings are... close to being concluded," she says carefully. "I can let you know the... results by the end of the week."
She speaks in such a slow and mysterious tone. I'm filled with an anxious need to know what these secret meetings are all about.
"Is everything okay?" I ask, my eyebrows knit together with concern. "You're not in trouble, are you?"
Miki smiles subtly and touches my cheek with her hands that are covered in apple juice. Somehow, getting my face dirty doesn't seem to matter because she looks so serious. It's like she's trying to tell me a lot more than the words she's speaking with her voice. Alerting me to some fact that she's not allowed to talk about, urging me on to guess what's on her mind.
"Don't worry about me, Aya. I'm fine," she says confidently but with a hint of regret.
Maybe somebody else she works with is going to be fired. Or maybe they're making some big decision that some people will inevitably suffer from.
I gaze into her eyes and try to decipher a message that might not even be there. It might just be in my mind.
In my heart, I will it to all be my imagination. I can understand if she can't give me any information about work. I respect that we can't tell each other everything about the secret decisions made behind the closed doors of our separate workplaces. As long as she's not suffering, she can keep all the business secrets she wants. But if at any point something damages her, I will jump in there to save her.
"Hey, Aya, what was that thing you said you wanted to show me?" she asks with reference to our phone conversation during lunch break, looking back down at her apple and slicing it up neatly.
My mouth widens into a devilish smile that she can't see.
"Hmm," I hum. "Well, not really show, but... finish up your dinner and I'll let you know."
I lean my shoulder against hers and she looks at me. She sees my smile, and a small, knowing one breaks out on her face. She's figured out what zone my mind is in. She likes it, and she's amused by me. Nothing gets her more excited than when I'm feeling... frisky. She finishes chopping up the apple very quickly and very sloppily.
That night we forget to talk about Tsunku and the Hello! Project reunion. Who cares about that kind of thing when you have other, more important people - I mean things - to do?
-
Chapter 4 of 28
I once had a big secret. I kept that secret from Miki for too long. It almost ruined us. Once we made up (incidentally, it happened in Hokkaido), though, I wanted her to know that I would never keep another secret from her again. Well, maybe I'd keep things like her birthday and Christmas presents secret. But nothing else.
Late August, 2005. I'm nineteen again. She's twenty. We have just come back from a lovely vacation in Sapporo. We have just re-affirmed what kind of relationship we want to have. We are almost perfect.
We're sitting in my apartment watching a movie. This time it's some Hollywood action adventure. It's fun at some points, but overall a little on the boring side.
I get up and walk over to my room while Miki tries to pay attention to movie and keep up with the ridiculously unbelievable plot. I go through my drawer trying to find something. I feel it and pull it out. It's a dark red journal. My diary. In it, I lose all my dignity and all my humility, and I write what I really think. It's the most honest thing that I have.
I tuck it under my arm and walk back to the TV. I sit beside Miki, who gives me a cursory glance to acknowledge my presence again. She goes back to watching the movie.
I take the book and hold it out to her. She sees my movement out of the corner of her eye and she looks over. She looks down at the object I'm holding and then looks up at me in confusion. I indicate for her to take it from me, so she does.
"What is-"
"My journal," I reply quickly.
She looks down at the red cover and looks even more surprised.
"Why are you-"
"You can read it," I cut her off again. "I write everything in there. Deep, dark secrets to fleeting thoughts."
She frowns and continues to stare at the book in her hands. There's no lock. One flip of the cover will reveal everything about me. She then smiles and hands it back. My turn to be surprised.
"I don't need it," she says.
I frown. I thought she wanted to know everything about me. My honest opinions on everything. I still haven't shared everything with her. Not in the way she did in Kobe that first night. She told me everything.
Everything.
I take the journal in my hands and put it on the couch between us.
"Why not?"
"Because you've already said enough."
What did I say? I can't remember. She can tell I'm confused.
"You want me to know all those things, right?" she asks. I nod. "Then that's enough."
That's enough? It's enough for her to simply know that I want to tell her things? She really doesn't ask for much. I smile and laugh.
"Right now, though, I'm more concerned about Jack- or Jake or whatever his name is- and how he's going to stop the terrorists," she says, once again turning her full attention to the TV.
My jaw drops. I've been completely shut out and denied. I toss the journal onto the table and grab Miki's arm, pulling her towards me. She lets out a surprised sound and struggles to keep upright. She falls onto her side and scrambles back up.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"Getting your attention," I say, grabbing onto her hands and forcing her to face me instead of the TV set.
She twists her neck sideways and tries to keep an eye on the action on the screen. I pull at her sharply and she looks back.
"I'm missing the movie," she says miserably.
"You can rewind it and watch it later," I reply crossly.
"But..."
Now she's sounding like the big baby I know she can be.
"Do you want to watch a movie or hang out with me?" I ask her.
"Can't I do both?" she asks timidly.
I squeeze her hands. Wrong answer. She ducks her head, afraid I'm going to do something mean to her.
"Me or Jack- er, Jake," I state with a pout.
"Since you're being so mean... Jake. Or whatever his name is."
I pout some more and look sad and dejected. She just laughs at me, lets go of my hands, and goes back to her seat to watch the movie. There's a gunfight going on now, and she leans forward in her spot, absorbed. I do feel a little sad. I thought she was just playing around when she was enraptured by the movie. I thought I could easily convince her to ignore it and pay attention to me, but it seems like she's serious about preferring the movie over me...
I lean forward and pick up my diary quietly and flip through it. I find an entry about her dated February twelfth, 2005.
Oh, this is embarrassing. Maybe it's a good thing she chose not to read it.
In the entry, I gush about how much fun we had on the weekend and how she's so funny and cool and cute. Then I write embarrassing things about wanting to be friends forever and then I even say that sometimes I think we're more than just friends.
I couldn't have possibly meant it in that way, right? I don't even remember writing this entry. It must have been one of those unconscious things that spilled out of my mind and onto paper, recorded for history.
I read the next entry, which is made a few days later. It's about work and about how I'm finding it oppressive to be a part of H!P. It looks like my mind had the same things on it for a long while.
I'm so busy reading the next entry about something silly Tsuji and Kago did during a rehearsal (involving water balloons, a tin can, and our choreographer) that I don't notice a hand sneaking its way around my shoulders. Before I know it, Miki is sitting right up against me and holding me with one arm. She's looking down nosily at my journal. I look up, startled, and I slam the book shut. She laughs at me again and takes my journal from me.
"What are you reading about?" she asks.
"Nothing," I mumble.
She opens the book to a random page and holds it out to me.
"This page?" she asks playfully.
I shake my head. She turns to another page.
"This one?"
I shake my head again. She closes the book and throws it back onto the table.
"Want to tell me?" she asks.
There's something almost seductive about the way she says it. I feel very hot right now and I shake my head.
"I was just flipping through."
"Come on..." she urges me.
I receive a wave of confidence and I look right at her.
"It was an entry about you."
"Oh?" she seems thrilled. "What did it say?"
"That you're so cool and cute and lovable," I reply.
She beams back at me.
"Cute," she says, referring to my writing about her.
I notice the TV screen and see that the movie is still playing.
"Your movie is still playing..." I say, nodding my head to it.
She doesn't even look back.
"You think I'm actually interested in that piece of crap?" she laughs.
"But you... you were just..."
She giggles.
"I get a kick out of seeing you pout," she explains.
I hit her hard on her shoulder.
"Oh, likes it rough," she teases me, but then she shuts up quickly as we both remember a certain night not too long ago where we indeed played at it rough and secretly enjoyed parts of it.
Her ears turn red and I'm sure my face does, too. We chuckle it off eventually. We have already forgiven each other and moved on. We just have to remind ourselves. From that point on, the concept of a secret beyond a surprise or a gift becomes foreign to us.
No more secrets.
That precept still stands today. I no longer hide my worries from her, and I'm not a weaker person because of it. I'm stronger if I share things with her and let her help me.
And so on Day Eight of Divine Breakfasts, when her apparent unease continues to grow, I let her know I'm very worried about her.
Day Nine is a day I will never forget.
-
Chapter 5 of 28
It's five in the morning. I can't sleep because I keep having scary dreams about people with no faces running around and sacrificing cats to some kind of spirit. We watched a scary movie last night, and I'm still tense, my mind filled with frightening images. It's dark in the room, but I feel better if my eyes are open and I can see outlines of everything around me.
I tell myself not to freak out when I hear a creak come from my living room.
It's not a ghost. It's not an attacker. It's just the wind, I tell myself.
My living room always lets out a creak or two. Everyone's does. It's just that after watching a horror movie, that creak becomes the footstep of a dead person who has come back to torment and finally kill you slowly with its sharp, bloody claws that dig into your flesh lightly at first and then go deeper and deeper, drawing blood from veins buried under muscle, and draining you dry-
"Miki," I whisper sharply, trying to shut out the image from my head.
I grab on to her arm and shake her. She doesn't reply. She looks dead.
"Miki," I say again more loudly.
Again there's no reply and I put my hand on her chest to check for a heartbeat. She's got a slow, steady beat.
"Miki," I say in my normal voice.
She stirs and I relax a bit. She opens her eyes and looks at me.
"Sorry," she mumbles, closing her eyes and rolling away from me.
I huff. She probably thinks I'm complaining about her being in my way.
"Miki," I say again, shaking her arm.
"Yeah?" she slurs.
"Are you awake?"
I know it's not a very smart thing to forcibly wake someone up only to ask if he or she is already awake, but I don't want to admit right off the bat that I'm scared.
"No," she grumbles, trying to convince herself she's just dreaming.
"Good."
I lie down right beside her and wait for her to ask. She knows something's on my mind.
"What's the matter, Aya?"
"I'm having bad dreams," I tell her. "I can't sleep."
"Don't worry. They're just dreams. They can't hurt you," she says, quoting what she's said to me a million times before.
She closes her eyes and looks like she's going to go back to sleep with no more words of comfort.
"I know, but I can't sleep anyway," I continue. "They're scary."
She doesn't respond for a whole minute, and I lie there feeling a little cold. She finally turns around and raises herself up on her elbow, pulling the covers up to cover me all the way to my chin. She smoothes my bangs back and pats me on the head.
"When I first met you, I never would have imagined you as someone who'd get scared easily by her dreams."
I smile in amusement. She used to give me too much credit in the bravery department. Before, she always thought I wasn't afraid of anything, when the truth is that scary movies have often given me nightmares for up to two weeks after watching them. It has gotten a bit better since she started sleeping over more often, because my mind is distracted with other thoughts and I can forget I have seen anything scary. Since she's figured my fears out, she takes good care of me whenever I wake up from a nightmare. Nowadays, I rarely have nightmares, but when I do, she stays awake if they are really bad and if I'm really desperate.
We don't speak and she continues to stroke my hair gently. It's so relaxing that it almost hypnotises me. My eyes close and I drift off.
Two and a half hours later, I'm awoken by Miki. She's dressed and ready to leave, but she's bent over me, whispering my name softly and telling me to wake up.
"Hmmmm..." I mumble groggily.
"I have to leave now," she informs me.
"Bye."
I turn my face away. I just want to sleep.
"I won't be back until late," she says in a singsong voice, wiggling her nose into my cheek.
"Mmm. Bye," I repeat.
I don't want to hold her back and make her late.
She has a mind of her own, of course, and for some reason, she gets up on the bed and lies down beside me, hugging me tightly. I squirm a bit because I'm still half asleep and would like to keep it that way.
"What's your plan for the day?"
I have no idea. I'm barely even conscious yet.
"Dunno. Search for work. Go shopping," I reply half-heartedly.
Her hold on me tightens.
"I heard it's going to rain today. Maybe you should stay in."
I open an eye and try to look up at her.
"Weather report last night didn't say anything about rain," I grumble.
"Weather reports change," she says to me in a reasonable tone.
"Okay. If I go out, I'll take an umbrella."
I wonder why she's talking to me about this, but I don't care to ask because her hold on me loosens and she kisses my cheek in a pleasant way.
"Miki," I say as I start to wake up and remember last night just after we watched that terrible movie.
"Mmhmm?" she asks, her cheek now resting on mine.
"You know last night how we talked about - well, I asked you about that stuff?" I ask carefully.
I feel her cheek tighten up. Maybe she has her mouth set in a grim line. She remembers quite well...
We're getting ready to go to sleep when I sit down cross-legged on the bed and draw her towards me, making her sit down in front of me.
"You've been acting strange for the past few days. Um, not strange, but you seem upset about something. I don't know if something's going on at work or if you're in some sort of trouble, but can you please let me know? I hate watching you get all nervous. I want to help you."
I speak softly but with a firm edge. It's my signal that I'll let her take things at her pace, but that I won't accept "no" as an answer. I want her to let me in on what's going on her life. It's our agreement. It's in our contract. Miki's my alien boyfriend, and the fate of the world is dependent on us.
A distant look takes over her face as she looks past me and at the window. The curtains block her view of the neighbourhood, but she seems to see through them. Then she looks at me solidly and squeezes my hands.
"I promise you that I'm not in any danger," she says softly.
That's a weird reply. Why would I think her life was in danger? I just thought that she was in a miserable situation at work, possibly being harassed by someone, possibly on the verge of being fired. Maybe the situation is pretty serious, though, if she is making dramatic statements like that.
"I'm going to explain everything to you when I get home tomorrow night. I promise," she continues. "But you have to promise to let me go to work and not worry about it, okay? It'll be all right."
She has officially scared me, but I have no choice but to agree. A promise from Miki is a reliable thing. We go to sleep, but I remain unsettled...
"Are you sure you'll be okay today?" I ask after she's recalled the previous night.
She swallows and nods.
"I'm sure. I'll come back at around seven o'clock, and then we'll talk," she says with a steady, honest look.
She could establish a nation with that look. That determination.
It comforts me a bit, but I'm still concerned.
"I'm really really worried about you, Miki," I tell her. "A lot."
She smiles and pushes herself up so that she's propped up over me, looking at me in the face.
"Thanks for your concern," she says. "I'm lucky you're here for me."
Her face turns serious again. No more smile. She seems to be pondering life's mysteries, or perhaps our history together. Whichever one it is, I can see in her eyes that a million thoughts are running through her head.
"Take care of yourself today," she tells me.
She speaks as though she's had a prophetic dream and this is her way of warning me.
"You too."
"Oh, and your breakfast is on the table. It's been ready for a while now," she winks.
Completely awake now, I grin and pull her to me.
And then we "say" goodbye.
Oops, I think twenty minutes later at eight o'clock as Miki scrambles up from the bed, swearing like a drunken sailor and adjusting her clothes while I try to help her look put together again. She grabs a few bags full of papers and runs to the door, screaming that she's late.
"Bye bye!!" I call out cheerfully after her, not being able to resist laughing.
She stops in her tracks and looks back and gives me the most beautiful smile. Not a hint of stress remains in it. I mirror the look on my face, and I'm happy that I have been able to help her relax and forget her troubles for just a bit.
Tonight I expect to find out just what her troubles are.
She sprints out the door and I go to the table. Sitting there is a bowl of cereal, an unpeeled orange, and a glass of tea. I roll my eyes. Such an idle girl. She was doing so well with the breakfasts, too. This is definitely a setback.
I eat and then tidy up my apartment.
"Tidying up" turns into a full-fledged apartment clean up. If Miki says it's going to rain, I may as well start on something indoors.
I finish by lunch time and I whip up some noodles while checking my messages. Someone has called me from a payphone three times but hasn't left any messages. I also have an e-mail from Shiba-chan. She tells me that since the Italy project has been scrapped entirely, she's going on another trip even though she recently got back from a camping trip with her family. She tells me it'll be a short one - Spain for five days - and she'll be back before I notice she's gone.
While I wait for the noodles to boil, I email her back and then send Miki a happy e-mail asking how she's doing.
Neither girl replies right away, so I'm left to myself with my noodles.
The day passes by in a blur. I'm a bit nervous. Who knows what sort of news I'm going to hear tonight.
In the early evening, Shiba-chan e-mails me back. She's leaving in a few hours, so she reminds me that if I need to get in touch with her, I should use her PC mail, not her phone mail.
Still no word from Miki, though. I sigh and prepare dinner.
Seven o'clock rolls around and I'm hungry, but Miki has said she'll be here, so I wait. I watch television and lose myself in the second episode of a romantic drama that I wish I had watched from the first episode.
Time flies by and it hits me that it's eight o'clock. I check my phone but there are no messages. I hesitate for ten minutes and then call Miki.
It rings seven times before the automated voice mail message plays. I leave my message.
"It's me. Where are you? Waiting for you with cold dinner. See ya."
An hour passes by excruciatingly slowly. I hold my phone in my hand and stare at it for most of that hour. I switch the TV on for background noise and continue to wait.
By ten thirty, I'm panicky. I've e-mailed her once and called her twice. No reply to my e-mail, and the same answering machine message plays for my call. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I have a bad feeling.
At eleven, I call her apartment, but the answering machine there picks up. I leave a short message asking her to call me back.
At twelve, I put dinner in the fridge. It has completely slipped my mind for the past few hours, and now I've lost my appetite anyway.
I lie down at one o'clock, my phone still in my hand, my palm sweaty with fear. I can't stop imagining all the horrible things that could have happened.
But maybe she's all right and she’s just doing one of those crazy things she does sometimes. She might have gone out to some party with her co-workers after an unexpectedly good resolution to whatever problem they've been facing. She might be coming back on a late night bus after going to some town to buy something special on a whim.
Or maybe she has fallen and broken her leg in a park while her phone has died because it has run out of battery power.
I call her one more time. This time, however, no answer machine picks up. I get an automated message telling me that the phone is turned off or it's out of service range.
I close my eyes and force all bad thoughts out.
It is in that way I fall asleep.
I wake up abruptly the next morning. My phone, which is right beside my bed, is ringing. Through bleary eyes, I check the time. It's already eight thirty. The previous night's happening suddenly hits me, and I scramble to answer my phone.
"Hello?" I ask in a rushed voice.
"Matsuura Aya-san?" asks an official-sounding voice.
"Yes..." I say slowly, cautiously.
Who is this man? I don't think I know him.
"I'm Sugiura Akio from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Minato Ward division three."
My entire body goes numb.
"We are extremely sorry to bother you, but we were wondering if you would not mind coming to our office to provide us with some information," he says politely.
I swallow the huge lump that has formed in my throat.
"What kind of information?" I croak hollowly.
There's an uncomfortable pause.
"If you don't mind, I would very much rather discuss that in person."
My head starts to spin. Does this have to do with Miki? Where is she?
"Okay," I find myself saying. "What's the address?"
The officer gives me an address, and in a completely blank state, I get ready and head down to the police office.
Walking into the huge building gives me chills. I have no idea what I'm there for, but it's definitely not good.
I identify myself to the secretary at the front, and she gestures behind me to a waiting area. In it are three men in casual business suits and two police officers in uniform. They see me and stand up. I assume they are the people I'm supposed to meet.
We walk towards each other. I hold my breath.
"Matsuura-san, I'm Sugiura," the tallest man of the bunch says, sketching a bow.
He's one of the ones wearing a casual suit. He looks well put together, just as a police officer should.
"I'm sorry to call you here so suddenly."
I shake my head.
"Not at all."
The five men lead me to an office, where I'm asked to sit down. A sixth man wearing a police uniform comes into the room and hands Sugiura a plastic bag. He leaves. I watch as Sugiura opens the bag and takes out a small object - a cell phone. He hands it to me.
"Do you know the person who owns this phone?" he asks me slowly.
With a trembling hand, I take the phone. It's the model Miki uses. I open it up, and sure enough, there's her Koala background picture from her trip to Australia last spring. I look through the address book briefly just to make sure. I recognise all the names. This is Miki's phone.
I nod, too stunned to form words. Has she been kidnapped? Attacked? Or maybe even arrested?
The men exchange solemn looks.
"And whose phone would it be?" Sugiura asks.
"A girl name Fujimoto Miki," I say, annunciating very carefully.
"And her relationship to you?" asks another one of the business suits.
I look at him solidly.
"Best friend."
They exchange worried glances, and for some freakish, crazy moment, I wonder if I'm under arrest for being more than just friends with another girl.
"There's one more thing we need to ask you to do, and we're very sorry about it," Sugiura continues.
"What?" I ask in a low voice.
"If you would come to the morgue with us, we need you to help identify a body."
And with that, my world explodes in my face.
-
Chapter 6 of 28
Morgue.
Body.
Identify.
"Matsuura-san."
"...your breakfast is on the table..."
"Matsuura-san?"
"Thanks for your concern."
"Matsuura-san?"
Be quiet. I'm thinking.
"We're very sorry, but we need to confirm this..."
I drown out his voice with my thoughts.
No. It's not Miki. It's someone else. Just relax. Relax. Breathe...
Someone takes me by the arm and I jerk away.
"I'm sorry..." one of the men says.
I look up.
"Not at all," are the first words I mutter.
I stand up.
They lead me through the corridors. Somewhere along the way, a female officer joins us. She walks beside me.
Cold metal doors. Opening slowly. Cold air on my face.
"This way, please."
I follow. I'm a robot.
We stop.
"Matsuura-san, if you would."
I look down at a white sheet. Under the white sheet is a body on a cot.
"I'm very sorry, but can you please take a look at-"
I reach out with a shaking hand before he can finish. I grasp the white sheet. Pull it back.
"I'm lucky you're here for me."
I stare.
Her eyes are closed.
She looks like she did yesterday morning. Sleeping. But with blotchy skin. And pale. So very, very pale...
"Matsuura-san?"
His voice is like a mosquito. Irritating. In my ear.
"I'll come back at around seven o'clock..."
I want to wake up from this nightmare right now.
Now.
... but I'm still here.
I reach my hand out. I touch her face. She's frozen.
No. She's dead.
Suddenly an uncontrollable gasp of air rushes into my lungs. I suck in the cold air of the morgue and hold it in me. I cross my arms tightly across my stomach and stare at my worst nightmare.
I let the air go. It flows out of me shakily.
"Matsuura-san..." says the woman softly.
I look up at Sugiura. He's looking at me with compassion. My mouth opens to ask him what's going on. Why is she here? But my lips flap uselessly and I can't remember how to speak. I see him look at another man and they exchange nods. My reaction has probably confirmed what they suspect.
"This is the body of Fujimoto Miki, is it not?" asks one of the men.
I look at him blankly, my lips quivering. I manage a slight nod. I look back down.
Then tears. They spill out of my eyes. I grab the edge of the cot and hold on for dear life. If I let go, I'll fall and smash my skull open on the cold floor.
"Oh, and your breakfast is on the table."
Cereal. Orange. Tea.
I look back up at Sugiura.
"W...?"
He comes to stand closer to me.
"We found her in a river. She drowned. We... we suspect foul play."
My grip on the cot tightens.
I don't understand.
Foul play?
That means someone did this to her?
I don't understand. I don't understand.
"A...?"
"Matsuura-san, if you'll come this way, we can leave-"
"No."
My first complete word.
I look down.
Pale, pale face.
She made me breakfast yesterday morning. She who now is lying in front of me, pale, cold... dead.
A wave of pain hits me and rushes through my body. I feel sick. I almost throw up. I swallow down hard.
"Why?" I rasp out.
"We don't know why yet," Sugiura says gently. "But we're doing our best to find out. I promise you."
Don't promise me things.
I touch her cheek again.
"Why do you think it was foul play?"
"Heavy bruising. Back and arms," one of the officers says in a cold, insensitive voice.
I'd slap him if he wasn't so far away. Instead, I grab at the sheet and pull it down some more.
"Please-" Sugiura-san says, stepping up and reaching out to stop me.
I shrug his hand away and take one of her cold arms. Sure enough, there are bruises on her upper arm. I run my fingers along them lightly.
"Who did this?" I demand.
"We don't know."
"Who?!" I yell.
Why won't anybody answer my question? How can they not know?
"We don't know yet. That's why we called you. We need to ask you some questions."
"No!" I sob.
I start to cry in earnest.
I look down at the dead body of Miki. There she lies, flat on her back, half of her covered by a white sheet, half of her naked and exposed to the cold. No dignity left. Just flesh, bones, blood, and muscle. No Miki. Just a shell.
How??
The pain tears me up.
The pain is soon replaced by anger.
This is something that can never be forgiven. Somebody has taken away the most important person in my life. He or she will regret it. I’ve decided.
Whoever did this to her... Whoever did this to her is going to die.
Some time during my crying fit, they lead me out of the refrigerated space.
I look back at her body as I step out the door. They haven't covered her back up yet. She's all alone.
"Take care of yourself today."
They will pay.
-
Chapter 7 of 28
I don't understand what's going on. They've given me a glass of water and sat me down in that office. Sugiura sits in front of me. The female police officer sits beside me. The other men stand. They hover like ghosts. I feel like I'm being interrogated.
In my mind, all I see is Miki's face. Her dead, cold face. And in my heart, I feel nothing but pain and anger. Pain and anger...
They've told me they're going to ask me a lot of questions. I don't care. I'll answer whatever they ask.
"Can you first describe to us in detail how you knew Fujimoto-san?"
Speaking in full sentences is hard, but I try.
"I got to know her through work. We were idols together."
I'm sure everyone in the room knows that already.
"We became friends and remained friends after we left the company we worked for."
Sugiura takes notes. I wonder what he's writing exactly.
"And how often would you see her?"
I have to answer this truthfully.
"Just about every day."
He writes down some more.
"And how well did you two know each other?"
How can I describe that?
"Very."
Sugiura looks up at me from his pad of paper.
"Can you elaborate?"
I nod.
"We share just about everything. Secrets, clothes... I - we - we just know everything about each other."
It doesn't sound right. There are no words to describe it.
"Knew. W-we knew."
Past tense.
"Was Fujimoto-san disturbed in any way lately? Was she being harassed?"
I think hard.
"Not that I know of," I mumble. "She was stressed out at work, but she didn't tell me what it was about."
Sugiura looks up again, his eyebrow raised.
"And yet you two share everything with each other?"
I nod silently.
"But she didn't tell you what was bothering her at work?"
I shrug.
"She said she was going to tell me yester-"
I choke up and look down, blinking rapidly and clenching my fists to keep from screaming out a sob.
Sugiura waits a few moments before he continues.
"Are you aware of Fujimoto-san ever receiving any threats?"
I blink.
"No. Never. She would have told me."
Scribble scribble scribble on his paper.
"What about people that she knew that might have wanted to hurt her?"
I'm starting to think that this conversation is pointless. There was nobody that wanted to hurt Miki. She never did anything to piss anybody off. She minded her own business and was a hard worker. She argued with people, but not over things that would make them want to kill her.
"No, nobody," I say firmly.
"So nobody with a grudge against her?"
"Maybe it was some crazy fan of hers," I mumble.
John Lennon had been killed that way, right?
"Were you aware of any unstable fans that were stalking her?"
"No, there were none!" I yell, fed up.
He takes the hint and backs off.
"Let's take a break. Would you like something to drink?"
I shake my head and look down at my hands on my lap.
Miki's dead...
It's no time to drink.
"Would you like to get some fresh air?" the woman asks.
I shake my head blankly.
I sit in my chair. Some of the men leave. Some stay, looking awkward in the silence. I stare ahead and try to grasp the enormity of what's going on.
Miki is dead. Dead. Somebody pushed her into a river and now she doesn't breathe anymore. I saw her just a little over twenty-four hours ago. She was alive. Soft and warm. I can remember every single detail.
Who could do this to her? Had she bothered someone so much that he or she had decided to kill her? Had she looked at a gang member the wrong way while coming home? Had it been an accidental push?
"I want to ask questions," I say aloud.
The woman straightens up.
"What questions?"
"Who found her body?"
The woman exchanges glances with another officer. They tell me to wait for Sugiura to come back. He does so with a fresh mug of coffee. One of the officers takes him aside and speaks to him quietly. He looks over and me and comes back to sit in front of me.
"A jogger saw a body washed up on the side of the river at around five this morning."
What a frightening sight...
"How did you get her phone? It still works."
"We found the phone about half a kilometre away. It was on the riverbank. There were signs of a struggle."
I absorb. Sugiura studies me carefully, and perhaps after seeing I'm starving for any piece of information, he continues.
"Our estimates at the moment state that she died perhaps four hours before her body was found, placing time of death at around one in the morning. The beginning of decomposition has no..."
I suddenly don't want to hear the details. I start to feel dizzy. Sugiura continues to go into detail about her blood, her skin, rigor mortis, how being under water delays decomposition... and I can't hold it in any longer.
I bolt out of my chair and out the door, looking for a washroom. I spot the sign for one and I run to it, my heart racing, my stomach churning. My throat is constricted as I try to hold everything down. I can hear people running after me and calling out, but it sounds very distant. My ears are stuffed with iron that weighs me down and converts their words into a muffled, foreign language.
I get to the washroom and burst into a stall. I fall to my knees and proceed to throw up the entire contents of my stomach. I clutch the toilet seat with weak, sweaty hands as I gag and cry. The pain is unimaginable and my chest feels like it's going to explode. I can barely take a breath. Every time I do, I feel sick, and my stomach tries to dispense something that is no longer there. Long after the remnants of yesterday's lunch and breakfast are dispelled from my body, I remain kneeling there, dry heaving and wishing I was unconscious or dead.
It takes some time for my stomach to calm down. I flush the unsightly mess and sit on the floor, crying. I feel worse than I've ever felt before. My entire life has been a breeze compared to this moment.
I just want her to be alive. We don't even have to be friends. We can hate each other. But I want her to be living and breathing.
Why has this happened? First I get thrown into a strange world where Miki doesn't exist. Then I find her when she's on the verge of being proposed to by her stupid boyfriend of two years. Then I spend an unexpected and pleasant night with her before getting thrown back to where I belong. Then I have less than two weeks to become re-acquainted with this Miki that doesn't even know I've been gone. And then... she ceases to exist. She's killed by someone, but I don't know who.
I've seen her dead before my own eyes.
Another wave of nausea passes through my body. I hunch over the toilet, but nothing happens. I sit back down and sob.
That's when I notice that the woman who's been sitting in the interview room is now in the washroom with me and helping me stand up. She turns on the water and hands me a towel and an unwrapped toothbrush and toothpaste set. She asks if I'm all right.
Of course I'm not.
But I don't say that. I thank her and clean my face and brush my teeth as she cleans up the mess I've made in the stall. I feel weak. My arms and legs shake as I go through the motions of cleaning up.
"I'm sorry you have to go through this and see all that," she says, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I want to tell her to take it off.
"But if it's any consolation, your answers to our questions can really eventually help us find out who did this."
I sniff and wipe my eyes carefully.
"I want to find who did this now," I say darkly.
Once I've composed myself, the woman helps me back to the room where I answer the rest of Sugiura's questions. Some of them don't seem relevant, but I answer them anyway in as much detail as possible. His final question strikes a chord deep inside me.
"If you had to guess and tell us one thing about Fujimoto-san's recent behaviour that seemed off, what would it be?"
I know without a doubt what it is.
"Her attitude towards work. Lots of meetings - more than usual - and I got a feeling something bad was going to happen. I didn't suspect this, though."
Sugiura thanks me for my time and tells me he'll keep in touch. He asks about Miki's family. I tell him I'll contact them and that they'll make the funeral arrangements. We part on those terms.
I feel so old.
One of the officers drives me back home. We are silent the whole way, me sitting in the back and him glancing in the rear view mirror ever so often to check up on me. Once we get to my building, I get out with a "thanks" and go up to my place.
The minute I'm home, I collapse on the floor and start to cry. I've left Miki all alone in a cold room with only a thin sheet of cloth to cover her. And her skin is ruined, and she can't breathe, and her blood doesn't flow, and her body is breaking down and...
I don't know how long I cry for. Two years? Two minutes?
The tears start to wane as I feel the beginnings of an emotion that is almost foreign to me because I rarely feel it: rage. It's bottled up inside me and now it's spilling out.
Who did this?
I think hard.
Her work. Someone at work. It has to be.
But why? Was she going to get a tour or an album that somebody else wanted? Was somebody jealous of her accomplishments? What was the motive?
But why didn't she answer her messages all day? If she wasn't killed until one in the morning, she would have been alive when I mailed her. What made her lose contact?
It doesn't add up, and I grit my teeth in frustration.
But then I kick myself in the head. Did she even show up at work yesterday? Maybe something happened before she got there.
With a quivering hand, I call up the main office.
"U-Con records, main office. How can I help you?"
"H-hi, Tsuyoshi-kun?" I ask in a trembling voice.
Tsuyoshi is the youngest employee at U-Con records at age nineteen. He answers phones and makes coffee while keeping in mind his future dream to be a music producer. We've met in person a few times in the past year when I've gone to see Miki, but our relationship is mostly a phone one. I've called Miki many a time at work and chatted with this young, sweet boy when she hasn't been available. Miki always teases... would always tease me about Tsuyoshi having a huge crush on me, and that since I loved to hear my own voice and he loved to keep me talking, it was the perfect relationship. All I ever had to say to that was that he was a surprisingly mature boy and that if she wasn't careful, my inner cougar would emerge before I turned thirty and I'd dump her like a pail of water for him. Of course I never really meant it.
"Oh, Matsuura-san!" he says cheerfully.
"Can I ask you a question?" I ask, skipping our usual small talk.
"Uh, sure."
"Did Miki show up at work yesterday?"
"Yup. Same as usual."
I begin to feel like I'm facing a life-sized jigsaw puzzle that has no solution. The pieces don't match.
"What time did she leave?"
"Hmm. Just before seven. Around six forty-five, I'd say. I left a bit after her at seven."
Just before seven. That means she would have been at my place by seven thirty, eight if she dawdled and went to a bookstore or something. It doesn't make sense.
"Thanks, Tsuyoshi-kun."
"But it's odd. She hasn't shown up for work today yet."
I swallow down the sob that threatens to escape.
"Actually, there's a reason for that. She won't be going to work anymore."
His silence is a confused one. I explain in a few words what has happened.
"I..."
He's stunned into forgetting how to speak.
"Oh..."
I hear him swallow over the phone.
"I'll let the, um, boss know..."
"If you need to talk to me, call me on my cell phone anytime."
The offer is private, not business. I'm speaking to him, not U-Con, and he knows that. I feel bad because I've essentially just pointed a finger at this company he answers phones for. I'm sure the police will be crawling all over the walls soon, and Tsuyoshi might get confused. He's so young.
I know he hasn't done anything wrong. He adores Miki and respects her even more than most people who are close to her. To him, she is - was - his older sister. I'm the older sister's hot friend who he's nuts over.
We somehow end the conversation. He mumbles goodbye. I hang up and stare at my phone. I know that I have to call Miki's family, but I can't bring myself to do it.
I dial a number. It goes directly to an answering machine.
"Hi! This is Shibata. I'm away for the week. Send me an e-mail."
I curse. I've forgotten that she's in Spain.
Why is she there? When I need her the most, she's gone.
I take my cell phone out and write her an e-mail. I'm not sure what to say to her.
Shiba-chan. Miki's dead. I don't know what to do. Please call. Anytime.
I press 'send' and let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
My phone call to Hokkaido is painful. I speak to Miki's mother. She's in denial for the first minute and refuses to believe that it's actually me on the phone. However, I start to cry and it hits her that her cherished daughter is gone. I give her all the information I know and tell her that I'll keep in contact. She wants Miki's body sent to Hokkaido, and I tell her I'll inquire about that at the police station. There's no question I'm invited to the funeral. Miki's mom knows I love Miki like my own sister (although nothing more than that). I'm treated like family.
After the phone call, I lie down on the floor and let my mind wander for a few hours.
I ponder the same questions over and over.
Why?
Who?
And I think about the things Miki and I will never do together again. We'll never go to the zoo together, go shopping together, listen to music together. Never ever again. I'll never scold her again, she'll never pester me again, we'll never laugh it off again...
I wallow in my pain and sorrow until my phone rings.
-
Chapter 8 of 28
I jump up from the floor and run to my phone.
Shiba-chan!
"Hello?" I ask, on the point of tears.
"Hello, this is Sugiura. Could you come down to the office? We have some more things we need to discuss."
My heart drops, but I remind myself that he might have some news. I say it's okay, and he sends a patrol car to pick me up. It comes within seven minutes, and I sit in the back feeling alone and cold.
Just like Miki's body.
I can't shake the sense of dread I get when I walk into the police department building again. This time when I meet with Sugiura, he looks much sterner. I wonder what he has to say. He's got another man in the office with him.
I sit down.
"We're moved our investigation to Fujimoto-san's apartment," he informs me.
My stomach lurches, but I hold myself down. It was bound to happen, yet I still feel like protecting Miki's privacy. It's an invasion that feels disrespectful. That's her apartment, and only she can give people permission to enter.
I notice that Sugiura is eyeing me strangely.
"Oh. And?" I ask.
"Your fingerprints. They're all over."
I frown and go on alert. I don't know where this is heading.
"How did you get my fingerprints?" I demand.
Sugiura and the other man exchange nervous, guilty looks.
"Listen," Sugiura says, facing me again. "We take all precautions. We're very thorough in our investigation."
What a bastard. Such an evasive answer. I hate him. I bet when that woman cleaned up the washroom this morning, she didn't just clean up. She must have lifted my prints. Bastards. All of them.
"I did not kill her," I say in a hard, dangerous voice.
I'm offended by the mere suggestion.
"We don't think you did," Sugiura says in a calm, reassuring voice. "We just want to know why your prints are on everything in her apartment."
"Because I go over there a lot," I say tersely.
Sugiura frowns.
"And you touch everything? Your prints are on all her furniture, her books, her bowls, her stove... everything. We checked thoroughly."
Oh yeah? Did you check her body? 'Cause my fingerprints are all over that, too.
"I said I go over there a lot," I repeat firmly.
Sugiura seems to want to continue, but his partner stops him with a look. Sugiura concedes. He moves on.
"Are you aware of Miki keeping any sort of record or journal?"
All other thoughts in my head cease. Journal. Of course!
"No. If there isn't one in her apartment, then I guess there isn't one at all." I find myself saying.
Lying.
I know the real answer to the question. I also know what I'm doing now is impeding an investigation. Withholding information. But I can't let them read the journal that I'm fairly sure Miki usually keeps at home. If they haven't found it, it's probably at her workplace. It's the only other place.
They ask me a few more questions and then let me go. Sugiura's partner offers me a ride home, but I decline.
As soon as I'm out of their company, I ring up Tsuyoshi.
"U-Con Re-"
"Tsuyoshi!" I say quickly. He starts to ask in a shaky voice how I am, but I cut him off. "Have the police been by yet?"
"N-no, not yet."
He sounds shaken and confused.
"Good. I need you to do me a favour."
"Anything," he says obediently.
"Can you go into Miki's office room without anyone seeing you?"
There's a pause.
"Yeah. I'm going in now."
I hear him walk, open a door, and then close it.
"All right. Now look in the top drawer of her desk for a key. It should be in a little red box from a tea company."
I hear him rummage around.
"Got it."
"Now open the bottom drawer with that key."
I hear him comply.
"What am I looking for?" he asks.
"A book. It should have little puppy dogs on the front."
He goes through whatever is locked away in that drawer.
"Found it."
"Good. Now please take it with you. Don't let anyone see it or you. I'll be by soon to pick it up. If the police come, do not tell them you went into the office this afternoon. If they ask if I called, you can say yes, but tell them we just talked about Miki."
"I got it."
He sounds even more confused. I wish I didn't have to scare him like this.
But there's no way I'm letting those dirty investigators get their hands on Miki's most intimate thoughts.
And I've realised that if I have the journal, I can search for hints myself. Find out who did this for myself.
"I have to go now," I say quickly. "See you later."
I hang up and head for the train station.
I understand fully what I have just done. My relationship with the investigators just got tricky.
That's okay, though. I don't care. I don't feel like playing by their rules. They're not getting anything done. It's quite obvious they're not doing a good job if they're coming to me and accusing me of having something to do with this murder.
My rage surfaces it again and this time I channel it towards all those know-it-all detectives.
They don't know a thing.
-
Chapter 9 of 28
I go immediately to U-Con Records. Tsuyoshi is sitting at the front desk looking spaced out. He's all alone. Nobody else is in the reception foyer.
He sees me and stands up.
"Hey," he says, holding up something. "I've got it."
He hands me a UNIQLO bag. Nice touch.
"Thank you," I say with the deepest gratitude I can muster. "This will really help."
"Matsuura-san?" he asks as I turn around to leave.
"Yes?"
"How can you do that? Manage to keep going?"
He looks like a lost boy who has no family, no answers, no clues. If only he knew I felt even worse than that.
I smile at him sadly.
"Tsuyoshi-kun, I'm barely here."
With that, I leave.
I catch the train home in a daze.
It's almost five thirty by the time I get home. I sit down and have a glass of water. Halfway through it, the phone rings. I almost don't answer it because I don't want to talk to Sugiura anymore. I cave in because it might be important.
"Hello?"
"Aya-chan. What happened??" are the first words out of Shibata's mouth.
I break down and explain as much as I can. How Miki wasn't in touch all day, how she didn't come over after work, how I went to the morgue, and how Sugiura harassed me with suspicious questions.
A shocked silence follows my explanation. Someone calls out something I can't understand in the background, but Shibata ignores the noise. I sit there for about thirty seconds before she takes a breath to speak.
"I don't... I can't even think," she states.
"Shiba-chan..." I mumble sadly.
The one who's supposed to be a steady rock, a voice of reason, and never phased, has become speechless. It makes the crime that much worse. It doesn't even make sense to the most sensible of people.
"I, um..." she trails off distractedly as the voice in the background calls again.
She covers the mouthpiece and calls out in response to the voice. She comes back on the line.
"I'll come back as soon as possible."
The polite side of me that doesn't like to impose on people wants to yell out "no, that's not necessary", but my grief and anger overwhelm me and keep my mouth shut. Shiba-chan is the best friend I have on this Earth right now, and I need her like I've never needed anyone else in my life.
"I'll e-mail you a number. Call me if you need anything in the next few hours. I'll get in touch with you once I manage to get a flight."
"Okay."
"I'm staying with a family named Romero. They speak a little English. Just ask for me."
I nod again and mumble another reply.
"Aya-chan, just... just hang in there. Don't do anything stupid. I'm coming soon."
We hang up.
Don't do anything stupid? I look down at the bag sitting beside me. I've already done something she'd probably consider stupid.
I open the bag and carefully take out the journal, running my finger along the edges, tracing all four sides. I wonder what Miki would think if she saw me now, holding her thoughts in my hands and preparing to read them. Would she be embarrassed? Try and stop me? Urge me on to read?
I stand up and go into my bedroom, sliding the door shut and sitting on my bed. I look to my left and see Mr. Monkey lying on his side by the wall. I pick him up and squeeze him tightly. I put him in my lap.
I take a deep breath and I flip the cover open. The first page is blank. I turn it over, handling the pages gingerly as if they're pieces of a holy manuscript.
The entries start in February of this year. She's not one for many words. She doesn't lie to herself or beat around the bush. Not anymore. She's grown up a lot since I first got to know her.
With an uttered apology, I begin reading the small, compact handwriting.
-
Chapter 10 of 28
February 6th
I got a new book to write in. My other one ran out of space. Sometimes I hate keeping this thing. It's so embarrassing to read back over. But sometimes I get so bored on my own. Also, I can't possibly say every single thing that's on my mind to the people that matter. Maybe when I'm done with this - or better yet, at the end of the year - I'll give it to Aya to read. I don't think I'd mind at all. She knows everything about me anyway. These are just things I forget to say or that are too embarrassing but that I know she knows.
February 26th
Happy birthday to me!
Of course Aya forgot. I know she does it on purpose. I'm gonna get back at her good one day and teach her a lesson. She'll regret she ever neglected me on my birthday.
I'm at work now and it's a slow day. I've been sitting here trying to think of ideas. We're having a meeting next week and I want to ask some questions about procedure and stuff like that. I'm relatively new here, so I'm not quite sure how everything works.
It's weird to have a desk in an office. I'm a performer, not a salaryman. When I got to work this morning (after Aya all but ignored me when we woke up), some of my new coworkers sang happy birthday to me. After work, we're going for drinks. Ever since Katherine has been "on loan" to us from her company, we've all been partying a lot more. Maybe it's an American thing. And here I was thinking Japanese were big drinkers. At least she speaks Japanese fluently. God forbid I have to use my horrible English on her.
I hope Aya calls 20 times to find out why I'm late tonight. Hah! Aww, but maybe I'll send her an e-mail before it gets too late. Don't wanna worry her. Maybe at 8:30.
February 27th
Bad hangover. I've felt nauseous all day, but I can't go home yet. I'm waiting for Fujinuma to get out of a meeting so that I can talk to her about my new single. Killing time now.
Last night we went out and drank too much. I don't know how late I got home, but I remember Aya was there. She was pissed off at first because I ended up not calling and she was expecting to hang out with me. I ranted about how she forgot it was my birthday, and if she wanted to forget, that was fine by me, but that she shouldn't expect me to not make other plans. She actually said sorry to me. Ha! I won that round. But she wouldn't let me drink anything else even though I wanted to with her. Apparently I fell asleep on the floor. I only know that because this morning, she complained about having to drag me onto my bed. I guess that was her birthday present to me.
But... I'm not actually mad at her, and I know she's not mad at me. Just the same game we play. Our power struggle.
March 15th
I can't stand it when Hashimoto gets on my case. I know I go flat when I do lives. He doesn't have to be such an asshole about it.
March 16th
Hashimoto can piss me off as much as he wants. Aya's really good at cheering me up. It's like living with bliss and ecstasy right beside you, every touch like heaven, every word like music.
March 17th
We've had a spell of really cold weather. Aya's gone south for a tour for a couple of weeks so I'm all on my own.
I find I get stupidly poetic in the winter. Things are dark and it feels like I can let loose under that cover of darkness and be a bit more sentimental.
March 30th
I'm worried about getting old. Fujinuma asked me to do something three times, but I kept forgetting. What'll happen when I start to find grey hairs? Or get wrinkles? I don't want to be unable to do things I do today. If I want to climb a mountain, I want to be able to. If I want to recall every single details of the past, I want to be able to. If I want to stay up all night, I want to be able to. None of this wishy washy "maybe I can, maybe I can't" crap.
April 3rd
My bathroom sink pipe exploded on me. It was disgusting. So much gunk flowed out of it, and it stank. I had to get an emergency repairman to come and fix it, but it took him three hours to get here. They were busy with other emergencies. I sat on the balcony and drank coffee to get away from the smell indoors. Cherry blossom viewing from my own apartment. Haha, very pathetic.
By the time the guy came to fix the sink, I was wired, and I think he noticed. He joked around with me for a bit, and I loved it. I've been feeling so out of touch lately. I haven't spoken with many people lately, and since Aya's been on that tour, I haven't really made the effort. Hah, I can blame my loneliness on her.
Anyway, when the guy left, he gave me his card, but I looked at it later and saw that he'd written his own number on it. I wonder if I should call him up just to make Aya jealous. I still have to get my revenge for my birthday. I'd go out for coffee with him while she's in Kyushu, and then I'd make sure she found out.
...
Of course I'd never do that! Ha! I could never. I wouldn't want to. There's a line that I won't cross. We like to joke and tease each other, but not in a spiteful way. We actually do like each other and get along. We don't hold back around each other, but we treat each other with respect. Sometimes, though, I wonder if
April 9th
I forgot what I was going to write last time. I was interrupted by the phone. It's bothering me. Ug. I "sometimes wonder" about a lot of things.
Tomorrow I have to film my Music Fighter appearance. I'm still preparing for it. They always make me laugh so much that my cheeks hurt because they can't relax.
April 19th
Maybe this was what I meant to write about on April 3rd.
I'm pretty brave, pretty confident, pretty blunt. I don't really care what unimportant people think of me. But with people I respect, I care deeply. Aya's one of those people. I endear myself to her and get close to her because I like her so much.
I think many people have a best friend who is different from their favourite friend. A favourite friend is someone they like to do stuff with and have the most fun with. A best friend is someone who might not be a partier, but he/she has some big effect on the person's life. He/she helps that person and that person can be perfectly honest with him/her.
As for me, I'm lucky because Aya's both my best friend and my favourite friend. She's my idol, the person I respect most, the person I worry about most, the person I love most, and the first person I call up when I want to go to a movie. But what am I to her? I know we don't really talk about that out loud because sometimes you can't define it in words, but still... Sometimes I wonder if she likes me as much as I like her.
May 2
Do I treat people badly? I had a confrontation with Noriko today and she told me I'm not so nice all the time. I think she misunderstands me. I'm not rude, but I don't baby people when they need to hear the truth. I don't soften the blow. I tell them what they need to know, not what they want to hear. Not many people understand that. I don't want to make enemies because of it. I wish people were more understanding.
May 17th
I've got Fujinuma backing me up at work. Some seniors got upset because I just swept in here and got myself a bunch of golden opportunities. Lots of promo work, lots of lives, two singles, and rumours of an album. Fujinuma told them off. Love that woman.
Katherine went back to her country a couple of days ago. I kind of miss having her around, but I'm glad we won't be partying so much anymore. I swear I've gained three kilos from beer alone since she's been here.
May 31st
I got the green light for an album. Celebration time!
June 4th
I hate Kuniko with a passion. She and Ohashi can go to hell.
June 10th
Best day ever!!
June 15th
Did I mention before that I love Aya to death? When she says things like she did yesterday, I can't believe that I'm alive and on this world. She came over to my place after work and waxed rhapsodic on how wonderful I am and what an inspiration I am to her. I wasn't upset and I wasn't searching for comfort or ego-boosting, but I got it anyway. I wonder why she does things like that. It makes me feel impossible good.
Yesterday she carried on for a good ten minutes before pausing. I don't usually feel real embarrassment around her, but yesterday I couldn't talk because I was so embarrassed, not to mention touched. Later on when we went to sleep, I wanted to thank her some way, but I couldn't even begin to. I just lay there, and by the time I did think of something good to say, she was already asleep. I hope she knows how grateful I am for everything she's done for me. I think she knows. She knows that sometimes I don't say everything I want to say. So... when I don't say things, I hope she can feel the words coming from me. Maybe radiating off my skin.
June 23rd
I'm so worn out. It's been a crazy busy week. I want to stop and breathe, but there's no time. Gotta do my best till the end.
July 5th
Ug. So hot. Can't breathe.
July 6th
Katherine called our office. We all talked with her. She's crazy. But I kind of love that.
July 13th
Save me! Hottest summer in 76 years. How?! Why?!
July 20th
Fuck you, Aya. No, really. Stop bitching about everything that I do. I'm allowed to have a life.
God, she is so annoying when she acts all morally superior or whatever. I know how to take care of myself. I can handle the work. I'm not a twig that's going to snap easily. I can take a few bumps. She doesn't have to lead me and take care of me all the time.
Fuck you. Take me seriously for once.
July 22nd
I feel really bad for writing what I did. We talked. She was just worried for me 'cause she cares. I know that, but I guess I've been a bit tense with all this work lately. She told me she takes me seriously and I believe her. I take back those nasty words.
Waiting for her to come over now. All I want is a hug and that'll be enough.
August 28th
Had another dumb fight with Aya again. I think the heat makes us cranky. That and all the work. It's all good now. I don't like having ill feelings between us, but in a way it's good. We let all that steam out. And of course the after part. Haha, we should argue more often. Kinda turns me on.
September 3rd
Terrace Café, 5:15.... ?
September 4th
It looks like I've got something potentially good. That was an interesting meeting. Now that I've got this album...
September 30th
I've been so busy at work, plus all these extra meetings. I deal with some strange people sometimes, but I guess I like them well enough. I've been neglecting some things at home. I've been neglecting some people. It makes me feel bad.
October 17th
Fucking hell. She's going to be gone for three months. Stupid Italy.
October 24th
Aya leaves tomorrow evening. My time is stretched between work, meetings, and her. I want to spend all of it with her. Three months... I think I might cry. Actually, I am crying a little right now. I don't want her to leave. She's so cheery and happy, even when she's not. To me, she's always shining in some way. If somehow she can come home early, I'll be so thankful. I try to be strong for her, but it's tough when you love someone so much that you're rendered weak and susceptible to all sorts of emotional bullets. I'm watching her right now. She's fast asleep, but I couldn't fall asleep no matter how warm I was. I had to write something.
October 27th
Ha! I swear she was abducted by aliens. All her crazy talk. But I love her. She's staying. Oh, she's staying!!
October 28th
I'm so weirded out right now. What have I gotten myself into?
October 31st
She's so perfect. Why is this happening to me? I've never been more terrified in my life. They say if I tell anyone, they'll kill her. I believe them.
November 6th
I can't move from my office. They know I'm going to say something tonight. They just know. I can't call, can't talk to anyone, can't even write about it here. I'm going to keep this book here tonight. I don't want it with me. I just want to be back home with her. That way I can try to make sure nobody gets hurt.
I'm so scared.
-
Chapter 11 of 28
What the...?
I put down the book, my hands trembling. I'm filled with even more of the same sick feeling that's been inside me ever since the police called.
Somebody was harassing her. Somebody threatened her. But what was it about?
I go back and read the entire book once more. It doesn't take too long. I focus on the last three entries. They sound very mysterious. Is the "her" she's writing about me? Did someone threaten to kill me? What kind of secret did Miki have that made them threaten people close to her? What did she do to aggravate someone to the point of doing that?
I flip back to the entry on June 4th.
Kuniko. Ohashi.
I wrack my brain trying to remember who they are. As far as I can remember, though, they're just fellow co-workers on the same label as Miki. If memory serves correctly, Kuniko is a b-grade singer (according to Miki), and Ohashi is some older guy who can dance but whose singing is nothing to write home about. Could they have done something to her?
No, that would be too obvious.
What about Noriko? I know Noriko from a party a few months ago, but she doesn't strike me as a dangerous person who would want to kill someone.
Nobody does. Nobody at her work would do that. She would have told me if there was anyone she thought was going to hurt her.
But then I look at the second last entry.
They say if I tell anyone, they'll kill her.
Why would she believe these people? She could have told me anything and nobody else would ever know. How bad was this thing she knew?
Reading this journal has caused me more confusion than I thought it could. It's answered none of my questions.
I briefly consider handing it over to the police, but I stop that thought. There will be too much to explain. I've already lied to them, and I've even involved Tsuyoshi. I have to keep silent. Anyway, the things Miki has written about are too personal. I don't want anyone to know them. I don't care that they involve me. I just want to protect her last bits of dignity. She wouldn't want her life to be an open book to just anyone.
So that leaves me with a big question mark floating over my head. Who was harassing Miki, who killed her, and why?
I need to answer these questions, because once I do, I will find the people responsible and rip their throats out.
I drop the book from my hands and grab the covers on my bed, squeezing hard. The rage resurfaces and I want to scream. I hold it in and take a deep breath, counting to ten before I let go and exhale. I open the book again and read slowly from the beginning.
I wish I'd gotten her a birthday present. I had meant to "forget" her birthday this year because I was going to surprise her after work, but then she went and got drunk at some other party and ruined it. I felt really bad, but I never told her that I had planned to do something for her. I guess now she'll never know...
It breaks my heart to read her entry where she wonders if I like her as much as she likes me. Of course I do. She's also my favourite friend and my best friend. I begin to cry because now I can't tell her that. I think she knew, though. She probably let go of that fear after writing it down. She must have known because she never wrote about it again. If it bothered her, she would have written about it. Right?
After reading about how we argued (the memory of those arguments comes back, and now I miss them more than anything), I stop at the first entry for the month of September.
"Terrace Café, five-fifteen, September third," I read out loud.
The Terrace Café is our place. We go there a lot because of the nice atmosphere, and nobody bothers us. I wonder what kind of meeting she had there.
It's odd, though. That café isn't exactly a place where one would think to have a meeting. And why that particular one? There are dozens of other places in Tokyo in which to have meetings.
She also seems to have been caught off guard by it. Her question mark probably shows that she's not the one that called the meeting.
So who did?
When I find you I'm gonna kill you, you bastard. Rip your heart out and see how you like it.
My hands itch to call Shibata and tell her about these things I've discovered, but there's no point. She's either on her way over here if she managed to get a flight for today, or she's getting ready to leave and shouldn't be disturbed. I hope she calls me as soon as she lands. I need to talk to someone I can trust completely.
I read the same few pages over and over again. It seems impossible that almost a whole year's worth of unspoken thoughts are contained within these ten pages. I guess she really does tell me everything. Did. She really did tell me everything.
(No. Thinking in the past tense hurts too much. I can't do it.)
Maybe she just doesn't like to write much. She said so herself. She's not the most eloquent writer, but then again, neither am I. At least I can get into it and get all flowery and dramatic. She's too shy, even with herself.
I flip through the blank pages mindlessly until I discover something. There's some writing on a few of the pages near the back of the book.
The third last page has a poem written on it. As I read it, I realise that it's the song that she was trying to write before she di- no. Just... the song that she was trying to write. At the bottom of the page, she's scribbled some things. There are some pictures that I can't quite make out. Maybe animals or people. And there's my name with a heart around it.
I read the song over and over again. It's pretty terrible, but suddenly it means a whole lot more. I can't stop the tears as I look at this ridiculous song and think of how she's never going to work on it again. I'll never hear her sing it in the shower again.
I throw the book down and yell at the top of my lungs. Nothing intelligible. A mess of gibberish. I scream out words of death and killing, and I bawl my fists up, pounding them down on my bed. I fall forward and cry into the blankets, sobbing out that I want to kill whoever killed her. That I won't rest until I've found him. I tell her that I'm sorry for letting this happen to her.
I lose control for those five minutes, and then pull myself together. I have to keep sane. Whoever did this to her is still out there, and I'm sure I can't be safe if they are.
I turn to the next page and I grow even sadder. It's an entry that she didn't write in the main part of the book for a silly reason. I read it quietly in my head.
June 23rd
I can't keep this a secret anymore!! But I have to write it back here just in case Aya reads my journal before the 25th. You never know. Sometimes I keep it at her place, but I don't tell her. I mean, of course I trust her, but still. Like I said, you never know. Hahaha! I don't think people usually flip to the back of a book when they read, so let's hope this works.
Anyway, for her birthday, I got her this stupid book she's been going on about wanting to read. Not just that, but I got it signed by the author. Yesterday he had a two-hour autograph session at Kinokuniya. Aya had to work and she complained ad nauseum about not being able to go. I ignored her pretty much all day, and I managed to get time off to go to the session. I got the book signed and addressed to her. I can't wait to see her reaction in a few days. She'll either worship me for thinking of her and taking time off, or kill me 'cause I got to meet her favourite author. I hope it's the first one!
I remember that clearly. I thought she was going to give me a taste of my own medicine and ignore me on my birthday, but no. When I woke up to my screeching alarm and grudgingly got out of bed to go to work, she was already up and in the living room watching TV. A rare thing for her. She saw me and tossed me a bag that I barely caught. I opened it and saw that book and smiled... and then when she told me to open it to the first title page, I almost died. For a moment I did feel jealous that she'd gotten to meet him, but that quickly changed into gratitude, and I didn't think that I could ever say "thank you" enough times.
I start to feel myself losing control again, so I grab my cell phone and check my e-mail for that number Shibata has sent me. She's included the directions for long distance calling. I yank my phone off the hook and dial quickly.
It takes a while to connect.
The ringing starts.
After four rings, someone picks up.
"Dígame."
"Eh... Shiba.... eh... Ayumi?"
"No. Ya se fue. Hace como veinte minutos."
This requires a different approach.
"Ahh... Japanese? English? I look for Ayumi," I say into the phone in English.
"Ahh, sorry. She has left. She buy a ticket for, eh, a plane. Ehh, twenty minutes since gone."
I just barely understand.
"So sorry. Thank you. Bye!" I say quickly, and I hang up as the other person says something along the lines of "it's okay, bye."
So she's managed to buy a plane ticket? Or she's out buying one now? Either way, I can't talk to her for a while.
My life is a waiting game right now. I pick up the journal and I re-read it.
This time around, something nags at the back of my mind. After the Terrace Café entry in September, she speaks about her meetings as if they're separate from her work.
I've been so busy at work, plus all these extra meetings.
My time is stretched between work, meetings, and her.
It might just be my imagination or my paranoia, but something is not right about that. But there's no way for me to find out. I should have asked Tsuyoshi to grab her agenda book while he was in her office.
Tsuyoshi. Of course. Who else would know better than him? He's the secretary. He's sure to have handled scheduling, or at least seen the calendars fifty times per day. He'd probably be able to answer my questions.
I know I have to have his cell phone number somewhere. I'm fairly certain he gave it to me a few months ago, something which Miki teased me about a lot. I look through my address book and find it. There must be some lucky star on my side for the time being.
I dial up the number and wait patiently.
"Hello?" asks a tired voice.
"Hi, Tsuyoshi-kun," I say.
It takes him almost no time to identify who I am.
"Oh, hi. What can I do for you?" he asks with unimaginable hope in his voice.
"Do you have time now? I just want to ask you a question or two."
"Sure. Does this have to do with Fujimoto-san?"
His voice weakens at the mention of her name. My stomach weakens, too.
"Yes," I say quietly. His silence is my pass to continue. "Did Miki-chan have a lot of meetings?"
"Yes, but not more than any of our other employees. She's- she was popular with the bosses, so she got lots of extra opportunities, but no extra meetings."
"What about outside of the company. Did she have any outside meetings at any cafés or restaurants?"
"Um..." Tsuyoshi thinks hard. "I can't recall ever seeing one on the schedule."
"What about-"
"Wait," he says, interrupting me. "I've got my giant agenda book from work. I bring it home sometimes. I've got everybody's bookings written in there. Let me get it."
"Thanks."
I wait while he runs over to wherever he keeps the book.
"Okay, I've got it here. Do you have any particular date in mind?"
He's on the same wavelength as me.
"September third. Anything out of the office scheduled for around five fifteen?"
He flips through pages and then stops.
"Nope. Nothing for September third. Actually, she had no meetings here or outside."
Suspicious.
"And nothing on the next day either?"
"No. Nothing."
So this meeting she had must have been... personal? But it sounded like it was work-related.
"What about after that? For the months of September and October. Can you tell me what kinds of meetings she had?"
Tsuyoshi flips through the pages of his book, no doubt memorising when and where Miki had meetings.
"They're all meetings in the office. Nothing outside. No business lunches or anything like that."
I try not to yell out in frustration. What were these meetings she was going to?!
I take a deep breath to calm myself.
"Tsuyoshi-kun, can you think hard about Miki during the months of September and October? Was there anything that seemed off about her? Did she do or say anything strange? Maybe act out of character?"
I can hear him breathing as he thinks. I've probably scared him more than I should. I can feel him wanting to ask me questions, but he's being polite.
"Nothing strange, but she did leave early quite a bit in the past half month. Well, not early. She used to stay overtime till seven or eight, but lately she was leaving at four-thirty or five. It sounded like she was just busy at home. It happened maybe two or three times a week."
An icy hand grips my heart. As far as I knew it, she was working at her U-Con office until late and then going home right after. Now I'm hearing that sometimes she left early some days and essentially disappeared for a few hours. I have never been a maniac about keeping track of her. She has - had - her own life, and who was I to need a record of how she spent every single minute of her day?
But it just seems odd that she never talked about it with me. Why wouldn't she mention these extra meetings? Why did she make everything she did sound like it was part of her official work? I have a very bad feeling.
"Did anybody strange call for her? Or did one person call her frequently? More than usual?" I ask, my voice shaking a bit.
"Um... no. I mean, you call - called - her more than anyone. Other than that, nobody seemed to call her too many times."
Oops. Did I really call her that much? No use dwelling on that now, though.
"I see..."
I run a shaky hand through my hair and try to think.
"Matsuura-san, was Fujimoto-san in any trouble? I mean, you mentioned the police earlier..." Tsuyoshi asks timidly.
"Sorry. I honestly don't know. She might have been in trouble, but as the victim. So the police didn't show up there today?"
"No."
I'm positive that they'll show up tomorrow.
"Tsuyoshi-kun, I know I'm asking a lot of you, but can you keep this quiet? That we talked about Miki's schedule? I think the police are looking in the wrong direction, and with me being nosey, they're going to think I have something to do with it. I need you to trust me for a bit..."
I know that I really am asking a lot of him. He can say no anytime to me, deny me information, and go straight to the police with what we've talked about.
But he's a very loyal boy. I've learned that. I have faith in him.
"Matsuura-san, I would rather be arrested and thrown into the slammer than let you down. If somebody did hurt Fujimoto-san, I want him brought to justice."
I almost shed a tear at the love I hear in his voice. Definitely not your typical nineteen-year-old boy.
"Thank you. You can't imagine how much that means. I have to go now, but keep in touch, okay?"
We say goodbye and hang up.
I look down at the journal entry for September third.
Terrace Café.
I have a feeling that whoever I'm looking for, he or she is connected to that meeting. It has to be. There's no other explanation.
I'm taking a gigantic leap here. I don't know how to be a cop. There's a reason why I never finished high school.
But to do what I'm going to do, I need somebody by my side. I need some brains. I need someone with common sense. I need Shiba-chan.
Hopefully she'll be here soon.
I turn off the lights and lie down on my bed, the journal right beside me, Mr. Monkey above my head.
Sleep takes a long time to come, but when it does, I'm grateful, because for a few hours, I can escape from the gut-wrenching pain that I'm trying to cover up by playing detective.
-
Chapter 12 of 28
RIIING! RIIING! RIIING!
I groan at the sound that threatens to rip me away from the safe haven of darkness that my mind has created. Still half gone, I turn my head away from the sound.
RIIING! RIIING! RIIING!
"Can you hit it?" I mumble aloud.
I don't want to move. The alarm clock is on the other side of the bed.
RIIING! RIIING! RIIING!
"Get... get it. Turn it... off," I mutter.
What's taking her so long??
RIIING! RIIING! RII-
Silence.
Ahhh, I think.
I smile warmly as I snuggle back into the covers.
Got it.
I lie there for twenty seconds before I jerk awake completely.
Wait a minute. I didn't just turn off the alarm clock. That means... it was... And it was all a... a dream!
I shoot up from my bed excitedly, relieved, ecstatic! What a horrible nightma-
I look beside me, but there's nobody there. I look around wildly.
Nobody.
I jump out of my bed and run to the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, the entrance...
Nobody.
It wasn't a nightmare.
No, it is a nightmare. I'm living it now.
I'm all alone.
I walk back to my bedroom blankly. I sit on my bed and stare at the wall.
When the ringing starts again, I scream in fright.
"AAAEEIIIIII!!"
I turn around and look at the alarm clock, but that's not what's making the sound. It's my phone.
I grit my teeth in anger at the false hope that has just overwhelmed my mind and made me feel like it could have all been a dream. I feel so stupid.
I glance at the time. It's half past twelve in the morning. Who could be calling at this hour?
I pick up the phone.
"Hello?"
My voice is surprisingly strong. It must have been that warm-up scream.
"Aya-chan, it's Shibata."
I let out a partial sigh of relief.
"Hi."
"I'm at the airport in Barcelona now. My flight leaves in half an hour. I'll be there in about fourteen hours."
"Why so long?" I ask groggily, rubbing my eyes.
"Layover in Germany," she replies, sounding annoyed. "Anyway, listen. Stay put. I'll go to your place as soon as I've dropped my things off. It might take a while, so I hope you don't mind that I come in the evening."
I make a sound of acknowledgement.
"Hurry, Shiba-chan."
"I know."
I hang up and lie back down, curling up into a small ball, holding the covers tightly. I review the past twenty-four hours in my head. They seem so unbelievable.
Murder. There's been a murder in my life. How can that be possible? I don't lead a normal life, what with being a household name and easily recognisable to three quarters of the country's population, but nothing I've done - or that Miki's done - merits this kind of punishment.
I clench my fists and suddenly I'm nothing but angry. I fantasise about wrapping my hands around the murderer's neck and squeezing tightly until he - or she - can't breathe. Until he falls lifelessly to the ground with a thud.
Within minutes, I break down crying again. How can I want to kill someone so badly? It's not right. I shouldn't think like that.
But I can't help it. It hurts too much.
I fall asleep again, violent dreams leading me through to the next morning.
I'm awoken again by the telephone. This time it doesn't trick me. I check the time before answering.
Nine o'clock. It can't be Shibata. She's probably in mid-flight. It's probably Sugiura.
"Yes?"
"Matsuura-san!" hisses Tsuyoshi's terrified voice.
"Tsuyoshi-kun. What's wrong?" I ask, knowing all too well what must be happening.
"The police. They got here early this morning. They're going through everything in Fujimoto-san's office. They're asking everyone questions. What should I do??"
If I don't calm the boy down, he's going to go into hysterics, and that will benefit neither one of us.
"Tsuyoshi, listen to me," I say sharply. "Breathe. Three times slowly."
I hear him follow my command obediently. His breathing slows down considerably, and he no longer sounds like a rabid dog.
"Remember, the police can't know what we've talked about. Where are you now?" I ask calmly.
I don't feel one bit calm.
"In the washroom. I'm alone."
"Good," I say, even though it's really not at all good. "If they ask how you found out about Miki, tell them the truth. But say I called only to tell you about her. Nothing else."
"What do I say if they ask about the other phone call?" he asks nervously.
I can hear him just barely managing to keep his cool.
"Just say I was calling to check up on you. Not a word about the journal. It's not a secret that we chat from time to time, right?" I reassure him.
He mumbles something about everyone teasing him about that. At this impossibly whacky time, I crack a smile. I find it almost cute.
"What did you do with the key to Miki's desk?" I ask abruptly, remembering that he didn't mention putting it away.
There's a silence.
Uh oh... What has he done?
"It's at home," he whispers.
I'm not sure whether to feel relieved or angry. Probably more relieved. Whatever is an obstacle to the police is all good to me.
"Okay. Not a word to anyone about it either. As far as we're concerned, we don't know what Miki keeps in the bottom drawer of her desk."
"Wh-what about my fingerprints? What if they search?" he stutters.
That would be bad.
"Do you ever go into her office? Clean up her desk?" I ask hopefully.
"Sometimes I organise the top of her desk when she's not in. She gets really messy."
"Good!" I exclaim, thanking the Fujimoto ancestors for passing on that messy gene to Miki. "Then that's it. You clean up her desk sometimes. If they ask why your prints are on the bottom drawer, just say you were looking for my number because you needed to talk. Tell them you couldn't open it in the end."
He says he understands.
I quiz him to get our stories straight, and then he says he has to go back to his desk. I wish him luck.
When I hang up the phone, I put my head in my hands and stare at the floor.
How can my life be like this? The other day I was lounging around, enjoying my free time and wonderful breakfasts. Now I feel like a fugitive.
It's silly, that's what. Silly.
I get up and get ready to go do something other than sitting and moping. When I'm in the middle of action, I don't dwell on things. I live in that moment. It's when I have time to sit and think that it hurts the most. Everything comes back to me.
Got to keep moving.
Once in the shower, I remind myself that I have to arrange for the transfer of Mi... the body to Hokkaido. I wonder if I'll be allowed to see her again. I question whether I want to.
I do.
But I don't.
Should I feel bad about that? I want to see her because it's her, but I don't want to remember her like that.
But I have to. One more time. One last time. That other time was too sudden.
I finish getting ready and place a call to Sugiura. He's not in - probably because he's heading the investigation at U-Con - so I'm forwarded to his third in command, one of the men who was present at the first interview that I wish to banish from my memory. His name is Cho.
I discuss the issue with him. There's some sort of question as to whether her body should be released before a proper autopsy, and it makes me sick. I know her mother doesn't want her touched. She just wants Miki back on home soil.
I fight for it, but Cho asks for the Fujimoto family's contact information. I give it hesitantly. I have made a promise to take care of everything, yet here it is going out of my control. Cho promises to get in touch with me after he's spoken to the family. He probably thinks he can bully them into thinking his way. Little does he know that the Fujimoto parents are every bit as stubborn as their youngest child is. Was. That's my source of satisfaction.
I start to kill time by cleaning up my apartment.
What a big mistake. I keep running into things that belong to Miki. Her clothes, her books, the miscellaneous junk that somehow accumulates in my bedroom, her hair products...
What am I supposed to do with all this stuff? Keep it? Throw it away? Lock it away in a box and never look at it again?
What about her toothbrush? Her hairbrush? How can I throw those away? What if she needs them? What if... somehow... she needs them? I can't get rid of them.
I leave everything as it is. I sit on my bed with a few of her things in front of me - the pyjamas she wore just the other night, a sweatshirt, and a pair of jeans.
Have I inherited these things? Are they mine? I've always been free to use them, but now it's different. Only I will ever use them.
I fold each item of clothing carefully and put them where I found them. The jeans go back into the drawer, the pyjamas and sweatshirt under the pillow.
Die, you bastard, I think.
I will stalk the person responsible to the ends of the earth and beat him senseless. I will beat him until he doesn't know who he is or which way is up.
Because that's how I feel now.
Raving mad, I stand up and stalk out of my bedroom. I grab my things and leave my apartment, slamming my door angrily.
-
Chapter 13 of 28
Lunchtime comes and goes as I wander through the streets. For four hours I walk around with no point and too many bad thoughts, torn between being sad and being angry.
The minute after I get home, Cho calls me and informs me that I can go down to the morgue and make whatever arrangements I want because he has spoken with Miki's mother. He has the audacity to sound annoyed. I almost tear into him, but I let it go. Let the imbeciles remain imbeciles.
Caring about nothing, I make my way back to that horrid, cold place to take care of the paperwork. I'm just barely polite to the people working there. I don't know what I'm doing, so I have to let them tell me what to do. I turn into a nervous wreck because it's all so complicated. There's no need for it to be. I just want to send her to her hometown. Why can't it be like buying a train ticket?
I get out of there feeling frustrated, as if I've accomplished nothing. I didn't even get to see her.
I go home in a daze after calling Miki's mother to apologise and inform her that everything has been taken care of. She thanks me and tells me she'll call me later with details about the funeral. She chokes up when she says that word.
Funeral.
I simply block it out. If I can't hear it, it doesn't exist, right?
It's three o'clock by the time I get home. Shibata should be landing soon. Fifteen minutes later, my phone rings. I've received mail.
In line at customs. Will call as soon as I'm home.
I send her back an e-mail.
Welcome back.
It seems full of sarcasm and bitterness. As if I'm saying "welcome home, Shiba-chan, to our lovely country, my hell on Earth, my nightmare."
I sit and re-read Miki's journal over and over again until the phone rings again at four-thirty.
It's Tsuyoshi. I don't have to ask him a thing because he launches right into it after I pick up.
"Everything went fine. They didn't ask about the second phone call even though I'm sure they pulled the record and saw your number. They didn't ask about the 'prints either. They only asked if I usually went into Fujimoto-san's office. I said I sometimes went in to clean up her desk."
I sigh. That's good news.
"So I think we're safe," he concludes.
He sounds thrilled. Excited.
"This isn't a game," I snap at him out of the blue. "If you think this is fun, I refuse to have anything to do with you."
I regret speaking to him so harshly, but he has to know that this is serious. This is about a life that has been taken. A life that was important to me, and one that I will never forget.
"I-I'm sorry..." he apologises weakly, "I didn't mean that."
I rein my anger in. I'm channelling it at the wrong person.
"Sorry. I'm tired."
I don't think I sound that sorry, but Tsuyoshi cuts in and apologises some more and says I shouldn't be the one to feel bad. We end our conversation on an awkward note and I go back to my thoughts.
I sit and contemplate what to do. Where to go from here. Once this is all over - once the killer is caught - what am I supposed to do? I have no job, and any desire to find one has left me completely. I have a gaping hole in my heart that can't be filled in by anything. Not my family, not a million friends like Shiba-chan, not a drug. I'm lost.
It's my fault, though. It's entirely my fault for living in such a happy and carefree way. Before all of this, I had never thought that anything bad could happen to me or the ones I loved. I had always taken my safety for granted, and I had never stopped to think about what I would do if I were faced with some sort of danger or tragedy. I let myself get close to Miki and I somehow let her make me like her. I gave in to her charms and without even being sure why, I couldn't let go.
And now I sit here, broken-hearted because I bothered to care. Half a person because I gave away part of myself. Maybe it would have all been better if I had never met her. Then I wouldn't feel like I was paralysed and being pecked at bit by bit by a hungry raven.
That's selfish. You know what you are? Selfish and idiotic, I tell myself.
I'm swimming in my pain like a spoiled child. The ultimate injustice has been committed. It's not time to think about myself. It's time to think about her. This crime against her must be uncovered, her killer brought to justice. All her memories should serve as reminders of just how damned lucky I am to have met her at all. I shouldn't be sitting here saying, "oh, boo hoo, me. Look at my pain." This is about something bigger.
But even though I tell myself that, I still can't stop hurting and feeling sorry for myself.
Time passes slowly as I struggle with this problem. I pick up one of Miki's books and flip through it, looking at the bright pictures and the bold captions. It's a travel guidebook for East Asia. On the shelf there are seven or eight more books, all guidebooks for different regions of the world.
So much for taking another overseas trip together. I sigh and imagine what it would have been like.
At six-thirty, my phone rings. I check my mail and bolt out of the room.
Shiba-chan's back.
I throw on a jacket, gather whatever I need to show her, and leave my apartment, mailing her back as I rush out the door.
~
DING DONG
I stand outside Shibata’s apartment, unable to be still.
Five seconds later, the door opens.
"Come in," Shibata says when she sees me.
I manage a thankful nod and step inside. Beyond her, I can her suitcase on the floor. It's open and half empty already. She's in the middle of unpacking.
"Have a seat," she says once I've taken off my shoes.
I sit on her couch, clutching my bag in my hands.
"Want something to drink?"
I shake my head once.
Shibata stands there watching me. I find myself unable to speak. If I talk to her about it in person, it's going to be real and final. If I keep my silence, I can pretend Miki's still alive and it's all just a bad dream.
"Want to tell me what you've been up to?"
I move shakily and pull the journal out of my bag, holding it up to her. She walks over and takes it from me. She opens it up to the first page with writing on it and then looks right back at me.
"What is this?"
"That's Miki's journal. It proves that whoever killed her... Uh, she knew him."
Shibata looks at me, uncomprehending.
"Aya-chan, I know you don't want to talk about it, but I need to know what you've been up to the past two days. What have you found out?"
Slowly, I start to explain exactly what has been going on, leaving out no detail. I talk about lying to Sugiura because of his unspoken accusation, Tsuyoshi helping me out, calling Miki's mother, seeing the body, and the investigation at U-Con. I turn into a blubbering mess at some point, and Shibata comes to sit down beside me, putting an arm around my shoulders as I cry into her shoulder. The tears pour out of me and her shirt becomes damp.
"...so all I have to go on in this journal. And- and that cafe that we go to together."
I lift my head up to look at her. She's deep in thought, a frown of concentration on her face. I can see what she's thinking. For the first time in my life, I think, I can read her like a book. I can see it all in her eyes - her shock, her sadness, her anger, her defensiveness...
"I'm sorry I wasn't here when it happened," she says.
Those words trigger a landslide in me and I start to bawl.
"I can't do this," I cry, leaning back against the couch and covering my face.
I find it hard to breathe, gasping in air only to expel it as wild sobs.
"Yes, you can. I'm going to help you. We'll find out- find out something. Don't lose hope."
But I can tell from her voice that she's unsure. "What can we do?" it asks silently. "What can we figure out that the police can't?"
The hum of the refrigerator mixed with my crying is the only sound we hear for some time.
-
Chapter 14 of 28
I end up staying the night at Shibata's camped out on her floor beside her bed.
After I finish crying, we get ready for bed because she's exhausted. She hasn't slept since she bought her plane ticket to come back. We lie down in her room and talk. I somehow find the power to speak about something other than the tragedy. I tell her about the days before Miki's death and what we did, but when I playfully scold Miki in absentia for being silly and childish, I feel an instant pang in my heart that reminds me to cherish every single moment, annoying or not, because there will be no more new ones made from now on. Forever.
We talk a bit about what to do with my investigation. At first Shibata is a little reluctant. She tells me it's neither very smart nor safe to go against the police, but she quickly descends from that moral high ground and tells me she'll help me out. Our next move, we agree, is to go to the Terrace Café and ask the owner about Miki. The owner knows my face since Miki and I have been going to that café for quite a while now. She's a mysterious woman, the owner, but she seems like the type who can keep quiet and offer a bit of assistance from the shadows. I'm sure she likes me and Miki since we patronise her shop loyally.
Shibata yawns all through our talk, but not once does her voice or mood give away how desperately she must want to fall asleep. She stays attentive to what I have to say until I fall asleep first, and that's just one of the countless things that shows what a wonderful and selfless person Shibata is.
The next morning I wake up feeling much more rested. It still hurts, of course.
I look up and see that Shibata's already out of bed. The poor girl's internal clock is still haywire.
I hear soft sounds coming from outside the bedroom, and when I open the door, the strong smell of coffee attacks my senses.
"Good morning," Shibata greets me.
She's standing in the living room, a cup of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. She's just about to sit down. She's already dressed for the day, making me feel like a late-rising sloth.
"Good morning," I reply, looking up at the clock on the shelf beside her.
It's only half past seven.
"Want some coffee?" she asks me, starting to get up.
I wave a hand no, but my stomach growls. It occurs to me that I can't remember the last time I had a meal.
"But could I have something to eat?" I ask.
I don't like to ask, but it's now about my third day with no meal. I'm beyond manners.
"Of course," she says, getting up to prepare something for me.
I sulk behind her guiltily.
"So, are we going to that café today?" she asks out of the blue.
My jaw hardens. That's right. We're on a mission.
"Yes. As soon as it opens."
Shibata finds me something to eat, and I'm surprised that I'm able to hold food down in my stomach. The sick feeling inside me recognises that my body needs nutrition in order to continue. Although the truth is that I feel my anger could fuel me for centuries without food and water.
We discuss what to ask the owner of the café. Shibata is indeed clever. I would have gone in there and asked questions recklessly. She takes a more controlled approach. It's as if all my organisation skills and all my common sense have ceased to exist. She has to tell me things that, three days ago, I would have been telling Miki to keep in mind.
I ask her to tell me about Spain to distract me. She talks about the things she was able to do in her short time there, how she met the family she stayed with, and other interesting facts that I try to focus on. But at the back of my mind, I can only think about myself and about Miki.
We could have gone to Spain. We could have had fun there.
In the middle of relating a story about her plane ride home, my cell phone rings. I pick it up and am not happy to hear Sugiura's voice coming from the receiver.
"What is it?" I ask rudely.
"Ah, I'm sorry to bother you, but as you know, we have searched through Fujimoto-san's apartment and her workplace," he says.
Congratulations, I think bitterly.
"Good," I say flatly.
"And I just want to apologise for, um, the second interview I had with you."
I frown. This seems like a good thing, but is it really?
"Oh?"
Sugiura clears his throat almost nervously.
"I made an error," he admits. "I even implied that you might have had ill intentions. But upon further review of the case details and of the victim's personal effects, I find I misjudged you hastily."
"Huh?" I stammer, a strange feeling starting to rise up in me.
"We found several letters in her apartment, including a will-like note in the event that anything unspeakable ever happened to her. It's clear that my suspicion of you and your fingerprints being all over her apartment was spawned because I was not aware of all of the facts."
Oh brother. This is uncomfortable.
"Oh..." I mumble into the mouthpiece.
Now I know what he's talking about. He's somehow pieced together just how close Miki and I are. Were. And now he's changing his mind about previous suspicions. I would much rather he remained clueless, but if it clears my name, I guess I have to allow it.
"Two orders of business," he sets out in a completely different, strong tone. "First, we have removed any mention of your name in the official press release that we gave out earlier this morning."
Press release? Of course. The murder of a fairly high-profile singer doesn't go unnoticed. I'm sure people have been trying to reach her for the past two days and have begun to wonder. Now the world will know. But I'm curious what it would have said with my name included. And even more curious as to what made them take my name out of it. They could have easily and (truthfully) left in my name, saying I was the one to identify her- her body.
"Second, while we are still conducting our investigation at Fujimoto-san's apartment, I deemed it appropriate that you be allowed to come by and pick up several things that I believe you should have."
Great. Just great.
I suck in a breath and put all my confidence into my voice.
"Thank you, Sugiura-san. That would be nice."
But don't think this means I'm going to give you the journal, I think.
Not that he knows about it.
"Please ring before you come back down to the department so that we're ready to receive you."
"Could I head down there now?" I ask.
He says that it's fine and actually more convenient if I go now. I tell him I'll be there in an hour and a half, and I hang up, not sure what to feel. Relief? Embarrassment? Nothing?
I explain to Shibata what the conversation was about, and she asks if I want her to come with me.
"No, it's all right. I'll go alone. No use showing your face down there."
The less the police know about my friends, the better.
I finish eating, get ready quickly, and leave, thanking Shibata for letting me stay over and telling her I'll call as soon as I'm finished at the police department. We'll head to the café together later.
~
When I arrive at the department, the receptionist tells me I can go ahead to Sugiura's office. I walk there slowly, wondering what to say to him. I don't want to have to explain myself. A part of me is worried that he's going to demand why I didn't tell him the whole truth before. But why should I have to? He's the one who should be bowing down and apologising to me. I'm the one who has lost a loved one. I'm the one who was shocked with the news. I was the one who had to tell Miki's mother and Tsuyoshi, and Shibata.
I knock at the door.
"Come in!"
I walk in, shutting the door quietly and avoiding eye contact.
"Matsuura-san, thank you for coming down this morning," Sugiura says, standing up quickly from his chair.
His entire attitude has changed. His voice is back to the softer, kind one he used when he first met me. His posture is even less intimidating than when I last saw him.
"I have some things that, well, they belong to you now. Here you go," he says, picking up a paper shopping bag from his desk and handing it to me.
I don't know what to say. I've left tonnes of things at Miki's apartment over the past five years. The detectives have no way of knowing what's mine and what's hers. I don't even know anymore. It's not like I label all my clothing. I don't write my name on the DVDs that I keep by her television set and force her to watch. Although I guess to most people, the existence of two toothbrushes and a couple of hairbrushes in the bathroom would instantly trigger the assumption that two people live there, not just one.
I accept the bag with thankfulness.
"We've included a copy of the, ah, will-like note. We've had to keep the real one for legal reasons."
I nod vacantly.
When did Miki write something like that? More importantly, why would she have written something like that?
"I'm very sorry about all of this," he continues, becoming aware that I'm not going to be very talkative. "We're still working hard to investigate. I have to tell you the truth, though. We have very few leads. We're doing our best to involve as many people as possible, but I'm afraid with high-profile individuals, it becomes very tricky. The people we need to talk to don't speak up as much, and conversely, too many people who have nothing to do with it want to say something. It's very tricky to sort through all of the..."
I tune out as he rambles on. This man needs a lesson in sensitivity and policemanship (if such a word exists). This is not what I want to be hearing at the moment, and I question whether he should be telling me all of this anyway. Aren't there rules about having to keep things quiet and classified? Maybe I've watched too many movies.
Once he's finished speaking, he looks at me expectantly and I tune back in.
"I beg your pardon?" I ask quickly, trying to hide my clueless state from him.
"I asked if you were all right."
At least he bothers to ask.
"I'm a little overwhelmed," I say honestly.
He nods sympathetically. As if he can understand my pain.
He cannot possibly.
"We'll keep you updated on our progress. Don't lose hope," he says to me.
I say goodbye to him and I leave, holding the handle of the bag tightly in the sweaty palm of my hand.
On the train, I pull out my phone and e-mail Shibata.
Sorry, but I have to stay at home for a bit. I'll get in touch later.
I need to see what's in this bag before I can go anywhere.
Shibata e-mails me back and tells me to take my time.
I sigh and rest my head back, closing my eyes, willing the train to go faster, wondering what's in the bag, and begging for Miki to be alive again.
-
Chapter 15 of 28
I get home and sit on the couch to open the bag that I've wanted to tear open ever since it was shown to me. Now that I'm in the safety and comfort of my living room, I can let go and react in whatever way I want to the contents, shielded from the prying eyes of the world by four walls and a roof.
I look in and see a miscellany of objects that confuses me. They aren't mine at all. They're either Miki's, or they're things I've never seen before. I pull them out one-by-one and line them up on the space beside me.
First there's a pair of socks. They're black and they're wrapped in plastic. The price tag is still on the wrapper - ninety-nine yen.
Second, there's a red album. I open it up and see that Miki has pasted pictures and written or drawn things around them. She's even pasted in other pieces of papers - ticket stubs, receipts, and so on. It's a homemade scrapbook that I never knew she had made.
Third, there's a stuffed toy animal. It's an iguana that I thought she had gotten rid of almost two years ago. It has small, googly eyes and a little forked tongue that's poking out of its mouth. She used to keep it beside her pillow, but I wasn't a fan of it. I would often take it and slip it between the head of the bed and the wall so that I wouldn't have to look at it. I thought she'd given it away or thrown it out because of my aversion to it.
Fourth, there are some papers that are stapled together. They look like photocopies, so I assume this is the "will-like note" that Sugiura mentioned. It's all in Miki's handwriting and looks nothing like a legal document.
Fifth, there's one of those cheap notebooks that you can buy at the hundred yen store. The front is a chequered pattern of blue and pink. In the corner is written, "Please read this, Aya."
Finally, flat against the bottom of the bag is a rectangular piece of paper. I pick it out, almost having missed it. I recognise the name right away. It's a ticket from a Matsuda Seiko concert. Not just any of her concerts. The one where Miki and I met.
I look at this unexpected and seemingly nonsensical treasure trove of items and I decide to start with the most official-looking papers.
I pick up the photocopies and begin to read.
May 22nd, 2009.
To whom it may concern,
This is my will. I have not made any formal document because I refuse to think about that until I am much, much older. I've written out this note in the event that something unexpected happens to me and I die before I can say any last words. There are some things in my life that mean something to me, and I want the important people I know to have them.
As for all of my physical belongings, such as clothes, books, and other items, I think it's appropriate that they be given to my friends and family. I want to give the duty of deciding who gets what to Matsuura Aya, since I trust her judgement. I don't want to make things difficult by naming a dozen different people, so I have chosen one person to be my final voice on this earth.
I would like any money in my bank account to be sent to my parents. I have attached their names and address on a separate piece of paper. Any paycheque owed to me should also go to them.
Finally, to Matsuura, I would like to ask that a certain bag be given to her. I keep it at work. It's in my locker in my dressing room at the main studio. I have attached an address on another separate piece of paper.
I don't know how to write a will, but I hope that even something this simple will make it easier to sort out my affairs if I ever do die suddenly.
That is all.
Fujimoto Miki
I flip to the separate papers that are stapled to this plain note. One has her parents' names and their address in Hokkaido written on it. The other has another note.
Since I have switched workplaces, I now keep the bag in the bottom drawer of my desk. It's locked, but there should be a key for it nearby.
And then she's written the address of U-Con records.
Miki had written a will all this time ago and I had never known. She'd never mentioned it to me. She'd named me as someone whose judgement she trusted, her last voice on earth. Me.
My mind heavy with thought, I decide the notebook is the next place to check.
I take it in my hands carefully and open it up. The first page is blank, just like the first page of her journal. It's one of her peculiar "things." The second page is where her writing starts. It's undated.
Hi, Aya-chan.
I know this is really weird of me to do, but I was sitting here thinking, and I started to worry that if anything ever happened to me and I died suddenly, I wouldn't be able to give you some things that I'd want you to have. I wouldn't be able to say some last words to you. The thought of just leaving you hurts me too much, and I start to cry if I think about it excessively. That's why I'm writing this.
If you're reading this, then I'm either dead or in some deep coma that I'm not expected to wake up from. Either way, I can't talk to you, and you can't talk to me. Are you sad? I am. Or I would be if I could feel sad in death or a coma. I don't want you to be sad, though. I want you to be happy that you're alive. I don't want you to worry about me. We've had good times together, and every day is like an adventure because of you.
We make a good team, I think, but if we have to part ways, then at least we've learned from each other. Well, I think I've learned a lot more from you than you could ever learn from me. I wasn't really grown up when I met you. Maybe I tried to be, maybe I looked like I was, but I really wasn't. I know you know that. You weren't really that mature either, but you've always had this sense around you that makes people look at you and go "cute... and clever!" Or at least that's what I've always thought. Maybe other people look at you differently, but that's how I look at you. We started to grow up together, and I think we've come a long way since we were silly teenagers. Some parts of us have hardened up, some have softened up. I think I kind of got really hard and then you softened me again because you reminded me about how good life is when there are so many things worth living for.
Don't cry!
Maybe I'm being silly to expect you to be crying over me - sounds a little egotistical - but I think I know you well enough to be able to make that assumption. I mean, I'd totally cry over you if you wrote something like this and I was reading it. Well, okay, the truth is that I'd cry if you broke a nail. I love you that much, you know?
Before I say anything else, I just want to quickly explain why I've collected some of these things and given them to you, although I'm sure you can figure out some of them.
The concert ticket is obvious. We first met there, right? Well, I've cherished you from the moment I met you, and that old ticket is proof! I mean, not in a creepy way or anything. You know that. But like I already told you, when I met you, I liked you right away. I thought, "we could be best friends one day," and I was right. I kept that ticket. Actually, I lost track of it for a while, but I re-found it again recently. I knew it had to be in my room somewhere. I would never throw something like that out. I want you to have it. That ticket is more than just a ticket to a Seiko-san concert. That ticket was a ticket to your heart.
(If I'm in a coma, please come to the hospital and pull the plug and let me go in peace because I can't believe I said something so corny.)
The socks. Do you remember your first birthday present to me? Probably not, because I think you bought it at the hundred yen store two minutes before you saw me. So here you go. The cheapest pair of socks I could find for you. It's my payback.
Besides Mr. Monkey, this other little guy is my favourite of my stuffed toy animals. I keep him at work nowadays. I know you don't really like him that much, but he's cute and important to me. Please take care of him.
I made that album for you. It's not just pictures of you and me, so don't get all confused when suddenly you realise I have other friends (hah!). I've written what I think under the pictures. The album is a collection of a bunch of my good memories from the past few years. I've had lots of fun times at work, during free time, out with friends, and, of course, with you. That album is like a slice of my mind. Please keep it for me. If I'm not around to remember it, you can for me.
Then this notebook. These are just my ramblings. Feel free to ignore me. I know you like to pretend to.
There aren't many things that I have left to say to you. You know how I think already. I think the biggest thing I want to say is "thank you."
Thank you thank you THANK YOU!
From the bottom of my heart. Thank you for looking out for me, for understanding me, and for being my big sister even though I'm older than you.
And with that, imagine I've just given you a big, slobbery kiss on your cheek, 'cause you hate when I do that.
I want you to think of me and laugh. I want you to smile and do that thing you always do. That "oh, Miki, why do I even bother trying to train you" kind of look as if I'm a dog that you're just about to give up on. If you think of that, then it'll surely be easier not to cry.
Lastly, whatever has happened to me, I don't want you to blame yourself. You've always been so good to me, even when you're mean to me (hah, I get the last word on that), so I know that you'd never hurt me or let me get hurt on purpose. Whatever happened to me was out of your control. Even if there was a tiny thing you "could have done," remember that life is about choices. We all make them. Sometimes we make good ones, and sometimes, unfortunately, we make bad ones. I have absolute, one hundred per cent faith in all of your decisions. It doesn't matter if they're good or not because I know they're backed up by your heart, which is nothing but good.
Goodbye, Aya. I love you veeeeery very very much!
(You know, sometimes it's embarrassing to say that, but it's even more embarrassing to write it out like that. God, I hope I never die unexpectedly just so that you never read this.)
-Miki
I've never thought that giggling insanely and sobbing could be done simultaneously. The unique thing about Miki is that she's always been able to make me feel all these strange, new emotions that I didn't know were possible, and the gigglesob, I have just discovered, is the strangest of them yet.
I read the letter and I laugh out loud, followed immediately by bursting into tears, followed by giggling that annoys me because I'm supposed to be sad, followed by more tears that won't stop falling.
This surprise package has been the only real breath of fresh air I've had in the past few days, but it has also reminded me of the extent of my loss.
For once, I decide not to think about it too deeply. I take my time, and for the next while, I flip through the scrapbook of pictures and read the notebook over and over again. The pages are part of Miki, and now in my possession, they whisper her thoughts to me.
-
Chapter 16 of 28
There are several moments when I lower what I'm reading and look out across my apartment while thinking. I think of my replies to some of her statements. I touch my cheek because the image I have in my mind of her kissing it is so vivid that it actually feels like it's wet.
Miki is more thoughtful than I ever imagined. To have worried herself into writing a final message just for me (and nobody else - not her parents, not any other friend) is proof of her love. I've never considered writing something of the sort. That just goes to highlight the differences in our personalities. Opposites attract, and I guess that can apply to us in some ways.
These thoughts of hers are pure. I assume they were written before she was ever threatened. She wasn't writing desperately against time. She took it easy and really thought it through.
She thanked me. She praised me. She loved me. I will never forget. Take my memories from me and I will still remember her. She is part of me. How can I forget myself?
After having my quiet, alone time, it's time to get back to the battlefield. Time to go to the café.
I call Shibata and have her meet me at the station closest to our destination. When we meet, she asks me how everything went. I explain in broad terms what was given to me. I mention the will and that Miki left some old things of hers in addition to a note, but I don't go into detail. It's humiliating enough that Sugiura has more than likely read the notebook. Miki's innermost thoughts and embarrassing admissions don't have to be broadcast to the world.
Shibata and I stop speaking for a while, both quietly preparing ourselves before we reach the entrance to the café.
"Just follow my lead," she says to me.
It's funny. I'm the one who frequents the place, not her.
We walk in. A wind chime at the door signals our arrival. A server who I've never seen before (new staff, I assume) welcomes us and lets us choose our table. We sit in a secluded corner and order hot tea. After it arrives, we sip for a bit and then we call the server over.
"Is the owner in by any chance?" Shibata asks.
The girl's eyes widen and she stammers that yes, the owner is here and that she'll go and get her right away. I think she's terrified that we're disgruntled customers who are going to complain about the service.
The owner arrives shortly. Her face is set in a calm expression, her hair half pulled back in her usual style. She's wearing a white apron over her business attire. She's obviously been manning the kitchen.
"What can I do for you?" she asks.
Shibata starts by introducing herself and asking if she has time to talk. The owner introduces herself as Ochiai Kiyomi. In all the years I've been here, I've never known her name until this moment. Astounding.
Ochiai says she has some free time since business is slow at the moment. She takes a seat and I introduce myself. With grace, she accepts my introduction as if she only knew my face before, not my name. I'm sure she already knows, though, because there used to be a poster of me on the vending machine just across from the shop. I have to face it. There aren't many people alive in Tokyo that don't know my name.
Shibata is about to start with the questions, but I just can't be silent. I need to talk to the owner - no, she has a name now. Ochiai. I need to talk to Ochiai honestly because she has the face of someone who can be trusted. I cut Shibata off in mid-sentence.
"Ochiai-san, please, I need your help," I plead.
Her head turns to me immediately, and she's all ears for what I have to say. I hear Shibata take a breath in, but she doesn't stop me.
"You know I'm a frequent customer here, and I usually come with another girl, Fujimoto, right?"
She nods, and I wonder for a moment if I sound like some spoiled customer who's about to ask if she can start a tab so that she doesn't have to pay every time. Or something like that.
"Something really bad..." I take a deep breath, "really bad has happened. There's been a murder, and she's been, um... she's..."
I trail off because I can't say it. My voice box won't let me utter those words.
Ochiai gets the point, though. She nods once very slowly.
"In a journal that she kept, she mentioned coming here once for a meeting. It was in September, and it took place either on the third or the fourth. I think finding out about that meeting will help a lot. Do you remember?"
Ochiai breathes a few times as she looks pensive, her eyes unfocused, staring at the nothingness in front of her.
"I admit that I don't remember that specific date, but it sounds like the right timeframe for when it started," she says in her mellow voice.
My ears prick up.
"Started? What started?"
"The frequent meetings."
The words stab into my head like picks that have broken through hard rock and hit gold.
"I need you to tell me everything. What were these meetings? With whom? How often?" I ask desperately, keeping my hands in my lap to hide the fact that I'm fidgeting, twisting my fingers nervously.
"They started around September. Fujimoto-san came in one day and met a gentleman for what looked like a business meeting."
A suspect.
I have a suspect.
I almost go into convulsions, I'm so worked up.
"Who was he? What did he look like? Has he been here before?!"
I bombard her with so many questions that Shibata puts a hand on my arm and stops me.
"Aya, chill out," she says, looking at me squarely.
I don't want to "chill out". I'm on the verge of finding out who was harassing Miki. There will be no stopping from this point onwards.
Ochiai doesn't look taken aback at all. She begins to tell me all she knows. She speaks slowly, but everything she says is clear. Her tone tells me that she will tell me everything she knows and asks only for patience as she tells it.
"I still don't know who he is, but he had been here before the meetings started. He came maybe once a month for the past year or two. Not exactly what you would call frequent. We have never spoken. Prior to recent months, he usually came alone, but sometimes brought a friend with him. He's a handsome man and he dresses well. He seems like he would be very popular with the girls. He gets stared at a lot. He's young, but not as young as you girls."
I commit to memory everything she says.
"The first time I ever saw Fujimoto-san come here without you, Matsuura-san, was in September. Maybe the third or fourth. She came in and sat alone, looking like she was waiting for someone. It was around five or six in the evening. That man - I don't know his name - showed up and spoke with her. It seems she was waiting for him. They ordered drinks and had a chat and left an hour and a half later."
What did they talk about? Why this café? Where did they go afterwards? I want to ask, but I know that if she hasn't already told me, she probably doesn't know. I bite my tongue.
"After that, they began to meet frequently, sometimes coming in together, sometimes meeting at a table. It was always around the same time. They both looked like they were coming directly here after work. They would sit, chat, drink tea or coffee, and then leave together. They always left together."
I'm trying to figure it all out, but it just doesn't make sense. What could they be talking about? How did she meet him in the first place?
I look at Shibata to ask her opinion, but I'm taken aback by her expression. She's looking at me curiously, an eyebrow raised ever so slightly. "Sounds suspicious, doesn't it? " her expression screams at me.
I know exactly what she's thinking, and no. No. Not after what I just read in that notebook. That mysterious guy could be more handsome than Johnny Depp and ten times a better person to her than I am and she would still only want me. She is - was - kind of stubborn (or stupid) that way and wouldn't know a good thing if it came up to her and smacked her in the face three times.
"No," I say solidly. "Miki was not-"
"I didn't say that," Shibata says, raising her hands in a show of good faith. "Just keep everything in mind."
I refuse to believe that Miki would be going behind my back like that. I mean, she was going behind my back with these meetings, but it wouldn't be something that would hurt me. Or at least not like that. Not my heart...
"Please listen. This is only half the story so far," Ochiai says quietly.
I've forgotten that she's there, and I wonder what my outburst has sounded like to her. Shibata and I hush up as she continues.
"The two of them met together once or twice a week for all of September, and then around the beginning of October, more people began to come to the meeting, all men. They seemed to be the man's friends or colleagues. I'm not sure. He would introduce them to Fujimoto-san. Sometimes only one additional man came, sometimes two, sometimes three. They were the same group of four men - the main man and his three colleagues. The meetings followed the exact same format as the solo meetings between Fujimoto-san and the first man."
A group of colleagues. There's more than one. There are four.
I shoot Shibata a triumphant smirk along with a raised eyebrow. "See?" my face says to her. She doesn't know Miki like I do.
"I was just saying," she mumbles under her breath defensively, but she lets it drop.
"I began to realise that they were more business-type meetings. Sometimes they took notes. Other times they passed papers around. They were always amicable. Never any arguments. Fujimoto-san always seemed quite pleased. Then things changed around the middle of October."
"What happened?" I ask, my nervous hands coming to a stop.
"The meetings became more frequent. Three or four times a week, still at the same hour. They seemed to talk a lot more. It didn't seem like fun get-togethers anymore. There was a lot of note-taking, and sometimes I could hear them raising their voices. It was usually Fujimoto-san who became agitated."
It kills me to hear this.
What were they talking about?!
"This continued until a few days ago. I've been expecting them back any day now. Sometimes three days pass between meetings. They're due for another one soon."
I stare at Ochiai and she blinks.
"Although perhaps given recent tragic events, I would assume the next meeting might be held off."
I nod and look at Shibata for insight, but she looks just as confused as I do.
"Ochiai-san, how do you know so much? How do you remember all these details?" she asks with a frown.
I have to admit that I'm also wondering how she's been able to recall all of that so easily. It's as if she just made up any old story just to get the conversation over with as quickly as possible so that she can get back to work.
"Shibata-san, in my line of work, I have no time to myself during the day. My work keeps me busy, whether I'm balancing accounts, writing up schedules, or helping in the kitchen. Every weekday evening at around five-thirty, I take my only break of the day and I sit and have a coffee in the corner where I can observe my little shop. It's my time to reflect on the atmosphere of this place I've created and to notice what works and what doesn't. Even on my break, I'm constantly working, thinking up ways to make this place better. But atmosphere and decorations aside, nothing is more important to me than the people who come here. One of my hobbies has always been to watch people, so that's what I do. I look at my shop and I watch people in my spare time. I have watched Fujimoto-san and you," she nods to me, "come in here and I've learned a great deal of your personalities just from looking. I can tell you all sorts of things about some of the customers that are in this shop now, and we have never spoken before. I'm a person of intuition. I also happen to be blessed with a very sharp memory. Not photographic, but closer to it than most people's memories."
Her passionate soliloquy comes quite unexpectedly, but she's easy to understand. Easy, but eloquent. I think she likes speaking like that.
"A person of intuition?" Shibata asks. "Then would you mind if I asked you to tell us what your intuition is about these meetings Miki-chan and these men were having?"
Shibata and Ochiai. Probably the two most intuitive people I know. What a sleuthing pair they would make.
"To be perfectly honest, I have had a very bad feeling about those meetings. The man seems nice on the outside, but there's something in him that I don't like it. Call it my sixth sense, but there's something broken in him. He's hurting inside. I know that Fujimoto-san is-" she breaks off and looks at me apologetically before continuing, "-was a nice person. A kindred spirit. I think she got mixed up with the wrong people."
But for what??
The billion yen question.
Ochiai makes it clear that she's told all that she can remember, and she hints that she has to get back to the kitchen. Before she leaves, though, she faces me directly.
"I want to help you. Please come back and we'll talk again. I have a feeling this is not over."
She disappears into the kitchen.
I'm touched by her willingness to help, but chilled by her last words. Those men are still out in the open, and if they are the ones that killed Miki, nobody is safe. Shibata and I leave the café.
Once outside, we stand in the street. It's a little chilly. Winter is coming. We share a look and try to read each other's expressions. What do we think about the conversation we just had?
A hopeless feeling seems to dominate the air around us.
While it feels like we've learned a great deal, we've really learned nothing. We don't know who these men are and what they were talking about with Miki. We don't know how they got in touch with her and where they are now.
It's like a ten thousand yen note has been attached to the end of a fishing line that dangles before our faces, the fishing pole strapped to our backs. We can see the prize and walk towards it, but we can never get it because it's constantly one step ahead of us.
We're doomed I think. Absolutely doomed.
-
Chapter 17 of 28
"What do you think it was about?" I ask Shibata as we are sitting down for an early dinner at her favourite Italian restaurant.
She puts her fork and spoon down on her plate and ignores her fettuccini as I shift uncomfortably in my seat. I feel antsy, worried, and angry.
"It could be anything. Those guys could be music producers, lawyers, drug dealers... I don't know."
"She wasn't dealing drugs," I state firmly.
Of all the ridiculous things...
"I didn't say she was," Shibata sighs.
She sounds annoyed, and I feel bad. She's been with me almost non-stop since she came back yesterday, exhausted and confused out of her jetlagged mind. I don't mean to get so defensive when she says anything I don't agree with, but when it comes down to it, nobody knows Miki like I do. I don't even think she knew herself as well as I did. Do. Still do.
"Are you sure she didn't say anything to you? Any new thing coming up that wasn't necessarily related to U-Con?"
It's my turn to sigh. I've searched my brain one thousand and one times for anything useful, but I haven't been able to find anything.
"No, nothing. Everything she told me about was rooted in U-Con. The latest big news she gave me was a few months ago when she mentioned her boss hinted that she'd be given a national tour next year. But," I breathe out, annoyed, "it was U-Con that told her. Not strange men in cafés. I mean, I talked about it with Tsuyoshi-kun, even. He knew about it."
Shibata's jaw hardens.
"I know who Tsuyoshi-kun is, but can you really trust him?" Shibata asks.
She did not just ask that. What is her problem? I have very few people left on this world that I can trust. I don't want them questioned like I have been by the police. I clench my fists.
"Tsuyoshi-kun would never do anything to hurt Miki or me. He wouldn't lie to me," I tell her evenly.
"You don't know that."
I put my cutlery down loudly.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Sugiura-san. I didn't realise it was you I was having dinner with. I thought you were someone else," I snap sarcastically.
I stand up and start to walk out. I'm fed up with this. We're getting nowhere.
"Aya-chan, wait," Shibata calls after me.
She runs up from behind me and grabs my wrist. I try to shake her hand off, but she's adamant about keeping me from running off.
"I'm sorry," she says quickly. "I'm playing devil's advocate. I'm just trying to look at this from all possible angles and see if we've missed anything. I really want to help you."
I let out a stressed out breath of air. It's halfway between a laugh and a sob. I look at her helplessly and she quietly asks me to come back and sit down. She lets go of me and goes to sit while I stand there. I look around and see some people staring at me. They all look away quickly when they notice I've noticed. I go back to sit down with Shibata. I have to keep my cool. Front page headlines about Diva Ayaya losing it at a ritzy Italian restaurant in Ginza is not what I need right now.
"Shiba-chan, I'm sor-"
"No, don't apologise," she says, shaking her head and refusing to listen to me. "You are going through everybody's worst nightmare. Don't feel bad. Let the anger out. You can't keep it bottled up. Besides, it takes more than a few harsh words to really piss me off."
"Shiba-chan," I say, looking up at her, my heart feeling a gram lighter than it was two seconds ago. "You're the greatest. I love you. Everybody needs a best friend like you."
"Hah, I wish you really meant that," she laughs.
"I really do. Thank you. You don't have to be doing this with me, yet you are. That's the sign of a true friend. Someone with a good soul."
She nods.
"Okay, Matsuura. Getting creepy now. Stop, please."
"Sorry," I say quickly.
We continue to eat, but in the middle of a bite of bread, Shibata suddenly makes an excited sound.
"Wait!" she says with her mouth full.
I look up at her attentively.
"Ochiai-san said that they took notes, right?"
I nod and then start to smile.
"I see what you're thinking."
"We need to find those notes. Do you think she had them on her?"
I shake my head.
"The police didn't find a bag when they found her b-" I stop myself and swallow down tears that seem to come out of nowhere, but I trek on. "So they must be somewhere safe."
"Whoever killed her might have taken her bag from her," Shibata points out.
"Good point," I sigh, crossing my arms, my meal forgotten. "The only way to find out is to search her things. I need to get into her apartment. I need to see if the notes are there."
"But you said that she was staying with you for a few weeks."
I laugh bitterly.
"Well, I obviously had no clue she was going to those meetings at the café after work, so she could have easily gone back to her place and I wouldn't have known."
Shibata eyes me warily.
"Are you going to be okay? Are you angry with her?"
"I'm not angry," I sigh. "I'm puzzled. She had to have had a really good reason. And the threat. That could keep her silent."
"You realise you can't just waltz in there and look around her apartment freely. It's being treated like a crime scene from what I've heard. If they find you, Sugiura-san seems like the kind of man who would retract his apology in a second. They'll think you're up to something and then they're going to be watching us like hawks," Shibata explains.
"I can't just sit here and watch them pointlessly riffle through her life," I snap. "They don't know what they're looking for."
"Aya, they're police. They're not all dumb. Yes, we have an advantage because we've got that journal and we've got Ochiai-san. But the police have far better resources, and while I don't always trust the men behind the system, they still stand a better chance than we do."
"We'll be safe. We'll go when it's quiet. Three in the morning. They won't have men stationed there at that time, will they?"
"I don't know. I guess not," Shibata shrugs.
"Fine, then. Let's go tonight."
She doesn't say anything to that.
"What about at her workplace? They might be in that bottom drawer of hers," Shibata asks.
That's right. She could have kept her notes there.
And come to think of it, I remember the last time I saw her, she was carrying a big bag full of papers.
The last time I saw her...
I had no idea it would be the last time. I'm glad we didn't argue. I even made her leave twenty minutes late. It was an accident, of course, but in retrospect, it was the best accident I ever had.
And she smiled at me. It's like she knew we'd never see each other again. I should have taken a picture of that smile.
No, I should have just not let her go to work that day.
"Hey, are you okay?" Shibata's voice drifts into my thoughts, and I look up.
She's watching me worriedly.
I nod glumly.
"S-sorry. Just thinking," I mumble. "Anyway, I'll get in touch with Tsuyoshi-kun and see if he can do anything for us at the office."
Shibata doesn't question my trust in him again. I don't expect her to, but I feel a little tense now because of what she has already said. Luckily, my phone ringing interrupts the tension that threatens to consume us.
I look at Shibata apologetically and pick up my phone, walking to the washroom.
It's Tsunku on the line. He's just heard about Miki and he's calling to check up on me, no doubt wanting details.
"Did you see her before it happened?" he asks.
I tremble as I recall every single detail in my mind.
"Um, I did. The day before she was, uh..." I trail off and he acknowledges that he understands. "She was.... she was killed. Did you know that?"
A dumb question. Of course he knows.
"Yeah, I know."
"And they still haven't, uh, found who..." I stumble through it.
"I heard."
"And... um, so, I-I don't think I want to do the reunion," I blurt out.
There's a silence on the line.
"That's not what I was calling for," Tsunku says firmly. "This isn't a business call. I just want to know if you're okay."
He really is the nicest boss I have ever had. It's a shame I don't work for him anymore.
"I'm... I mean..."
How do I answer that question? How am I? I don't even know. One minute I'm fuming, the next I'm crying, the next I'm laughing...
I'm just confused.
"I'm hanging in there."
It's as neutral an answer as I can give. Tsunku sucks in some air through his teeth.
"Well, if you need anything, get in touch. Incidentally, the reunion is being postponed. I thought it was best after I heard the news."
It's in this moment that I realise for the first time what kind of job Tsunku has. He has to call the shots. Make the big decisions. He has to keep his record label afloat, bring in profit, and think of his employees and their families.
And here he is, cancelling what could possibly be his most profitable venture in the next fiscal year. He's dropping it just like that.
Others might not be able to see, but I can. He's got a heart, and he knows how to use it when it's important.
"Thank you," I mumble.
Our goodbyes are quiet and respectful, and I turn to head back to the table, but I receive another phone call before I can take a single step. It's the Fujimoto family's home number. I answer quickly.
Miki's mother tells me they received Miki's body this evening and that I should head up there the day after tomorrow. She says I can stay with her and her husband. My mood goes directly from touched to depressed. I tell her I'll contact her as soon as I'm in Takikawa. Our conversation is less than five minutes long, and it ends on a solemn note.
I head back to the table, and Shibata can see the cloud that has formed over me. I tell her shakily about the two phone conversations, and she tries to comfort me, but I don't listen to her words.
Funeral. I'm going to a funeral. Miki's funeral.
I'm not ready for it. I never could be.
All I want to do is walk down the street until I find the mystery man. If he's the one that killed Miki.
But I can't just do that. It's a gigantic city with streets and crowds that seem to morph into different, new shapes every day. If only I knew what this man did or the neighbourhood he lived in, or even some hobby of his. I could find his stomping grounds and go and stalk him down. I could-
Find his stomping grounds? I've already found one.
"Shibata!" I hiss, lowering my voice. "The café. Ochiai-san said that the man has been going there for a while now. Even before he ever spoke to Miki."
"Yes, but she said he would go around once a month. It's not exactly a regular spot for him," Shibata says carefully, weighing the idea in her head.
"He might have changed his mind. Or-or maybe he's still going to have meetings with those other guys," I say, filled with a new kind of hope. "We need to stake out the café and wait for him to show up and..."
"And what?" Shibata asks. "Arrest him? Even if he does show up there again, we can't prove anything."
I think hard.
"Then we have to get to know him. Miki did. We can, too."
"No," Shibata says with finality in her tone. "Too dangerous. We don't know what he's capable of. He might have had something to do with the murder. He might be the murderer. And remember how in the journal there were those threats? If we're interpreting them correctly, it's you those people threatened to kill. He knows who you are."
The gravity of our situation has become apparent, and suddenly I'm aware of just how much danger I'm in. I could be being watched. Maybe I'm a target. A liability to them that has to be eliminated. Who knows...
"They don't know you," I blurt out before I can stop myself, and Shibata's eyes widen almost imperceptibly. "I know it's a lot to ask, but..."
If she were to sit there and watch those guys, they'd be none the wiser. They wouldn't think she and Miki were friends.
"You want me to sit at the café all day and wait for that man to show up - if he ever goes there again - and do what? Talk to him?"
I shrug. I don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead. All I know is that we have to find him. He's our only lead.
"Fine," she says, and I blink in surprise. "But I can't spend my whole day there every day. I do have to work. Tomorrow we'll go and speak with Ochiai-san again. I have a feeling if we leave her our numbers, she'll be able to help us."
I can't believe it. Shibata has just offered herself up as bait. She's offered to sit in a café and watch the man who might have made my life a living nightmare.
It's dangerous, stupid, and silly, and if I could do it myself, I would in a flash.
"Shiba-chan. Thank you."
It's a half-baked plan. There are holes in it everywhere.
But it's a start. We can get by with a little help from our friends.
-
Chapter 18 of 28
After we finish our meal, we part ways for a few hours. I go back to my apartment and change into more casual clothes.
I call up a travel agent and work my magic. It's very last minute, but I get myself a plane ticket to Sapporo for the day after tomorrow. It'll be waiting for me at Haneda Airport. Heart heavy, I write it down in my agenda book. Not that I’m going to forget something like that.
I then call Tsuyoshi up. He sounds relieved to hear from me.
"Are you at work?"
"Yes. I was just about to pack up for the day."
I put on my sweetest voice.
"Could you do me a huge favour?"
"Um, of course."
I explain that I need to get into Miki's office and look for some important papers. He informs me that the police are still searching through Miki's things, but that they're not around at the moment.
"They've got the place taped off, though. Standard 'do no enter' stuff."
I stay silent for a moment to emphasise my reluctance to back off.
"Most people are gone by nine," he suggests helpfully. "At least in the offices on this floor. There are the usual few who pull all-nighters downstairs in the studios."
"Tsuyoshi-kun, do you think you could get me into Miki-chan's office?"
He's quiet, and when I'm positive he's going to say no, he speaks up.
"Can you be here at ten-thirty tonight?"
We make arrangements to meet, and I hang up with a thanks. After that, I call Shibata and tell her about my plan with Tsuyoshi.
"Be careful. It could get tricky," she warns me.
I assure her I'll be all right.
"Oh, and Miki's apartment. What time do you want to go tonight?"
"Well..." she drawls reluctantly. "Are you really sure you want to do that?"
"Positive."
I've been aching to go over there. I haven't been in so long, it seems. Not since before my otherworldly ordeal in Hokkaido. Maybe if I go, it'll feel like Miki's still alive...
"Then as late as possible. Two or three if we can."
I think about a plan.
"The last train will leave us there around one-fifteen. We can hang out at a nearby diner until two-thirty or so. Then we'll move in. Most people are usually asleep by then."
She doesn't say anything.
"I'll see you at the station tonight, then," I say, filling in the silence.
"Right."
Our conversation ends there, and I feel uneasy.
I attempt to calm myself down by taking a bath, but I don't feel at all good as I sit in the warm water and let my thoughts run wild.
When I get out of the bathtub, I want to go into my room to find Miki there reading or listening to music. I want all of this horror to be a dream or a joke.
I want it so desperately as my mind wanders through the memories.
"Stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Poking me."
"I'm not poking you."
"Yes you are. Stop it."
"Make me.
"Fine!"
Miki tackles me and I take a deep breath before my head goes under the water. I claw at her and pull her down with me. I burst through the surface of the water and take a deep breath, laughing so hard to see Miki struggling. She makes it back up for air, sputtering and looking like a pissed off drowned cat, her hair plastered against her head.
"Are you trying to kill me?!"
I laugh in her face and poke her again.
"No."
She growls at me but doesn't fight back. She knows I've won for now. We are, after all, in public. A very private public, but still, anybody could walk in at any moment. We finally did make it to Hakone after our first failed attempt.
I sit back against the natural rock wall of the onsen, my whole body submerged in the warm water, and I tug her over to sit beside me. She does so with a lot of grumbling and reluctance.
"Listen to that," I say, closing my eyes and leaning back.
She listens but then makes an unsure sound at the back of her throat.
"I don't hear it. What?"
"Exactly," I say with a smile, my eyes still closed. "Nothing. Peace and quiet."
Her hand finds mine under the water and holds onto it. I can sense her settle against the wall.
"I like," she mumbles.
I open my eyes and see that's she's copying me, her head leaned against the wall, eyes closed. I commit the image to memory, and then go back to my head-rested, eyes-closed position.
I live for these moments.
I fall asleep in the bath and I wake up when I slip in and start to drown. I cough and get out, getting dressed as quickly as I can. It's almost time to go to U-Con.
At ten-thirty, I arrive in front of the U-Con building. Waiting like he promised, there is Tsuyoshi. He's still dressed in his work clothes.
"You haven't gone home yet?" I ask in surprise.
He nods.
"I stuck around. It wasn't worth the bother to leave."
"I'm sorry..."
"It's okay," he smiles. "My parents aren't great conversationalists at the dinner table, so I didn't miss much."
He leads me through the front door.
"Um, shouldn't we go through the back?" I ask worriedly, looking around for anyone watching.
He raises an eyebrow.
"You watch too many movies."
We ride the elevator up and arrive at the fifth floor. The place seems deserted, and half the lights are turned off.
"Everyone on this floor has gone home. We've got the place to ourselves provided nobody from the fourth floor comes here to borrow something."
Okay, then. Let's not waste any time."
I take out two pairs of gloves and hand one to Tsuyoshi.
"Just in case," I say to his questioning look.
We put the gloves on and move into Miki's office, ducking under the tape the police have put up.
The inside of her office looks like someone gutted a fish, rearranged all the internal organs incorrectly, and stuffed them back in the fish's belly. Boxes of her things litter the floor, her desk has been moved off to the side, papers piled up on it, and her chair is non-existent.
I round the desk and go straight to the bottom drawer. I pull at it and am satisfied when it slides open easily. The police have broken the lock.
I kneel down to get a closer look. The bottom drawer is fairly empty. There are some folders, some loose papers, a few trivial knick knacks that I never knew she had, and a coffee cup given to her by her mother on her twenty-third birthday. The oddest present she ever received from her mother, she had told me.
I reach for the folders and papers right away and put them on the desk.
"Found it?" Tsuyoshi asks from across the room, no doubt giving me some distance out of respect and privacy.
"I'm not sure," I mumble, picking up the first paper.
It's nothing important. Or at least it used to be important. It's just a bill. Now she doesn't have to pay bills anymore...
"I'll go wait for you out at my desk, okay?" Tsuyoshi says, pointing outside.
I look up, nod, and then return my attention to the paper in front of me.
I grit my teeth and move on to the next paper.
The other loose papers are all her latest bills. Cell phone, internet, electricity, gas. I know that she takes them to work with her the day after receiving them because she doesn't like to look at them when she gets home after a long day. She prefers to end her day on a good note, and I couldn't agree more with her way of thinking.
Inside the first folder are notes from meetings at U-Con. I skim through them quickly, but they all mention names of co-workers or information about various things going on within the company.
Inside the second folder is one piece of paper. On the paper, there's a list of items. I read through them and realise that it's a "to do" list. But a little more elaborate than that. She has some of her goals written on it. At the very bottom, she's written "take over the world", and I sigh because she never got the chance to try.
I look in the drawer again, but there are no papers left. I put everything back the way I found it and then quickly search the other drawers. Nothing. I look through the papers on top of her desk. Nothing. Unless I'm missing some sort of coded detail, there's nothing here from her meetings at the café.
Once I finish, I step back outside and see Tsuyoshi sitting at his desk, half asleep. I call out to him quietly so that I don't scare him by suddenly appearing by his side, and he gets up.
"Any luck?" he asks hopefully.
I shake my head.
"Sorry to have made you stay here for nothing," I say glumly.
"No, don't be sorry. It's for a good cause."
He smiles at me brilliantly, and I wonder if he has a girlfriend. A nice guy like him could make just about anyone happy. He could probably even make me hap-.
No.
I shut that thought out of my head before it can take further shape. What I need right now are friends to help me through this, not some sort of replacement Miki. Nobody can replace her. She's non-replaceable.
I know for a fact that the desperation I'm feeling is because I'm just that - desperate. Desperate for her to be alive again and pushing myself onto other people to help me lose myself and forget that this terrible thing is happening. I've done it at least once before. Thrown myself at someone because of Miki. It's the same as drowning one's sorrows in alcohol, but I really don't like drinking enough to do that.
I smile back, and we head out and take the train together part of the way home.
When Tsuyoshi gets off at his station, I feel a little lost again. There's nothing at Miki's office that suggests any meetings have been taking place outside of U-Con. There must be something at her apartment. If Shibata and I do a thorough search tonight, we can discover whatever it is.
A few hours later, I board the last train that will get me to Miki's station. It's late and I feel unsafe. There are murderers out there. I know for a fact that they exist. Whoever they are, they know who I am. I'm positive.
I'm glad to see Shibata waiting at the east exit. I feel a little safer to know that someone's got my back.
When I greet her, she seems distracted. I try to talk to her about what we're about to do, but she's unresponsive, giving me the bare minimum of acknowledgement.
We sit down at the window seat of a Gusto diner and order hot coffee. I watch her as we sip quietly and I think I can see what's going on. I get it.
"Are you with me?" I ask into our silence.
"What?" she asks, looking genuinely startled.
"Are you with me or not? I need you, but if you're not going to give me one hundred percent, then you can forget about it."
She looks at me with a look of concentration. I realise my words are a little sudden, perhaps ambiguous, but I trust her to be smart enough to catch what I mean.
"Yes, I'm with you. I'm just worried."
"Worried about what?" I demand.
She lets herself frown, looking angry with me, something I haven't seen in a while.
"Aya-chan, I don't like what you're doing. You're going down some sort of weird path that I understand, but don't approve of. You've become wild."
"What are you talking about? You're doing the same thing. You're taking all these steps with me," I snap back.
"No!" she interrupts me loudly and then lowers her voice. "Lying to the police and sneaking around behind their backs? Involving some poor nineteen-year-old boy to help you do your dirty work? Wanting to stalk these men Miki-chan was having meetings with because you think they might have killed her? Who are you, Aya?"
I stare back at her, my mind in a rage.
I thought she was my friend. I thought she promised to stand by me and help me out. Is she going to back out now?
"This is me, Shibata. This is me when my life has been ruined, ripped to shreds by murder. If you were in my position and you lost Miki, you'd be doing the same thing," I whisper harshly.
"Yeah, and if you were in my position, you'd be doing the same thing as I am - trying to talk some sense into you."
That silences me. I try to think.
"Listen," she says, her voice softening. "I just want to make sure you're going to be okay. I'm with you every step of the way because I want to be there for you. I just want you to promise me that you won't get so lost down this path of vengeance that you'll do something stupid to hurt yourself or your life."
I take a calming breath and remind myself that Shibata is still my friend. She might be paranoid that I'm going off my rocker, but I'll prove to her that I'm not. I'm perfectly fine. Depressed as hell, but not about to jump off a bridge or wash a bottle of painkillers down with a bottle of whiskey. I have a mission, and nothing will stop me from accomplishing it.
"I'm doing this to find her killers and make them face justice. I'm not going to hurt myself," I tell her calmly.
She nods, but I still feel like there's something lacking. I let it drop, though, because at least I've secured her on my side. That's what I need. Maybe in time she'll understand that this is the only way to go about doing what I have to do.
We continue to sip coffee in silence. She nods off and falls asleep, but I can't. I'm wide awake from the caffeine and anticipation. My drugs.
At two thirty, I shake her awake, and we pay the bill.
It's cold outside. We walk quickly and I'm thankful that Miki's apartment is near the station. Trying to stay in the shadows, we enter the apartment and ride up the elevator. I stay behind while Shibata goes ahead just in case the police are there. I watch as she turns the corner, and for a moment I feel like she's been swallowed up into some other world because I can't hear her footsteps. I'm relieved when I see her come back around the corner and wave at me that the coast is clear. I jog and catch up with her.
When we reach Miki's door, the reality of what we're about to do hits me. The reality of Miki's status is confirmed once again as I hold her key tightly in my hand. I can see Shibata look at me, but I don't look back. Instead, I reach into my pocket and pull out the same pairs of gloves I'd used this afternoon for myself and Tsuyoshi.
Shibata takes one pair and puts them on silently.
We're about to break into an apartment. The tenant is dead, and while I might have inherited all of her stuff, I'm not sure who exactly owns the property now. The actual apartment itself. Is it still under her name? Have her parents taken it over? Her company? Her landlord? The police? All I know is that what I'm doing is highly illegal.
And highly necessary.
I put the key into the hole, and with a silent prayer, I slowly turn it, twisting the doorknob and opening the door slowly. I walk in first, careful not to bump into anything.
Her home is in far less disorder than her office. It seems they've been a little more respectful about keeping it neat. A few things are out of place, but it looks like it's just messy. Like she's going to pop out from the bedroom at any moment and say "glad you could come over, you two. Help me clean!"
Shibata follows me in. I hit my hand over a light switch which Shibata promptly turns off again with a warning look. I nod sheepishly. Of course it would be strange if a dead girl's lights suddenly turned on in the middle of the night. If anyone were to be watching, they might raise some questions. For some reason, we don't speak. It feels like if we speak, the police will know we're here and jump out to arrest us. I point to the curtains, which are drawn closed.
Okay to open? I ask her with a look.
She replies with a nod.
I open the curtains, the light from the city brightening the room up considerably. It occurs to me that we've forgotten to bring flashlights. For the first time in my life, I regret that I don't have a habit of breaking into and entering homes.
I see Shibata take out her phone and use it as a flashlight.
Good thinking.
I do the same.
I go into Miki's bedroom. Everything is exactly the same. I touch the bed softly. It's been made hastily, as if she couldn't be bothered to spend time doing it properly since she knew she was going over to my place. I study her bookshelf intently, looking for any papers, but there's nothing. Unless I check every single page of every single book, this is the best I can do.
Her closet is wide open, so I go over to it. There's a whole variety of clothes hanging there, and some of mine, too. Of course the police don't know that. I look in and behind boxes, check some papers that are just sitting there, but upon inspecting them with the light from the display screen on my phone, I see that they're not important.
I move out of her bedroom and into the living room. Shibata is there looking through some papers, but she looks up at me and shakes her head. Nothing there. I sit down across from her and help her look through the folders she's got in front of her.
Bills, old receipts, and even a boarding pass stub from a flight to Australia (what a sentimental girl), but no meeting notes.
Shibata is reading something with interest, and she looks up at me. The strange lighting makes her look like a pale blue ghost.
"Were you really going to travel around the world together?" she asks me almost dreamily.
What is she talking about?
I frown and stick out my hand and she passes me the notebook she's reading. In it, Miki has written out an amazing itinerary for a trip around the world. She's listed a handful of countries on each continent. Under each country, she's listed all sorts of activities to do there. Some involve fun things like sightseeing and water sports, but some are a bit strange. Benefit concert in Rio de Janeiro, or meeting the leader of some country in Eastern Europe that I didn't know existed until now. She sure had big plans.
At the top of the page, she's got my name doodled in neat bubble letters, and she's drawn a heart around it. I flush with embarrassment because Shibata's seen that. Miki sometimes acts like a girl with a high school crush when she's around me. It's sweet because then she does cute things that I get a kick out of, but if other people see it, they might not take it seriously.
When I finish reading, I sigh. She'd always said she wanted to travel the world with me. I didn't know she'd dreamed up a plan like this. She must have been very bored one day. I look at it sadly and then hand it back to Shibata.
"You know, you always told me she was really thoughtful and focused when she wanted to do something, but now that I've seen it for myself..." she trails off and smiles. "It's very sweet. You're lucky."
Very sweet, but never again. All that sweetness of hers was drained away along with her life. Stolen from me by people who will pay.
"It's very sweet," I repeat, handing the notebook back.
Sensing I don't want to talk about it, Shibata puts the notebook down and moves on to the next.
It takes us a long time, but we go through every paper we can locate.
We find no valuable information. Nothing pertaining to any meetings outside of U-Con. Nothing naming her killers.
Another investigation that ends at a dead end.
Finally, at about four-thirty, we decide to leave. There's nothing here for me but memories. I'm drowning in them. The entire time I'm there, I keep expecting her to call out to me, or I imagine her sitting there with us and asking, "What are we looking for?"
I say goodbye to the place for now. I know I'll have to come back - with permission - in order to pick up her things. They have been left to me, after all.
Shibata and I go back to the same Gusto to keep warm and wait for the train station to open.
"Sorry I dragged you out here for this," I say, looking down at my cup of tea.
"No worries," Shibata says.
She's lightened up since we were last at this diner. It's probably because we've gotten away successfully with our little dalliance with the dark side of justice.
"What's our next step?"
I blink in surprise. She's lightened up more than I thought.
"Terrace café tomor- uh, today," I say quickly. "We need to stake it out, see if Mystery Man visits again. And we need to give Ochiai-san our numbers so that she can call us if he pops by."
"We? Not we. Me. I'm going to stake it out. You're not going in there. You're too well known," Shibata says firmly, reminding me of our plan.
I was just feeling like getting involved...
"Right, well, if you're okay with it..." I trail off.
"Yes, I'm fine," she says quickly. "We'll go this morning, then. Right when the shop opens."
It feels like we're back on the same wavelength. I think the trip to Miki's apartment has opened up her mind and made her see the reality as harshly as I have. Such a real, caring person has been murdered. Now her desire to find out who did it is stronger.
"When are you going to Hokkaido?" Shibata asks, interrupting my thoughts and changing the subject.
"Tomorrow morning," I say quietly. "My flight's at eleven."
She nods.
"Please give my respects to the family."
My turn to nod.
We fall into a silence. Not awkward, but not happy.
Funeral.
I still can't believe it.
We brood for far too long and miss the first train that will take us home. We leave the diner after five-thirty and walk to the station together. It's started to rain a little. Just a few stray drops, but it looks like it's going to be a gloomy day. Clouds cover the entire sky and it smells like a huge downpour is on its way.
"Want to come over to my place?" Shibata asks as we're riding the train.
I nod. I don't want to be alone right now.
We make it to her building just as the torrent begins. We get a little wet. We hurry into her apartment and decide quick showers are in order. She lets me go first, and she lends me some of her clothing.
I fall asleep on her couch while she's taking her shower. Some time later, I'm awoken by her calling out my name. I open up my eyes and see that I'm lying on her couch. She's put a blanket over me.
"What time is it?" I ask, rubbing my bleary eyes.
"It's almost ten. We should get ready and head to the café."
We do just that.
The place is empty when we walk in. The server tries to seat us, but we ask to speak to Ochiai. It's the same server from our last visit, and she looks at us with a "hah, you were the two girls that worried me last time" look. She must have found out that we weren't calling on Ochiai to complain about her service. She goes to get her boss for us.
"Good morning," Ochiai greets us.
We return the greeting, and the three of us sit down to talk.
Carefully, leaving out all illegal details, we explain to Ochiai that we want to meet the men that Miki had been meeting. However, we don't want them to know it. Ochiai asks how we propose to do it, and I tell her that Shibata will simply go in as often as possible and hang around. If the men ever come back, Ochiai will let Shibata know, and then Shibata can use her charm and intelligence to start talking to them.
Ochiai gives away nothing with her facial expression.
"That could be dangerous," she states calmly.
Shibata knows.
"I know. But there's no other way," she says.
I'm relieved to hear her say that.
"We were wondering if we could leave our numbers with you, Ochiai-san," I say. "Shiba-chan might not be able to be here all the time, but if those men ever do come back, it would be great if you could call her or me..."
Without a word, and with perfect timing that must be a sign that what we are doing is right, Ochiai sticks her hand and pickpockets the server walking by, taking her pen and pad of paper without her even noticing.
Shibata and I look at each other and crack smiles. Ochiai is certainly an enigma.
We dictated our numbers and e-mail addresses, and she rips the piece of paper off the pad and sticks it in her pocket.
"I assume nobody is to know about this."
Shibata and I nod emphatically.
"Will that be a problem?" Shibata asks.
"No. My husband might ask why I have the name of a famous idol entered in my phone, but those questions can easily be avoided," she says with a mysterious smile.
The enigmatic woman suddenly grows a layer. She's got a husband. I wonder what else we can learn about her. Unfortunately, today is not the day to learn. Six customers enter within the space of five minutes, and we have to split up. Shibata and I vacate the table and thank Ochiai graciously. We leave the café, passing by a poor server who is now looking desperately through her pockets for the pen and pad she could have sworn she had on her.
Finally, something has gone our way.
We spend the next few hours together. We grab a quick lunch and talk about Miki. It's inevitable. I can't stop talking about her. I'm probably driving Shibata nuts with my inability to find another topic, but I need to relive it all. All the memories. I need to talk about her as much as possible so that I don't forget anything.
When the time comes, we say goodbye. She wishes me a good flight in the morning, and I tell her to mail me with any news. We share a look before parting, and for a brief moment, I think that everything will be okay.
The bitter, lost, hopeless, grieved feeling in me has to tone down someday.
Right?
-
Chapter 19 of 28
It's colder up north, but the block of ice that exists in place of my heart feels worse than any winter temperature could. I arrive at Takikawa station alone and take a taxi cab to the Fujimoto residence. I mail Miki's mother from the back of the car and tell her I'll be there soon.
The scenery outside looks the same. I was just here a few weeks ago. Or at least somewhere similar to here. I still don't know what happened. All I'm certain is that I did come here for two months. Those oven mitts couldn't have magically appeared in my kitchen.
The driver drops me off in front of the house. I lug my things with me and ring the doorbell, my hands fidgeting with the handle of my suitcase in nervousness and anticipation of what kind of greeting I'm going to get. I'm not sure what to expect from the family. They really like me, and Miki's mother has been extremely nice to me over the phone the past few days, but I can't help but feel they might blame me for not watching out for Miki, and I do feel a little bad about keeping secrets from them. It's never been my place to tell them what kind of relationship I have - had - with Miki, but still... They're like family to me.
The door opens slowly, and before I know it, I'm being ushered into the entrance by Miki's mom. She takes my bags, her movements quick and seemingly planned, and stunned, I take my shoes off and step up into the house. She hands my bags to someone I don't recognise. As he makes off with them, Miki's mom turns to look at me, studying me carefully. I guess she hasn't seen me in a while. I can't remember the last time I was in Hokkaido in this world. As she looks at me, I take a good look at her. She has Miki's eyes and cheekbones. It must be painful for her to look in the mirror and see her daughter in herself. I'm sure she's noticed. I certainly have, and it's painful for me.
"You look younger with that hair," she says to me, her voice sounding nothing like Miki's, which is a good thing.
"I... thank you?" I say unsurely.
What is she talking about? I wonder.
She must be shocked and saying whatever comes to her mind.
"Thank you for coming all the way here on such short notice, and I'm so sorry for all the trouble," she continues more quietly.
I give her a look that tells her she doesn't have to thank me and that she shouldn't apologise for something that's out of her control.
"We have a room ready for you. If you'd like..."
She keeps speaking, unaware that I'm no longer paying attention.
A room? They've prepared a room for me. I had a feeling they would, but I really don't want to impose. I can just as easily go stay in a hotel. It's not as if I haven't before. And to be perfectly frank, staying in this house that Miki grew up in might be too much to handle come nightfall and the memories start coming out to play in my head.
I try to decline politely, but I'm ignored. I find myself dragged upstairs to a bedroom. My bags have already been brought up, and I freeze as I realise where I am.
This is Miki's old room.
I put my purse down on the bed, look at Miki's mom blankly, and then I walk out of the room, leaning against a wall down the hallway. She comes and joins me.
"I really appreciate you doing this for me, but I can't stay here. In there. I can't sleep in that room," I tell her honestly.
She looks at me, pained.
"Do you know how much it hurts me to open up that room and walk into it?" she asks me softly. "Do you know how much it hurts me to let someone other than my baby stay in that room?"
I bow my head down, and all my own feelings of doubt are replaced by guilt for my unintended invasion.
"But if it's you, I don't feel that because I know Miki wouldn't mind if you stayed there. In fact, she'd have it no other way. So please stay."
I've never had this kind of conversation with Miki's mother. We've always had a good, friendly relationship, but we've never discussed anything about our deep feelings and opinions. I guess death can build bridges across gaps of age, distance, time... anything.
"I... but..."
I can't think of anything good to say to decline again. It really doesn't make sense for me to say I can't stay. She's made it clear that I'm welcome. She's even brought Miki's opinion into it, and I know that she's right.
I finally settle with a nod and a grateful look, but deep down inside, I'm scared. I don't want to sleep in there alone. Ghosts might not haunt me, but my own mind surely will. I don't think I'll get any sleep.
"I'm sorry if you're busy downstairs," I say to Miki's mother. "I came a little early..."
"Don't worry. They can handle things without me for a while. Would you like to take a seat?" she asks, gesturing towards the room.
We walk back there together, and we sit side-by-side on the bed. I look around the room, and all I can see are Miki's old things. There's not much left in here, but enough to give it that special Miki feel.
"Thank you for always taking care of our daughter," Miki's mom says after I've surveyed the place.
She grasps my hand and holds it tightly.
No, I want to tell her. Miki took care of me.
But she's continuing, so I hold it in.
"I know that she never told us and that she was secretive about it, but sh-"
"It's okay," I interrupt her quickly.
I don't want her to say anything awkward right now. I don't think I could handle it. I want things to be normal between us, not weird.
"You don't have to say anything."
"I just wanted to say that she thought of you as her family in Tokyo."
Oh.
Oh...
I begin to cry. Everything hits me. Being in this town, being in this house - this room - and talking to her mother.
"Thank you," I say, choked up. "She was my family, too."
She squeezes my hand a bit just like my mother would do, and I suddenly feel like I'm twelve years old again. I want to curl up into her arms and be hugged like a little child because she's the closest thing I have to a mother right now. My own mother is hundreds of kilometres away, oblivious to what's happened and oblivious to my pain. I know that she'll hear the news eventually and be upset that I didn't tell her, but I'm sick of telling people what's happened to Miki. Telling two people was two people too many.
"Was she happy?"
A good question. With a mother and a child separated by so much distance, feelings can be hidden, especially when it's Miki. She's a professional hider.
"Yes. Very happy," I assure her.
We sit like that for a while until someone calls out and asks for some help in the kitchen. I assume it's some family member I've never met.
Miki's mother excuses herself, and she tells me to come downstairs when I'm ready. I sit alone on the bed and stare at the desk. It looks like a student's desk. A tin can with Disney pens and pencils stored in it, and Hello Kitty pad of paper, a calculator and a ruler...
I lie back on the bed and roll onto my stomach, burying my face in the covers. I can feel her presence beside me. She has her arm across my back and she's mimicking my pose, face flat in the covers.
"Stop moping. Get up, you lazy butt."
No. I don't want to get up. I want to sit here with my eyes closed and forget the world. Lose myself.
"If you just sit here, you'll never get anything done. You'll never find what you're looking for."
She's right. I'll never find out who killed her if I sit here and drown in my sorrow. But it's too hard to get up...
"Listen. If you get up, I'll make you the tastiest breakfast you've ever eaten."
Bribery. That's how she gets her way with me. Or tries to.
But how can you cook me breakfast? I ask her in my head. You're dead.
"Up here. In this afterworld. Don't believe in it? I don't care. Or maybe I'll be reincarnated as a chef and one day when you're sixty, you'll walk into my restaurant and eat something delicious I've cooked. I promise you."
A promise from Miki after death.
No, a promise made by my own wild imagination. What in the world am I doing? Letting a scenario run through my head and fantasising that Miki is talking to me from some sort of heaven? This is ridiculous. If I tell Shibata this, she'll think I'm going mad. I think I'm going mad.
I get up from the bed and go downstairs to escape from the torture of my memories.
-
Chapter 20 of 28
I sit and watch Miki's Aunt Keiko prepare some sort of dish. I greet various other family members that come into the kitchen, but I don't go and sit with them in the living room because I feel awkward. I haven't met most of them before, and while I have no problem meeting new people and getting along with them, right now I don't want to talk to anybody. They're all going to ask all these questions about me- where I'm from, what my interests are, and how I know Miki - and I just don't want to get into all that. I don't want to sit there and pretend everything's okay, because it's certainly not.
So I sit there, observing quietly.
Aunt Keiko tells me that the family is going to her place for dinner tonight. She invites me to come along. I give her a vague answer. I really don't want to go, but I may have no choice if the whole family is going and this house is left abandoned.
Miki's mom walks in and out of the kitchen, spreading her time between her sister-in-law and the rest of the family. When Aunt Keiko is out of the kitchen for a moment, she mentions to me - as if she knows it's what's on my mind - that I don't have to go to the family dinner. She says her husband is going, but she herself is not. I tell her I want to stay at home with her.
I pass the rest of the afternoon in mental isolation from everyone else in the house. Once dinner time comes, everyone leaves. Everyone except Miki's mom. We sit together and eat a simple and quiet meal that we've prepared together. Once we're finished, the conversation starts.
"They said they still don't know who the killer is," she says.
I nod.
"They're looking for the person or people now."
"But why? Why would someone do this?" she asks. "I don't understand."
I'm with her on that. She's going through the same thing I'm going through. The disbelief. The lack of understanding. Is it a good thing that we don't know why evil minds do what they do? Maybe if we could understand, we could find acceptance. Or maybe it's better not to understand. Not to poison our minds with such things.
Miki's mother turns very serious and looks at me with piercing eyes.
"Was she... was she mixed up in anything? I mean..."
I know it kills her to ask, but she has to. She has to entertain every single possibility because nothing makes sense to her.
"No. She wasn't. Or if she was, I didn't know about it, and believe me, I'd know about it," I reply firmly.
Miki was not mixed up with drugs, stolen goods, gangs, prostitution... nothing of the sort. I know that. She could never be. She is - was - Miki. A bad girl, but not a bad bad girl. A cute one. A nice one. One that I could understand half the time, and the other half I wasn't sure whether I really had to understand her or not because we just clicked.
And she was murdered.
I see stars and I clench my hand into a fist, but I keep it hidden under the table. Bouts of rage should not be displayed publicly. It suggests imbalance.
"Did you see her before they kil- before...?" Miki's mom asks me, choking on that ugly word.
I nod again.
"The day before."
"Was she... What was she like when you saw her?"
That's a difficult question to answer, but I owe it to her mother to be completely honest.
"As wonderful a friend as ever," I say softly. "She had some worries, though, and was going to talk about them with me later. Other than that, she seemed okay."
We don't speak for some time. We sit there, drinking in the strange atmosphere we've created by talking about a murdered girl. It's surreal. Nothing could have ever prepared me for this. When I got thrown into that other, strange world, it was different. I had no evidence that Miki was dead. She was just missing, and I eventually found her alive and well. In this case, though, I have plenty of evidence that she's dead, the biggest piece being her body.
I never thought I'd outlive her, but then I start to wonder. What did I expect in the future? I've never thought about death until now. However, if I ever had before, I probably would have imagined us dying at the exact same time, or at least close enough so that one of us wouldn't miss the other for too long. Maybe it would have been best if we both got killed simultaneously. Maybe in a traffic accident or a plane crash.
What am I thinking??
I have to stop thinking about death now. She's dead. I'm alive. My purpose now is to find out why she's dead. To find out why we didn't die together like we were supposed to...
I can't stand this silence anymore. I can't stand listening to myself think.
I get up and start clearing the table. Miki's mom tells me to stop and that she'll do it later, but I mumble something about having to keep distracted. She gets up and helps me. Together we wash the dishes without a word between us, and then we go and sit back down at the table to watch television.
Watching TV with Miki's mom. I don't think I've ever done that with just her. It's different. Watching TV with a parent other than my own is not something usual, is it? But what about when someone has died? Does that cancel out all other weirdness? Is this normal now?
Who knows.
Neither one of us has any revelations in the next few hours. We sit there watching TV, we talk a tiny bit here and there - just small talk - and then I excuse myself with a genuine yawn, saying I'm exhausted and am going to get ready for bed. Miki's mother launches into housewife mode and shows me where the towels are so I can take a bath, and where the extra blankets are in case I get cold at night. I let her show me where everything is, and I'm struck by how much I already know. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Miki does things a lot like her mom does, and I find it comforting and heartbreaking at the same time. I don't want to be reminded of her.
I thank her mom graciously, and then she's off to distract herself while I take a bath and put on my pyjamas.
It's colder upstairs, but once I get under the covers, I warm up. The wonderful thing about Hokkaido is that people really know how to keep warm in the winter. It's a perfected art form. The Fujimoto family has not cut corners, and it's invested in good quality sheets and blankets for the whole family.
I lie under those warms covers, though, and I start to shiver. What comes next is what I have been expecting and dreading.
I remember the last time I was here with Miki. It was a year ago. Some cousin of Miki's got married and she came up for the wedding. I joined her the next day, and we had a little vacation here for one day and then in Sapporo for the next two. We stayed in this room together. Her mother apologised so much that there was no extra bedding since some family members were staying over because of the wedding, but I told her over and over again that it was okay. Like, really okay. We slept together- beside each other. We didn't do anything because having the entire family in the house is just creepy, and it's just all sorts of wrong. We did what we used to do way back when we were first getting to know each other - we lay there and talked - whispered - about nothing and everything.
The next morning her mom had come in to wake us up because my cell phone alarm clock had gone off three times and we'd ignored it each time. She was getting sick of hearing the loud music. She walked in calling out Miki's name, and she found us sleeping, wrapped around each other like vines around a pole. We were foggy-headed and slow-moving, so we didn't quite realise what was going on, but when we saw her mother and I felt Miki hugging me from behind, we freaked out and jumped apart. Her mother, however, didn't notice. She was having a fit of cuteness. Apparently, seeing her daughter and her daughter's best friend hugging in the morning like that was the cutest thing ever. She started to reminisce about her old sleepovers, and so Miki and I lay there, trying to be as far apart as possible, our faces no doubt the colour of tomatoes, hearts beating quickly from the surprise and fear of almost being caught in a compromising position. No, we were caught in a compromising position, but the thought of it being anything more than just unintentional nocturnal movement was never a possibility to Miki's mother.
We're so dumb. We were so dumb.
Goddamnit, stop thinking in the present tense, Aya.
I don't want to think in the past tense, though. It makes me feel sick.
I close my eyes and try to sleep.
"We're cooler than destiny."
I know, Miki. I know we are. But why did this happen? If we're so cool, if we're so smart, if we're so great... why are you dead?
"'Home is where the heart is!'"
Oh really, Miki? Then my heart's followed you to where you are.
Where are you? Are you cold? I am...
"Don't worry about me, Aya. I'm fine."
No, you're not. And neither am I.
A tear works its way out of my eye and slides down my cheek slowly, falling onto the pillow.
I'm pathetic. I'm lying in a dead girl's bed and hearing her voice say things she's said to me before and choosing to treat them as things she's trying to say to me now.
I'd better sharpen up by tomorrow. Tomorrow is the wake. The next day, the funeral.
I keep my eyes shut and run through all the things I brought with me in my bags. I have appropriate clothing to wear for both events. But no matter how much clothes I put on, I'm still naked.
-
Chapter 21 of 28
"Rise and shine, lazy."
I open my eyes - or I think I do - and shut them immediately with a groan. I'm still dreaming. I clear my mind and try again. This time I see nobody. I'm lying on my stomach, my pillow nowhere even near me. I feel like I've been hacked to bits and then reassembled haphazardly by a quack.
I roll up and out of bed, and I get dressed. I go downstairs to see Miki's mom sitting alone in the living room with a cup of tea. I join her wordlessly, and she gets up to pour me a cup. She asks if I want breakfast, but I decline. I don't feel hungry.
She gives me the details about the wake - where the mortuary hall is and at what time it starts. She says I can get a ride with her brother. He'll be stopping by to pick up some other family members, but she has to go early and tend to some other details.
I go upstairs and lay out the clothes I'm going to wear to the wake. I then grab my jacket and tell Miki's mom I'm going for a walk.
I step out into the crisp air and I'm thankful I have my winter jacket with me. A gust of wind comes and my hair and skirt whip around me, making it difficult to see and walk for a moment.
I don't think. I just walk. I'm not surprised when I find myself at the restaurant where Baachan, Miki, and I cooked delicious meals together for two months. It looks the same as it did in the other world. I want to go inside, but it doesn't open until noon. I hang around for a bit, trying to catch a glimpse of anyone I know, but I have no luck. Maybe they don't even exist in this world, although I suspect they do.
I wander away, tracing a familiar path. I find myself heading out of town and in the direction of the hills. It's what Miki and I did for those two months of extra time I was given with her. Our treks out into the snow-covered hills, our snowball fights, our wild sheep chases...
Before I get to the bridge that will take me further into non-civilised territory, I turn back. There are too many ghosts to face and not enough time. I have to go back to the Fujimoto home and get dressed in the clothes I've prepared. It takes me quite some time to get back because I walk slowly, trying to enjoy my freedom.
Miki's parents leave me with Aunt Keiko and her two sons. I sit upstairs, alone, looking through what little Miki has left in her room. Mostly old school books and informational pamphlets about various club events. I thumb through her English and mathematics notebooks, and never have the two subjects been more enthralling to me than they are now. Full of self-correcting red pen marks, I imagine these books have seen that adorable, concentrated stare of hers when she gets into something and focuses all her attention on that one thing.
She's so easy to surprise when she's doing that. I do it all the time. I sneak up beside her and touch her arm and she twitches. She doesn't make big movements because she really is a cool, collected person. However, that tiny little twitch is enough to prove that I've caught her unawares. She gets annoyed when her concentration has been broken, and I love those glares she gives me. Those angry looks. The foul mood she gets into. I love it because it's all hyperbole. Delicious exaggeration. It's her way of flirting with me. It always works.
No.
Not is. Was.
Not does. Did.
It's all in the past. Never again. Never, ever again.
Some sick person has - or people have - made sure that she'll never be surprised again. She'll never pretend to get annoyed again. Never scowl at me angrily again.
And when I find that person or those people...
RING RING.
I fall out of my thoughts and grab for my phone, checking the display. It's Shibata.
"Hi," I say quickly, checking the time to see I have some left before I'm picked up and driven away.
"Aya-chan, how is everything? Is this a bad time?"
"Everything's, well, as good as can be. And no, it's a perfect time," I reply, glad that she has caught me before I black out from rage or something.
"I have some news for you."
My heart skips a beat.
"It's about the café."
"What is it?" I demand.
"I met the man," Shibata says plainly. "The main mystery man Miki-chan was meeting with. I talked to him."
A flood of questions spills out of my mouth, and Shibata tries to answer them.
"Please listen. I'll tell you all I know."
"Okay."
Just like Ochiai.
"I was sitting there just now reading a book and he walked in. Ochiai-san sent me a note through a waitress telling me that he was the one. I kept reading and minding my own business when he came up to me."
"Wait, he approached you?" I ask, bewildered.
I thought it would have to be the other way around.
"Mmhmm. He commented on the book I was reading. It turns out he's read it, too. He wasn't lying about it, either. We discussed it."
"You discussed literature with Miki's killer?" I blow up.
What the hell was this girl thinking?!
"Aya-chan, we don't know that he did it," she says diplomatically. "And yes, we discussed literature."
"H-how can you? What... How...?"
"Please listen. All we did was chat for about twenty minutes, and then he said he had to go."
"That's it??" I explode again. "You just let him go?!"
There's a hard silence on the line. A scolding silence from Shibata telling me to be quiet and listen. I hush up, a little embarrassed.
"He asked if we could meet again. I told him that I hang out at the café these days since I work nearby. It's not entirely a lie. I told him he could find me there, and he said he looked forward to talking to me again."
I can't believe it. This guy that possibly killed Miki wants to go out on a date with Shibata.
On the other hand, we now have our suspect in our grasp. Or at least Shibata's grasp. If anyone can turn on the charm, it's that former Melon. She could have him eating out of the palm of her hand within one hour.
"Shiba-chan, I, uh, don't know what to say."
It's dangerous, stupid, exactly what I want... We're playing tag with a cobra, and there's no telling what's going to happen.
"Don't say anything. Just stay away from the café and let me handle it. I'm going to get to know him and see if I can get a name or a job description or something out of him. I'll see if he mentions Miki-chan at all."
I feel so grateful right now that she's putting her life on the line. Overwhelmed, actually.
"Shiba-chan."
"Yeah?"
"When's this going to end?" I ask sadly.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
"I don't know. Just hang in there."
Someone downstairs calls for me. We're leaving.
"I have to go. The wake starts soon," I say quickly.
There's a heavy pause as Shibata remembers what I'm here for.
"Stay strong, Aya-chan. I'll see you in a few days?"
"Yeah. Thanks for calling. See you."
We hang up and I walk downstairs slowly. When I see the car, I freeze.
I don't want to go. I'll throw a fit. I'll lock myself in the bathroom. I'll tie myself to the door. I do not want to go to the wake. I don't want to see her body. I don't want to accept this harsh reality. It's like my entire sense of happiness before this whole mess has been lied to. That probably doesn't even make sense, but feelings don't make sense.
Aunt Keiko seems to notice that I've stopped in my tracks, and she links her arm around mine and guides me to the car gently. We get in, and I sit there, trembling inside, stoic on the outside.
"Is this your first wake?" she asks me sympathetically.
I shake my head. I've been to two before, both for family members. One I was close to. The other I never knew.
We don't speak for the rest of the drive.
The wake is a wake. Nothing out of the ordinary happens. As I kneel in front of the casket to pay my respects, my mind can barely believe what I'm doing. I bow down, close my eyes and make my final promise to her. This time directly to her. Only a wooden panel separates her body from mine.
I'm not going to say goodbye to you.
I wish I could bring you back. I wish you were here.
Thank you for everything. You know. Everything.
I will find whoever did this to you. I will find him and make sure he never does anything like this again.
I love you so much, but you already know that. Don't forget it. I won't.
I finish up the standard ritual which can't possibly mean as much as my thoughts towards her do.
Once it's time, the priest does his job. We sit there and listen.
The thing that chills me is not the priest's voice chanting sutras. It's the fact that I am kneeling in the room with Miki's body right up at the front. I stare at the casket the whole time. There's a large, smiling picture of her over it, but I can't look at it. It's not the real Miki. The real Miki is inside that wooden box.
And in my heart.
When we finally get up, I realise I haven't cried the entire time. I'm too upset to cry. I'm angry. I'm desperate.
I excuse myself and go to the washroom while the food and table are prepared. I run the water and wash my hands, drying them off quickly before leaving and stepping outside. There are a few men out for a smoke, but I avoid them. I round the corner of the building and stand against the wall, my arms crossed for warmth.
That's when the tears come. They're not wild tears. I can still breathe normally. They're more tears of reality hitting.
Miki is dead. Tomorrow her body will be burned into grey ashes and I'll never look at her face again except in pictures. I'll be able to hold what's left of her in an urn in one hand.
No, Miki wasn't a body. I have to remind myself of that. She was a mind. She was a soul. She was part of me. In the end, she had a very good life. She had me, I had her. She had a good job, good friends, and good dreams.
She was the one damned thing that I could rely on in my life.
And she was ripped away.
I start to cry a little harder because I realise something else:
I've started thinking of her in the past tense.
-
Chapter 22 of 28
I eventually dry my tears and go back inside, but I'm even quieter than before. I sit at the end of a table and eat quietly - or I pretend to. "Eating" mostly consists of me rearranging my food in ways to make it look like I've eaten some of it. Nobody bothers me or forces me into conversation. I think I give off a bad vibe. I must seem like a cold-hearted celebrity bitch with no manners. However, most of the people there know I was close to Miki. We did work together in the public eye for years. Maybe they will keep that in mind before they judge me.
We get home very late that night. Lots of people are drunk as we leave, and I feel bitterness inside me start to take root. Do these people even care about her? Are they here just for food and drink? For show?
I crawl under the covers just past one and try to forget all about the "caring" guests.
I sleep until seven o'clock, but I have a strange dream. Strange as in disturbing. Miki's in it.
She's alive again and we're hanging out at some cafeteria at an indeterminate time in our lives. It could be last year. It could be a year from now. We're having a conversation about something mundane – umbrellas, I think - when two nondescript men come in and ask her to go with them. She says she will, but that she has one more thing to say to me. She walks up beside me and bends down to my ear, cupping her hands around it to whisper a secret to me. Instead of speaking, though, she slides something on the table in front of me. It's a piece of paper with something written on it in her handwriting.
I did it for you.
That's what the paper reads, but as I read it, I can hear her voice echo the words in my head. She walks towards the men, and they flank her as they walk out of the cafeteria together. I want to get up and stop her, but I'm frozen in place. The only movement I can make is twisting my head from side to side. I watch helplessly as she walks out the door and disappears into a crowd of people. She doesn't turn back once.
I wake up instantly to the generic ring tone of my cell phone alarm clock.
I remember every single detail of the dream, and I shiver. I don't quite know what to make of it. Maybe it's all my fault. I know she's told me in that letter of hers not blame myself, but I can't shake the feeling that if I hadn't existed, she wouldn't have been killed like that. If we'd never been friends in the first place, maybe...
I try to push it out of my mind.
Stupid thoughts, I think. Not productive at all.
The dream doesn't mean anything.
What's important is today. Today is the day of the funeral and cremation.
I get dressed right away and go downstairs, where I finally eat a meal. It's been a day since I last ate something substantial. Miki's mom gives me the details of the funeral, and I'm filled with a sense of déjà vu as just the two of us sit at the table in the living room and drink tea.
Miki's dad comes in and sits down. He doesn't speak a word. He's barely spoken since I've been in Hokkaido. He's always been a calm, friendly man, and we've always chatted a little during my visits here. I understand his pain and his silence, though. I don't take offence. I prefer the silence anyway.
The funeral is early. Nine o'clock. I go with Aunt Keiko again. This time I don't hesitate to get into the car. I don't feel much. Just emptiness and a dull pain at the back of my head, which is either a headache starting to set in or just general trauma packed in a temporary holding pen. A dealing technique to get me through the next few difficult hours.
The funeral happens. I may as well not be there. I don't pay attention to a thing that is said and done. I just stare at the casket. I even catch myself staring at Miki's picture for a while. The picture is from the last time she visited home, which was just last spring. You can see green trees behind her. Her eyes sparkle with sunlight. She's so happy. No idea what's to come.
Once the service is over and various family members are in tears, there's a lot of action. Friends and family say goodbye to each other. Miki's mom, dad, other family, and I head to the crematorium. They've insisted I come along. Miki's siblings have been unable to attend the funeral because they are snowed in in Alaska. A beautiful vacation that I'm sure has turned into a disastrous nightmare for them. Unable to attend their own little sister's funeral...
I get a chill when I step into the large, heated building. Bodies are burned here. Miki's about to be burned.
We're ushered into a large room. The casket is there. We're told we have a few more minutes. I look at the casket. I really look at it. I can almost see through it. I can see her cold, lifeless body sitting there. Her eyes glassy, her hair stringy, her skin so dried that nothing could ever fix it.
Suddenly my mind goes haywire. Something snaps. The holding pen explodes open, and my feelings rush out like charging animals. I start to cry. I put a hand up over my mouth to muffle the sounds I'm making. Every muscle of mine is tense, ready to run and steal her body back so that it won't be burned to a crisp. My body screams out to me, begging me to let it have its way.
No! I scream in my mind as I see her casket being slid into the house of fire that will consume her in a hellish blaze.
Don't burn her. Don't make her disappear any more than she already has.
Don't make it real.
Before I can see the whole casket pushed in, I bolt out of the door and go outside. I take a deep breath of cold air and let it out as a strangled sob. I stagger off to the side of the building, not caring if there are people outside watching me. I sit down on the ground, my back against the cold, hard wall, and I bury my face in my hands.
I sit there alone, crying, shivering, sniffing. The family comes out hours later. Aunt Keiko looks relieved to see me safe and sound. She takes me into her arms and helps me back to her car. I'm blank by this time, my tears dried up on my cheeks, my makeup run beyond repair. From the car, I see Miki's father holding an urn, and I know that while I've been outside crying, the family has been picking through her ashes and remaining bones. I avert my eyes quickly.
The sight has struck something in me. A large gong rings out as a page ends. It signals the end of a chapter. The new reality starts now.
We drive home in absolute silence. There are no further celebrations. Nobody wants to eat or drink.
When I get back, I go straight to Miki's room and pack up my bags. I place a call to a travel agency and book myself the last seat on a flight back to Tokyo that evening. It's the most last minute plane ride I've ever taken. I suppose this is the kind of thing Shiba-chan did when she came home from Spain.
I go downstairs and thank the family, telling them I have to leave. They insist that I rest for one more night, but I tell them I have to attend to some urgent business.
I need to leave the house as soon as possible. I can't spend another minute in that house with that urn. I refuse to look at it. I barely know what it looks like. It's Miki's new skin, and I hate it.
Aunt Keiko talks me into accepting a drive to the train station from her husband. I agree to that, so I wait as someone brings my bags out to the car and I say goodbye to the family.
I tell Miki's mom I'll be in touch soon. There are still things we have to sort out. I've been given charge of Miki's possessions, and I'm sure some of them will be sent back here. She hugs me, and it makes me feel even sadder.
I wave goodbye to Aunt Keiko, and I walk out of the house.
I get into the car and am greeted by a surprise. Uncle Shun isn't there. In his place is Miki's dad. I hesitate for a moment, thinking I've made a mistake, but he takes off down the road before I can get out. I suppose this is the way it will be.
A minute later, he speaks.
"When's your flight?"
"Seven-thirty," I reply.
There's another spell of silence. I want to say something, but I can't think of anything appropriate. I've already expressed my condolences. As we drive on, I feel more and more depressed.
"You remind me of her."
He speaks the words quietly as though they're a fleeting thought that he hasn't meant to voice aloud.
"I... do?" I ask, at a loss.
Nobody can say that Miki and I were all that similar. We shared a lot of jokes, and of course we liked a lot of the same things; but our personalities and our behaviour, both public and private, were quite different. A ten-minute conversation with me, followed by a ten-minute conversation with Miki, would reveal two very different people.
"Everything that she liked and cherished in her life reminds me of her. You were her closest friend," he says in the same tone.
It's sweet that he's telling me this. Maybe he thinks I never knew that. Maybe he just wants to be saying something.
"I always wondered, though, if she loved her life and friends in Tokyo more than she loved her family in Hokkaido."
My heart sinks. It's such a hard thing to think about for any of us who have taken off and moved to a new place far away from home. We've established whole new and different lives in a new city. It's a struggle, and I've always wondered what the answer is. What would I do for her?
Anything, of course.
But would I choose Miki over my mother? My father? My sisters? Would she do the same and drop her mom and dad to come to me?
I often want to say yes. I'd do anything for Miki, and she'd do anything for me. But if I get into details, I don't know what to think. If I could only save one - Miki or my mom - what would I do?
Sometimes I make myself choose. The times that I do choose, I always choose Miki. Then I feel guilty. How can I think that about my own mother? She raised me and let me go and pursue my dream, and she still loves me so much. Maybe I'm a terrible person to think that Miki is the one I'd save, not my mother. Soul over flesh and blood. How horrible.
But I would feel equally bad about the opposite. I would never, ever have wanted to abandon Miki. I would never have made the choice to let her die to save someone else. Or a million someone elses.
So maybe that's my answer. My cold-hearted but passionate answer. I'd save Miki.
Would she have done the same for me?
I'll never know, but my gut instinct tells me her answer would have been the same as mine. She would have chosen me over anyone else.
Of course, that's not something I can tell her father. She loved him very much. From climbing trees together to going skating, they had a solid relationship. I've heard stories about all the things they did together.
It's just that we were - no, still are - part of each other, so when one of us dies, the other can't live on properly.
That's what's happening now.
"I think she loved all parts of her life," I say out loud. "She always talked to me about Hokkaido and her family. So don't worry, Fujimoto-san."
I can see his face relax just a bit. He doesn't look happy (nobody is happy at this time), but he looks relieved
We don't talk anymore for the rest of the drive. We pull up in front of the station. I thank him very much, and I get out to retrieve my bags from the trunk. I'm about to say my final thank you when he calls my name and urges me to come up to the window. I go over.
"You, too. You're all she ever talked about."
He says it not accusingly, but with curiosity. As if he's trying to figure out Miki's mind.
"Me?"
"You, all you Tokyo people, her life there."
I smile softly for the first time.
"I'm not from Tokyo."
I know that's not his point, and he knows I know. For the first time, though, he also smiles. I don't know what we're smiling about. Maybe it's because in ways, Miki and I were exactly the same. Two girls from small towns on opposite sides of Tokyo, going into the big city and bonding, looking out for each other, taking care of each other.
"Take care of yourself," he says.
This is goodbye for now. I thank him again for everything he and his family have done for me, and I walk off to catch my express train to Sapporo.
The whole trip to the airport, I think about Miki's dad and Miki. I imagine them playing in the snow together, raking leaves together, and laughing together under the summer sun. I feel warm inside, and I'm happy to finally have that feeling.
A cloud ruins my mood. It is both literal and metaphorical. Freezing rain starts to fall outside, but a storm also starts to brew within me. I imagine snow stained with specks of blood that increase until the snow is dark red. That's what happens when killers are on the loose.
During my wait at the airport, I mail Shibata. I tell her I'll be landing at Haneda airport just before midnight and that I'll visit her tomorrow. She mails me back a rushed message. She's on her way out, but she has something to talk to me about tomorrow morning. Early.
I want to know what it is, but she doesn't reply to my next message. I resign myself to having to wait.
I nod off waiting for my plane, but I wake up in time for the boarding.
I stay awake the entire flight. We have a bumpy takeoff because of the storm. I stare out the window at the dark sky and the dark clouds. I can barely see a thing, but nothing can make me take my eyes away from the darkness. It comforts me. Calls out to my mind. Provides fodder for my anger.
I keep repeating everything that's happened during this brief trip up north. The wake and the funeral.
But I block out any memory and any stray thought of the cremation. I forget what the urn looks like. I erase the expressions on Miki's parents' faces after they walked out of the crematorium. Those are several things I never want to think about ever again.
-
Chapter 23 of 28
"I met up with him again."
"What? So soon?"
"His name is Takashi."
Silence.
"That's it? No family name?"
"He didn't mention one."
Sigh.
"What did you talk about?"
"Ourselves. Our hobbies. He's really into photography."
"Great. Photography. Did you tell him who you are?"
"Just a first name and that I'm a student and part-time singer."
"And?"
"You're going to want to meet up with me to talk about this. Are you free?"
"Yes. Shall I go there?"
"No, I'll go and meet you there. Half an hour?"
"Fine. See you soon."
I hang up the phone and check the time. It's nearing eight o'clock. Shibata called early like she promised. I've gotten about five hours of sleep, three if you subtract all the time I spent waking up and brooding. I kept thinking I heard the phone ringing, imagining it was Sugiura-san calling to say he'd caught the murderer.
Somehow, that thought lets me down. I want to find the person responsible. I want to get to him first before the police can have him.
I dress quickly and put some water to boil. I may as well thank my friend by having some warm tea waiting for her when she gets here.
Exactly half an hour later, the doorbell rings. An army could use Shibata as a timepiece with her ability to be so punctual. I let her in and we get right down to business after I pour us some tea.
"Talk," I say eagerly, taking a sip of my tea and then focusing all my attention on the girl sitting across the table from me.
"Takashi's made a proposal," Shibata begins. "After I told him that I was affiliated with a small, independent label, he told me he knew some people in the music industry - clean, he insisted, and he did drop some legitimate names - that could help me get a better deal. He said his hobby was photography, and that if I wanted to make a deal with one of these labels he was recommending, he could handle all the headshots and the artwork, and all that stuff we don't really think about as performers. He happened to have his portfolio with him, and Aya-chan, this guy is good. He could be a professional. Very tempting."
I see where this is going. Maybe Miki was trying to get some sort of photo deal out of this guy. Maybe he's really a dirty man who wanted to do dirty things or take dirty pictures, and once Miki refused, he got demanding and violent and then killed her when she wouldn't take her clothes off for a shot.
Or not.
I don't know. That could be it.
"I see what you're thinking," she interrupts my thoughts quickly, "but he doesn't give off a creepy vibe at all. He's very relaxed, very calm. He has a very trusting face. A very handsome one."
"So he lulled you into a false sense of security," I state.
Shibata shifts uncomfortably.
"I don't know. He seems pretty genuine. And his portfolio is really tasteful. More tasteful than some other people we've worked with in the past," she replies with a wince.
"So what do we do?"
Shibata mulls it over. So do I.
What can we do? Follow this proposal? See if it leads us to Miki? It's either that, or this guy is for real, and Shibata will end up with some sort of special record and photoshoot deal.
"I say I play along. Pretend to be interested."
I nod. Maybe Shibata's right. I should trust her.
"Okay. When are you meeting him next?"
"This afternoon."
That's so soon. It almost seems to be going by too quickly. I can't control it.
"Oh..."
Shibata looks at her watch.
"Listen, I've got to go now. I'll be meeting Takashi in the early afternoon, but can I swing by here afterwards? I can give you my report then."
She stands up, and I stand up with her to see her out. I don't like being left all alone with nothing to do but mope. I can't ask her to stay, though. She has her life.
"Be careful, Shiba-chan," I say before she leaves. "I've lost one important person. I don't want to lose another."
She smiles at me.
"Thanks. I will be. You take care, too. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. I mean it."
She waves and walks off to the elevator.
I wash out our teacups and ponder what to do next.
I end up calling Sugiura. I casually ask him about the investigation. He's still tight-lipped about it, but he lets on that they still have no idea who the killer is. It seems like I'm still in his good books because he asks me how I'm doing and whether I attended Miki's funeral or not. I answer brusquely that yes, I went, and that I'm doing as well as can be expected. Afterwards, there's an awkward pause which I fill up with a technical question about the will-like note and about Miki's apartment. When can I go there to start organising her things?
"We'll be out of there by tomorrow afternoon," he says in a definite voice. "You can go any time after that."
I wonder if I can hold him to his word.
As for Miki's final will, he has contacted the Fujimoto family about her bank account, the sum of which she has left to them.
"I don't mean to pry, Matsuura-san, but do you need some help?" Sugiura asks, his voice going into super-sensitive mode.
Help? With my own investigation? He doesn't know I'm doing that.
"I could give you some numbers or recommend some people who are trained in counselling," he elaborates, oblivious to my thoughts.
Wait, professional help? A psychologist or psychiatrist, or whoever that person is that checks your head to see if you're loopy? No thank you.
"I'm fine," I reply curtly.
"In times of grief, especially when you've lost a, uh, loved one, you really need to be able to talk about it to-"
"I'm fine," I repeat. "I have friends. Good friends."
I think of Shibata. She'll listen to me and give me better advice than some stranger could.
"All right. If you ever need to talk, you can call me. I'll refer you. Given your situation..."
What? I almost say. I want to challenge him to finish that sentence. Tell me what my situation is. Then I want to trample all over what he says and tell him to get off his butt and start doing real work for once. There's a killer on the loose.
Instead of blowing up, I thank him coldly and end our conversation.
To pass the time, I take out Miki's notebook and journal and I read them over and over. I lie on my back on my bed and try to remember the tune of her song. I hold the lyrics above me and try to sing them along to the tune. I make up my own tune when I forget how the original one goes. Maybe I should fix up this song and record it. Miki's words communicated through music and poetry after her death. A touching thought.
At two-forty, Shibata mails me.
I'll be there in fifteen minutes.
All right, Shiba-chan. More tea it is.
-
Chapter 24 of 28
In what is developing into our routine, Shibata comes in, sits down with some tea, and starts to report.
"Takashi's bringing some people to the café so that we can meet."
More people? This has got to be the extra people who Ochiai said were meeting with Miki. They must be one big team of killers.
"We're going to have a casual chat. Nothing big, he said."
"When?"
"Actually, this evening."
This evening? Already? That's really suspicious.
"I'm going with you," I say determinedly.
"No you're not," she replies without a skipping a beat. "Everyone knows who you are. It's too dangerous. I can handle it on my own."
"No. I'm going to go and have a look. If they're the same people that met with Miki, I want to know."
"How will you even know?" sighs Shibata. "Ochiai-san can confirm it, and I can come back here and tell you everything."
I shake my head.
"Not good enough. I want to see these guys. I'll hide out in the kitchen, and I promise not to show my face."
"No," Shibata says in a final tone. "There's no way I'm letting you go."
An hour and a half later, Shibata and I walk into the Terrace Café. I've won our argument. I keep my head down low and follow behind her. Surprisingly, there's nobody in the little shop, so we call Ochiai out. I explain to her what I want to do, and I ask if it's all right to stay in the kitchen with her. She agrees to it, and I'm quickly ushered in while Shibata goes to wait at her table. She's a bit early, so she orders a coffee.
I stand in a corner of the kitchen and avoid the occasional curious looks I get from the staff. Two of them are making sweets, while another one is seated and eating a sandwich. Ochiai is sitting out in the shop as a lookout, so I have nobody to talk with. I wait, fidgeting and shifting my weight every few minutes.
This situation I'm in is really absurd when I think about it. I'm hiding in a kitchen, acting like a spy. Do I really think I can catch a killer? I'm way out of my league here.
While moping over my situation, I hear the wind chimes signal that the door has been opened. I peek out the kitchen and see a tall figure walk in. My gaze shifts toward Ochiai's immediately. She has the same idea, and she looks in my direction casually and nods once. Our signal for Takashi.
A server immediately goes to seat him, so I can't see his face until she moves away.
My god, he's handsome. They haven't been exaggerating. He walks in with an air of confidence, but modesty. His face is set in a peaceful expression, his eyes gentle. He looks like he's in his thirties, but a young thirties.
Suddenly I don't feel so sure about myself. Even I'm swooning over this man's perfection. I can only imagine what Miki must have thought when she saw him. I can see him approaching her, her eyes going starry staring into his. He tells a joke and she giggles. He compliments her on her fashion sense and she blushes and thanks him. Maybe there was something going on between them...
No. That's not how Miki would act anyway.
My jaw hardens and I go into denial mode. I watch him walk over to Shibata's table. They greet each other with smiles, and he sits down right beside her. They begin to talk. It seems like small talk. He pulls out his cell phone, and it looks like he's showing her some photos on it.
They are interrupted five minutes later by two other men. I look at Ochiai. She nods twice subtly. They're the same men that met with Miki.
I fight the urge to run out there and start demanding to know what their meetings were about. It takes every bit of willpower to keep myself from doing anything but stand and watch.
The men are introduced to Shibata, and they all sit down together. Takashi pulls out a folder and takes a sheet of paper out of it, placing it in the middle of the table. They start to discuss something, and I'm dying to know what. They keep it up for twenty minutes, and then just as quickly as they started, they finish. The two men leave. Takashi and Shibata sit and chat for a few more minutes. Then they also leave. Together.
Where are they going??
Ochiai comes back into the kitchen, but my mind is whirling with too many thoughts to start a conversation with her. She starts it instead.
"Those two men met with Fujimoto-san. The meeting they just had now looked just like the meetings she had with them."
This can't be happening. What is going on? What's their hidden agenda?
"Did you hear anything?" I ask.
Ochiai shakes her head.
Flustered, I take out my cell phone and mail Shibata
Where are you going?!?
Twenty minutes pass and I get no reply. My heart starts to beat at a crazy speed. What if Takashi's going to drown Shibata? What if he's going to take her back to his apartment and do who knows what with her? I refuse to let him get to anyone else anymore. I have to protect what's left of my friends. I'm not going to let Shibata become his next victim.
I'm about to jump out of the café and go looking for them when my phone rings.
"Aya-chan, h-"
"Where did you go?!" I yell into the phone, completely losing my nerve.
"Don't worry. We walked to the station together. He's gone now."
I try to breathe evenly. I try to quell the hatred rising up in me.
"Okay," I mumble.
"Stay put. I'm going back to get you."
She hangs up and I feel weak from my outburst. Ochiai lets me have a seat at a table and she brings over some water, sitting across from me.
"She means a lot to you, doesn't she," she says.
Who is she talking about? Miki or Shiba-chan? Of course they both mean a lot to me. But in different ways.
I shrug uncertainly.
"I don't think she would have done anything to hurt you," Ochiai continues. "Like I told you, I'm a people watcher. I can tell that much."
I think she's talking about Miki. If she's as good a people watcher as she claims to be, then it must have been pretty obvious to her just how much Miki meant to me (and vice versa) when we were at the café together.
But wait. Didn't Ochiai say Takashi gave her a bad feeling? That he was a nice man on the outside, but disturbed on the inside? I wonder why Shibata hasn't picked up on that.
Maybe she's smitten with him, too, I think sourly.
"I'd love to believe you," I tell her.
She gives me a strange look. One that tells me I should trust her. But how can I? My self-esteem is being broken down bit by bit as the minutes tick by. A thousand letters from Miki cannot comfort me. A million memories of kisses cannot make me see past the thick fog that has settled over my eyes. A fog full of uncertainty and jealousy.
"Wallowing in your self-pity won't do you any good," she says suddenly.
Those are the harshest words I've ever heard her speak. She sounds like Shibata on one of her inspirational tirades that start with her chastising me.
"Stop feeling so insecure and sorry for yourself, and stop questioning a dead girl's actions as if you really know about them, because you don't. I was here and I was watching her. I would know if her feelings changed at all. They never did. If you really liked her and knew her, then you wouldn't be doubting her."
Oh... my...
She's right.
I sit there, shocked, my eyes locked with Ochiai's. This woman must be some mystical being. An angel or... something. She's like an all-knowing, omnipotent person who has dug into my mind, brought forth my issues, and displayed them on the table so that I can see them clearly.
But I don't know if she fully understands or not. It's not that I don't trust Miki. It's just that I really don't know where I am anymore. The world has no up and no down, and I'm floating around in it without knowing which way I'm going. I'm lost, not because I can't find the road, but because there is no road. There's no precedent. This has never happened before. I have nothing to go on, no example to follow. If anything, I'm making the road as I go. Nothing makes sense to me. It seems that everything I've believed up until the point of Miki's death can't be trusted anymore. Everything is the opposite now. I'm no longer a confident person. I'm weak and unsure of myself.
I have to stop that feeling.
I swallow hard and don't say a word until Shibata comes running in. She bursts upon the scene like a nuclear explosion, stunning me out of my silence. Ochiai seems surprised, too, and her expression softens as she looks at Shibata.
"Um, sorry to interrupt..." Shibata says uncertainly, no doubt sensing the tension between me and Ochiai.
"No, have a seat. I was just leaving."
Ochiai gets up and gestures to her chair. With a firm nod directed at me, she floats off into the kitchen. Shibata looks after her with a puzzled frown, but then quickly sits down.
"Shiba-chan," I say, but I don't continue.
I can't think of what to say to her.
"Okay, that meeting was really weird," she starts off.
"What happened?" I ask, getting into thinking mode again.
"Well, first, we just chatted. About sports, actually. He's a big curling fan. Then those men came in. They were nice. We just discussed my schedule for the next few months. They told me about some of the projects they've worked on before. Just a meeting to get to know each other."
"I don't see what's so weird about that," I say.
Shibata shakes her head.
"It wasn't the discussion that weirded me out. It was the feeling."
Oh no. Here it starts.
Shibata lowers her voice and continues to speak.
"Ochiai-san was right. There's something strange about that man. He's really charming, and he's a great conversationalist. I mean, he made curling sound interesting. But when those other men got here and we started to talk business, things changed. He got really focused, and not just the normal kind of focused. Almost obsessively so. He wanted to know every single detail about everything. I've never seen anybody get like him. I mean, you're a hard worker and you pay attention to detail, but he was a hundred times worse than you at your most concentrated."
"Did he threaten you?" I ask concernedly.
"No, not at all. But I'm going to watch out from now on. That kind of obsession isn't healthy."
It's not what I've been expecting to hear. If anything, I thought he'd get aggressive or angry. Not obsessed with tiny details. I find that I want him to do something violent so that we have an excuse to start taking more action than just chatting over coffee and hiding in kitchens.
"What's the next step?" I ask.
"We're meeting tomorrow evening."
"With those other guys?"
"How'd you guess?" Shibata asks bitterly.
We share a miserable look.
"What do you think is going on? Honestly."
Shibata sighs.
"I don't know. From the looks of it, they really want me to work with them. We're establishing a good relationship. Maybe it's to help our professional relationship go smoothly," she speculates.
"Do you think he wants, um..." I stutter. "That he wants, like, you to, uh, you and him..."
I trail off and the look on Shibata's face shows me she understands what I'm asking. It also scares me. She looks like she has no clue.
"I don't know. For all I know, that could be what he's after. It could be what he was after with Miki-chan. If it was, she obviously didn't like it when she found out his true intentions."
That makes me feel a little better. It's true. Ochiai said Miki became angrier during the meetings as time went on. If she was happy with Takashi and those other guys, she wouldn't have gotten angry.
"What do we do if that's what he's doing?"
Shibata looks at me apprehensively.
"You're not going to like this, but we'll have to call the police."
I start to protest, but she raises a hand and her voice.
"We should have gone to them before any of this started," she reminds me. "If they're some sick group of perverts who get their kicks by promising a girl success, forcing her into having sex or killing them, we can't handle them alone."
"But if they had all those meetings with Miki, they must have known she was successful. I mean, they must have known who she was to call a meeting with her," I point out.
"Then I guess they had a really good deal for her. Better than the things she'd already done."
A chilling thought. What could they have tempted Miki with? Before they began to threaten her, that is.
What was it?
"Have you talked to Tsuyoshi-kun lately?" Shibata asks out of the blue.
"Huh?"
"Tsuyoshi-kun," she repeats slowly. "Have you talked to him?"
I shake my head.
"Not since before the funeral."
"You should give him a call. See how he's doing."
Is this Shibata's way of trying to distract me?
She's right, though. I haven't talked to Tsuyoshi, and he must be wondering how everything is going. I'll call him tonight.
"All right. I will. What are you going to do tonight?" I ask.
"Me? I have some papers I have to work on," she replies, standing up.
I stand guiltily. I've been keeping Shibata away from her own work in order to pursue this chase of mine. I need to let her get her things done.
When we say good night to Ochiai, I avoid eye contact with her. We leave and catch trains home.
The whole way home, I feel like somebody's watching me. I look around and over my shoulder, but there's nobody there. I shrug it off as paranoia and get into my apartment.
I go into my room as I think about the events of the day. Two meetings with Takashi, and a business proposal. It's unbelievable. I lie down on my bed while still wearing my jacket and I stare up at the ceiling, letting my mind wander. It's like this that I fall asleep, neglecting to call Tsuyoshi or to change into my pyjamas.
-
Chapter 25 of 28
That night, I have violent dreams. I chase after and catch Miki's killer. I'm straddling him, beating him senseless as I scream incoherent words of hatred. At first he has no face. When I look at it, it's blank as if it's been censored. Slowly, though, it becomes clearer and clearer. It's Tsuyoshi's face.
I wake up in a cold sweat, an image of the boy's blood-covered face stuck in my head. I try to shake it out as I get out of bed. I'm still in the clothes I was wearing yesterday, but I'm too disturbed by my dream to feel disgusted about that.
It's all Shibata's fault. She planted the idea of not being able to trust Tsuyoshi. This dream is the result of that, coupled with the fact that he was on my mind since I had meant to call him. I can't let Shibata's idea take root because it's ridiculous.
I get out of my clothes and take a hot shower. When I get out, the steam rises quickly from my skin into the cool air, and I look into the mirror. I'm startled to see a tired, angry girl staring back. That's not my usual face. I've always looked vibrant and healthy. Now I'm starting to look like a mess. I haven't been sleeping or eating properly, and I've been obsessing over tiny details, stressing my mind, straining all my nerves.
Just a little bit more, I think to myself. Hang on just a little bit more.
I'll be able to rest after I've found the killer. Right now, I have to try and stay focused on the goal.
I go and get ready for the day slowly. No job and no Miki means there's not much to do. I don't want to see my other friends, and I don't feel like doing cheerful things to distract myself. Shibata's meeting isn't until the evening, but she's busy now. I can't go and hang out with her.
Tsuyoshi. I should call him. I meant to last night before I fell asleep in my day clothes. It's not quite ten o'clock. He must be at work. I dial his number.
Six rings later, I'm about to give up when a voice answers. It's an older woman. Do I have the wrong number?
"Hello, is Tsuyoshi-kun there?" I ask uncertainly.
"Oh, he's just getting into the taxi," says the woman.
I frown suspiciously. Since when does Tsuyoshi's job as secretary include getting into taxis in the middle of the morning? What's he doing? Where's he going?
"Taxi?" I ask.
"Yes, for the airport. He's off to Kyushu for a week."
Airport? Kyushu? A week? How convenient for him to be taking off now as Shibata and I are getting closer to Takashi and his group. Maybe they're in cahoots...
"Actually," the talkative woman continues, "we're all going. The whole family. We're visiting our son - Tsuyoshi's brother - there at his university."
I breathe a sigh of relief. I'm talking to his mother, and it's not a solo trip.
"Oh."
"Good thing you called. I don't think he's realised he's forgotten his phone. Would you like to talk to him? I'm just going out to the taxi."
"No, that's all right," I say quickly. "I'll call him some other time when he's not busy."
No point trying to talk about my private investigation with him when he's surrounded by people.
"All right, then."
"Thank you. Goodbye."
I hang up and am ridden with guilt. I can't believe I suspected him when I heard he was taking off for the airport. How could I? It's a family trip. He's not jumping ship and fleeing the country because he thinks I'm going to unveil him as Miki's killer.
I get up, grab my light jacket, and go out for lack of anything better to do. I end up walking for two hours, wandering around aimlessly. My life is so pointless right now. There's only one thing I want to do. No, two. One is to catch Miki's killer. The other is to wake up from this nightmare.
When I realise I'm hungry, I head back home and scour my kitchen for edible food. I'm running out. I'll have to go shopping. Maybe this afternoon.
No, wait. This afternoon I can go to Miki's apartment. I have to call to find out when I'm allowed. Not that that stopped me before.
I slurp down half a bowl of instant noodles (see how low I've stooped?) and call Sugiura. Luckily, I get him while he's on his lunch break. I ask about going to the apartment, and he gives me the green light. They cleared out two hours ago. I thank him and let him return to his lunch.
With nothing keeping me in my apartment, I get up and leave again. Miki's key is still with mine, so I don't have to worry about trying to find it.
On my way there, I try to piece together all the information I know. Miki was killed sometime in the early morning. She was beaten and pushed into a river. She drowned there, meaning she must've blacked out from the pain before being pushed in. Otherwise, she could have swum to safety. Before that day, Miki was having lots of meetings, something which started at the beginning of September at the Terrace Café. Ochiai said that each meeting was held at the same time and same place with the same man - Takashi - and several of his friends. The meetings started pleasantly, but eventually turned the opposite. Miki became upset and argumentative. What remained constants were the time, the place, and the fact that Miki always left the café with Takashi. In her journal, Miki made reference to a threat. "They say if I tell anyone, they'll kill her," she wrote. I have assumed that the "she" in the sentence is me. I've also gone and assumed that the "they" means her killers or aggressors, and currently, I strongly believe that Takashi and his men fit that description. Now, Shibata has made contact with those men, and she's been offered a record deal plus some promotional photography. That's it.
That's nothing.
We have no idea what Miki and Takashi discussed. They could have been arranging their wedding ceremony for all I know.
I shake the bitterness out of my mind. There I go being absurd again. At least thinking about it has distracted me. I find myself standing in front of Miki's door. I take a deep breath in and open the door.
Everything's almost the same as when Shibata and I snuck in. Some things have been tucked back away where they belong.
I walk around the whole place. All this stuff is mine now. The clothes, books, CDs, jewellery, shoes, the contents of the fridge.
The fridge. I open the door and find fruit and vegetables that have just started to go bad. I sigh and start to sift through everything, throwing out what's expired. I throw out about half of what's in the fridge. Next, I have to check the trash pick-up schedule. Then I have to take what I can use from her fridge before it rots out of existence.
I clench my fists suddenly and walk away from the kitchen, unable to stand having to think of all these details. It's not fair. I shouldn't have to be throwing out an expired carton of juice. Miki should have been alive this past week drinking it before it could see the light of its expiration date.
I walk into her bedroom and lie down. It's comfortable and warm. But it's missing something. Someone.
I turn my head and look at the bookshelf. On it is a framed picture of Miki, me, and a group of our Hello!Project friends and co-workers from Takahashi Ai's birthday party two years ago. There are seven of us in total. In the front row, Miki and I are standing beside each other, Ai to her left, Eri to my right. We're all smiling happily and giving V signs to the camera. I stare at Miki's face for a whole minute.
"It's time for you to come back now," I speak to her picture in a small voice.
But she doesn't come back. The front door remains closed. All I hear is traffic outside.
Unnerved by the silence, I get up and go to the stereo in the living room. I turn on the power and press play to find out what Miki was listening to last. Some band I don't know starts singing. It's in English, so I can't understand. It sounds like the mix CD her foreign friend and former co-worker Katherine made for her. I've only listened to it once before, so I can't say for sure. Whatever it is, though, it's a nice song, so I leave it playing in the background.
I lie down on the floor, looking up at the white ceiling, remembering a time I was in a similar position. Miki's conversation topics were sometimes beyond strange, but I somehow put up with them...
"What would you do if you found out I was a psychotic axe-murderer?" she asked me one night last year.
We had just gotten back to her apartment from a party, and we'd collapsed on the floor, exhausted, a little tipsy, and looking up at the ceiling as though observing the starry night sky.
"Are you trying to tell me something?" I asked, turning my head and raising my eyebrows in mock suspicion.
"No no no!" she exclaimed, looking back at me. "But... what if?"
I paused, looked up, and thought. That would be a tough call to make.
"Morally and legally, I'd be obligated to report you to the police," I started.
"But?"
"But... all those other things. Um, heartfully, emotionally, whateverly, I'd be forced to keep my mouth shut and just keep on living with you around."
"And pray that I never went psycho on you," she winked.
"Yes," I agreed with an exaggerated nod.
"So which would you do?" she asked almost seriously.
"Which? Um..." I stalled.
I didn't want to sound like a lawbreaker, but I didn't want to be cold-hearted.
"It would depend on how badly you pissed me off before I found out."
I rolled onto my side and looked down at her.
"If you annoyed me, I'd go straight to the police. But if you acted like your adorable self, like you are right now," for emphasis, I pinched her cheeks with one hand, squishing her lips together, "then I'd stay quiet."
She shook my hand off her face and pouted, which made me even more resolute about not giving away her hypothetical homicidal streak to the police.
"Thanks," she said. "I guess I'd do the same for you."
"You guess?" I asked dangerously, prepping for a battle.
Instead of taking the bait, she smiled peacefully.
"I mean of course."
Actually, I was glad she didn't rise up to the challenge and start one of our playful sparring sessions bursting with witty banter. I was far too tired and my brain was a little too woozy. I lay myself back down on the floor, and we continued to watch the imaginary stars above us.
I turn my head to look beside me. Nobody's there. Just a ghost of a memory. I sigh longingly and continue to reminisce, as being in this apartment brings me deeper and deeper into the past.
I nod off for an hour while thinking. After my nap, I get up and rummage through some things. I sit down in front of the shelf by the television set and look through it. This time at a much slower and calmer pace. Last time I looked through these things, I was bending the law.
I come across an old postcard that I sent her from Hiroshima during my tour. I read what I wrote back in the spring and I laugh at how stupid I sound. It's a very rushed postcard. "Hi, wish you were here" and "bye." But it's the thought that counts, right? I hope.
But... maybe I didn't do enough for her. I think back on all my actions, and I find myself wondering what kept her around for so long. Was she really happy being around me? She wrote so on paper, and she said so in person, but maybe that's because she didn't know any better. Maybe I just happened to be the nicest person she knew. She could have done better, but she stopped when she found a decent level of caring. I was just Mediocre, but if she'd ditched me, she could have had time to find Stellar.
What sorts of things did I do? Let's see. I list them off on my fingers as I go.
I purposely forgot her birthday every year. I scolded her for being immature. I made her keep her apartment spotless. I made her wake up on time for work and always made sure she left a little early (except for a few times). I yelled at her when she pissed me off. I refused to talk to her when I was in a bad mood. I teased her to make her turn red in embarrassment. Even before the beginning, I dated that dull plastic bag boy just to put distance between me and her and to make me deny the attraction I felt.
To my credit, though, I never got jealous, but that seems to have been my only redeeming quality.
What a way to show you care about someone, I think acerbically.
I put the postcard back on the shelf between two books. I lie back down on my back.
Maybe she would have been better off not knowing me.
-
Chapter 26 of 28
Know what snaps me back into reality?
Funny enough, not Miki's words, but Ochiai's.
"Stop feeling so insecure and sorry for yourself, and stop questioning a dead girl's actions as if you really know about them, because you don't."
For the time being, I'll push my insecurity to the side and not let it get the better of me.
For the time being.
Ochiai is at least half right. I do need to stop with all this self-pity. I am me, after all, and I'm not supposed to be insecure.
I let it all go and somehow find the will to get up and rummage through her drawers and closets. I spend the rest of the afternoon and early evening looking through all her things, finding things of mine she had stolen and I'd forgotten about, and separating everything into neat piles. A lot of her clothes I can use, but do I really want to? I don't think I can feel comfortable wearing a dead girl's clothes. Yet if I don't use them, nobody will, and they'll sit there and fade away with time. I decide to take them home with me and make up my mind later. It might be too soon now, but maybe in a little bit I'll want to wear the things she wore. Maybe it'll make me feel a little connected to her.
Some of her books I want to keep, particularly the ones she always recommended to me but that I never read. Now I'll read them all cover to cover. I'll absorb every single word, because that, too, will make me feel more connected.
I start to suspect that I'm not going to be able to let go of anything of hers. My pile gets bigger and bigger, while the pile for her family and friends grows at an infinitesimal rate.
I almost shriek when my phone rings, so concentrated am I on my clean-out job.
I scramble for my phone and see Shibata's number on the display screen.
"Hi," I say in what I hope is a relaxed voice.
"Hey, Aya-chan. I just finished my meeting with Takashi and company."
"How'd it go?" I ask eagerly.
"The same as the last meeting, but this time Takashi asked me to do him a favour."
I wait for her to explain, but she doesn't.
"What favour?" I urge her on.
"He didn't say. He said he'll talk to me about it later. I have no idea what it could be, and he didn't give me any hints."
There's a pensive pause over the phone as we try to make sense of that. Eventually, we both conclude that we can't figure it out.
"Be careful," I tell her. "Don't get into anything weird."
"I know," Shibata says, and I can hear the grateful smile in her tone.
See? I can care about someone other than myself. I am a good person. Sometimes.
"When's the next meeting?"
"The day after tomorrow," Shibata says with a sigh. "At this rate, I'm going to see them more than I see you."
That makes me laugh.
"You actually sound upset about that. I thought you were sick of me."
"Sick of you? No!" It's Shibata's turn to laugh. "Despite the horrific situation, you make life interesting. And I do care. I want to help you."
"Thank you," I manage to say embarrassedly.
"Anyway, let's not talk about this mushy stuff anymore. It's not our thing. I've got to get going, but I'll be in touch."
"Thank you," I repeat, this time with much more heart.
"Anytime. See you."
We hang up.
The next week and a half flies by with conversations much like that one (minus the mushy parts). Shibata meets with Takashi and then calls me up (or meets me) to report everything she's learned. She meets with him six times in eleven days. They've mostly just been social gatherings, but one has been a real planning session.
Life without Miki doesn't get any easier after a few weeks. In fact, it gets a little harder each day. Reality already set in at the wake and funeral, but now it's repeatedly slapping me in the face with memories, daydreams, nightmares, and the general feeling of pain and longing. It feels like phantom limb syndrome. Part of me has been cut off, but I still feel like it's attached to me sometimes. Like Miki's ghost is whispering something in my ear so I don't forget a thing.
I'm almost finished going through her apartment, and I've been in contact with Miki's mom and Sugiura about legal details. I don't understand a word of it, although I try hard to. All I know is that I have to finish going through the apartment as quickly as I can.
Tsuyoshi e-mails me and we get to chatting. It turns out his brother was sick, which is why the family went down to visit him. It was just influenza, but apparently, his mother is overprotective of her eldest son. He comes back after a week, but we don't make any plans to get together. Right now we're dealing with Miki's death in our own ways.
I still haven't found a job, but I'm okay for money. Since Miki's death, I haven't felt like doing anything. Somewhere in the back of my head, something tells me that that's not good for me, but the rest of me doesn't care. My purpose is to be focused on one thing and one thing only.
I'm fixing up a late dinner one evening. It's cold outside and I've just started using my heater. I put it in my kitchen and stand beside it as I chop up an onion. Just then, my phone rings. It's Shibata. It must be time for her usual report. I rinse my hands off quickly and answer my phone.
"Aya-chan, I need to meet you right now."
She sounds absolutely terrified.
"What happened?" I demand.
"Meet me at the Family Mart near my station in thirty minutes," she says hurriedly.
"I-" I start, but I hear the line cut off.
She's hung up on me. Something's really wrong. I don't bother to clean up the kitchen. I grab what I need and rush out of the door, locking it behind me.
I catch the appropriate trains and get to the convenience store in twenty-five minutes. I'm about to e-mail Shibata when I look in the window and see her inside the store at the magazine section. I pop in discreetly and walk up beside her.
"What is this? A crime movie? What's going on?" I ask seriously.
Shibata lowers the magazine she's reading (out of all things, she had to choose Friday) and looks at me. Her eyes show the intense worry she feels.
"They mentioned Miki."
Suddenly there's nothing more important in the world than this moment. The lights go on in my head. They've been off this whole time. I've had no leads. This is the first hope I've had in the past week and a half. I'm going to grab on and not let go.
"What did they say?" I ask harshly, lowering my voice.
"It was Takashi. And he didn't mention her name specifically. He made reference to a girl who was working for him, but who met with an untimely end."
I swallow hard. Was he talking about Miki?
"What exactly did he say?" I demand.
Shibata looks flustered, and I'm sure I'm not helping.
"He was about to ask me this favour. He said it was time. I told him to go ahead and ask me, but then he stopped and asked me if I trusted him. I had to say that I did, but I don't think he was convinced. He brought up Miki. He said he had a girl working with him recently but that she didn't trust him. He said that he fired her, but the way he said it sounded like a threat. Like he meant something else with the word 'fired' and that he might do that to me, too if I didn't trust him."
All I can see is the colour red. If Takashi hired someone to kill Miki, I'm going to find the hit man and I'm going to kill him. Then I'll go after Takashi and make sure he screams so much that he'll choke to death on his own tongue as he sucks in a desperate breath of air.
"After that, we were interrupted by some more of his friends, and that was that. He never asked the favour. We have a meeting tomorrow afternoon."
I can't think. I can't make anything out. Shibata's words don't make sense to me. They're not in my language. I just want to find Takashi and beat him senseless. He's got to be talking about Miki.
"I'll kill him," I state, finding my voice. "I'll kill him."
"Aya, shh," Shibata says quietly, looking around.
Some of the patrons in the store are now looking at us curiously, but I don't care.
"Where's Takashi now? Give me his number so I can stalk him and beat him."
I've never felt so violent before in my life. When Shibata doesn't budge, I start to walk out of the store. She grabs my arm.
"Let go!" I yell at her, drawing a gasp from an elderly woman paying for a carton of tea at the cash register.
I shake Shibata's hands off me and storm out the door. I don't know which way I'm headed. Any direction will do. I'm so angry that nothing matters.
"Aya, wait!" Shibata's voice calls to me.
I ignore her.
Suddenly I feel hands grab me again, and before I know it, I'm being pushed backwards towards a building, Shibata in front of me, her face angry like a tormented bull's.
"Get a grip!" she yells at me, pinning me against the wall.
I give her a crazed look. Is she insane? Get a grip?? I don't want to grip anything but the knife that will plunge through Takashi's eyeball and rip into the softness of his brain.
"Just stop and think. We don't have enough proof that he did it. Also, there's no way you could overpower him," she hisses angrily.
I try to fight her, but she's a lot stronger than I ever imagined. She's got my upper arms pinned, which severely limits what I can go. I'm not coordinated enough to do some magical jump kick from a standing position, so I stop struggling.
"What do you want me to do? Stand idle while he throws the fact that he had Miki killed in our faces as a threat?" I spit out.
"Yes," Shibata says through grit teeth, her jaw hard.
"I can't do that," I say, my voice turning into a desperate, pleading one. "I need to find him. Please, let me go. I can't rest until I find out why he did it."
"You're not going anywhere. Not as long as you're acting so bloodthirsty. Think. If you do something outside of the law, nothing is going to stop the police from coming down hard on you. They're not going to care about your situation. They're going to see your threat or crime or whatever you do to him as simply wrong. I'm not going to let you throw away your entire life because you're blinded by some personal vendetta."
I hate her. I don't want to believe her. She's so right, but this longing inside me is like a drug that overpowers me. Its cloying taste sends me reeling into the depths of deathly sweet hysteria and rage.
Involuntarily, I start to relax my body. She's right. She's right. She's right.
She notices my body relaxing because she lets go of her hold on me and backs up a few paces.
"Please trust me," she says in such an honest voice that I'm sucked into whatever it is that makes Shibata who she is.
Warm, comfortable, and even safe feelings surround me. If I've got Shibata looking after me, I'll be okay. Just trust her. Trust her. Trust her. I repeat this in my mind until my heart rate goes down and I stop seeing red.
"I'm sorry," I stammer.
I'm still angry, but it's been quelled. The only question that races through my mind is about Takashi.
Who is he? Who is he really?
I still can't understand why he'd do such a thing.
If it even was him. I think it was, but if Shibata tells me to wait to make that conclusion, then I guess I have to.
"Come on. Go get some rest. Let me take you home," she says softly.
She must think that I've understood her and that all I have to do is go home and get some rest. She's partially right. I do understand what she's said, and I'm no longer about to fly off the handle and go on a killing spree. However, rest is not going to cure what I feel. It will only make it worse, since I'll be waking up with nobody beside me, the blank spaces that fill my life painful reminders of what I've lost.
I just nod, though, and she gently takes me by the arm and leads me to the station.
Once inside, I insist that I can find my own way home, but she doesn't listen. She takes me all the way to my apartment, and then comes in, helping me clean up my kitchen. I've lost my appetite for dinner, so I lie when she asks if I've eaten, and I tell her I was just cooking a meal for tomorrow to kill time. A white lie won't harm either of us.
She tells me to call her if I need to talk, and she leaves me by myself to my own thoughts.
By this time, my mind has returned to a blank state of shock. I take an emotionless bath and get into bed. When my head hits the pillow, that's when all the questions surface in my mind.
Who is Takashi? Why did he have Miki killed? What's he doing with Shiba-chan?
I fall asleep to those thoughts, unsure of what the new day will bring.
-
Chapter 27 of 28
The new day brings a splitting headache. I wake up in pain, and I don't want to get up. I look at the clock. Seven. I close my eyes and try to fall asleep, but the pain is too distracting. I start to get angry at my body. Why does it have to break down now of all times?
I get up, swallow some painkillers, and then get ready for the day, moving lethargically through my apartment.
I think about what happened last night. I was on the verge of running off, finding that man, and beating him senseless. The only problem is that I don't know where he lives or his last name, and neither does Shibata. I had forgotten that small fact.
It dawns on me now that what Shibata had done hadn't been to stop me from doing anything to him. She'd stopped me from doing something to myself. Who knows what trouble I would have gotten into if she'd let me run wild. I'm grateful to her for pushing some sense into me, but it doesn't make my anger dissipate one iota. Takashi is at the top of my list of hated people, and I have to find out who he is, where he is, why he did what he did...
The rest of my morning is spent at Miki's apartment finishing up my work there. I've emptied the place of all her furniture and most of her possessions. Now all I have left are some potted plants and cleaning tools like a broom and cleaning fluid. I decide to throw out the latter and take the former with me back to my apartment. They can keep my plants company. It'll be a bit crowded, but I can't let her precious babies die.
I carry the last of the trash out to the collection area and I go back in. I've put the two plants by the door so that the rest of the apartment is absolutely empty.
"Hey, Miki. It's finally clean in here," I try to joke aloud, my voice echoing in the bare room.
No reply comes.
I don't want to leave. I know that once I step out the door, I'll never be able to come back here again. I'll call Sugiura and tell him I'm finished, and he'll call whoever he needs to call. I'm sure that within days, a new tenant will be living here, and this place where I have so many memories will change forever. It'll die.
I walk back into the centre of the room and turn around slowly, looking at everything. It's so white and empty. There's no indication that a person ever lived in here. I walk into the bedroom and look around for the last time. I stand in the kitchen and an image of Miki cooking something flashes in my mind. I go back to the entranceway. I desperately want to cry, but the tears don't come. I can't force them. It worries me. Why can't I cry? This is one of the saddest things I have to do. I have to let go of this place that was practically a part-time home for me.
Frustrated that the tears aren't coming, I pick up the plants, take one last look, and then walk out the door, locking it after me.
I go home, call Sugiura, and then sit on my floor to watch television mindlessly, only then realising that my headache has gone away.
At five o'clock, I receive a phone call on my cell phone. It's Shibata. Her meeting must be over. I answer with a hello.
"Hi," she says without any indication she's going to continue.
I wait. I'm too impatient.
"Hi," I repeat. "What happened?"
The silence on her end stretches on. It becomes sombre.
"We talked about schedules."
That's the only thing she says. Usually she has a lot more to say.
"Okay," I say slowly. "What schedules?"
"Work and personal."
These short, one-sentence answers are disconcerting. It's like she's distracted, or she's trying to think of how to tell me something but is unsure how to. My temper has been short these days, so I blow up.
"Quit it with the cryptic act. If you have something to tell me-"
"Where are you?" she interrupts.
"At home. Why?"
"Stay put. I'm going there to meet you."
She hangs up before I can say anything, and I get a little mad at her. However, I'm more worried about what sort of news she could possibly bring.
I pace nervously, trying to mentally prepare myself for whatever I'm going to feel.
My doorbell rings and I race to the door to let Shibata in. She looks worried as she comes in and we skip all pleasantries.
"I had my meeting with Takashi. He... um..." she trails off distractedly. "I recorded our conversation."
"You what?!"
"Recorded it. And it was the right conversation to record. He talked about Miki again. And he threatened..." she trails off again. "Just listen. He reminded me of the favour he still has to call in, and that's where I'm starting the tape."
We sit down and she presses play.
"... remember?" comes a voice from the speaker.
It must be Takashi's.
"I don't see why you think I don't trust you. What have I done to make myself look bad? " Shibata's voice asks.
There's a tense pause in their conversation.
"Do you remember that I told you about that girl who worked for us?"
There's another silence. I assume that Shibata nodded at that moment.
"Well, we promised her some things right before we fired her. We told her what she could get if she stayed with our team. She was trying to back out, so we had to tell her something good."
Takashi's voice is taking a strange turn. He doesn't sound so nice anymore.
"What did you tell her?" asks Shibata's small, nervous voice.
It's partially an act to make them think they've got power, but it's mostly her real reaction. She's just as shocked as me to be hearing this.
Takashi's voice comes loud and clear through the speakers.
"Well, we told her what she wanted to hear. Grand world tour with whomever she wanted, sing for the people of the earth, benefit little communities in poor countries, give blind people hope, save forests, protect endangered animals. That girl was a philanthropist just waiting to bloom. And easy to play. Hell, I could have slept with her if I wanted. I'm so good at what I do."
Shibata's stunned silence on the tape matches my own stunned silence.
That outline for a trip around the world that Shibata had found. That hadn't been a vacation idea for me and Miki. That had been the thing we'd been looking for. We had had no idea what we were looking for, though, so of course we had classified it as something unrelated to her meetings. We had thought it was a sweet little Miki-esque thing, when in fact, it was a list of lies that Takashi had been telling her to keep her from quitting.
But how could she fall for that?? She was smarter than that. Way smarter to believe that all that could be handed to her on a silver platter. Takashi had somehow tempted her with some power. He had also somehow known that travelling around the world was what Miki wanted to do so badly.
It chills me. He must have been watching her for a while to know all the things he's shown he knows.
His motive, however, is still unclear. So far, it has all seemed like a game. Just something to do to kill time. But somehow, I sense that there's something bigger behind it. I need to find out what that is.
"Where does he live?" I ask, looking down at my hands.
They're white.
"Just stay calm-"
"Don't tell me to stay calm!!" I yell. "Where is he??"
"I don't know. I couldn't get that information in the end."
"Then let's go find him and rip his guts out," I growl, standing up sharply, only to be pulled right back down by Shibata.
My hip crashes into the arm of the couch and I wince as I sit back down to rub my injury.
"You're not going anywhere," Shibata snaps.
"What? Am I under house arrest?" I retort.
"Stop being stupid. You know I'm right."
I shut up because I do know that technically she's right. However, she doesn't understand what it feels like to be this close to the killer of the person you love. The rules change completely when you're in that situation.
"Just be quiet and listen."
I glower and continue to listen to the tape.
"... I'm calling in that favour," Takashi says in an icy tone. "I'll call you tonight with a location. Be there. One of us will meet you and give you instructions. And if you tell anybody, your most important friend might find herself having some problems."
Oh my god. That's me. That's me he's threatening to hurt. Just like he must've threatened Miki, he's threatened Shibata. Somehow he knows.
They wrap up the meeting, the mood changing completely to a very professional one. I hear them get up from their seats, put on their jackets, and walk out together. That's when Shibata stops the tape.
"So see why I couldn't just tell you? They've threatened harm to you again. I don't know how they know, I don't know what to do..."
I stare at the mini tape recorder, contemplating my entire existence. Maybe I'm a waste of space. Maybe if I didn't exist, Miki wouldn't have problems, Shibata wouldn't have problems... I wouldn't have problems.
"So do you still think this guy is innocent?" I ask bitterly.
Shibata, looking a little shocked, shakes her head.
"And what are you going to do about this mysterious meeting tonight? Are you going to go?"
I'm feeling oddly calm. I'm thinking clearly.
"I have no choice. I have to go, but I'll record my meeting. If I can get a confession, I can go straight to the police afterwards."
I smile inwardly. No, that's not what's going to happen. I've made up my mind. I'm going to this meeting with her. Shibata and her police. Hah. The police will thank me for taking care of Takashi when I'm through with him.
She must notice what I'm thinking because she gives me a hard stare, suddenly looking a whole lot more collected.
"You're not coming," she says with finality.
No. She's not going to pull this one on me again. I'm going. Nothing else matters but this.
But I won't argue with her. She knows me too well. I have to stop being so predictable. So Aya. I'm not Aya anymore. I stopped being her weeks ago. Now I'm someone else. I'm not sure who, but Aya's definitely lost and dead. This person I am now is all that's left.
"Fine," I say, pretending to give up. "But at least stay here until you have to go. I don't feel safe alone."
"Of course," she says softly, her voice changing completely.
I think I've fooled her. I don't even feel bad about it because it's for the better. If I can somehow find out where she's meeting Takashi, I can get there first and confront him. Find out why he did it. Maybe beat him with a shovel.
We sit and watch television together, neither of us speaking, neither of us suggesting we eat dinner.
At eight o'clock, her phone rings. My head shoots in her direction and I watch her like a hawk as she picks up and begins to speak. She doesn't say anything but "yes" and "I understand." She hangs up and looks at me.
"Was that him?" I ask.
"Yes. I'll have to leave soon."
"Where are you meeting him?" I ask casually.
"It might not be him I'm meeting. He said 'one of us' will be there," Shibata replies.
Details. If I can't get him, one of his lackeys will be good enough.
"Okay, but where?" I press.
She knows that I'm doing and she shoots me a disapproving look.
"You're going to stay here. I'm going to go out and take care of this. Your life is in danger," she reminds me.
"So is yours," I shoot back. "Stop trying to be the hero here."
Shibata just shakes her head. I look back at the television set and then back at her. I'm starting to feel restless. I need to find out where her meeting is.
But I have to play it calm.
I shrug and excuse myself to go to the washroom. I can feel her eyes on me as I walk away. She's watching me, making sure I don't do anything unexpected. I close the door to the washroom and turn on the tap, putting my hands under the lukewarm water. I need to find some way to go with her so that I can see for myself. I have a feeling it'll be Takashi there, not one of his henchmen. Now that I know what he did, I can finally look at him in the flesh and know that he killed my Miki.
Suddenly, I hear a door open and close rapidly. It's the front door.
I turn the tap off quickly and walk out of the washroom. Shibata's not in the apartment anymore. I look at the entrance. Her shoes are gone.
"Crap!" I swear out loud.
I grab my jacket and jump into a pair of shoes, leaving the apartment and not bothering to lock the door. The elevator is in service. She must be using it. I opt to take the stairs, and I race down them, running like I've never run before in my life.
Shibata's gone off on her own to find the killer that I'm supposed to confront. Me. It's my business. The reason why I made a call to arms was to get me face to face with Miki's killer.
I reach the front foyer and I see the front door just closing. I run and burst out into the dark outside. I look around wildly and see a figure just turning a corner. It's Shibata. I follow quickly. Once I round the corner, I have a good view of her. She's walking straight down the street. I cautiously follow, sticking close to the buildings and ready to jump into a corner at any given moment. She doesn't turn back, however. She doesn't think she's being followed. She thinks I'm just getting out of the washroom, discovering that she's snuck off, maybe yelling out that I hate her, and then giving up.
I follow her for twenty minutes, the whole time wondering where the meeting place is and what the favour Shibata has to do is.
We finally come to a stop. I keep back and kneel behind a car as I watch Shibata get into a car that's parked across the street from a bakery. I can see someone else in the car with her, but I can't see who it is since the car is facing away from me. They talk for a few minutes, and then Shibata gets out carrying something I can't make out. She looks both ways and then crosses the street.
The car drives off.
I take a deep breath. This is my chance.
Looking both ways, I cross the street.
-
Chapter 28 of 28
When I'm almost all the way across the street, I see Shibata slip into the bakery. I step up my pace and run up to the door. I shut my eyes tightly for a millisecond, and then once I'm ready, I push the door open.
The place is empty of customers except for Shibata. She's almost at the counter. The clerk is off at the other end cleaning the counter. He looks young. Maybe around our age.
"Shibata," I call out.
Her back shoots up straight, and she turns around, surprised. It's my turn to be surprised, though, because I can now see what she's carrying: a gun.
"What-" I start to ask, but she walks over to me and grabs my arm, pulling me into the corner and hushing me up.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she whispers harshly.
"I followed you," I stutter, now a little scared.
What's going on? What does Shibata think she's doing with a gun?
"Keep your mouth shut," she orders me. She looks around and then back at me. "They asked me to rob the bakery."
"You're going to rob a ba-" I begin to exclaim in surprise, but Shibata slaps a hand over my mouth.
"Of course not. I'm going to ask the clerk to call the police. Takashi is waiting for me in the back. It's a test to see if I trust him and will do anything he says. He doesn't know I'm double-crossing him."
Call the police?
Takashi's here?
No. No police. Me and Takashi. That's it. That's all I need.
I look at Shibata carefully from head to toe. She's carrying the gun in her left hand. She looks like she's on her guard, but not because she's expecting any trouble from me.
She looks back at me, matching my neutral expression. She can't read me this time. I know it. She thinks I'm on a certain wavelength, but I'm not. She backs away a few steps and then turns around to go speak to the clerk, who is now standing at the cash register and eyeing us curiously. Cautiously.
Shibata takes three steps, and my mind snaps.
Reality. Takashi's here. Shibata has a gun. Takashi killed Miki.
Lost in the moment, submerged in the idea, I lunge forward and grab the gun from Shibata's hand, pushing her violently and as hard as I can to the floor. She falls with a cry.
Sorry, Shiba-chan, I think in my head briefly, but contriteness leaves as other feelings continually overwhelm me.
I'm going to kill that murderer.
Before I can hear the thud of Shibata hitting the floor, I crash through the back door while I hear the bakery clerk start to shout.
I slam the door shut and I find myself outside in an alley near some trash bins. I look around wildly.
I can see a figure leaning against the wall. He's smoking a cigarette. It's him.
"You bastard!" I scream, holding the gun in both hands and raising it to point it at his face.
He spits out his cigarette and walks out of the shadows, raising his hands slowly.
"You bastard," I repeat. "I'm gonna shoot your face off."
He raises his face to me, but instead of fear in his eyes, I can see that he's smiling. He looks cocky. Amused. It serves to infuriate me.
"Don't laugh!" I yell, shaking the gun at him. "I'll do it. I'm not chicken."
He starts to laugh out loud, and I'm about to yell again when I hear the back door open.
Shibata's out.
I don't look back.
"Don't try and stop me, Shibata. This is my fight, not the police's," I call out over my shoulder, my eyes not leaving Takashi's.
I want to rip his eyes out. I want blood. I want him to scream.
"Aya, please put the gun down," comes Shibata's steady voice from behind.
I hear the click of another gun.
I can't believe it. She's threatening me with a gun? Where'd she get it? Who the hell does she think she is? She isn't justice. She can't decide whether I'm right or not. She doesn't get that privilege.
Angry and disbelieving, I move off to the side to look at my former best friend while keeping my gun trained on Takashi, my rage increasing exponentially at this betrayal.
When I see a tall man holding Shibata's shoulders and pointing a gun at her head, I start to realise just how royally I have screwed up.
I don't move while Takashi chuckles.
"I think it's priceless," he states. "You can't even organise a sharp double cross. You're really stupid, huh?"
"Shut up!" I scream.
I try to catch my breath. I'm finding it difficult to fill my lungs with air.
This is a very bad situation. I have to think through it carefully, so I have to breathe and stay calm.
"What's going on here?" I ask shakily.
"This is how you organise the perfect double cross," Takashi hisses. "Did you think I needed money from some second rate bakery? The only reason you're here is because we lured you out with bait. Both of you. You're not smarter than me. You're much, much stupider."
Bait?
They knew Shibata wouldn't actually carry this out?
They knew I'd come here?
That means... they know. They've known the entire time that Shibata wasn't serious about working with them. They've somehow known that I've been waiting in the background for the perfect opportunity.
I look over at Shibata, and the expression on her face clearly shows that she's coming to the same realisations as I am.
"What did I ever do to you?" I ask, the volume of my voice going down several notches as I begin to feel less and less secure.
"What did you ever do to me?" Takashi asks in disbelief. "What did you do to me?! You hurt me. You killed me. You gave me something and then carved it out of my body with a dull knife. I bled to death because of you!" he hollers.
"What are you talking about?!" I yell back. "I've never met you before in my life!"
He starts to laugh like a disturbed, maniacal clown. His handsome features seem to fade as an aura of insanity settles over him like a veil.
"Never met? Oh, we've met. We were meant to be together."
I swallow my instant nausea at those words. What is this crazy man talking about? Who is he?
"In 2004, I photographed you during a promotional video shoot. You complimented me on my work. We had an instant connection. And then you ignored me after that, no matter how many times I called."
2004? That was six years ago! And how could I remember him? He never called me. Or at least if he did, my manager didn't bother to tell me because she figured he was unstable and that I should never work for him again.
"I wanted to work with you again, but you wouldn't see me. I wanted to be with you like I was meant to, but no. You broke my heart. I've been waiting for years to let you know. Your face has haunted me all this time."
This is not happening. I'm feeling dizzy and sick and a billion other things. This is some nightmare within a nightmare. A cheap b-grade movie with the obsessed fan and the harassed celebrity. This isn't supposed to really happen.
"Why'd you kill Miki?" I ask into the stillness of the air that seems to have enveloped this tiny corner of the world.
"Why?" Takashi repeats my question. "Because I want to take everything away from you. I know what she meant to you. I've been watching you for years. You and her, and you," he nods towards Shibata.
Shibata's chin raises just a fraction of a millimetre in defiance.
"I killed her because I had to teach you a lesson. To show you what it feels like."
No.
"She's better off dead. That girl was too stupid for her own good. Blinded entirely by love. She fell for every single word I said because I made her think that by doing the things I said, she and you could be happy. She did it all for you, and look where that got her."
No.
"You played right into our hands tonight. Six years of watching you. I knew you'd react like this. I knew you'd try to find me, so I fed you enough clues to bring you here."
Blinded by love? Watching me for six years? Teach me a lesson?
My head pounds, a vacuum of silence and numbness swallowing it and making it feel swollen. I try and grasp at a course of action in order to input it into my system and carry it out.
Teach me a lesson.
Miki's death was a senseless, meaningless act in order to teach me a "lesson". Takashi used her love for me to trick her into going along with him.
The anger I've felt the past few weeks is light years behind the anger I feel now.
The word "anger" shouldn't be used.
Nor rage. Nor fury.
There is no word in any language that can describe the chaos that has overtaken my mind. Only action.
My finger tightens on the trigger of the gun. Shibata doesn't exist to me. Nothing does. Only this gun and the vision of Takashi's head exploding into bloody bits of flesh, bone, and grey matter.
"Die," I speak in a low, unstable, dark tone.
"You think that gun is loaded with bullets?! Takashi screams out suddenly in laughter. "You think I'd actually give Ayumi-chan there a real, loaded gun when I was about to play her?"
"He's right, Aya," Shibata says from behind me.
I hear the man holding her hit her, but I'm too far gone to look or care. Too far gone to react to any pain that is not my own.
Takashi has played us completely.
With a shaking hand, I throw the gun at the wall behind the trash bins. The thin metal of the bin makes a loud, hollow sound as the gun hits it and then clatters to a halt on the pavement.
"She was everything to me!" I scream at the top of my lungs. "Everything!"
Then I let out another scream so chilling that I feel sick hearing it. I clutch at my head as though someone's trying to rip it off. My nails claw into my scalp and I scream until my breath runs out.
"You'll rot in hell!"
I don't know what to do anymore. I have no weapon. Just my bare hands. I want to claw him open with my fingernails and tear out his organs excruciatingly slowly.
Just before I can launch myself at him, I hear the footsteps of a group of people running.
"Freeze!" bellows a man's voice.
"Drop your weapon!"
"Get on the floor!"
This little corner of the world descends into pandemonium, and suddenly there are lights and yelling and pushing. I see Shibata hit the ground before the man holding her can do anything. I find myself surrounded by people in police uniforms, and I watch, my mind detached from my body, as Takashi and the other man are wrestled to the ground, handcuffed, and dragged away. The bakery clerk appears, and I come to understand how the police were informed.
The officers confront me and ask me question after question, but it all just sounds like a cacophony of senseless dribble. I lose all sense of time, and before I know it, Sugiura is there. I don't know what he's saying, but he looks so disappointed in me. He moves off and gestures to the officers to stop questioning me for now. They back away, and suddenly Shibata and I are left alone in our little space, the officers just down the alleyway.
Shaking, I look at Shibata. She has a giant blanket wrapped around her. It's cold. I haven't noticed. She has an extra one in her hand, and she walks towards me with it, reaching to drape it over me. I grab onto the edges and hold it tightly to me, but my shivering won't stop.
Without another word, Shibata walks to the trash bins and gropes for something we both know is there and that the police don't know about. I watch, empty, as she pulls the gun up into the light.
Then she disarms it. The bullets fall into her hand one by one.
Disarms. Bullets.
It was loaded.
I stare at her.
"You said that the gun wasn't loaded," I say.
My voice sounds like a foreign entity. It belies the mess of feelings welling up in me again. A bit of anger, but mostly betrayal. She lied to me.
"They made one stupid mistake," she says quietly. "Takashi loaded it right in front of me before he handed it over."
She looks at me guardedly.
She lied to me to save her own skin. If I had shot Takashi, the other man would have shot Shibata, and she'd be dead right now. Self-preservation.
I study her carefully.
No. Self-preservation wasn't her reason. Not this time.
"You didn't want me to kill him," I state.
Now I understand. This rage that has been eating me alive for all these weeks slowly moves aside like a cloud on a windy day, and for a few seconds, I can see what she's thinking.
I contemplate morality. I contemplate justice.
She shrugs in response.
"Would you have?" she asks, her tone casual, but her eyes thirsting for an answer.
In my short moment of clarity, I know that the morally sound thing is to say "no."
But that's just what my moment of clarity is: short.
I look up at the dark, cloudy sky, tears in my eyes. I look at the vastness of that dark space up there.
Empty empty empty.
Miki's gone.
And I do not answer Shibata's question.
-
Epilogue
I'm in big trouble for a while, but I'm so numb to the world that I barely notice. They could lock me up in prison for the rest of my life and I wouldn't care. At least I wouldn't have to think for myself.
I hear everything. Takashi's confession comes out smoothly. He knows he has lost. Maybe he thinks by admitting to everything, some soft part in me will forgive him. He's made it clear that he hates me, but he's still in love with me. He's a sick, sick man. Something's wrong in his head. Unfortunately for him, such a soft part in me doesn't exist. Not anymore.
I learn how he did what he did, and I learn the detailed reasons behind it all. How he came across Miki trying to call me from a payphone the day she never came home, and how he kidnapped her and beat her and pushed her into the river as she tried to fight back before losing consciousness.
But I've stopped caring about the details and the why of it all.
I've stopped caring about anything.
Shibata checks in with me. I know she's afraid I'm going to hurt or kill myself, but she shouldn't worry. If I killed myself, Takashi would read about it in the newspaper and he'd laugh victoriously. He'd win. If he can't have me, it's better off that I'm dead so that nobody else can have me. I don't want to give him the satisfaction of killing myself and finishing off his job.
I pass each day pointlessly. I don't know what to do with my time. I don't talk to my family. I don't talk to Miki's family. I can't face them. I have nothing to say to them.
I've concluded that whatever Miki and I had, it was not meant to be. We were bad for each other. I made her lose herself. She had her head so completely wrapped around thoughts of me that she didn't think about her own safety. It got her killed. I got her killed. She could have written ten thousand letters telling me not to blame myself, but I will always be guilty.
Miki once said we were cooler than destiny.
She didn't believe in destiny. She didn't believe our meeting was fated. Maybe that's because it wasn't supposed to be. Our destinies were not supposed to cross paths. And if they did, there would be only one end.
Death. Heartbreak.
If she hadn't died, I would have. If neither of us had died, we would have fought viciously and hated each other in the end.
We never had a chance at a happy ending. And now, because I defied fate and tried to be with her, my punishment is to be heartbroken forever. Her punishment is to be dead at such a young age. Frankly, I'd rather switch places with her.
I keep a sheet of paper with me all the time these days. Whenever I miss her or whenever I'm angry or sad, I pull it out and read what's written on it. It amplifies what I'm feeling. If I'm angry, I become angrier. If I'm sad, I fall further into depression. If I miss her, I start to cry and wish I was dead with her.
The sheet of paper has several lines of verse on it. It's an excerpt from Miki's song. Her very bad song. Her last song.
I take out the paper and read it.
And if darkness comes and steals you away,
And if darkness comes and steals me away,
We don't have to worry,
We don't have to cry.
Our feelings are boundless
Across space and time.
We'll carry on forever,
Together, hand in hand,
Our hearts will be connected.
We don't need to walk the land.
Our souls cannot be parted.
They're mixed into one.
This is what we are
She's right. Her song is right, and it's the worst thing that could happen to us. We're still attached to each other, and because of that, I can never feel at peace. She will always be haunting me. She is half of me and she has gone far away. Beyond space and time.
We'll never meet again, and so that means forever and ever, I will be incomplete. That is my destiny.
"We're cooler than destiny."
No, Miki. No we're not. We're slaves to it.
-the end of story 7
-
Friday's Children are Full of Woe
Prequel. Story 8
1.1 of 9 - The Magazine
Aya came strolling in at eleven-thirty in the evening. Miki, who had stayed in Aya's apartment watching television in the living room all evening, looked up and without delay, brought the volume down a few notches. She stood up quickly.
"So, how was your date?" she asked, walking towards Aya, looking nosey.
"It was okay," Aya smiled. "Dinner and a movie. Keita's not really creative, but I can live with it."
"I can't believe how much having a boyfriend has tamed you. I always pegged you for the type that would moan and complain about how unromantic her boyfriend is."
Miki ducked from a lame attempt at a punch by Aya.
"Just because I complain about your behaviour all the time, it doesn't mean I treat everyone like that. Keita's smart and mature, unlike some people," Aya retorted, shooting Miki a sly look.
Miki chuckled.
"Slept with him yet?" she asked with a wink.
"Miki!!" Aya scolded her, this time hitting the other girl's arm.
"Ah, I'm glad you had fun," Miki said sincerely.
Aya continued to look at her in a reprimanding way before she broke it off and went to get changed in her room.
"Oh, did you see the cover of Friday yet?" Miki called out with a smirk.
Aya came stumbling right back out in a bra.
"Excuse me?" she asked in surprise.
"I guess you didn't," Miki sighed. "I went out to get something to eat and couldn't help but notice your name in big bold letters on the front of Friday."
Aya advanced upon Miki and grabbed her wrist, shaking it.
"What did it say?" she asked in a terrified voice.
"Uh, well, I looked at the article briefly and there's sort of this big picture of you and then a few smaller ones. Oh, and an article about how you delivered groceries to Tachibana-san," Miki explained with a smile.
Aya let go of her wrist and plopped down on the couch, her head in her hands.
"This is not happening," she muttered.
"Oh, Aya-chan. It's okay. It just proves to the world that you have a life. I mean, wow. Toilet paper? That's a serious boyfriend!" Miki laughed, patting her friend on the back.
"No. This is terrible. How am I going to face work? My manager's going to kill me that I got caught," Aya groaned.
"Oh, second thing. The agency called. Three times," Miki said, holding up Aya's cell phone.
"I chose the best day to forget that thing at home," Aya sighed.
Miki laughed and passed the phone over.
"Could you stop laughing at me? This is serious. I could lose my job," Aya huffed.
"Lose your job? Girl, you are going to go up a couple of notches. A hot, famous idol caught on a date with another hot, famous idol? It's like you just breathed life into your career."
"My career doesn't need life breathed into it," Aya deadpanned. "And this kind of thing sucks life away. This is terrible. What am I going to do?"
Aya got up and began to pace desperately.
"Well, you could start by denying that anything happened," Miki pointed out helpfully.
Aya shot her a glare.
"I didn't need you to tell me that," she snapped.
Miki shrugged.
"And then you could break up with him."
The suggestion seemed to come out of nowhere.
"What?!" Aya cried. "Why? Just because of a magazine photo? Ridiculous!"
"Fine, suit yourself," Miki said nonchalantly with a shrug. "Your life. You choose."
Aya continued to pace for a while until she calmed down and sat on the couch, resting her head on Miki's shoulder with a sigh.
"Why does this happen to me?"
"Because if it happened to me, they'd somehow link sex, drugs, and alcohol to it, and then there'd be trouble," Miki replied lightly, putting an arm around Aya's shoulders comfortingly.
Aya laughed a bit.
"Do you think Tsunku-san will be mad with me?" she asked in a small voice.
"That player? No way. He'll be upset you didn't bring him toilet paper."
Aya slapped Miki's leg.
"Ah!"
"You're not helping," Aya pouted crossly.
"Don't worry. You'll be fine," Miki said, rubbing her leg with her unoccupied hand. "Trust me, it'll blow over in a week or two."
Aya let out another sigh, and they sat there together on the couch with a drama playing quietly on the television.
"Hey, Aya-chan," Miki mumbled suddenly, taking her arm away and pushing the girl to her feet.
"Yes?"
"Go put a shirt on."
"Oh. Right."
-
1.2
I climb the steps up to my apartment wearily. I've had a nice time hanging out with Keita, but it's getting more and more monotonous as the weeks go by. He doesn't do anything exciting. I get more excited watching Maki-chan's goldfish swim around in his tank all day.
I open the door and hear the TV is on.
Ah, Miki. I let her stay over while I went out on a sudden date with Keita. He called just as Miki and I got to my place for a fun movie night, and he reminded me that we'd made plans. Miki didn't seem to have a problem with it, so I told her I'd be back before midnight and we could continue then.
In all honesty, I wish he hadn't called. I would have much rather spent the night with Miki talking and watching DVDs rather than going out with that dull shoebox. He didn't even pick an interesting movie.
I hear Miki has turned the volume down on the TV set, and she gets up looking excited about something.
"So, how was your date?" she asks me.
She seems more interested than usual. Why is she so interested? Is she happy for me? For us - me and Keita? Is she jealous? Is she being sincere? No?
"It was okay," I say with a calm smile. "Dinner and a movie. Keita's not really creative, but I can live with it."
That's not even the half of it. He's superbly boring. He's a doorknob. I've complained about it to Miki before, but something tells me I shouldn't talk about him around her too much or she'll get annoyed. That's coupled with my feeling of not even wanting to talk about him with her. We have other, more important things to discuss. Topics about him just ruin the mood between us. The chemistry. The friendly chemistry.
"I can't believe how much having a boyfriend has tamed you. I always pegged you for the type that would moan and complain about how unromantic her boyfriend is," Miki mocks me.
Oh, the nerve. I treat her like that because I care. I want her to be safe and happy, and so I tell her to pick up her clothes off the floor or to stop being a pest.
I try to punch her, but I don't put much effort into it. I don't want to hurt her. She ducks away expertly.
"Just because I complain about your behaviour all the time, it doesn't mean I treat everyone like that. Keita's smart and mature, unlike some people," I retort.
Keita's smart? And mature?
Who the heck am I kidding?!
He's neither. He's a brick wall. That's what he is. And I'm dating him.
These days I ask myself a very simple: Why?
Miki chuckles at my answer and then asks, "Slept with him yet?"
She winks at me, and I'm completely mortified. Just bringing it up like that is embarrassing, and she knows the answer is "no." I'd be even more mortified if the answer was "yes," because then I'd have to tell her, and for some reason, it seems like a disappointing thing to tell her about.
No, not disappointing. Why would it be disappointing? It's not like she'd care. It's not like she cares who I sleep with.
Well, of course she cares because she wouldn't want to see me hook up with some bad person who's going to hurt me, but she knows that Keita's far from bad. He's as ferocious as a plastic bag.
So therefore, in conclusion, this should not be an embarrassing topic.
And yet I'm still embarrassed.
"Miki!!" I yell, trying to distract myself from these thoughts.
I hit her on the arm.
"Ah, I'm glad you had fun," she says after I finish pummelling her.
She sounds so sincere. Maybe she really does approve of my relationship with Keita. Maybe she wants to see it work.
For some reason, this disappoints me, but I just glare at her, trying not to think about it.
Why do I want her to not approve of this relationship?
No. Don't think. Go change clothes. Now.
I get up and go into my room to get out of these clothes that smell like a yakiniku restaurant.
"Oh, did you see the cover of Friday yet?" I hear her call out just as I've taken off my top.
F... Friday?
I bolt out of the room and see that she's sat down on the couch again.
"Excuse me?" I burst out.
"I guess you didn't," Miki sighs.
Explain. Now.
I have a very bad feeling what this is about.
"I went out to get something to eat and couldn't help but notice your name in big bold letters on the front of Friday."
No no no, this is not happening.
I walk up to Miki and grab her wrist, shaking it.
"What did it say?" I ask, terrified.
"Uh, well, I looked at the article briefly and there's sort of this big picture of you and then a few smaller ones. Oh, and an article about how you delivered groceries to Tachibana-san," she explains.
She smiles as she speaks.
Groceries? That favour? No, they've got it all wrong. Keita had been very sick, and one of his group mates called me to ask me to help him out. We agreed to split the shopping list between us. Shopping and delivering separately, we provided Keita with everything he would need for a few days.
Now this horrid magazine has gone and blown it all out of proportion.
And why is Miki smiling? Is she happy to see me fall? Is she glad the world will soon know about my relationship with Keita? Does she have some hidden agenda?
I let go of her wrist and I let my knees give out, plopping down beside her on the couch. I bend forward and rest my forehead on my hands.
"This is not happening," I mutter.
I'm going to be humiliated out of my mind, scolded by a dozen different authorities, and then fired.
"Oh, Aya-chan. It's okay. It just proves to the world that you have a life. I mean, wow. Toilet paper? That's a serious boyfriend!" Miki laughs, patting my back.
How can she say that? I won't have a life after this. I'll be fired and nobody else will ever want me to join their record label.
And I don't want him to be my serious boyfriend. He's a wooden table. He induces sleep. He's not interesting like... like... say, Miki, for example. Just for example.
"No. This is terrible. How am I going to face work? My manager's going to kill me that I got caught," I groan.
"Oh, second thing. The agency called. Three times," Miki says, holding up my cell phone.
So that's where I left it! I realised I had forgotten it once I met up with Keita, but there was no point going back to get it. It would take too long.
"I chose the best evening to forget that thing at home," I sigh.
Maybe it was a good thing. At least this way I can learn about the article and the pictures and then think of a good excuse.
Miki laughs and hands it over. Again with this laughing. I'm not feeling very comfortable.
"Could you stop laughing at me? This is serious. I could lose my job," I huff.
I don't want her to laugh. I want her to help me. I want her to sympathise with me. I want a hug.
"Lose your job? Girl, you are going to go up a couple of notches. A hot, famous idol caught on a date with another hot, famous idol? It's like you just breathed life into your career."
She thinks I'm hot? Well, of course I am. But she thinks so? I like that, I muse.
No, I snap at myself. Don't think about that. That's unimportant.
"My career doesn't need life breathed into it," I deadpan, trying not to let her see my thoughts. "And this kind of thing sucks life away. This is terrible. What am I going to do?"
I get up and start to pace. I'm at a complete loss. I need to do something, but I don't know what.
"Well, you could start by denying that anything happened," Miki points out stupidly.
Of course I'm going to do that. I wasn't born yesterday like Keita.
I glare at her evilly.
"I didn't need you to tell me that," I snap.
Her response is to shrug. It seems like she does that often. It's kind of her thing. Her cute little habit. If I say something she doesn't agree with or something she can't deny, she shrugs...
"And then you could break up with him," she says while I'm thinking.
B...break up with him? I would love to. But why is she telling me this? And why am I suddenly filled with a feeling of hope?
I clamp down on the feelings, repress them, and choose a response that will help cover up what I'm really feeling.
"What?!" I cry out. "Why? Just because of a magazine photo? Ridiculous!"
But I don't think it's ridiculous. I think it's a good idea. I wouldn't break up with him because of the magazine article, though. I'd break up with him because of... of... something else...
"Fine, suit yourself," Miki says nonchalantly with a shrug. "Your life. You choose."
There's that shrug again. But now she sounds like she doesn't care. I need her to care. I need her to be involved.
I continue to pace nervously, thinking more about Miki and her reactions than my actual situation.
Eventually growing tired, I sit down beside her and rest my head on her shoulder without thinking about it.
"Why does this happen to me?"
"Because if it happened to me, they'd somehow link sex, drugs, and alcohol to it, and then there'd be trouble," Miki replies, putting an arm around my shoulders.
That's exactly what I need. It feels comfortable. It's nice to be reminded that you have a friend looking out for you. I laugh a bit.
"Do you think Tsunku-san will be mad with me?" I ask worriedly.
"That player? No way. He'll be upset you didn't bring him toilet paper."
Ew. Tsunku wanting me? I hate when she makes gross jokes like this. It's worse than when she tries to pretend I'm her boyfriend.
No, I actually like that. The Tsunku jokes, though? I hate.
I slap her leg.
"Ah!" she cries.
"You're not helping," I pout.
But in reality, she is. Just by being here.
"Don't worry. You'll be fine," Miki says, rubbing her leg. "Trust me, it'll blow over in a week or two."
I sigh again. I trust her, but not her ability to predict things like this. I can just imagine the fans going nuts, the boycotting of products, the stupidities that I don't want to deal with.
Why can't life be easy?
Why did I have to start dating that blind, deaf, and dumb snail anyway? The reason completely eludes me at the moment.
"Hey, Aya-chan," Miki mumbles after a while of watching whatever drama is on channel eight right now. She removes her arm from around my shoulders and pushes me to my feet.
I want to protest, but I simple ask, "Yes?"
"Go put a shirt on."
I look down at my torso.
Ah. No shirt, I think calmly.
I look at Miki, who has an amused expression on her face. Before I can turn red, I say
"Oh. Right."
And I bolt.
-
1.3
I'm sitting in Aya's living room, watching TV and wishing Aya was here, or I was out with her.
She's on a stupid date with her stupid boyfriend. I hate him so much. He's such a bore. Sometimes she complains about him being too boring, but I know she holds back a lot of it. It's odd, but she doesn't talk about him much with me. Not that I'm going to complain. I wonder why she does that. I guess I should just be thankful that she doesn't harass me with constant talks about her issues with him. The less I hear of him, the better I feel because the more I can pretend she has no boyfriend and is able to dedicate all her time to me, her best and closest friend in the world.
She strolls in at eleven-thirty, and I, anxious to see her, turn the volume down on the TV and get up quickly to go and greet her. I'm eager to tell her what I've found out. She might have found out, too, but I somehow doubt it.
"So, how was your date?" I ask.
I really don't want to know. I don't want to hear about holding hands or giggling or goodnight kisses. I'll just get insanely jealous.
Of him.
It's a weird concept, and I can't quite get my head around it, but I'm getting there. He's stolen away my best friend. I want her back. I want more than that. But I'll settle for less. As long as he's out of the picture. That idiotic wallflower.
"It was okay," Aya smiles. "Dinner and a movie. Keita's not really creative, but I can live with it."
Damn straight, he isn't creative. He took my Aya out on a date and made her sit through a boring, probably-war-related movie and then bored her to death with "conversation" over dinner? Come on. I could do better than him. I'm glad that she finds him boring. He's got a doughnut hole for a brain.
"I can't believe how much having a boyfriend has tamed you. I always pegged you for the type that would moan and complain about how unromantic her boyfriend is," I say for lack of finding something better.
Sometimes I let my mouth run wild, and I end up saying things like that. I need to learn how to control it. Aya tries to hit me, but I move out of the way easily. She's pretty lame when it comes to fighting. Unless, of course, it's a tickle fight, in which case, she has a severe advantage as I'm way more ticklish than she is.
"Just because I complain about your behaviour all the time, it doesn't mean I treat everyone like that. Keita's smart and mature, unlike some people," she retorts.
I love it when she scolds me and complains about my behaviour. I want it all for myself. I don't want to share the scolding with him. I'm glad she doesn't do it to him. All for me. Me me me.
But Keita is neither smart nor mature. I don't know why she just said that.
I chuckle.
"Slept with him yet?" I ask with a smirk, trying to make it sound like I'm just being silly.
In reality, though, I've been trying to find out the answer. I keep asking her, but not once has she given me a direct response. It pains me to walk by her and have to wonder just how deep this relationship of theirs really is. When it started, I thought they were just hanging out and being pretty casual about the whole thing. Lately, though, they seem to be getting closer. The closer they get, the more jealous I become.
"Miki!!" she scolds me, hitting me, but not answering the question.
You're only evasive when the answer is risky or embarrassing, right? Knowing Aya, "yes" would be the more embarrassing of the two possible answers. I really wonder.
But no. The answer is no. She hasn't. She would have told me if it happened. Best friends' pact.
I feel a little more at ease.
"Ah, I'm glad you had fun," I say, trying to sound sincere while feeling anything but.
She continues to look at me threateningly, but she quickly leaves to get changed. I'm wearing comfortable in-the-house clothes. I assume she'll join me and we'll start our movie night.
"Oh, did you see the cover of Friday yet?" I call out, smirking to myself. I've forgotten to bring this up until now.
That definitely grabs her attention. She stumbles out wearing pants and a bra, and for a millisecond of time, I stare at her in surprise.
But what's there to be surprised about? It's always Aya underneath all that clothing. Nobody else.
Half naked, of course, but that's nothing new.
I focus.
"Excuse me?" she asks, sounding surprised. Maybe even scared.
"I guess you didn't," I sigh. "I went out to get something to eat and couldn't help but notice your name in big bold letters on the front of Friday."
They had just put the magazine on the shelf. A man had been reading one, and of course since I'm naturally attuned to all things Aya, I noticed her name right away.
Aya advances upon me and I wonder if some would consider a famous, topless idol walking towards you with such determination a frightening thing. She grabs my wrist and shakes it.
"What did it say?" she asks, absolutely terrified.
"Uh, well, I looked at the article briefly and there's sort of this big picture of you and then a few smaller ones. Oh, and an article about how you delivered groceries to Tachibana-san," I explain with a smile.
I pretend to have difficulty recalling the article, but in fact, I can recall every single detail. I read it twice over. I also act like I'm amused, but I'm not. Having those two pictured together and shown on a national magazine does something strange to my heart. It's not pleasant.
Aya lets go of my wrist and sits beside me heavily. She leans forward and puts her head in her hands. It's a sad sight and I get a little gloomy seeing it.
"This is not happening," she mutters.
"Oh, Aya-chan. It's okay," I say. It just proves to the world that you have a life. I mean, wow. Toilet paper? That's a serious boyfriend!" I laugh, and I pat her on the back.
Again, I have said something that I haven't thought through.
I'm nervous. I want to tell her the right thing, but I keep making stupid jokes. Why? Why can't I just comfort her like a normal person would?
"No. This is terrible. How am I going to face work? My manager's going to kill me that I got caught," she groans.
Which reminds me
"Oh, second thing. The agency called. Three times," I say, picking up her phone from a pillow on the couch and handing it to her.
"I chose the best day to forget that thing at home."
I laugh and pass it over.
I think it's good she forgot it at home. If they'd called her and started demanding explanations right away without her knowing the whole story, she would have gotten flustered and probably messed up with her excuse making.
"Could you stop laughing at me? This is serious. I could lose my job," she huffs.
Oop. I've made her think I'm laughing at her. I'm just laughing because I'm nervous. I'm laughing at me.
"Lose your job? Girl, you are going to go up a couple of notches. A hot, famous idol caught on a date with another hot, famous idol? It's like you just breathed life into your career."
Is that what I think? I definitely think she's hot. She's on fire. But Tachibana? That was exaggeration. I don't think he's hot. I think he looks like a girl, and I conclude that if Aya would go for someone as girly as him, she'd go for me.
Not that I'd want...
Well, I'm not sure.
"My career doesn't need life breathed into it," Aya deadpans, snapping me out of my thoughts. "And this kind of thing sucks life away. This is terrible. What am I going to do?"
She gets up and starts to pace. My mind feels like it's in a very weird space right now. I calm down.
"Well, you could start by denying that anything happened," I point out stupidly.
As she shoots me a glare, I wince in my mind because I know I've just stated the obvious.
"I didn't need you to tell me that," she snaps.
In response, I shrug. Then I say something I've wanted to say for a long time, but haven't had the right chance to yet. This one is definitely thought through thoroughly.
"And then you could break up with him."
She looks surprised, but I'm dead serious.
She should break up with that moronic pebble and go back to her old life.
Her pre-Tachibana life where we had more sleepovers and got more chances to giggle and talk about the future together.
Her pre-Tachibana life where even though I've always known I'll never have a chance with her, at least it's easier to dream about.
"What?!" she cries in surprise. "Why? Just because of a magazine photo? Ridiculous!"
"Fine, suit yourself," I say nonchalantly with a shrug. "Your life. You choose."
But inside I'm fuming.
Fine. Keep your stupid boyfriend. You don't even like him, I think angrily.
I just wish she'd own up to it and get it over with.
She continues to pace, and it starts to drive me nuts, but when she finally calms down and sits on the couch, resting her head on my shoulder, I also calm down instantly. One touch sends happy warmth throughout my body, and my mind is suddenly clear and I feel satisfied.
"Why does this happen to me?"
Poor thing. Time to make her feel better.
"Because if it happened to me, they'd somehow link sex, drugs, and alcohol to it, and then there'd be trouble," I reply. As a secondary thought, I put an arm around her shoulders. She needs it. I need it.
She laughs at my joke.
"Do you think Tsunku-san will be mad with me?" she asks.
She sounds too scared. Again time for a joke.
"That player? No way. He'll be upset you didn't bring him toilet paper."
She gets angry when I say twisted things like that, even though I consider this one very tame. She slaps my leg, and it actually stings for a minute.
"Ah!" I utter in surprise.
"You're not helping," Aya she pouts.
She looks so annoyed. When she gets that pout on her face, I know I've done my job well. I do things to annoy her just so that'll look at me with this adorable look. I will never get sick of seeing it, which is why I never stop doing annoying things.
"Don't worry. You'll be fine," I say, rubbing my leg. "Trust me, it'll blow over in a week or two."
She sighs and we both watch the TV.
Why can't my life be like this everyday? This situation - me and Aya sitting on a couch, watching TV, comforting each other over the latest crisis, holding or hugging or kind of touching each other or... ug. Whatever.
Tachibana is not my only obstacle, though. I know that even once he's out of the picture (and I'm pretty sure if they haven't slept with each other, it'll be much easier to get him out), I'll just continue in the same way I've been continuing for the past few months ever since I've discovered that I like Aya. That I really like her.
And then something occurs to me.
"Hey, Aya-chan," I mumble, pushing her to her feet.
"Yes?" she asks.
"Go put a shirt on."
She looks at me like a deer caught in the headlights, and I want to laugh and hug her, but I just look back amusedly.
She lets out a little squeak.
"Oh. Right."
And she bolts.
-
2.1 of 9 - How Many Celebrities Does it Take to Fix a Light Bulb?
It was a Sunday afternoon. Aya had called Keita over to help her replace some complicated fluorescent light bulbs in the kitchen and to help her fix her screen door, which had been rattled off its track by strong winds from the remnants of a typhoon that had hit down south. Once the jobs were complete, Aya had taken Keita into her bedroom to show him some new pictures she'd gotten developed. One thing led to another, and they found themselves on the bed, kissing pleasantly and occasionally muttering a few unimportant words.
They proceeded without interruption, until, of course, there was an interruption. The door to the bedroom slid open.
"Hey, Aya-chan! The front door was unlocked, so I-"
Miki stopped in mid-sentence when she saw the two on the bed. Aya quickly scrambled up from underneath Keita, and they both fixed their hair.
Miki looked surprised for a second. Her expression quickly changed into a smirk.
"Oh, don't let me interrupt," she said playfully, making a show of backing out of the room and sliding the door shut again.
With an apologetic look to Keita, Aya got up and left her room to find Miki at the entrance, putting her shoes on to leave.
"Miki-chan, hi!" she called out before the girl could go.
Miki smiled and waved hello.
"Uh, sorry," Aya said, walking to the entrance.
"Don't be. It's your bedroom. Next time I'll be sure to ring the doorbell," Miki replied with a laugh.
"What did you come over for?" Aya asked.
"Ah, nothing," Miki said quickly, hiding something behind her back.
"And what's that?" Aya continued, pointing to whatever Miki was hiding.
With a sheepish look, Miki brought her hand out from behind her back and showed Aya what she was holding - a DVD.
"I thought we were going to watch this together today," she said carefully.
Aya winced.
"Ahh, Miki-chan, I'm sorry. I completely forgot," she groaned. "See, I had this broken light bulb. And, and then the screen door was off its-"
Miki interrupted with another laugh, patting Aya on the shoulder.
"Some broken light bulb repair work," she said, shooting Aya a suggestive look.
"No, really. It-"
"Don't worry, Aya-chan. Really. Have some fun," Miki said with a genuine smile.
As an afterthought, she fixed the bottom of Aya's shirt, which had flipped up at some point.
"You don't have to go," Aya said quickly. "Maybe the three of us can watch it together."
"Nah," Miki said with a look of distaste. "Don't want to be the third wheel. You go have fun today. We'll do this some other time," Miki said, starting to back off in order to leave.
"Oh, okay. See you... tomorrow?"
Miki smiled.
"See you tomorrow."
Miki left. Aya went back to Keita, who was sitting on the bed and looking confused.
"Where'd she go?" he asked.
"Miki-chan went home," Aya sighed. "She'll come over another day."
"Oh," Keita mumbled, looking down. "Sorry."
"It's okay."
They sat in silence for a minute.
"Want to watch TV?"
Another brief pause.
"Sure, Keita. Sure."
-
2.2
Honestly, all I wanted was for him to help fix the light bulb and the screen door. I should have thought twice about bringing him into my room.
We've accomplished our mission of fixing those things up, but now we're on another mission. A slightly more fun mission. One that involves lying on a bed, kissing, and a little bit of groping, too. It's supposed to be fun, but I'm distracted. I feel like I'm forgetting something.
That, plus the recent Friday article. We've discussed it, but I haven't been brave enough to take any action. We've simply avoided seeing each other for a few weeks. Just this week we've gotten back together. All those things I thought about breaking up with him have been pushed to the back of my mind because I have this feeling that if I let him go, I'll be in an awkward position. Like I'll have to make some sort of choice that I don't want to make because it's too weird and scary. Usually I don't like to run away from my problems, but this one hits a little close to my heart. I'd talk to Miki about it, but I can't. She's kind of the problem.
But no!!
I don't think about those kinds of things. No. Not ever. Because I'm just growing up here and having fun with boyfriends and best friends, and there's no need to worry about anything. We all get a little confused sometimes, but it doesn't mean anything.
I've got it all under control.
No problems here.
None at all.
I mentally shake my head. It occurs to me that this is not the kind of thing one usually thinks about when one is doing what I'm doing. I try to concentrate, but I still feel uncomfortable.
I'm rescued soon enough. The door crashes open and a familiar voice calls out,
"Hey, Aya-chan! The front door was unlocked, so I-"
She cuts herself off, and my eyes snap open. Keita's still got his closed. He doesn't seem to notice that I've stopped kissing him and, oh, say, Miki is standing at the bedroom door staring at us.
Crap. She's seen me.
I push Keita off me, but he's clumsy and it's like his lips are glued to mine. Ug. I manage to get up, and I sit on the bed, fixing my hair and trying to compose myself.
I look up at Miki and she looks surprised. Is she surprised to have caught me like this (it's the first time she's walked in on something like this)? Or is she surprised for some other reason?
She smirks at me.
"Oh, don't let me interrupt," she says in a playful tone as she backs away and leaves the room, shutting the door.
I feel dismayed for some reason. Why isn't she angry? For reasons I can't fathom, I want her to be angry with me. Instead, she just seems amused. Supportive. I don't want her to be supportive.
I give Keita an apologetic look - a meaningless one since I don't feel sorry for him at all - and quickly run out to catch Miki putting on her shoes and getting ready to leave.
"Miki, hi!" I call out for lack of a better thing to say. I haven't greeted her yet, so I may as well start there.
She smiles and does a little wave hello, and I now feel relieved. Maybe it's better for her to be happy with me, not angry. Angry Miki would be a sticky situation to get through.
"Uh, sorry," I apologise as I walk towards her.
I'm not sure what I'm sorry about, though. She's the one that walked in without knocking.
"Don't be. It's your bedroom. Next time I'll be sure to ring the doorbell," she laughs.
But I don't want her to have to do that. I want us to be the kind of friends that don't need those kinds of formalities.
I notice that she's holding something in her hand.
"What did you come here for?" I ask, wondering if she's got something to show me.
"Ah, nothing," she says quickly, hiding what she's holding behind her back.
If she thinks that's going to work, she'd better get a new brain installed. Now I know that whatever she's holding, she brought it over to show me. She doesn't want to waste my time, though, so that's why she's hiding it.
"And what's that?" I ask, pointing to her hand.
Looking at me sheepishly, she shows me what she's holding. It's a DVD - the movie Armageddon. Something tugs at my mind again. We were just talking about this movie a few days ago, commenting on how we both hadn't seen it, which led to...
"I thought we were going to watch this together today," she says.
She doesn't speak in an aggressive or angry way. She says it carefully. She's not rubbing it in my face. She's simply reminding me. If anything, I'd say she sounds sad, not angry.
I wince. This is what slipped my mind. This is the reason I was hesitant about calling Keita over. Now I feel terrible because I've messed up plans with my best friend. How could I ditch her like this? She must feel so offended.
"Ahhh, Miki-chan, I'm sorry," I groan. "I completely forgot. See, I had this broken light bulb. And, and then the screen door was off its-"
She interrupts my explanation with a laugh and pats me on the shoulder.
"Some broken light bulb repair work," she says and tacks on a suggestive look that makes me feel flustered.
"No, really," I say. It-"
"Don't worry, Aya-chan. Really. Have some fun," she says with a smile that seems genuine.
I want to tell her that I'd be having more fun if I was with her, but the words don't come. She reaches over to me and fixes my shirt. I guess it must have gotten a bit twisted. That's very sweet of her.
"You don't have to go," I say quickly before she can leave. "Maybe the three of us can watch it together."
I really want her to stay. If she does, then I'll understand at least one person currently in my apartment.
"Nah," she says, looking at me as if the thought doesn't appeal to her. "Don't want to be the third wheel."
But Miki, I think, Keita would be the third wheel. Not you.
"You go have fun today. We'll do this some other time."
She starts to back off to leave, and I know I've lost her. It depresses me. First I make plans with her to do something, and then she walks in on me with my boyfriend in my room when she and I are supposed to be hanging out, watching a movie that she's been nice enough to go and rent.
"Oh, okay. See you... tomorrow?" I ask timidly.
We're doing dance practices at the studio, so I'll see her at some point during a break.
But I don't want her to go right now! I want her to fight for it. I want her to insist that we watch this film together. Then I can kick Keita out and have some real fun.
She smiles at me, which warms my heart a little. Such an understanding, selfless friend.
"See you tomorrow," she echoes, and she leaves.
Damnit.
Why do these things keep happening? Why??
I sigh and go back to my room to see Keita there. He's looking moronic and confused, and I've lost all desire to be with him at this moment.
"Where'd she go?" he asks.
She has a name, you dweeb, I think angrily.
"Miki-chan went home," I say aloud, emphasising her name. "She'll come back another day."
"Oh," he says.
One syllable. Great. What a compassionate individual. Smart. Well-spoken.
You Neanderthal.
"Sorry."
He'd better be sorry. The nerve of this boy. Trying to seduce me like this when I have a schedule to keep!
"It's okay," I lie.
We sit in silence for a minute, and I fume inwardly.
I ditched Miki for this? We're not even looking at each other. It's like I'm sitting here with an electronic dictionary. No, an electronic dictionary would at least tell me things if I asked it. He's an electronic dictionary without batteries. Or the whole dictionary part. In fact, he's just a big waste of space. A bunch of random atoms and molecules that somehow collided together to create this supremely boring subspecies of human that for some reason I thought was cute and decided to start dating.
What is wrong with me? Maybe I'm the stupid one here. What did I ever see in this guy?!
"Want to watch TV?" he asks me.
Brilliant. Come over, ruin my plans, and then invite me to sit in front of my own television set. Is he stupid?
Well, yeah. Of course he is.
What I mean is... well, that's exactly what I mean. He has no sense. He wants to sit around and watch TV like a twelve year old boy. Can't he tell I want to hang out with Miki? Have I not made it obvious?
I guess TV is better than going back to what we were doing before. At least if I get him focused in front of the set, he'll sit quietly and not bother me as I go off and do my own thing.
I suppress a roll of my eyes. It's like baby-sitting.
"Sure, Keita. Sure."
At least the light bulb and screen door problems got fixed.
-
2.3
I skip up the stairs giddily, one by one, counting each one. I'm at one hundred and fourteen. The elevator takes way too long, and I'm filled with too much energy, so I've decided to get rid of that excess energy by running up the stairs.
I love movie days with Aya.
On hot days, we blast the air conditioning and drink iced tea while lounging on the couch, sometimes throwing ice cubes down each other's shirts and getting into fierce competitions to see which one of us can torture the other more.
On cold days, we sit close together snuggling for warmth under a blanket with the heater going. I like to stick my perpetually cold feet on her leg when she's least expecting it and make her scream.
I prefer cold days. Today, however, is warm, so there will be no snuggling.
I get to her door, and without even thinking, I twist the doorknob and the front door swings open. It's just an action that comes naturally to me.
I shake my head and think two things. One, that wow, I've really gotten used to coming over here because now I'm not even bothering to knock; and two, that her door is open, and that's really forgetful of her.
I'm not worried, though. I'm delighted. I may as well go in. Aya doesn't mind.
I wander in as I continue to think about our movie days.
We usually split the task of choosing a video evenly. Sometimes we don't like what the other has chosen, but we grin and bear it (or fall asleep) because our system is very fair.
Today we've decided to watch Armageddon. We kept mentioning it last week, so finally we agreed to watch it on Sunday.
Now it's Sunday. Our movie day!
I grin to myself and hum under my breath as I try to find Aya. Not in the living room, not in the kitchen. He bedroom door is closed, so I yank it open cheerfully.
"Hey, Aya-chan! The front door was unlocked, so I-"
Oh... shit.
I see the last thing I want to see. That retard of a boyfriend is on top of her, slobbering all over her cute face with his stupid clumsy lips and tongue, and he has the audacity to grope her outright. If I was Aya's dad, I'd slaughter him like a pig right there. However, I'm merely her best friend in the world, so I have to stick to being nice and supportive.
But honestly, I feel so low right now that I just want to jump out a window. Aya... my Aya... Doing that with someone like him.
She couldn't have picked someone cooler?
Like me?
"Oh, don't let me interrupt," I say with false playfulness and a smirk.
I back away and get out of there, closing the door before she can see my smile break into a look of despair. I rub my forehead with one hand, closing my eyes tightly, and then make my way to the entrance so that I can leave fast.
What happened to our movie day? I thought it was Miki and Aya time. Why did she invite him over? And why were they kissing on her bed?
No, that's stupid. They're a couple. Of course they'd do that.
But still, it's not fair. I don't want them together. I feel so... so secondary. Aya's mine. I want her for me.
But... no. Just no.
I start to put my shoes on. I want to kill Keita for coming into our lives, for stealing her away, for touching her like that... He's ruined everything. He's made me question myself, her... everything.
"Miki!" Aya calls out to me.
Oh, so she followed me? I thought she'd be too busy sucking face with that electronic-dictionary-minus-the-batteries.
I look at her and give her a bright smile and a wave.
I don't want her to be upset. The only thing worse than me being upset is her being upset. If I'm the cause of it, that's the worst.
She walks up to me, but I beg in my mind for her to just say goodbye and let me go before I do something stupid.
Like cry.
"Sorry," she says to me guiltily.
Sorry for cancelling plans at the last second? Or sorry for me having to see that unpleasant sight? Probably the former.
"Don't be," I say easily and with a laugh. "It's your bedroom. Next time I'll be sure to ring the doorbell."
"What did you come over for?"
Her question vibrates in my head.
Don't you know? I think sadly. Don't you remember?
I cover up my true feelings by carefully hiding the DVD behind my leg and trying to look nonchalant. I must not make her feel bad. If she doesn't remember our plans, I can let it slip by and she won't feel any guilt. She can go back to sex - or whatever the hell they were doing - and I can go back to my home and angst over her, because it looks like my entire afternoon and evening are now free.
"Ah, nothing," I say.
"And what's that?" she asks, pointing behind me to the DVD I'm holding.
There's no point hiding it anymore. She's going to bug me until she finds out what it is.
Carefully, and trying not to seem angry or all in-her-face, I show her the DVD I'm holding.
"I thought we were going to watch this together today," I say uncertainly.
She winces, and a little dart pricks my heart.
"Ahh, Miki-chan, I'm sorry. I completely forgot," she groans. "See, I had this broken light bulb. And, and then..."
My heart takes the plunge, down down down to the bottom of my feet. It slips under, and it gets crushed by my entire weight.
Why is she even bothering to make up stories? Lying horizontally on a bed and sticking your hands up each other's clothes is not how you change a light bulb.
But I'm still not angry with her. I'm just disappointed that I don't mean more to her. I don't deserve the truth.
"- the screen door was off its-"
I've had enough. I cut her off with a laugh and pat her on the shoulder.
"Some broken light bulb repair work," I say, raising an eyebrow and giving her a look full of suggestion.
"No, really. It-"
Well, maybe she's telling the truth. She doesn't have a habit of lying to me. But I still don't want to hear her excuse. Whatever happened has happened, and it's the end result that I hate.
"Don't worry, Aya-chan. Really. Have some fun," I say, smiling to show her that everything's okay.
Everything's not okay.
I don't want to be saying any of this. What I really want to do is grab her hands and ask her to tell me the truth. Beg her to tell me. Then I want to ask her to break up with him right there and come over to my place so that we can have a fun movie day. And then when night comes, we can watch more movies and fall asleep together in front of the TV, and I'll be able to laugh at Keita because in the end, she cared about me more.
I blame Keita for all my problems. Before he came along, I didn't have to think of anything. There were no threats to my friendship with Aya. Nothing to worry about when it came to spending time with her. I was more than willing to share her time with all her other friends and her job.
Enter Keita
He's inserted himself into her life, that presumptuous little bastard. He treats me like an amusing presence. No respect. If he had the guts, I bet he'd pat me on the head and give me a dog treat. He thinks I'm Aya's little lapdog who'll go away when she tells me to.
Okay, it's true that I kind of am (I really like it when she bosses me around because with me, it's her way of showing that she cares), but he's not allowed to think that! Only Aya and I can say that about me.
Ever since Keita has been around, I've never wanted Aya more. The old adage about never realising what you've lost until you can't have it is one thousand percent true, and I can't believe I never realised before how much I needed Aya in my life. Not just as a friend.
I think all of this in one or two short seconds while looking at her.
I look down and see that her shirt has flipped up a bit. Probably because that brainless piece of paper she calls a boyfriend was on top of her and trying to stick his hands up her shirt and got it all messed up.
I reach out and fix her shirt for her because Captain Lamebrain in there wouldn't know to fix his girlfriend's rumpled shirt if his own girlfriend wrote him a letter and kindly asked him to. If he doesn't know how to treat a girl right, he should just stop bothering to try. Leave Aya to a guy who can treat her right. Or to me.
"You don't have to go," Aya says quickly. "Maybe the three of us can watch it together."
I really want to believe her, and I really want to stay, but I have to go. If I have to spend an afternoon with that guy, I'm going to say something nasty and upset both him and her (she always checks my manners), and then I'll be in her bad books, which certainly is not going to get me any closer to what I want.
"Nah. Don't want to be the third wheel. You go have fun today. We'll do this some other time," I reassure her.
"Oh, okay. See you... tomorrow?" she asks, sounding a little guilty.
I don't want her to feel bad, but it does assure me that I do mean something to her. That I'm not just that eager-to-please lapdog...
I smile to cover up an outburst that I feel coming upon me.
"See you tomorrow."
I turn my back on her and leave. I walk down the hall and to the stairs. When I hear the door click shut, a tear runs down my face, followed by another and another. I grip the DVD in my hand and push the door to the stairway open. I walk down at half the speed I went coming up. I sniff and try to wipe my tears away, but I can't control them as they fall silently.
I scold myself. I shouldn't be crying. She hasn't done anything wrong to me. Well, she's messed up our plans, but friends don't cry this much over that kind of thing. Usually they're a bit angry with their friends. In this case, though, I'm angry at Keita for existing, and still completely and hopelessly in love with someone I'll never have.
-
2.4
My life is so great right now. I'm making out with my girlfriend on her bed. And she's good! Luckiest guy on Earth. That's me.
Then something strange happens. Reality sets in again.
Her best friend walks in on us.
"Hey, Aya-chan! The front door was unlocked, so I-"
At first I don't realise 'cause I'm so into Aya. Nothing else can distract me from her, but then I feel her pushing me off, and something at the back of my mind tells me that the door is open and that we should stop what we're going right now. We both roll up. I fix my hair out of habit.
"Oh, don't let me interrupt," her friend says, and she backs out of the door.
Fujimoto Miki. That girl will be the end of this relationship. I just know it. I tried to like her at first. She's Aya's best friend, so of course I want to be on her good side.
But the more I've started to hang around, the more she treats me like some disease. She avoids hanging out when I'm around, and I feel all this hostility coming from her. I've taken to being just barely civil around her. I kind of treat her like a kid so that maybe she'll realise how silly she's being and back off.
There are two reasons why I think she could be acting like that around me.
One is that she likes me and is somehow angry that I've chosen Aya over her.
The other is that she's really protective of Aya and is jealous of me 'cause now they spend less time together.
I doubt it's the first option.
I feel Aya get off the bed, and I look up at her. Her look says "I'm sorry," but I don't really feel it's honest. She leaves the bedroom, and I'm left there alone. I can't hear what they're talking about, but she's gone long enough to make me feel awkward just sitting there.
The truth is, I don't think Aya likes me very much. It really kind of sucks because I liked her a lot.
I try to do things that I think she'll be interested in, but I'm not very creative. I can't think quickly, and I don't have enough experience with girls. People might think I'm this huge player just 'cause I'm famous, but I've only had one serious girlfriend before Aya. We were childhood friends, so it just worked out better. I was way more comfortable around her, and when I suggested boring things to do, she didn't mind because it's not like I needed to take her on a trip to the Savannah in order to impress her. I'm not really sure why we broke up. We just drifted away. I found this new career, and she went off to another school. Sometimes things fall apart senselessly.
But with Aya, I try to be normal because I think that's what she needs in life. She's always got her hands full with being an idol, and believe me, I understand how stressful it can be. I take her on dates to go see movies and go to dinner. It's hard to be in public places alone with her because of the attention we get from the magazines. Just a few weeks ago, we had a bit of a scandal.
But the more normal I try to be, the more I sense that she's bored. She doesn't tell me, but I'm not that dim. I can tell when a girl is bored. I'm just not very good at conveying my own feelings to her. I don't know how to apologise properly for it, or I don't know how to tell her that I think it's a good thing to be a little boring sometimes when our lives are so hectic.
I guess we don't see eye-to-eye on that.
And then there are the things she talks about... Miki and work. It's always about one of those two. I don't mind hearing about these things, but when it's all she ever talks about, it irks me. I get it, they're best friends and they do everything together, but sometimes I feel like I know Miki better than I know my own girlfriend. How messed up is that?
I know I'm losing her. I'm positive that Miki must be applying some sort of pressure for her to break up with me. I know that one day she's going to call me and end it, so nowadays, every time my phone rings, my heart sinks because I think it's that final e-mail. That final call. The one telling me that I'm a nice guy, but...
But would I really be that heartbroken? Of course I really like her, but if we don't click, we don't click. She can be fun to hang out with, and she really is such a good kisser, but I'm not a shallow guy. I need a little more than that to keep me in something big like this. If that's all I'm going to get from her, then Miki can have her back. I don't want to be "the boyfriend." The guy that sometimes shows up to help fix light bulbs and screen doors. I want to be a part of her life, and since that's not going to happen, I may as well get out of it while I still have some pride.
In the middle of contemplating all of this, Aya comes back to the room. The first thing I notice is that she's alone. I suspect she's invited Miki to stay over, so I wonder what's going on.
"Where'd she go?" I ask.
"Miki-chan went home. She'll come over another day," Aya replies with a sigh.
She sounds half annoyed at me, half annoyed at Miki. I'm not quite sure what I've done to inspire anger, but girls are weird. All of them. Sometimes they get all big over something that isn't worth anything.
"Oh," I mumble, looking down at my hands. Girls also have this natural ability to make me feel guilty even when I've done absolutely nothing wrong. "Sorry."
Sorry for being in the way. Sorry that you don't like me. Sorry that Miki doesn't like me.
"It's okay," she says.
Purely perfunctory forgiveness. She doesn't mean it. I can tell that much. Just from the tone of her voice.
Man, this sucks. Why can't my own girlfriend be into me?? Why is she so into her best friend?? I mean, if Miki was a guy, I would be raging with jealousy. I'd be after them all the time to make sure nothing happened between them. But Miki's not a guy, and so I can't be jealous.
And yet... I really really am. I'm insanely jealous.
My anger turns into a hopeless whisper in my mind that tells me that the good guys always finish last. I bitterly wonder if other girls are allowed in the race, too, because it feels like Miki's winning the gold medal while I haven't even got my running shoes on.
So what do I do? Break up with her before she can call me up and do it? Wait until she does it? Why is she even going out with me still? I'm being used for some purpose beyond installing new light bulbs, and I'm not sure what it is. Is it a power struggle? Is she scared of something?
Whatever. She can do what she wants. It's not going to last much longer.
"Want to watch TV?" I ask.
Maybe I can bore her so much that she'll break up with me right now so that I can go home and mope over what an absolute failure this relationship is.
There's a lull in the air, and I can just hear her thoughts. 'You oaf. You want to watch TV?' Or whatever.
"Sure, Keita. Sure."
She says it in such a condescending way, but I don't let on that I've noticed.
We move to the living room and sit down on the couch. We're not even sitting together. It's like we're occupying two totally different worlds. Our legs aren't even touching.
I pretend to become engrossed in the baseball game, but I can't help noticing that she leaves partway through. I can hear her typing things on her phone.
Probably sending Miki mail.
'Save me from this horrible baseball-watching monster!'
Or some such insulting thing.
My favourite player hits a homerun. Lucky guy.
I'll never be the heroic brave knight that rescues the princess. That's not what Aya wants. I'm just the ogre. Someone else is her knight. Hell, it could be Miki. For all I care, they can go off and live happily ever after together. I'll go and find myself someone else.
It was fun while it lasted, Aya, but now it's just a matter of time.
-
3.1 of 9 - Losing Grip
Aya called Keita up one evening out of the blue.
"Can you come over now?" she asked.
"Um, now?" Keita asked, surprised. It was past nine o'clock and he had to wake up at five the next morning.
"Please?" Aya asked desperately.
Something in her voice told him he should go over right away, so he told her to hang on for half an hour and he'd be over as soon as possible.
Keita arrived at Aya's door at nine fifty and he rang the doorbell. He didn't have to wait long. The door was thrown open, and before he could say anything, he was pulled into the apartment by a pair of hands.
He found himself pushed up against a wall, being kissed with such vigour that he was shocked that calm Aya could be doing this. He eagerly participated, however, and soon, Aya was pushing him through the living room and into her bedroom.
He smiled under her kisses and let her push him onto her bed, holding her tightly to him as she eased herself onto him.
"Is this the big emergency?" he asked playfully.
"Mmhmm," she replied.
"You really need to have more emergencies more often," Keita grinned against her lips.
"Shhh," she said, running a hand along his face. "No talking."
His grin widened even more and he happily played along.
But then when her hands started fumbling with his belt and the zipper to his pants, he grabbed her hands and pushed her away.
"Aya, what's going on?" he asked, sitting up.
"What?" she asked breathlessly, pushing him back down and continuing her attack.
He took her wrists and pushed her off of him again.
"Slow down," he said.
Aya started at him, jaw dropped.
"Slow down? Are you even a man?"
Keita frowned angrily.
"No, it's not that I don't want to, but... is there something wrong? Are you okay?"
"Why? A girl can't do this to her own boyfriend? God, I thought you'd be happy," she replied angrily.
"I wouldn't mind, but with the fact that you've been so distant lately, I'm wondering if you've got some other reason for suddenly wanting to get into my pants."
"You- you- I- Arg!"
Aya got up angrily and stalked out of the bedroom. Quickly doing his zipper and belt back up, Keita followed her.
"Aya, I just-"
She held up a hand.
"No. Just get out."
"I-"
"Get out," her icy voice repeated.
Without another word, Keita left and Aya sat down against a wall and started to cry.
-
3.2
I've just gotten out of the bath when my phone rings. I pick it up and am very surprised to hear Aya on the line.
"Can you come over now?" she asks.
"Um, now?" I ask.
It's a quarter past nine. I have to wake up at five to get ready quickly and then leave for filming. It takes me half an hour to drive to Aya's place from mine, so that means an hour of travelling time, plus whatever sort of thing I have to do at her place. I won't get to bed until quite late. The one day I decide to take an early night...
"Please?" Aya asks.
She sounds desperate.
Uh oh, I think. I hope everything's all right.
Maybe she was followed home or harassed by a stranger. Or maybe she's got bad news. Did someone die?
Even though we've been distant ever since her friend walked in on us two weekends ago, I still feel the intense need to help her. I want to make everything okay between us. I still really like her. I've been thinking of ways to be more outgoing without changing who I am, and I think there's a lot that I can do.
But first, I've got to go over there and make sure she's okay. I tell her to wait for half an hour and that I'll be there soon.
I push the speed limit so that I can get there as soon as possible, all the while thinking about what I can do to make Aya happy with me. Her nineteenth birthday is coming up at the end of June. I should start planning something nice for her. Maybe something big to show her that I care. But not just big. It has to be fun and meaningful. It's mid-April now, so I've got a little more time to think about it.
What can I get her?
A day at the spa?
No, it has to be something we can do together.
A musical?
No, not exciting enough.
I know. How about a trip? We can take off for a weekend and go somewhere tropical. Maybe Okinawa. Or even better, Guam.
Yeah, that's it. That's what I'll do. I'll take her to Guam. Then we can sit and relax on the beach and forget about all our worries and start anew.
I apply a little pressure to the accelerator and speed up.
I arrive at her apartment at nine-fifty. I park quickly and jog up the front steps, hopping into the elevator and riding up.
I really do hope Aya's okay and she's just overreacting about something.
Maybe there's a spider she needs me to kill. I laugh. She's done that before. Called me over to kill a spider. Of course by the time I got to her place, the spider had long since crawled off into a corner, but she wouldn't let me leave until we scoured her entire apartment. We never did find it.
Or maybe her kitchen sink has sprung a leak. That's always possible. I'm no plumber, but she might not be strong enough to turn valves or do whatever you need to do when your spring a leak. I don't know. I've never actually been through one.
But this is pathetic. Here I am driving to my girlfriend's house, and the only thing I can do is wonder what sort of menial task she's going to assign me. Is it just me thinking silly things? Or is it because that's how she treats me - like the handyman that sometimes she goes on dates with and makes out with in private?
I feel something in me deflate until I get to the door and ring the doorbell.
I almost yell when hands grab me and yank me into the apartment.
It's a set up! I think. Kidnappers have forced Aya to call me so that they can get the both of us and kill us!
But this kidnapper's hands are soft and small. This kidnapper's lips are also very very nice.
This kidnapper is my girlfriend.
I'm shocked out of my mind as Aya rams me into a wall and attacks my lips passionately, her hands rubbing my neck and then down my shoulders and arms. I wake up and kiss back as she reaches behind me and slams the door shut, locking it hastily and quickly letting her hands return to my body.
This girl is on fire! I can't believe it. Just when I think things are simmering down between us, she pulls something like this.
This is awesome!
If I end up planning that trip to Guam and every morning begins like this, I think I'll explode. In lots of ways.
She starts to push me towards her bedroom. I know the direction well. We stumble together, stepping all over each other's feet but never once breaking apart.
I smile when we reach our goal and she pushes me down onto the bed. I bring her down with me, and she climbs on top of me. This is no girl I'm dating. This is a woman. One hundred per cent sultry woman. Damn, I'm lucky.
"Is this the big emergency?" I ask playfully, breaking away from her lips and smoothing her hair back. It's getting into my mouth.
"Mmhmm," she replies in a delectably lazy way that just turns me on even more than I already am.
She bends down and finds my lips with hers again.
"You really need to have more emergencies more often," I mumble with a grin.
"Shhh," she says, running her deliciously smooth hand across my face in a loving way. "No talking."
No problem. I'll shut up. As long as she keeps doing what she's doing, I can lose an hour or three of sleep.
We continue along our sexy path, but I start to have doubts.
Why? Why is she doing this all of a sudden? She's been cold and distant lately, and suddenly she calls me up because she feels... what? Horny all of a sudden? She wants company?
Or is there something bigger going on here?
Maybe she's trying to make herself feel better about something. Maybe she had a fight.
A fight.
There's only one person in the world who can upset her enough to go nuts like this.
I groan in my mind, and suddenly, things don't look so good. I bet they had some sort of argument, and this is Aya's sick, twisted way of "getting revenge." She calls me up to get a little action while knowing perfectly well that Miki's got nobody. Well, I'm sure she doesn't have nobody, but I mean she's single.
I'm lost in thought, which is why I don't stop it sooner. "It" being Aya unbuckling my belt, unbuttoning my pants, and undoing the zipper.
No, I think. Not like this. Not when you don't mean it.
I have feelings, too.
I grab her hands and push her away from me.
"Aya, what's going on?" I ask, sitting up.
She looks at me, puzzled.
"What?" she asks in a breathless voice.
She pushes me down by the shoulders, and her hands grab at the waist of my pants again, getting ready to pull them down.
I take her wrists again and push her.
"Slow down," I tell her.
This is all sorts of wrong. She cannot possibly want to be doing this with me. Not when she's ignored me for two weeks. Not when I know she's not into me.
And yet she looks at me with her jaw dropped.
"Slow down? Are you even a man?"
That's it. That's crossing the line. This has nothing to do with being a man or not. This has to do with dignity. I'm saving hers and my own. I refuse to be used as some object in a game - a power struggle - between two friends that can't even figure out their own relationship.
And I know Miki's involved. There's no other logical reason.
I frown at her.
"No, it's not that I don't want to, but... is there something wrong? Are you okay?" I ask her.
I want her to talk to me. Even if she breaks up with me right now, if I hear the truth, I'll be satisfied. I want her to tell me what Miki's done to upset her. I want her to admit that what she's doing now is not out of love or anything kind-hearted, but out of revenge or something spiteful.
"Why? A girl can't do this to her own boyfriend? God, I thought you'd be happy," she snaps at me angrily.
She's lying to me. Lying so obviously that it hurts. My heart aches.
She might lie to me, but I won't lie to her. I'm going to speak my mind.
"I wouldn't mind, but with the fact that you've been so distant lately, I'm wondering if you've got some other reason for suddenly wanting to get into my pants."
I'm hinting at her to tell me. To let me know why she's doing this. I don't deserve to be lied to. I've done nothing wrong. I've been nothing but nice to her, and I've tried to tolerate Miki. I haven't thought a single nasty thing about her, I've never spoken ill of her to my friends, I've never bragged that I'm sleeping with one of the most popular idols (because really, I'm not. Sleeping with her, that is. Not yet anyway), and I've never forced myself on her or pressured her into doing something she hasn't wanted to do. I've been a model boyfriend, and, okay, maybe a little boring, but I've meant everything I've said to her.
And here she is wanting to rip my pants off just to prove something. Maybe prove something to herself or to her friend or... I don't know. I don't understand how she thinks.
"You- you- I- Arg!" she stutters angrily.
Then she gets up and stalks out of the bedroom.
What in the world is going on!?
I quickly do up my pants and chase her. I need to calm her down and then talk with her. I don't want us to fight like this, because I have no idea what we're fighting about.
"Aya, I just-" I start, but she holds up a hand.
"No. Just get out."
She's kicking me out? What have I done? Refused to sleep with her because I know she'll regret it if she does? Since when is this a bad thing? Since when does a girl hate her boyfriend for thinking of her mental sanity the morning after?
"I-"
"Get out," her icy voice repeats.
I grow angry. I don't deserve this at all. She's being unreasonable, but there's no way to let her know that. Girls are scary. Besides sharp nails, this one's got a way with words and gestures that can give a man chills.
I don't try and talk to her anymore. At least she's stopped trying to take off my pants. I mean, not that I would have minded if she'd succeeded... But no. I'm a good guy.
I don't even look at her. I just step into my shoes and leave, making sure the door swings shut quietly.
I shove my hands into my pockets and walk to the elevator dejectedly.
Some might think I'm the stupidest man on earth. I was about to get the hottest action of my life. Or probably. If Aya's better than my ex-girlfriend. She certainly was acting like she knew what she was doing.
But that sensitive side of me - the side that I know girls like - tells me that I have done the right thing. I've saved my pride. I've prevented her from regretting something big. Hell, I've probably even made her best friend want to crack open a bottle of champagne 'cause I didn't touch Aya.
This is so messed up.
Doing the right thing has never felt so shitty.
-
3.3
It's been a great day. I've spent it all with Miki. We went shopping, bought tonnes of clothes, and then had dinner at a fancy Vietnamese place. We've come back to my apartment to relax, and we're at the end of a drama that we both follow regularly. It started a few months ago and is one of those really irresistibly bad dramas. One of the ones that nobody dares admit they watch, but come evening time, they’re glued to their screens.
As the end of the episode draws near, the main character, a twenty-three year old woman who aspires to be the manager of the corporate strategy department at the computer software company she works at, has just been told by her childhood friend a burning secret - that he's been in love with her ever since he can remember. The music swells up beautifully, and the childhood friend wraps his arms around the heroine, bringing her in for a dramatic and passionate kiss.
"Oh, please! He's not even cute!" Miki calls out, ruining the moment.
I hit her on the arm hard so that she shuts up, but she keeps going.
"If I was her, I'd go for the hottie that works on the second floor."
"Miki, you're ruining it," I hiss.
She crosses her arms and looks at me with a bitchy look that makes me forget about the TV show and start laughing.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I giggle.
"Because you're not listening to what I'm saying. This childhood friends of hers is sketchy," she begins her analysis just as the closing credits roll.
"What's so sketchy?" I ask, turning to her and mimicking the position she's in.
"He's been gone for four years," Miki says, sticking her nose up in the air.
"He was at university," I groan.
"Hah, we don't know that!" Miki cries, pointing a finger in the air triumphantly. I giggle because she gets way too into these kinds of things. "Second of all, he's ugly."
I frown.
"Okay, yeah, but that's not very nice to say," I tell her with a disapproving look.
"But Aya-chan, in these dramas, it's never the ugly guy that gets the girl. I mean, just look at him."
I frown again. Something in me tells me to stand up and fight for the guy even though I agree with her. I feel this need inside me. I sense an opportunity.
"So you wouldn't date a guy if he wasn't good looking?" I ask.
Miki stops and evaluates my question. She can tell we've left the realm of fiction and we're now having a real life discussion.
"Well," she says hesitantly. "I wouldn't want him to be hideous..."
"Well, what if he was a gorgeous man until he got his face burned off in an accident. Would you still love him?"
"Of course," she says without any hesitation.
"You don't sound so sure," I say, although I'm bluffing. She sounded pretty sure.
"Well, I don't really think about it. I've never met a burn victim before."
Nice try...
"So you wouldn't date someone who was different? Like, too different? Out of the norm? Someone others wouldn't approve of?"
I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but something inside me is screaming at me to stop it now.
"I've dated my fair share of guys that nobody - especially my parents - approved of," Miki says with a wicked grin.
Oh, I know that. But what I mean is... What do I mean?
"What would you do for love? Or what would stop you from loving?" I finally ask.
There it is. The kicker.
My god, I can't believe we're talking about this. This is way too weird.
Weird because I feel something inside me. It's a box that I want to open, but I'm much too scared to.
"I, uh..." Miki's voice cracks.
I want to know exactly what she's thinking. I need to know. I'm freaking out here, and I don't even know why.
"Love is love," she finally says. "Who am I to decide what to do and not to do? I'll just do whatever it takes 'cause I can't control myself."
Not what I was expecting. I know that she has a good heart - a superb, stupendous, wonderful, loving heart - but it's surprised me that she's answered my question seriously. I thought she'd play it up and talk about leaping over tall buildings and swimming to the bottom of an ocean to do battle with a killer squid. Instead, she's left it open-ended and, in a way, sweet. She'll do anything, no matter how big or small. For that person she loves.
Who is that person she loves?
No, don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask. Repeat my mantra. Don't ask. Don't a-
"Anyone in particular in mind?" I ask.
I've asked. I'm dumb.
She looks at me, and for a second, I see a distant look in her eye. It's as if she's figured out the meaning of life and is about to let me in on the secret. Her expression quickly reverts to one of amusement, and a twinkle in her eye overshadows anything secretive in them that I saw before.
"Plenty of people," she quips. "My parents, my friends, and the ranchers that raise the tasty cows I eat when I go for yakiniku."
She rubs her tummy and licks her lips as a finishing touch.
She knows that's not the kind of love I'm talking about. I'm talking about romantic love. The kind where you want to touch the person you're with all the time. The kind where a kiss is like a breath of pure air.
"So what about you?" she asks. "What would you do for Tachibana?"
Keita? Nothing. Or not much. He's stupid. If he disappeared, I'm sure not many people would miss him.
"I don't know," I mumble, shrugging.
"Oh, so now you're evading my questions? And you get mad at me when I do that?" Miki gasps dramatically.
I push her shoulder.
"It's not that. I'm just not sure. He's not really, um..." I trail off.
What I want to say is that I don't like him and I want to break up with him right now.
But for some reason, I have a feeling if I say that with Miki here beside me, just the two of us in my apartment, things might get weird.
No. Why would they get weird? If anything, she'd party. I know she doesn't like him.
But still. It would be weird. And I might not be able to control what happens next.
No.
I must not think about it. There's nothing to think about.
"He's not really your type?" Miki asks.
Is that hope in her voice?
"No," I say quickly. "He is. He is."
She stares at me. I think I'm scaring her with my firmness. I smile.
"I'm just not sure yet what I'd do for him. We're still getting to know each other."
"Getting to know each other? I think you're beyond that stage at this point. How many months has it been?"
She starts to count, but I grab her hand quickly and make her stop.
"No, I mean... you can't know everything about a person in such a short time. Even after two or three years, you still don't know everything..."
I trail off and hastily let go of her hand.
This has to end now.
Miki starts to say something, but I look at my watch and cut her off.
"Hey, you know what? Actually, I asked Keita to come over this evening. He'll be here in about half an hour," I say quickly, pretending not to hear her start up with something.
She stops, looks at me like she doesn't know who I am, and stands up.
"Great. I'll see you later, then. I'll let you two have your alone time," she says.
She sounds barely human. More like a robot.
Suddenly I feel very crappy.
I walk her to the door and stand there awkwardly as she puts her shoes on.
"Mail me when you get home safely," I say with a wave.
"Right, because you'll come to my rescue if I've been kidnapped and can't mail," she says sarcastically.
She means it in jest, but something in her tone tells me she doesn't believe I'd go and help her if she was in trouble.
She leaves with a "good night" and I close the door, slumping down in my couch.
Would I go and help her if she was in trouble?
Of course. No doubt about it.
What would I not do for her is the better question. There's very little I wouldn't do for that girl. She's my best friend in the world. Sometimes I think-
No. I don't think.
I fumble for my phone desperately, trying to distract myself.
Keita. Call Keita. Get him over here now.
I find his number and hit dial.
Pick up pick up pick up, I chant in my head.
He finally answers.
"Can you come over now?" I ask quickly.
"Um, now?" he asks stupidly.
No, "now" as in "three years from this Tuesday." Arrrg. Of course now, I think angrily.
"Please?" I ask him, unable to keep the desperation out of my voice.
I want him to stop asking questions and to get here as soon as possible. I win, because he says he'll be here shortly.
I hang up quickly and start to jog around my room, trying to keep my mind off what has just happened. I try to forget my conversation with Miki.
I like Keita. He's my boyfriend and I'm lucky to have him. He has a car, and I admit that he can cook pretty well.
Why am I being so shallow? He has a car? Since when do I care about a car? If he was a jerk, would I still like him because he had a car? I hope not.
I'm now hopping around the room, replacing every thought of Miki with anything I can think of. Glaciers, rabbits, curry, ice cream cones, tissue boxes, anything not Miki.
About half an hour later, the doorbell rings. I know what I want.
I rush over and open it, grabbing the boy I see out there and pulling him in. I don't think. I just act. I start to kiss him, and I push him up to the wall. He warms up to me after his initial wave of extra dumbness. He might be brain-dead, but he's an amazing kisser when he's not slobbering all over me. He's not too bad with his hands, too.
He doesn't question me. He goes with the flow. That's the thing with guys. When you need sex, they are there. They are ready if you are. Oh, are they ever ready.
I lock my door and then drag him to my room. I'm now almost completely distracted from my problem. But I can't get Miki's voice out of my head.
"Love is love."
It certainly is.
"Who am I to decide what to do and not to do?"
I push Keita onto my bed and follow him down, not letting my lips and hands leave him.
"I'll just do whatever it takes 'cause I can't control myself."
I feel him smile.
"Is this the big emergency?" he asks playfully.
"Mmhmm," I reply.
I want him to stop talking. If he doesn't talk, I can pretend it's not him.
"You really need to have more emergencies more often," he smiles some more as I try to kiss him, and I put my hand on his face.
"Shhh. No talking."
He seems happy enough with that. Dumb dogs are easy to please.
I focus completely on the now. Maybe I should get him to talk to remind me that it's him, because this him - Keita - that I'm on top of. Nobody else. Keita.
I need to do more. I need to go further. If I can lose myself in a moment of bliss, I can put to rest any doubts in my mind. I can prove to myself, prove to other people, that I'm not questioning myself here. That I'm not going crazy.
I tug at his jeans. I get his belt undone and then I undo the button and the zipper, and like I said before, when you're ready, they're ready. He's ready to go. But suddenly he grabs my hands and pushes me away.
Maybe he wants to switch positions. Maybe he wants me on my back. That's fine. I'll do whatever he wants.
"Aya, what's going on?" he asks, sitting up.
What??
"What?" I ask breathlessly.
Maybe he fell asleep and is just waking up now in confusion. No matter. I'm sure he'll like what I have planned. I push him back down.
And he pushes me back up again.
"Slow down," he says.
What the hell is this? Slow down?!
Since when does a guy utter those words?
"Slow down? Are you even a man?" I ask scathingly.
This guy really pisses me off.
Apparently I piss him off, too, because he looks at me angrily.
"No, it's not that I don't want to, but... is there something wrong? Are you okay?"
There is nothing wrong! I yell in my mind. Absolutely nothing! Now take off your pants and let's get busy.
"Why? A girl can't do this to her own boyfriend? God, I thought you'd be happy," I snap at him.
He's got have lost a few brain cells. Maybe from when I pushed him against the wall.
"I wouldn't mind, but with the fact that you've been so distant lately, I'm wondering if you've got some other reason for suddenly wanting to get into my pants."
No. There is no other reason. Definitely not. I'm just feeling a need for a little loving. Is that too much to ask? I just want to hang out, have sex, you know. The usual thing you do with your boyfriend.
"You- you- I- Arg!" I scream at him.
I can't even phrase my thoughts correctly. Flustered, I leave my bedroom in a huff and go and sit down on my couch, arms crossed, breathing heavily with anger.
He comes out of the bedroom soon after, his pants all done up. So much for my spontaneous fun plan.
"Aya, I just-" he starts, but I hold up a hand.
I don't want to see him right now.
"No. Just get out."
"I-"
Shut up.
"Get out," I repeat in a voice that brooks no further argument.
He's so whipped. He stops talking and leaves. The minute my door closes, I begin to cry.
When did my life get so messed up? Why would I do something like this? Am I that depressed over the thought of losing a boyfriend? I don't even like him that much. The only reason he's still with me is that if I let him go, I'll be single and I'll be prey to other thoughts and to other people, and I'm too scared to change my life right now. Too scared.
I check my phone. Miki hasn't mailed. She should have been home by now. I have a feeling she won't mail me tonight.
A day that started so well has ended disastrously because instead of having at least one person with me, now I've lost them both.
-
3.4
I've stopped bothering to comfort myself. After recent incidents, I'm pretty sure why I feel what I feel, so I stop telling myself that I'm just going through a phase or that I'm just a bit crazy. That's what I've been doing for months now.
At the moment, it's a matter of keeping it all nice and covered up. A big, big secret that nobody can know. Not even my best friend. Especially not my best friend.
I'm sitting beside her watching a stupid television drama that we adore. We're at her place.
I'm filled with all sorts of crazy thoughts. There's so much I want to say to her, but it'll have to wait. A couple of million years ought to do the trick. By then, nothing will surprise the girl, and then I can tell her that I really like her, more than a friend, more than anybody I've ever liked before. We're talking love, here.
I focus on the drama. The main character just got kissed by her childhood friend who's been gone for four years, and I spazz out.
"Oh please!" I yell out. "He's not even cute!"
I wouldn't touch that guy with a ten foot pole. The lawyer on the second floor, though. Yes, I would touch him. Very much.
Aya hits me as if to remind me that she's here, and I feel guilty for lusting over TV characters. Then I remind myself that she doesn't even know what I feel, so she doesn't care if I want to drool over someone who is not her.
"If I was her, I'd go for the hottie that works on the second floor," I say.
"Miki, you're ruining it," she hisses at me.
It's cute how she gets so into these dramas. I cross my arms and give her a challenging look, which she just starts to laugh over. How insulting! Here I am trying to be all intimidating, and all she can do is giggle. But it's cute, so she's forgiven.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asks between giggles.
"Because you're not listening to what I'm saying," I insist. "This childhood friend of hers is sketchy."
He really is.
"What's so sketchy?" Aya asks me, crossing her arms and trying to look intimidating just like me.
"He's been gone for four years," I point out to her.
She should have been able to figure that one out.
"He was at university," she shoots back at me.
"Hah, we don't know that!" I cry out, and she laughs as I try to make a point. "Second of all, he's ugly."
She frowns at me, and I wonder what I've said wrong. It's the truth, and she knows it.
"Okay, yeah," she agrees, "but that's not very nice to say."
She looks at me disapprovingly, and suddenly all my resolve crumbles. She's right, so now I have to explain myself.
"But Aya-chan, in these dramas, it's never the ugly guy that gets the girl. I mean, just look at him."
He really is not good looking, and you can tell that he's only going to be in a couple of episodes before he's booted out so that the heroine can pursue the other love interest at work.
Despite my good reasoning (I can recite the formula for TV dramas like poetry, so I’m very good at predicting what will happen in your typical drama), she still keeps frowning at me, and she looks like she's dying to say something,
"So you wouldn't date a guy if he wasn't good looking?" she asks.
Wow. That came right out of left field. I think about the question carefully. Sure I'm attracted to people who are actually good looking, but he doesn't have to be movie star material to keep me interested. But the question is really obsolete right now because I'm in love with someone who's really very hot.
"Well," I say. "I wouldn't want him to be hideous..."
"Well, what if he was a gorgeous man until he got his face burned off in an accident? Would you still love him?" she asks me.
"Of course," I say immediately.
I just imagine that it happened to the person I love... Nope, nothing could make me stop feeling the way I do.
"You don't sound so sure," she says.
What is she talking about? Of course I'm sure. I just don't think about these things.
"Well, I don't really think about it," I tell her. "I've never met a burn victim before."
Hah. I hope she gets a kick out of that answer.
"So you wouldn't date someone who was different? Like, too different? Out of the norm? Someone others wouldn't approve of?"
Why is she asking me all of this? She can't possibly want to know, right? And what do I say? I really haven't thought about it because I've always fallen in love with someone without meaning to. It sucks, but it's true. That's what love is. That's how love happens. Or at least I think so.
"I've dated my fair share of guys that nobody - especially my parents – approved of," I remind her, smiling as I remember the good old days.
Since when did I get so mellow? I used to go after bad boys. Ones that would skip school and smoke out in the open. Now I'm pining after a well-bred, by-the-rules, angelic girl. No. Princess.
What the hell, me? What the hell?
"What would you do for love? Or what would stop you from loving?" she asks me, and I gulp.
"I, uh..." my voice cracks as I try to find a way to phrase my answer.
What would I do? Anything. What would stop me from loving? Nothing short of death.
I look at Aya and she has this intense look in her eyes. She wants to know my answer right now. She needs to know it for some purpose I don't understand.
I take a deep breath.
"Love is love. Who am I to decide what to do and not to do?" I ask her. "I'll just do whatever it takes 'cause I can't control myself."
I keep looking at her as I say this. Maybe I'm playing with fire because I want it to seem like I'm talking with her in mind. I want her to catch me and ask me if I'm in love with her. Then that way I don't have to say it voluntarily, which I think is much more difficult.
She seems to think very hard about my question. I wonder what she's going to say in response. Maybe she thinks my answer is dumb. Maybe she's going to make fun of it.
"Anyone in particular in mind?"
I swallow hard. She had to ask. I can't tell her. Absolutely not. Not yet, anyway. Not at this moment.
I look at her and try to imagine what would happen if I did say "you."
I suppress a shudder and move my thoughts along. Whatever I say, I have to cover up the truth.
I let myself smile.
"Plenty of people," I say. "My parents, my friends, and the ranchers that raise the tasty cows I eat when I go for yakiniku."
I rub my tummy and lick my lips, thinking of the delicious meat that I love so much.
But you know what I would love even more? If I could lick her lips and rub her tummy. Now that would be interesting.
And very, very scary for her, so I won't do it.
"So what about you?" I ask, turning the tables on her. "What would you do for Tachibana?"
I don't want to know. I want her to tell me she hates his guts as much as I do.
"I don't know," she mumbles with a shrug.
It gives me hope.
"Oh, so now you're evading my questions? And you get mad at me when I do that?" I tease her.
She pushes me, her hand only touching me briefly.
Oh, no. Do stay... I invite it, but it's gone before I can regain my balance.
"It's not that. I'm just not sure. He's not really, um..." she trails off.
Not really smart? Not really cool?
"He's not really your type?" I ask, trying to mask the hope I feel.
If she tells me she's going to break up with him, I just might not be able to control myself. This whole day has been a test of my ability to restrain myself from doing or saying anything to scare her away. If suddenly she becomes single...
"No. He is. He is," Aya assures me firmly.
I stare at her to see if she's telling me the truth. She's worried me just a bit because she's changed from wishy-washy to secure in a matter of seconds. I don't want her to hide the truth from me, especially since I might really want to hear it.
"I'm just not sure yet what I'd do for him. We're still getting to know each other."
What? There is definitely something wrong if they're still there.
"Getting to know each other? I think you're beyond that stage at this point. How many months has it been?" I ask her.
I start to count the number of months they've been going out. It depresses me to see finger after finger marking month after month. Then the unexpected happens. She grabs my hand, squeezing it shut so that I lose track of my count.
"No, I mean... you can't know everything about a person in such a short time. Even after two or three years, you still don't know everything..." she trails off.
And for that one moment, I think she's talking about me. About us. About how even though we're close after a few years of friendship, we still don't know everything about each other. I don't know what she's thinking right at this moment, and vice versa.
But maybe she does want to find out all of the things she's supposed to know about me. I could tell her everything. I would do it right now. I'd whisper every single one of my secrets to her without hesitation, saving the big one for last.
She lets go of my hand, and I start to lean forward to declare animatedly to her that we should have no secrets between us, when she looks at her watch.
"Hey, you know what? Actually, I asked Keita to come over this evening. He'll be here in about half an hour," she says in a businesslike manner.
I feel physically ill.
Keita. She invited Keita to come over? And we were just having an amazing conversation about love and getting to know people. I was about to start us on some new level of friendship where we truly had little or no secrets between us. I was about to maybe begin to work up enough courage to tell her the things I feel because she seemed to be opening up to me by bringing up the subject in the first place.
But no. My hopes and dreams have been shattered.
Who the hell am I kidding?
Aya's a supremely awesome, shining goddess who can do anything.
Me? Well, I'm hot, but I'm a bit of a disappointment to people. I'm really just ordinary.
So why would Aya want to have me as her one confidante? As that one person who would know everything about her and be trusted to keep all her secrets?
Exactly. She wouldn't. Not when she has Mr. W-inds. Tachibana Keita, the guy that all the girls from elementary to high school are in love with. The guy that all the boys emulate and style their hair after.
She has gone and ruined a perfectly wonderful day by inviting him over at the end. And so late. It'll be at least half past nine when he gets here. I shut the doors in my mind so that I stop imagining what they'll get up to so late in the evening. Alone, unsupervised... No. Don't think about it.
I thought we were getting somewhere. I thought she didn't like him. I guess I've been wrong about it. Everything I've said today could be taken back and she probably wouldn't even notice.
"Great," I speak in a monotone, standing up without complaint. "I'll see you later, then. I'll let you two have your alone time."
It makes me sick. Sick sick sick. Alone time. Aya and Keita.
I want to push him in front of a speeding train.
Aya walks me to the door, but I barely notice her presence. She's essentially just kicked me out.
"Mail me when you get home safely," she says with a wave.
As if she cares if I get home safely or not. She'll be too busy with Mr. Spectacular. I bet he won't be able to control himself and she'll come crying to me tomorrow complaining about what a pig he is and how he undressed her when she told him not to.
And then I would actually go and kill him. I'd hunt him down and tell him never to touch her again. I'd punch him in that pretty face of his and make him bleed.
"Right, because you'll come to my rescue if I've been kidnapped and can't mail," I reply to her concern.
I say it sarcastically. Maybe she'll take it as a joke. Probably.
She does. She looks a bit amused. I mumble good night to her and leave.
I walk down the hallway. I really don't want to hurt her with my bitter words. I'm too upset to be very civil, but I still try to keep my anger at a minimum.
I think about my definition of love.
Love is love. I really can't decide what to do and what not to do. The feelings just take me over and make me do things. That's why I would hit Keita if he ever threatened the person I love. That's why if there ever was an opportunity and I got desperate enough, I would let Aya know how I feel.
I can't control this feeling in me. Nobody can.
So while I am very angry, I'm not angry at her. I'm angry at myself. I got myself into this situation. I'm the one who can't get out of it.
Love hurts, and that's the simple truth.
-
4.1 of 9 - Armageddon
April 29th. Showa Day. It was a national holiday, and, therefore, a day of no work.
Miki walked down the street, a DVD in her hand. She was heading to Aya's place for a make up movie day. This time, Aya had promised not to forget. They were going to watch the same movie they'd meant to watch last time when Miki had walked in on Aya and Keita in the bedroom.
Miki arrived at the entrance to the apartment building and reached out a hand to open the door. When she did so, she noticed someone beside her mirroring her action.
They slowly look at each other.
"What the hell are you doing here??" Miki asked Keita.
"Right back at you," he said with a cool blink.
They stood there staring at each other for a moment.
"I'm going to see Aya," Keita finally said.
"I'm going to see Aya."
"I won't be long," Keita sighed.
"I don't care," Miki snapped.
Keita rubbed his head and looked pained.
"Why do you hate me so much? I'm only trying to make her happy, not hurt her."
"She doesn't need you to make her happy," Miki burst out angrily. "She's perfectly happy without you."
"You mean with you," Keita pointed out quickly, which caused Miki to flare up again.
"Shut up. Just stay away from her."
"Why?" Keita demanded, becoming incensed. "She's my girlfriend."
Miki's glower deepened.
"Yeah, that's right. My. Girlfriend," he repeated. "Not yours."
"I didn't say she was mine. I don't want her," Miki insisted.
"Then why are you getting so riled up 'cause of me? What did I do to make you hate me so much?"
"Just... Just stay away from her. She doesn't love you."
Miki turned on her heels to leave.
"Yeah, well, she doesn't love you either. Or at least I don't see how she could."
Miki's hands tightened into fists, but she didn't turn around. She walked away quickly.
Keita looked at the building, let out an exasperated puff of air, and also left without seeing Aya.
Up in her apartment, oblivious to what was going on nine floors below, Aya sat and wondered why her company was late.
-
4.2
I've pushed what happened last weekend out of my head. Being ditched again because of Tachibana didn't feel good, but the funny thing about love is that even when you're pushed away, you always come crawling back for more. That's the painful, pathetic side of love. It makes you weak. It makes you stupid. I love it all the same.
This time, we're going to try again. Aya's promised me that she won't forget our movie day and that the whole day and night will be just for me. No Tachibana invited.
Actually, something's happened between them. I'm pretty sure. But I'm not quite sure what. Aya refuses to talk to me about what happened between them last weekend. She avoided me at the studio during breaks in our respective rehearsals the next day. When we finally did have time to sit and talk for longer than ten minutes, she seemed agitated about something. Distracted. I even asked about The Boyfriend, but she seemed uncomfortable talking about him and quickly (and oh so skilfully) changed the subject. Therefore, I've been killing myself with worry. I dread to find out what happened between them, but I also desperately want to know.
I push these thoughts out of my mind. Movie day with Aya. This time it's going to work.
I approach the front door of the building to open it when I see someone doing the same thing. A guy's hand is in line with mine, both of us reaching for the door. I stop and look sideways.
Instant disappointment.
Tachibana. Here he is at Aya's apartment, no doubt there to meet her. I feel the familiar anger well up in me.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I ask, hoping my disapproval shows through loudly and clearly.
"Right back at you," he shoots back in his nasal voice.
I hate his voice. It's higher than mine and way more nasal. Way more. People who make fun of my voice have obviously not talked to Tachibana.
We have a face off. I refuse to answer his question.
"I'm going to see Aya," he says finally.
My muscles tighten, and I grip the DVD in my hand.
Not again. Aya invited me over. She promised not to forget. What kind of friend makes the same mistake over and over again?
"I'm going to see Aya," I say viciously.
Get out of here, my tone says. This is my time with her.
The boy sighs, but his sensitive act doesn't fool me.
"I won't be long," he claims.
Great. So he's here for a short time. Get in, get in, and leave as quickly as he came. I guess that's what Aya's called him here for.
No.
He probably called her up desperately and begged her for it. Asked for ten minutes of her time.
I check him out from head to toe.
Nah, five minutes. That's all it'd take.
I don't want him to go to see Aya. I don't want to think of them together. It's not fair.
It's not fair.
"I don't care," I tell him expressionlessly, keeping my thoughts under lock and key.
He rubs his head and looks pained.
"Why do you hate me so much?" he whines. "I'm only trying to make her happy."
I react to his words instantly with a burst of anger.
"She doesn't need you to make her happy!"
She doesn't. I know she doesn't. It's true. It has to be true...
"She's perfectly happy without you," I finish.
Right?
She doesn't need him, right?
"You mean with you," Tachibana says quickly.
This strikes a nerve deep inside me. How dare he say that? How dare he... ug. Just- how dare he??
"Shut up. Just stay away from her," I threaten him.
It ticks him off.
Spineless freak is trying to grow a backbone, eh?
"Why? She's my girlfriend."
My glower deepens, and the rage starts to surface uncontrollably. I think he notices it because he mocks me with his next words.
"Yeah, that's right. My. Girlfriend. Not yours."
You fucking bastard. Say that again and I'll break your pretty nose.
"I didn't say she was mine," I growl, on the defensive. "I don't want her."
I spit my words out, but I don't mean them. I just can't let him know how deeply this hurts me. If he finds out, he'll win. He'll smile that stupidly gleeful smile of his and make off like a weasel to go and sleep with Aya as much as possible just to show that he can have what I want and can't have.
"Then why are you getting so riled up 'cause of me?" he demands. "What did I do to make you hate me so much?"
You existed! I think. You took her away from me!
"Just..." I falter and try to sound authoritative. "Just stay away from her. She doesn't love you."
She doesn't. She can't. Right?
I turn around and face away from him.
I've never felt so unsure before.
I mean, what do I know about her? She doesn't talk to me about him, so I assume that she doesn't like him.
But what if she really does? What if she does, but she doesn't want to tell me because she's noticed how much I'm in love with her.
Am I that obvious? I wonder in horror.
Maybe that's why she keeps inviting Tachibana over when she and I are supposed to spend time together. Maybe it's her way of telling me she's not interested. She doesn't want to embarrass me by speaking to me about it, so she orchestrates all these incidents. These "chance encounters."
What's going on? Could she really be that crafty?
Damnit.
I feel like I'm going to cry again.
No. Hold it in. Don't you dare cry. Don't you dare.
I can't stay here. Aya doesn't want me here. That much has been made clear by her invitation to Tachibana.
He stoops to a new low in response to what I've just said, and he speaks the last words I want to hear.
"Yeah, well, she doesn't love you either. Or at least I don't see how she could."
I ball my hands up into fists and resist the urge to turn around and hurt him. Knee him in the gut or shove him to the ground.
Instead of choosing the path of violence, I walk away. Quickly. I squeeze the DVD in my hand, hearing the distinct sound of the plastic case cracking. My hand hurts from the pressure, and the broken edges now poke into my skin uncomfortably. I focus on the pain and shut my eyes as I walk. I don't want to see or hear him go into that building.
He's won.
Now he can go gloat. He can go do whatever he wants with her. Have her any way he wants. She can ask him to "make her happy" because that's obviously what she wants.
Message received loud and clear, Aya.
-
4.3
I have to go and talk to Aya. She hasn't returned my phone calls, and her e-mails have been brusque. Not warm at all. I'm walking to her apartment now so that we can talk face-to-face. I don't like going over uninvited, but I have little choice, and this is very important.
What do I want to talk about?
Us.
It's pretty much over. Last weekend was the big deciding factor. Two days after it happened, she called and apologised tersely. She didn't explain herself. She just told me that she's been in a weird space lately and that she made some bad judgement calls. I've tried inviting her out for dinner three times this week, but each time, she claims work as her reason for not being able to join me. I've foolishly believed all week that if we can meet and talk and get things out in the open, we can start over.
Unfortunately, I no longer think there's any repairing this relationship. I think she's full of doubts. I don't know the cause of the doubts, and I might never know. She doesn't talk to me like she talks to her best friend. It hurts.
I reach her apartment, practising what I'm going to say to her when I see her. I don't want to be the one to dump her. It seems too cruel. I want us to talk it out like civilised human beings and reach a conclusion together. Let it be our last act as a couple. An amicable break-up.
I reach out to open the front door of the building, but the presence of another person doing the same thing comes to my attention.
I look, and my heart sinks. It's that "best friend" of Aya's. Miki. I can imagine this is not going to go well.
"What the hell are you doing here??"
I'm fine, thanks. You? I think sarcastically.
"Right back at you," I say, keeping my cool.
I refuse to stoop to her level. This girl has it in for me, so I don't want to give her the satisfaction of losing it.
She stands there staring at me, trying to intimidate me. As if some girl a head shorter than me could scare me.
Okay, I'm lying. It works. I'm scared. She's got some powerful glare.
"I'm going to see Aya," I say, wishing to avoid any more awkwardness.
"I'm going to see Aya," she says possessively.
Oh great, I think. Now she's going to think that I'm trying to crash their little holiday get-together plans. That's the last thing I want to do. I just want to clear the air between me and Aya so that we can get our lives back on track.
"I won't be long," I sigh.
I have a feeling that once I get up there, Aya will be forced to talk to me and want to get it over with quickly. Then Miki can have her for the rest of the day. The rest of her life, if she wants.
"I don't care," Miki snaps.
She's such a liar that it's embarrassing. I rub my head, feeling pained.
"Why do you hate me so much?" I ask her, suddenly feeling like talking to this girl.
If I'm going to go up and be all open with Aya, I may as well start down here and get this girl to talk to me. She has a problem with me and I want to know what it is before I go any further. She might say something important. Something I need to know about myself that I don't notice.
"I'm only trying to make her happy, not hurt her," I assure her.
"She doesn't need you to make her happy. She's perfectly happy without you."
What is she talking about? Has Aya told her that? Or is this another one of her insults to me?
Perfectly happy without me? I think Miki's trying to say she thinks Aya is perfectly happy with her.
She's jealous, plain and simple. Here I come, taking up a bit of Aya's time, and suddenly The Best Friend isn't invited over so often. Aya should choose her friends more wisely, though, because Miki is acting like she's twelve, not twenty.
"You mean with you," I tell her.
I don't expect her to praise my wit or anything, but her response is exceedingly ferocious.
"Shut up. Just stay away from her."
Oh, that pisses me off.
"Why?" I demand angrily. "She's my girlfriend."
And when I say those words - "she's my girlfriend" - Miki scowls at me even more.
What the hell is going on with her? Is she in love with her best friend or something? That's ridiculous.
If I had to guess, I'd say she's mentally unbalanced. One of those possessive types. Doesn't like her friends to have other friends because she needs all the attention.
I no longer feel the need to walk on eggshells around her. It's time for some payback for these months of being snubbed.
"Yeah, that's right. My. Girlfriend. Not yours," I remind her.
I know that gets to her. I can see it in her eyes.
"I didn't say she was mine. I don't want her," she says to me in an uncaring voice.
Again she lies. Is this girl pathetic or what?
"Then why are you getting so riled up 'cause of me? What did I do to make you hate me so much?"
I really want to know if she has a good answer.
"Just... Just stay away from her. She doesn't love you," she falters for a moment before hardening again.
I know she has an answer to my question, but she just can't say it. She can't say, "Tachibana, I'm jealous of you. It's stupid to hate you because of that, but I do." She'll be admitting to being a fool if she says that.
She turns around to leave. Maybe she's going to cry. I don't care. I want to take another stab at her. Something to show her that I'm not going to stand here and take crap like that from her. Aya's still my girlfriend, and whether or not Miki likes that, she should respect her friend's choices.
"Yeah, well, she doesn't love you either," I call out to her. "Or at least I don't see how she could."
I see her become incredibly tense, and for a moment, I swear she's going to turn around and pummel me.
I breathe out a bit in exasperation and a bit in relief when she walks away silently. She's let me have the last word. She's let me win.
But doesn't she realise I'm not a winner here? Didn't Aya tell her about the disaster last weekend? Can't she see the truth? That yes, Aya really doesn't love me? That she doesn't even like me much? And why does Miki act like some sort of jealous ex-boyfriend? What is she thinking? What does she think she is to Aya?
I lose my desire to talk to anyone. I turn away from the door and head back home.
Honestly, I don't care to know anything more about Miki, and Aya, and about their friendship. I've had it with these girls. I'm not getting mixed up in it anymore. They've been friends far longer than I've known Aya, so I'd better leave and let them either fix what's screwy in their friendship, or let it remain broken forever.
Either way, I'm out.
-
4.4
I'm not a starving child in a developing country, and I don't have cancer. I don't live in a shack or sniff glue or own a water pump, and I don't know the difference between malaria, yellow fever, and typhoid, although I'm sure they're all very painful.
I live in a nice area of the city, not a slum. I get a good salary every month and good benefits, no question about it. And I do indulge myself on my days off, not go to work. I can proudly walk down the street and know that I entertain millions. I believe in hard work, not slacking, honesty, not mistrust, and that Hello! Project is an honourable group to work with.
I have good friends, I have loving parents, and I do get out of the house. Not stay in out of fear. I do get out.
I am one of the top idols of Japan, I'm dating one of the most popular boys in the country, and I'm the front girl of Hello! Project.
My name is Matsuura Aya, and I am...
Confused.
I should be so happy right now, but I'm not. I'm miserable. Why is it that I have all these good things, yet I feel like I have nothing? Like I don't have what I want. I'd trade all my money and my status for that one thing to complete my life, but I don't even know what that is. I guess I'll never know. Or maybe in twenty years I'll know.
I sigh.
Things have changed in the past week. After Keita stopped me from ripping his pants off - something that I still can't believe - I was furious. Furious with myself. I realised what a big mistake I had almost made, but I couldn't (and still haven't been able to) really talk to him about it.
He's been trying to get in touch with me all week, but I've been ignoring his calls, sending him quick e-mails telling him I can't go to dinner with him because of rehearsal and so on. I did call to apologise, but the minute he answered the phone, I felt so embarrassed about what I'd done that I kind of mumbled "sorry" to him, told him I was feeling weird lately, and then hung up. It's the crappiest apology I've ever made, but I haven't been able to pick up the phone and talk to him again because I'm still ashamed.
I really was in a weird space. I felt like being with him like that would help me lose myself. I was wrong, of course, and for the first time since I've known Keita, I think he was right. He was right to stop me. Noble, even. If I wasn't feeling so confused, I'd probably be head over heels in love with him for being so kind and thoughtful.
But I can't be in love with him. I just can't. There's this mysterious force that makes it impossible, even though I really want it to be.
I really want to be in love with him, because if I am, I don't have to question my feelings ever again. I can know for sure that what I want and what I have are the same thing.
Instead, here I am with no clue. Well, I do have a clue. What I know is that if I let him go, I'll start to feel other things that I don't want to face.
I look at my watch. Miki's really late. She's supposed to come over for another movie day. We're going to retry it. I've promised her that the whole day is for her. The whole night, too, if she wants. We have to work tomorrow, though, so she shouldn't stay over too late. Not that I'd mind. It's nice to have the company. Especially if it's her.
Out of all the things I did last weekend, I feel the worst about what I did to her.
Which is weird, right? One would think I did the most wrong to Keita.
But no, Miki's the one that deserves my sincerest apologies. I had a fantastic day with her and then ended it abruptly by kicking her out, lying to her that Keita was coming over, and then calling him up in order to sleep with him in the attempt to drown out something I didn't (and still don't) understand.
I shouldn't have thrown her out. I should have calmed down and not let myself get so worked up over something trivial. Not that it feels trivial. It feels big. But if I don't get it, I shouldn't stress over it.
Anyway, she's my most important friend. I treated her like an acquaintance.
I wonder why she keeps coming back to me. If I were her, I'd be fed up with getting treated the way I've been treating her the past few weeks. I guess she really believes in me. She sees me as someone who can do no wrong. I would love to tell her that I'm not perfect. I'd love to tell her that those good things she thinks about me aren't all quite true.
But if I did, I'd be minus a best friend. I would jump off the tallest skyscraper in the world to prevent that from happening. I would swim to the bottom of the ocean and do battle with a giant killer squid. I'd leap one hundred metres in the air and jump over buildings to keep her as my friend.
These thoughts are starting to sound suspiciously familiar.
Love is love, I hear Miki's voice in my head, and I stand up instantly, desperate to get the voice out of my head.
I need a distraction.
I check my watch again. Only three minutes have passed since I last checked.
I look out my window in the hopes of seeing her, but of course it's futile. My apartment faces the back entrance of the building. Nobody but the custodial staff uses the back entrance.
Come on, Miki. Hurry up. I want to see you.
Half an hour passes. She told me she'd be here around one o'clock. It's now ten past two.
I e-mail her. No reply comes. Ten minutes later, I call, but she doesn't pick up. I leave a quick message.
An hour passes by.
She's not coming, I realise. She's not coming. She's probably mad at me about something. Or maybe she thinks I'm going to screw her over again and kick her out or invite Keita over.
But I won't. Never again! I've promised her.
Incidentally, I'm going to break up with Keita. She won't have to worry about me ditching her for him ever again.
I turn on the TV and drown my thoughts out with daytime dramas.
My name is Matsuura Aya, and I am still confused.
-
5.1 of 9 - 'Cause Breakin' Up Ain't Hard to Do
"I'm glad you agreed to meet up," Aya said, taking a sip of her tea steadily, a calm smile on her face.
"Of course. I'm here for you," Keita replied, leaning back in his chair and ignoring his own drink.
"So I wanted to talk about us."
Keita took a deep breath in and released it.
"I know," he said quickly. "And I think I agree with what you're going to say."
"How do you know what I'm going to say?"
"Because I just know. Listen, I've felt the tension the past while. With you and with me and Fujimoto-san, this is
just not going to work out."
Aya frowned.
"Huh? Miki-chan? What's been going on with her?" she asked.
Keita shook his head and waved his hand.
"No, I don't mean anything. I just mean that this thing with us is not exactly sparkling with love."
Aya looked down at her hands.
"Yeah, that's why I think it's a good idea if we-"
"Split up," Keita finished for her.
She looked back up with a guilty expression.
"Are you angry with me?"
Keita snorted softly and shook his head.
"With you? No. Disappointed with the situation? Yeah. But you can't win them all."
"I'm sorry if I hurt you or insulted you. You're just not- we're just not cut out for each other."
"I know," Keita said with a hint of an amused smile. "I feel that."
"So it's over?"
Keita nodded.
"Well..."
There was an awkward pause.
"I'm going to sit here and finish my café au lait," Keita stated.
Aya thought it over for five seconds.
"Well, I'm going to sit here and finish my chilled lemon tea."
They smiled at each other, and sat there in each other's company, drinking.
After ten minutes and a bit of small talk, they split up.
"Take care of yourself. Say hi to Fujimoto-san for me," Keita said with a wave of his hand.
He turned around on his heels and walked off.
Aya stood watching him until he rounded a corner. She then took out her cell phone and typed a quick message to Miki.
Just broke up with Keita. Can we talk?
She turned on her heels and walked in the opposite direction her boyfriend had walked in.
-
5.2
I'm sitting with Aya at a coffee shop in a mall. She called me up and asked me to meet her. I know what it's about. She's going to break up with me. I'm okay with it. It's what I tried to do a few days ago. We need to do it, and I don't want to vilify myself any further by being the monster that initiates the break-up, so I'll let her call the shots. Even if she wanted it desperately and I initiated it, I bet she or her friends would find some way to talk about it as if I was the worst scum on the planet Earth.
"I'm glad you agreed to meet up," she says.
She takes a sip of her tea, and she appears calm. That must be an act. She's never been this calm around me.
"Of course. I'm here for you," I reply.
I lean back casually in my chair. I don't want to seem angry or intimidating. I'm just a regular guy on a pseudo-date with his nominal girlfriend. Soon-to-be-ex.
I really mean my words, though. I can't help it if I still like the girl. There's a reason I asked her out in the first place. Feelings don't just stop because the situation changes. Humans are way more complex than that.
"So I wanted to talk about us."
I take a deep breath and release it.
So she's brought out the main line. That sentence is more powerful than the "we should break up" one that will inevitably follow. This is the classic line that topples the partner. Whatever happens after is merely for show. This one speaks a thousand words.
"I know. And I think I agree with what you're going to say," I tell her quickly.
"How do you know what I'm going to say?" she asks sceptically.
Maybe there's some part of her that wants to surprise me. Some part of her that wants me to be shocked and upset to hear those words from her. Maybe it's her way of pinching me just a bit before letting me go. Making me hurt as revenge for something I might have done to her.
"Because I just know," I say. "Listen, I've felt the tension the past while. With you and with me and Fujimoto-san, this is just not going to work out."
Aya frowns, and I wince inside. I've gone and mentioned that best friend of hers without meaning to. I don't want to bring her into it. She might have everything to do with what's going on, or she might have nothing to do with it. But I want today to be about me and Aya. Not anyone else.
"Huh? Miki-chan? What's been going on with her?" Aya asks obliviously.
Oh, come on. You can't be that clueless, I think.
It's impossible for her not to have noticed the tension between me and her friend. Maybe she's in denial. Maybe she's noticed the way Fujimoto acts, and it's kind of scaring her. Or maybe she likes it. I don't know. I don't care.
I shake my head and wave my hand to indicate I've made a mistake.
"No, I don't mean anything. I just mean that this thing with us is not exactly sparkling with love," I amend.
Sparkling with love? I think to myself. What kind of stupid wording is that?
She doesn't seem to notice that I've said something stupid, and she looks down at her hands. Here it comes.
"Yeah, that's why I think it's a good idea if we-"
I cut in and finish her sentence for her to let her know that I am on the same wavelength as her.
"Split up."
She doesn't even try to act like she's surprised. She looks up at me guiltily.
"Are you angry with me?"
She sounds a bit scared. A bit worried. Why is it that our relationship is ending, and it's now that she chooses to really worry about me and my feelings? Is it pity? Compassion? Real caring? Oh well. This is Aya. Or maybe it's a girl thing.
I snort softly and shake my head. Of course I'm not angry.
"With you? No," I tell her. "Disappointed with the situation? Yeah. But you can't win them all."
I may as well be honest, right? I wish it could have worked, but there's no way I can win Aya over. She's got her mysterious reasons that make her incapable of loving me.
"I'm sorry if I hurt you or insulted you. You're just not- we're just not cut out for each other."
I do feel a little hurt, and I have felt a little insulted, but I'm a big boy. I think Aya's a wonderful person. Her heart is essentially good. She might be too wrapped up in her own world to see that sometimes she hurts people, but she doesn't have malicious intentions. I know that. If it wasn't true, I never would have looked at her twice after I met her.
"I know," I reassure her with a smile. "I feel that."
"So it's over?" she asks for confirmation.
I nod.
It's over. No more us. Our agencies can be at peace and stop having to cover for us.
"Well..." she says as we pause awkwardly.
On television, break-ups are supposed to end with one party storming off, perhaps in tears, perhaps screaming obscenities, while the other sits at the table for two and thinks about his or her actions alone. This is not the situation we are in. There is no storming, no yelling, and no being alone.
So we've broken up. So we don't get along so well. That's no reason why we can't have a drink together.
"I'm going to sit here and finish my café au lait," I tell her, taking the first brave step.
I see her think about it. I hope that she can realise we can sit here at least as acquaintances and finish up our non-date.
"Well, I'm going to sit here and finish my chilled lemon tea," she says.
I smile at her, and she smiles back. We finally see eye-to-eye on something! Now that there's no pressure, I think she can let go of the reservations she has when she talks to me. I expect nothing from her, so she can relax.
We chat for ten minutes just about work. At least that's one thing we can understand about each other. After catching up, we say goodbye. We stand up and walk out of the coffee shop together. We stand outside of it, facing each other.
"Take care of yourself. Say hi to Fujimoto-san for me," I say with a wave.
Maybe I shouldn't mention that girl, but I know that she'll be happy to hear I'm out of the picture. It's my last hint to Aya to take this issue with her best friend a little more seriously. Pay attention to the girl and figure out what's going on with her. If she doesn't, the next time she gets a boyfriend, he's going to go through the same thing I've just gone through. The icy glares, the ignoring, the outright hatred.
I'm sure this will be the last time I get together with Aya. Our paths have diverged. I turn around and walk off, sticking my hands in the pockets of my jeans and not looking back. I turn the corner and slow down and sigh. It has gone so well. We've been so grown up about it.
I guess I was expecting my break up with Aya would involve more emotion and more tears. This is for the better, but it's a bit of a let down. I couldn't make her like me enough to cry over me. I like her enough to cry over it, but I won't cry now. I do have my pride to look after. Maybe tonight, though, when I'm home and I think about what's happened. I don't have to keep up images for myself. Just for the public.
I unexpectedly smile. Aya took me for an interesting ride. She didn't handle it all well, but at least I got to see what it was like to be with her. Ultimately, that's what I wanted.
Besides, dating isn't just about finding that one person you want to marry and love forever. It's also about finding out what you don't want. We've helped each other with that.
Thanks, Aya.
-
5.3
I'm feeling ill. I should just get up and say I'm going to the washroom and then disappear forever.
"I'm glad you agreed to meet up," I say, putting my skills as an actress to the test and acting calm.
I take a sip of my drink. I'm glad it's cold. If it was hot, I'm sure I'd burn my lips carelessly.
"Of course. I'm here for you," he replies, leaning back in his chair.
Oh no. He sounds like such a concerned boyfriend when he says that. I don't want him to like me anymore. I don't want him to care about me.
"So I wanted to talk about us," I finally blurt out.
I see him take a deep breath in. I think he knows where I'm going with this, but there's a chance that he's as clueless as I think he is and that he doesn't know a thing. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter.
"I know," he says quickly. "And I think I agree with what you're going to say."
"How do you know what I'm going to say?" I ask him sceptically.
Does he think I'm going to propose to him? Or does he know that I'm going to break up with him?
"Because I just know. Listen, I've felt the tension the past while. With you and with me and Fujimoto-san, this is just not going to work out."
I frown. Miki? What does she have to do with this? Yes, she doesn't like him much, but why would she be involved in this? This is between me and him. Not him and her, and definitely not me and her. Definitely not.
"Huh? Miki-chan? What's been going on with her?" I ask.
He dismisses what he's said with a shake of his head and a wave.
"No, I don't mean anything. I just mean that this thing with us is not exactly sparkling with love."
I look down at my hands and try not to laugh. 'Sparkling with love.' That sounds like a very silly thing to say. I push it out of my mind, though. There are more pressing things to think about.
"Yeah, that's why I think it's a good idea if we-" I start, but he cuts me off before I can finish.
"Split up."
I look at him guiltily. Breaking up isn't a nice thing to do, and I think he likes me a lot more than I like him. I feel like I'm kicking a little puppy. A really cute one, but a really dumb one.
"Are you angry with me?" I ask him.
I don't expect that he'll be honest. He might just say 'no' and then find an excuse to storm out of there. His reaction surprises me. He snorts softly and shakes his head.
"With you? No."
That relieves me more than he can know. He says it earnestly.
"Disappointed with the situation? Yeah. But you can't win them all," he sighs.
I don't know what to say to that.
"I'm sorry if I hurt you or insulted you. You're just not- we're just not cut out for each other," I continue with what I originally planned to say.
"I know. I feel that," Keita says.
He looks amused. It's like I'm telling him a secret that he already knows.
"So it's over?" I ask to confirm.
I need to make sure he knows for sure. There is no more Aya and Keita.
He nods.
"Well..." I drawl.
What now? We still have drinks and we're sitting here. Neither one of us has stormed off, and we're not about to waste our money.
"I'm going to sit here and finish my café au lait," he says.
Why, that little presumptuous-
No, wait. That's not him telling me to get out. That's him offering to hang out together until we finish out drinks. That's him being mature. He's displayed a lot of that lately. I mean, I still think he's boring, but he's proven that he does have a head on his shoulders that sometimes works.
"Well, I'm going to sit here and finish my chilled lemon tea," I copy his words.
We smile at each other. It feels nice to part on good terms. To agree on something. Finally.
We chat about work for ten minutes, after which we split up. It's probably the last time we'll ever do this.
"Take care of yourself," he says while we're standing outside the coffee shop. "Say hi to Fujimoto-san for me."
He waves and walks off into the crowds of shoppers.
Why does he have to bring up Miki? Again, she has nothing to do with this.
I watch as he walks off.
Have I done the right thing?
Part of me thinks "of course." I didn't like the guy anymore. He bored me. He annoyed me.
But now that he's gone and out of my life, that thing that I haven't been wanting to hit me is probably going to hit me. I'll have to walk carefully. I'm not into nasty surprises.
Speaking of surprises, I'd better talk to Miki. She hasn't been in touch for a few days, and I'm worried. Maybe this news will jolt her out of her silence.
Just broke up with Keita. I type. Can we talk?
I turn and walk in the opposite direction Keita walked in. I head down to the lower level to catch the bus that will take me to the station. I hold my phone tightly and wait.
Ten minutes later, my phone vibrates. I receive a reply.
I'm sorry. Come over to my place and give me details.
I smile. Businesslike Miki. I know that she'll be happy to see me. She has to be. She's never not happy when I show up. This should be no different.
Satisfied, I get a seat on the bus that has just come, and I ignore any other feeling but the strange happy one that takes over me.
I think my life is back on track now.
-
5.4
Just broke up with Keita. Can we talk?
She's written me a few e-mails over the past three or four days, but that's the one that catches my attention. I'm sitting at home, nothing to do. I have no work because of yet another national holiday. I used to love this week when we'd get a bunch of days off to relax. Now I hate it. There's too much time to think, and the friend I want to spend my time with is my problem.
Getting ditched again by Aya because of Tachibana hurt a lot. I'm a bit angry at her, but it comes in small waves that don't stir up anything but guilt for being angry. I like her too much to be angry, and it bothers me. Still, even though I feel bad, I haven't replied to any of her mail. I simply don't want to set myself up for more disappointment. I've had enough of it.
That's why when I get her mail about Tachibana, I can't help but feel happy. She's broken up with him. He's out of the picture. Now she's all mine.
Well, no. It's not that simple. It never is.
He's gone. Now it's time for me to listen to her issues. I have to listen to the story, hear about the problems they were having, do the best friend thing where I comfort her. The only good thing is that I get to bash him, because that is the role of the friend. To bash the ex.
Then maybe I have a better chance.
After that.
After she gets over him.
And right after pigs fly, cows talk, and chickens take over France.
Yup. Piece of cake.
I scowl. What's the point of even replying to her? So Tachibana's out of the picture. Big whoop. It's not like I'm going to get anything out of it. I won't have to see his stupid face anymore, but I'm sure she'll move on to the next pretty boy in no time, and I'll have to hear all about him. She probably won't choose a good one. Not one that I'll approve of. And then she'll find ways to rub it in my face - whether she means to or not - and start abandoning me for him.
Shut up, Miki, I scold myself. She doesn't need your approval.
Aya's capable of choosing the people she wants in her life. And she's not going to cut herself off from me completely. I am a friend. At least I think I still am.
Although how close a friend, I'm not sure anymore. She's not definite about it. Sometimes I'm the greatest person in her eyes, but sometimes I think I'm an annoyance that she wishes she didn't have to deal with.
I think of all sorts of ways I could reply to her message. I start to type.
Good for you. Do you want to invite Tachibana over for our talk?
I delete my words. That's just my bitterness shining through.
Oh, you noticed I exist? Nice of you to come crawling back to me now that your boy is gone.
This is something beyond bitter. It won't do.
I'm happy to hear that! Now you're finally free! Let's talk.
Delete. It's too happy.
Does this mean you'll stop ditching me? I hope.
And that's not going to work. It's too confrontational.
How'd he take it?
No, that one has no heart in it. I don't really care how he is.
Let's get drunk and have sex.
I laugh and erase that one carefully, making sure not to press the send button by mistake. I'm being silly for my own sake.
I sober up and get serious.
Hi, Aya-chan. I missed you. Sorry for not replying to your mail. I’m kind of upset. Can you come here? You can tell me what happened between you two. But I also have some other things to talk to you about. Bye bye.
There. That's what I want to say.
And so therefore, I can't send it. What am I? One of those New Age, sensitive types that cares and shares and has to analyse and discuss everything? No. I'm not.
I'm sorry. Come over to my place and give me details.
I read it over once. It's perfect. Not revealing too much, but telling her that I want to learn more. It's a bit curt, but she knows that's my style. She won't be offended.
I press the send button.
Now I have to wait for her to come over.
What should I do? Should I look happy? Should I look concerned? Should I let her talk about it for an hour and then get us onto the topic of me being ignored?
Or should I forget about that last part and just let her talk about herself?
Or maybe I should speak my mind and tell her exactly what I think and feel.
Although as much as I want to do that last one, I have a feeling if I did, Tachibana's heart wouldn't be the only one to be broken today.
I sit. I wait.
-
5.4 + ½: The Alternate Alternate Version
I think of all sorts of ways I could reply to her message. I start to type.
Good for you. Do you want to invite Tachibana over for our talk?
I delete my words. That's just my bitterness shining through.
Oh, you noticed I exist? Nice of you to come crawling back to me now that your boy is gone.
This is something beyond bitter. It won't do.
I'm happy to hear that! Now you're finally free! Let's talk.
Delete. It's too happy.
Does this mean you'll stop ditching me? I hope.
And that's not going to work. It's too confrontational.
How'd he take it?
No, that one has no heart in it. I don't really care how he is.
Let's get drunk and have sex.
I throw my head back and laugh while erasing it. I'm being silly for my own sake. I look down to type my next idea when I realise something's happening on the screen of my phone. I read it as it happens.
Sending message... 25%... 75%... 100%. Message sent successfully.
Oh. Shit.
I pressed the wrong button.
Unsend! There has to be an unsend button!
But there isn't. Right this moment, Aya's phone is ringing, she's opening it up, she's reading my e-mail...
What is she thinking?
I jump up and start to pace, chewing on my nails nervously. I haven't bitten my nails since I was in elementary school. Now, it's all I can do to keep from stuffing my hands into my mouth and chewing them to bits for being so stupid and clumsy. I start to jump around and groan in pain.
"I'm so stupid!!" I yell loudly, not caring that the neighbours can hear me perfectly. "Stupid stupid stupid!!"
I go to the wall and bash my head against it.
"OW!" I cry, rubbing my forehead. Bad idea to hit my head like that.
I open the window.
"Miki's stupid!!" I yell to the city.
Someone on the ground stops walking and looks up. I quickly hide in my apartment again, closing the window violently.
I start to chastise myself.
"Great. You're so smart, Fujimoto. Your best friend e-mails you to tell you she just broke up with her boyfriend, and you go and write something stupid about getting drunk. And sex. Oh my god. The drunk part is okay. The sex part? Unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. I'm being insensitive, I'm being immature, I'm being stupid, and I'm also a girl, which, last time I checked, is just not going to get me anywhere with her! GAH!"
I collapse on the floor, tired out by my freakout. I lie on my stomach and bury my face in my hands, groaning about how the end of the world is near.
My phone rings. Someone has sent me mail.
"No..." I whimper.
Hand shaking, I reach for my phone and flip it open, my eyes shut tightly. I open one eye, then the other, and I read the mail Aya has sent me back.
Okay! On my way.
My eyes bulge out of my sockets.
What?! Is she serious?!
My shock turns into pleasant happiness.
Well, good! One thing is going right.
My happiness turns into mortification, as I realise what her reply means. I smash my face down onto the floor.
"She's joking!" I groan my revelation into the carpet.
That's Aya. A joker. She tries to be all witty. It doesn't really work all the time, but this time, she's fooled me.
"Aaarrrgh! It's not fair!"
Why do I have to have this problem? I wish Aya didn't exist. Then I wouldn't have felt this way over anyone, and I wouldn't have sent her that stupid e-mail, gotten an exciting reply, and then realised it was all in my head.
I jump up, put on some Christina Aguilera, and then lie down on the floor again, looking up at the ceiling, feeling utterly defeated. I listen to her belt out a few tunes, some of which I like, some of which I don't. Then that stupid song that I hate comes on, but I can't help myself, and I start howling along with her, out of tune and scratchy. I sound like I'm drunk.
"'Cause I am beautifuuuuuul, no maaaatter whaaaat they saaaaay! Yes words caaaan't-"
My doorbell rings, interrupting my lovely crooning. That would be Aya.
I turn the music off quickly, hoping that Aya hasn't heard it. She likes that song, and I always make fun of her for wanting to listen to it. I have to keep up appearances.
I go to the door, wringing my hands and gritting my teeth. I'm more than a nervous wreck.
I open the door ever so slowly.
Aya's standing there holding a cloth bag. Her face lights up in a delightful grin when she sees me. I've lost my voice, so I emit a small airy sound when I open my mouth, but she ignores me, pushing me aside and entering my apartment. She closes the door and takes off her shoes and hauls my sorry, frozen butt into my living room with her.
"Hi," she finally says, her grin widening.
"Hi," I reply, my voice cracking much to my embarrassment.
She opens up the bag she's holding and takes something heavy out, showing it to me proudly. My eyes bulge, and suddenly, the possibilities of what might happen right after this moment in time become endless.
She laughs at my reaction, and then gives me the flirtiest look that I've ever seen grace her face.
"I hope you have juice," she says.
I silently reach out and grasp the bottle of vodka with one hand. I don't ask how she got it, I don't question her motives, I don't bring up the e-mail, and I don't point out that we haven't talked in days. In fact, I don't speak a single word as I turn around and go to prepare our drinks. A fifth of vodka inside of us will do all the talking soon enough.
-
(note: yes, 5.3 + ½ comes after 5.4 + ½)
5.3 + ½: The Alternate Alternate Version
Let's get drunk and have sex.
My first reaction is to laugh. Not a loud laugh. A chuckle under my breath. A surrendering chuckle. One that kind of says 'oh, you and your silly sense of humour.'
But that's not the first thing I feel. My outside and my inside are like two completely different people. Inside, an icy cold fear grips my heart.
Is she for real? Does she mean that? If she does, then... then I don't know. I have no clue.
How do I feel?
Scared. That's what. Terrified.
But why would I be terrified?
Well, no duh. My best friend, whether jokingly or not, is proposing we do something that intimate couples (or, fair enough, strangers) do. She must be joking.
But half of the reason why I'm scared is because part of me suspects she's not joking. I think she wants to. I think she's cleverly disguised her true feelings as a joke and sent them to me to test the waters of our relationship. Our friendship. She'll act according to my reply.
Which leads me to the other half of the reason why I'm scared. My reply. What I want. This can't be possible, but something inside me tells me to say "yes." It doesn't make sense to me. Why would I even want to agree to it? Getting drunk isn't all it's cracked up to be. Frankly, it's a bit disappointing the next day. And sleeping with her? Out of all the people in the world, it seems so wrong. I mean, talk about super embarrassing. And I wouldn't have a clue what to do with her. It's just wrong wrong wrong. No matter how much I love the girl (in a friendly way), I won't do that with her. Because it's wrong.
I become aware of my surroundings. I'm at the bus stop in front of the mall. I hope I haven't been muttering anything strange. Nobody's giving me funny looks, so I continue my line of thought.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. No sex. It's wrong.
Yet there I was just recently, ready to rip off Keita's clothes and get intimately acquainted with him, and I never even liked the guy that much. I surely like Miki more than I like him. So what's the problem?
That's what part of me keeps saying. Despite all the potential embarrassment, the screw ups, and the... the general, overwhelming wrongness of it all, that part of me tells me to do it! Now. The ticket to my future is in my hand. It's at my fingertips. I can type my reply and make something happen.
And maybe I need a change in my life. Maybe if I do something wild, that nagging feeling at the back of my brain will be put to rest.
Suddenly I feel brave. That's what I'll do. I'll take a chance. Throw away everything I've established with her to try this out. I'm going to do it! Maybe it really will make me feel better.
But there's a big but.
I can only do this if she really means it. I can't tell if her offer's a joke or authentic until I go over there and evaluate the situation.
I walk away from the bus stop. I can't believe I'm doing this.
I create a new plan and make a phone call to the person who can hook me up. A person who coincidentally lives just minutes away from where I'm standing.
"Hello," says the sweet voice that answers the phone.
"Hi, how are you?" I ask politely.
"Not too bad. And you?"
"Never better," I say. "Listen, Abe-san, I need to ask you a big favour. Can you get me a bottle of alcohol?"
I wince at the silence that follows.
"My my, Aya-chan. Going over to the boyfriend's place?" she asks amusedly.
"Uh, yeah, kind of," I mumble.
"Well, no problem. I have an extra bottle of vodka lying around. How soon do you need it?"
I mouth a silent pray of thanks.
"Is now okay? I can be there in ten minutes."
"Sure, sounds fine. See you soon!" Abe says with her trademark cheer.
We hang up, and I feel relieved. Trust that girl to be able to hook us younger ones up when we're in need. It's no secret to the girls that she's the one to go to when you want to get into something not-so-legal. Most people outside our group would assume we go to Nakazawa, but she's far too overprotective. She would never let any of us touch a drop of alcohol or a cigarette even after becoming of legal age. I've heard that she freaks out whenever she hears Yaguchi's had a few drinks. Imagine what she would do if she knew Aibon's started to experiment with smoking (something I just discovered last month).
Abe is indeed my saviour of the day.
I take out my phone and type up my message to Miki.
Okay! On my way.
I suck in a deep breath of air.
I'm actually doing this.
I press the send button before I can hesitate any further.
I close my phone and my heart speeds up. I've sent that reply because it can be taken either as a joke or seriously. I'll let Miki decide and then follow her lead. Either way, though, I suppose a bottle of alcohol never hurts to have around. It can be my excuse. Our excuse. If anything awkward happens, I'll claim the next day that alcohol stole my memory.
I head over to Abe's apartment, which is just a few blocks away. I knock at her door. She opens it up wearing a Big Nacchi Smile. The Big Nacchi Smile is Abe Natsumi's special version of what others might call a naughty, impish grin. She hands me a heavy cloth bag.
"How much do I owe you?" I ask, a little flustered by the all-knowing look she's giving me.
"Consider this a welcome-to-the-dark-side gift. First one is on the house."
I groan in embarrassment in my head.
"Thank you, Abe-san," I say politely.
"Now, you be careful with him," she begins to lecture me. "If you have any problems, I'm only a phone call away. And if he says he-"
"Thank you, Abe-san," I repeat a little more forcefully, dying of humiliation.
I smile nervously and back away.
"All right. See you later," Abe winks, and she closes the door as I turn around and leave hurriedly.
It takes me twenty-five minutes to travel to Miki's apartment from Abe's. By the time I get there, my nerves are frayed beyond recognition. I feel like I need a drink desperately. My opinion is slowly starting to change. Maybe getting drunk is a good idea.
I approach the door and hear familiar music playing. I also hear Miki singing along with it extremely badly. She sounds like she's already drunk.
Hey! I thought she hated that song. Little lying sneak, I think.
I ring the doorbell, and the music stops almost instantly. Footsteps come to the door. I detect a slight pause before the door is opened cautiously.
The girl is a mess of feelings, each one plainly written on her face.
She's terrified. She's actually scared of me. She doesn't know what to expect (I might laugh, I might kill her, I might reprimand her, I might cry). She's hopeful. I'm here like I said I would be, which means maybe my e-mail wasn't a joke. She's excited. For obvious reasons, of course. I'm at her door. She's always happy to see me.
It's plain to me that her e-mail - her suggestion - is not a joke. I don't know what possessed her to send it to me. But she did, and I got the message, which is now loud and clear as I stand in front of her.
And then within that split second, I also become aware of something else. I'm glad she meant it. I'm glad I'm here. Maybe Miki really is the reason why I broke up with Keita. Maybe she's even the reason why it never worked with him in the first place. Being with him was my fear's clever way of distracting me from what I really wanted.
Well, I won't stand for that any longer. Since when do Matsuura Aya and fear have anything in common?
Precisely! Since never. I'm a fearless, confident, and smart person, and I practically own this girl standing in front of me. The ball is in my court. It's my move. I hold both our tickets to the future.
I grin at her, and after she tries to say something and fails miserably, I push my way into the apartment and take my shoes off. She's more nervous than I've ever seen her before, and it thrills me as I drag her into her own living room.
"Hi," I greet her, my grin widening.
"Hi," her voice screeches and cracks.
It's adorable. My little Miki all scared of me. All unsure and shy and embarrassed. She's the one who sent me the e-mail. She should be teeming with confidence. She shouldn't be the shy one here.
God, I like her. A lot. No more stupid sack of Keita-brand charcoal to keep me away and make me deny it. Not anymore.
I open my bag and take out the bottle of vodka. It's a big one. If we drink it all, we'll be hammered through to the next morning. We'd better be careful.
I watch her reaction, and I see her come to conclusions in her head. We're going to drink. Whatever happens as a result depends not just on how much we drink, but also how far those hidden desires in us reach. Alcohol is merely what will loosen us up. There has to be something in us for something to happen. I guess we'll find out.
I laugh at her reaction, and then I look at her meaningfully. I don't want to waste another minute. I want her to know that I'm serious about drinking this stuff and about being here.
"I hope you have juice."
She stares back at me, her face seemingly without expression. I can read what she's thinking, though. Her eyes seem to say nothing, but in fact they speak volumes. They say 'let's do this.' Clear as crystal.
She takes the bottle from me, her hand brushing against mine slightly. She then turns around and goes to her kitchen. I put the bag down and watch her. She doesn't know I'm watching. Or maybe she does, but she doesn't turn around. She concentrates on what she's doing, pouring vodka quite liberally into two glasses filled halfway with orange juice. She turns around holding the two glasses and gives me a funny look when she sees me standing in the living room watching her. We walk towards each other and meet halfway. She hands me a glass.
So what happens now?
We look at each other. It's a stalemate.
It's a stalemate until she raises her glass.
"To break ups," she says with an ironic smile.
I smirk and raise my glass to that. I know what she really means, so I say it for her.
"To new beginnings."
That makes her smile. We say "cheers" and clink glasses together.
And so goes the beginning.
-
6.1 of 9 - "All I can say is that my life is pretty plain..."
It began to rain suddenly. Fifteen minutes later, Miki opened the door and let her guest in with a kind greeting. Aya, the guest, removed her shoes, leaned her umbrella against the wall, and entered the apartment.
Once in the living room, they sat down and Miki made the first move to get them on track.
"What happened?"
"It's pretty short. I met up with him at a coffee shop just now. It was easy. He knew what I called him there for."
"Wait, so you broke up with him?" Miki asked, interrupting.
Aya nodded.
"He knew I was going to. He said he felt the tension building."
"Was he upset?"
Aya nodded.
"I think he still really likes me," she replied truthfully.
"Did he cry?"
"Miki!" Aya scolded, and then hastily added, "no."
"Did you cry?"
Aya pointed at her impeccably done makeup.
"Does it look like I've been crying?" she deadpanned.
Miki shook her head and grinned before rearranging her facial features back into those of a concerned listener.
"So now what?" she asked.
"Now what what?" Aya shot back.
Miki shrugged.
"I don't know. I mean, now you're single, huh?"
"Yes. I am," Aya confirmed.
"So... good..." Miki drawled. "Um, I mean not good. I mean that I'm sorry. I meant 'good' as in-"
"It's okay, I know what you meant," Aya said, raising her hand to stop Miki from further blunder.
"You do?" Miki asked in surprise.
"Yeah. It's better like this. Less of a chance for scandals to happen."
"Mmhmm."
"More free time for me."
"Yeah," Miki continued to agree.
"And it's way less of a hassle," Aya finished with a laugh.
"I guess, huh?"
Silence floated over their heads, threatening to rain awkwardness down upon them.
"So anyway, what we have to do," Miki said, perking up, "is to get you to forget about that little incident and get you to move on."
"And what would you suggest?" Aya asked curiously.
Miki stood up and went into her bedroom for a minute, emerging with something in her hand.
"We are going to watch this once and for all," she declared. "I don't care if world war three starts or your appendix bursts. We are going to watch this movie from beginning to end."
She held the Armageddon DVD over her head like a trophy.
"Isn't it supposed to be a sad movie? How's that going to cheer me up?" Aya inquired.
Miki paused in mid-step, halfway to the television set.
"Cry me a river, then. I don't care. We're watching, and that's final."
She arranged the disc in the tray, pressed play, and went to join Aya, who had sat up on the couch. They watched.
-
6.2
As I sit, I think. Tachibana's out of the picture. It's about time, too. I knew it couldn't possibly last between them, but I need to hear the whole story before I make any judgements. For once, I'll be patient and wait for the information to come to me. It makes a whole world of difference whether he dumped her or she dumped him. A whole world.
Without warning, it starts to rain. I wonder if this will cause any delays. I also worry about Aya getting caught in the rain and getting soaking wet.
There is no delay. I don't have to wait for long. She arrives sooner than expected as I sit and contemplate what this situation means. The doorbell rings and I get up to let Aya, dry as a bone, in with my usual greeting. I feel like I sound a little more cheerful than usual. All my thoughts don't seem to matter once my eyes settle on her. I don't feel like I need to raise any complaints or remind her of any injustices I think have been done to me because of her spending time with Big Baby.
I watch as she leans her umbrella away from my shoes so that it doesn't drip water and get them wet. It's very thoughtful. Such gestures leave me inexplicably content. It takes something so simple to please me, at least if it's coming from her.
Once we're seated, I dive right into it. So I'm a little impatient. Kill me.
"What happened?"
I await tales of yelling, crying, angsting, and sorrow.
"It's pretty short. I met up with him at a coffee shop just now. It was easy. He knew what I called him there for."
What stands out most to me is that she called him there. That means she organised the meeting. That all means something possibly very good that I just have to confirm.
"Wait, so you broke up with him?" I ask, interrupting her before she can say anything more.
She nods.
"He knew I was going to. He said he felt the tension building."
So Mr. Braindead saw it coming. Good for him. All I can feel is a huge sense of relief. She broke up with him. She initiated it. That means she was the one not willing to try and make it work anymore, which means she doesn't like him anymore (if she ever really did).
Right?
"Was he upset?" I ask.
I hope so. I hope he can't sleep well for weeks. Then he'll get a taste of how I've been for a while.
She nods, and my heart soars, rife with feelings of gleeful revenge. I suppress my smile.
"I think he still really likes me," she says.
She sounds a bit sad, but that doesn't get me down. She's Aya and she has a big heart. No matter what kind of idiot comes her way, she doesn't like to be cruel to him or her. Of course she feels a little bummed out that she's broken a heart, but she'll get over it. She’s strong like that.
"Did he cry?"
I can't resist asking. I've got to kick the guy while he's down. I still hate him for those comments he made. Comments I won't repeat to Aya because I don't know how she'll take them. They might make her not want to be my friend anymore, so I'd rather not inform her just how big of a jerk her boyfr- ex-boyfriend is.
"Miki!" she chastises me, but she quickly adds, "no."
Damnit, I think, followed by an inward chuckle.
Now the next question I need an answer to.
"Did you cry?"
I don't think she did, but if there's a chance she did, I have to know.
She delights me by pointing to her face, giving me an excuse to stare at her unabashedly.
"Does it look like I've been crying?" she deadpans.
Her eyes aren't red, her cheeks aren't wet (not even from the rain), and her eyeliner and mascara exist only where they were meant to exist, not streaking down her cheeks.
I shake my head and grin. Of course she wouldn't cry for that single-celled dimwit. I realise, though, that I shouldn't look too happy quite yet, so I tone down my reaction and try to look concerned again.
"So now what?" I ask without thinking.
I want to know how she feels about dating again. If she has anyone else lined up. If she's going to go out on the prowl tonight. If she needs a rebound relationship. I need to know it all. It's not like I expect to be able to provide for or be the object of any of those things. It's just that in my mind, I play the game of possibilities, and a morbid part of me likes to distinguish between 0.2 and 0.3 percent possibility of something happening between us.
I guess my question is too vague, not to mention strange.
"Now what what?" she asks back, and I resist slapping my forehead.
I shrug it off.
"I don't know," I say, searching for something else to ask. "I mean, now you're single, huh?"
If there's a supreme being up there guiding the heavens in their daily functions, I invite it to come and strike me down with a bolt of lightning for saying something so pointless, so stupid, that not even the perceptible Aya can understand.
"Yes. I am," she confirms her singleness.
I'm sure she thinks I'm weird. I'm sure she thinks I'm weird. I'm sure she thinks I'm weird...
"So... good..." I drag my words, trying desperately to come up with something. Anything. "Um, I mean not good. I mean that I'm sorry. What I meant by 'good' was-"
"It's okay, I know what you meant," she says, raising her hand to stop me.
I stop talking and I look at her in surprise.
"You do?"
Does she know what I'm thinking? Does she know what I want? Or does she think she knows something but is sorely mistaken?
"Yeah. It's better like this. Less of a chance for scandals to happen."
So I guess she hasn't clued into how I feel. I'm actually relieved about it because I'm not ready to face anything like that yet. Not for a billion years. I give her standard feedback as she continues to talk.
"Mmhmm."
"More free time for me."
And more time for me.
"Yeah."
"And it's way less of a hassle," she laughs.
So would I be a hassle if you and I...?
"I guess, huh?"
There's a stint of silence that I'm scared will lead to an awkward moment.
I don't want to rehash the past and get her to apologise for ditching me those times before, and I certainly don't want to carry out some sort of mangled confession of wanting to spend more time with her. That leaves me with only one viable option. The one other thing it seems I've been wanting to do for ages.
"So anyway, what we have to do is to get you to forget about that little incident and get you to move on," I say, chipper.
"And what would you suggest?" Aya asks me curiously.
Let's get drunk and h-
I stand up and go to my bedroom. I go to my bookshelf there and pull out the cracked Armageddon DVD case that I shoved angrily between two books after coming home from my surprise meeting with Tachibana. I go back out, holding the DVD above my head to show her.
"We are going to watch this once and for all," I say as if citing a law. "I don't care if world war three starts or your appendix bursts. We are going to watch this movie from beginning to end."
"Isn't it supposed to be a sad movie? How's that going to cheer me up?" Aya asks.
Cheer up? She doesn't need cheering up. The girl is fine. I think she just wants to move on. Get on with her life and forget about Tachibana. We should do something we've been planning to do for a while. It'll help her settle back into the rhythm. Our rhythm. We have our own special rhythm that nobody else can match, and I'm proud of it like nobody would ever believe.
That's why when I'm halfway to the TV set, I stop and look back at her.
"Cry me a river, then," I tell her. "I don't care. We're watching, and that's final."
I put the disc in and hit play. When I turn around, I see Aya's crawled up onto the couch, so I go and join her, making sure to sit just far away enough to be normal, but close enough so that I can feel her presence.
I wonder if she'll cry. I might. I would cry in front of her. I have before. And I don't just mean crying for the camera, which I've done before. That's the wonderful thing about her. I can do or say whatever I want in front of her and I don't have to be afraid that she'll judge me harshly.
But if that's true, then why can't I just tell her that one big thing on my mind?
In the end, I guess even I have my limits.
-
6.3
I'm on the train when it starts to rain. When I get off at the station, I duck into a convenience store quickly to buy an umbrella.
As I scurry carefully and quickly through the streets, crowds thinning out by the minute, I find myself wondering what to tell Miki. I want to tell her every single detail, yet I don't. I don't want to bog down our time together with something that's becoming more and more trivial as the clock ticks. It's not like I'm heartbroken and am in search of comforting. All I really want is to hang out with Miki and push the rest of this day out of my mind. Maybe we can eat dinner together and gossip about whatever we want. Do some late evening shopping. I want things to be back to the way they were before... before... before what? I want things to be normal? What's normal with us? Do we even have a normal groove?
I shake my mind of such thoughts and hurry up.
I get to Miki's place without any mishaps and I ring the doorbell. She lets me in. She looks thrilled to see me. I knew she would be. I'm thrilled to see her, too. I take my shoes off, make sure I don't get her shoes wet with my hastily purchased umbrella as I lean it against the wall, and proceed deeper into the apartment.
We sit down, and Miki is like a vulture, swooping down to grab what she can.
"What happened?" she asks eagerly.
No touchiness about the recent lack of communication, no anger, no hint as to why she didn't return my e-mails earlier. It's like the past few days never happened and we just saw each other yesterday.
"It's pretty short," I say plainly. "I met up with him at a coffee shop just now. It was easy. He knew what I called him there for."
That's really all that happened. I could recite our dialogue verbatim, but that would just be a waste of time. I could ask her why Keita mentioned her, but I feel that if I put her on the spot, it'll get messy somehow. Don't know how. Don't want to know.
"Wait, so you broke up with him?" she asks before I can continue.
Do I detect hopefulness in her voice?
No, it's my imagination. Or maybe she's just glad I came to my senses. She never liked him.
I nod.
"He knew I was going to. He said he felt the tension building."
Miki looks thoughtful.
"Was he upset?" she asks.
I don't think she really cares about him. I think she wants to bask in some sort of glory.
I nod again.
"I think he still really likes me," I reply.
It's not that I want to rain on her parade (although I don't exactly support getting off on someone's misery), but I want to be honest. I feel a little guilty for somehow making Keita like me so much when I never liked him. Well, I liked him a bit, but not nearly as much as he liked me.
"Did he cry?" she asks.
"Miki!" I scold her, not really scandalised, but feeling like I should be protecting his honour a little.
No, on second thought, why should I bother? This is Miki I'm here with, not a Friday reporter. I can tell her anything. And if she wants to be happy about his misery, then fine. I ditched her a few times because of him. She can get her kicks in now.
"No," I add in answer to her question.
"Did you cry?"
Now that's more personal, and this time I know she's not asking for kicks. She sounds like she really cares. But she also sounds like she's praying for me to say that I didn't cry. She's either a very defensive friend, or she has some other reason to want me not to have cried. Maybe by crying, it would mean I actually really liked him, which to her could-
No. It's the first one. She's just a defensive friend. End of story.
I point to my face, which she stares at cutely (makes me want to hug her).
"Does it look like I've been crying?" I ask in a flat tone.
Miki shakes her head and grins brilliantly at me. If I was genuinely sad and depressed, I'd be instantly warmed up by that look. Since I'm already happy by being here, though, the smile makes me happier. However, in lieu of a smile, she puts on a concerned face. It's sweet of her to try and push away her own feelings to sympathise with me. Sweet, but unnecessary this time.
"So now what?" she asks.
Huh? What does she mean by that? 'Now' as in right now at this moment after having had our talk? Or 'now' as in my post-Keita adventures into the land of love?
"Now what what?" I ask back.
Miki shrugs. Maybe she's hiding something. I don't know. I get the distinct impression that I don't want to know.
"I don't know. I mean, now you're single, huh?"
So it's the second option. But why is she bringing this up? It's cute because it's random and weird, but it's also scary because... I don't know.
"Yes. I am," I say.
"So... good..." Miki drawls.
It's good that I'm single? Why? Does she want to introduce me to someone? Does she think I neglected our friendship because I was dating someone? Will I ever stop questioning the reasons and motives behind everything she says?
"Um, I mean not good. I mean that I'm sorry. I meant 'good' as in-" she continues to stutter along until I hush her up with a raised hand.
"It's okay, I know what you meant," I say, although I'm not entirely sure.
"You do?" she asks, surprised.
Time to do that improvisation thing I'm supposed to be so good at.
"Yeah. It's better like this. Less of a chance for scandals to happen."
Oh, that's good. One point for me.
"Mmhmm."
"More free time for me."
Two points. That's another good one. Although I don't really mean free time for me alone. Now I can just go back to the way I used to allocate my time. Some alone time, some more for Miki, and so on.
"Yeah."
I wonder if she's even listening to what I'm saying. I mean, she looks concentrated on me, but maybe she's not really hearing my words.
"And it's way less of a hassle," I finish with a laugh that I hope covers my nervousness.
Keita was a hassle. Other people in my life aren't. Important people aren't. I want her to know that.
For no particular reason whatsoever.
"I guess, huh?"
Silence. I don't know what to think. I get this tingly, scared feeling inside me when there's too much silence between us. It never used to be like this. I always liked the silences that swept us up, but lately, they're too suffocating. Too full of meaning that I don't understand.
"So anyway, what we have to do," Miki says, perking up, "is to get you to forget about that little incident and get you to move on."
What does she have in mind? Alcohol? That makes you forget quickly. And it can also make you do crazy things you might not think of doing when you're sober, and this train of thought has to end now.
"And what would you suggest?" I ask, trying to sound curious.
Miki stands up and goes into her bedroom, and I'm left there sitting on the couch, wondering if I'm going to survive the evening. I might go nuts from the excitement and terror that grip my heart for no understandable reason.
She comes back out waving something that I can't make out.
"We are going to watch this once and for all. I don't care if world war three starts or your appendix bursts. We are going to watch this movie from beginning to end."
She stops waving the object, and I immediately recognise the cover of the Armageddon DVD. The DVD we were supposed to have watched by now.
"Isn't it supposed to be a sad movie? How's that going to cheer me up?" I ask, scepticism in my voice.
Is she trying to make me cry? I bet she is. I bet it's her excuse for me to be even more weakened so that she can feel all strong and protective, falling into the powerful role of the comforter.
Hah! Who am I kidding? She'd never do that. She'd rather be the one sobbing her eyes out and being pampered by me. This is probably her ploy to turn the tables. What a sneak.
Or maybe it's just that now's the best time since there's no Keita to interrupt us and we have the rest of the evening and night free to do as we please.
She's halfway to the television when she turns around and shoots me one of her looks.
"Cry me a river, then. I don't care. We're watching, and that's final."
As she puts the DVD in, I get up on the couch and lean back.
Just relax, Aya. Just relax, I think.
Miki comes and joins me on the couch.
Oh, there's no way I'm going to be able to relax. Something's going on with her, and I'm not going to rest until I find out.
One day.
But first, let's watch the movie.
-
7.1 of 9 - The Phone Call
A week after the unpublicised break-up of Aya and Keita, Miki and Aya were lounging around at the former's apartment in the evening, reading magazines and mumbling occasional and unimportant observations about what they were reading to each other.
Aya's phone began to ring, and so she answered it as Miki continued reading, not looking up.
"Hi, Aya-chan," Keita's voice came from the phone. He sounded neither cheerful nor upset.
"Ehh..." Aya let out a strange mumble, looking at Miki, who didn't seem to notice. "Hi."
She hadn't expected a phone call from him. She let him continue.
"I was just calling to ask something."
"Sure. What is it?" Aya asked, her surprise morphing into curiosity.
"Are we still friends?"
"Are we still friends?" she repeated back immediately, but then quickly lowered her voice. "Umm..."
She took a moment before answering.
"Do you want to be?" she asked.
"Do you?"
Miki closed her magazine, finished with it, and she looked across at Aya briefly as if confirming she was there before inspecting the pile of magazines for something interesting.
"Uh, I... sure?"
"Is this a bad time?" Keita asked, a frown in his voice.
"No no no," Aya said quickly. "I'm just, um, surprised you called."
"So are we still friends? I wouldn't mind. Just as long as I don't have to see Fujimoto-san."
"As long as... Mi- uh, huh?" Aya sputtered in surprise.
"So can we be?"
"S-sure. But, um, I mean how can we be if, you know, if being seen together looks like... you know..."
There was a silence over the phone.
"I guess you're right," Keita said dejectedly.
"Well, no," Aya quickly interjected before he could get too depressed. "I mean, it's just a practical thought. But, um, we can still mail each other and, um..."
Keita sighed.
"Yeah, I guess you're right."
"And if it's not just the two of us, then it's okay to go out," Aya said very quietly into the phone.
Miki got up and poured herself more tea, going back to the table and opening up another magazine and leafing through it.
"I understand," Keita said, now a smile apparent in his voice.
Aya smiled a bit, too.
"That's all I really wanted to ask. I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing. See you around."
"Bye bye," Aya said quietly, and she hung up.
She put her phone away and went back to her magazine after casting a glance at Miki, who was still reading. Aya turned to the horoscope page.
"So, who was that?" Miki asked conversationally. "It sounded classified."
She laughed at her own joke, which annoyed Aya.
"Nobody important," she said.
"Oh, you mean Tachibana?" Miki asked with a raised eyebrow and a devilish smirk.
Aya's silence told her she was right.
"Was he calling to get his things back?"
"No!" Aya exclaimed. "He just wanted to know if we could still be friends."
Miki nodded.
"I see. And?"
"Well, I told him yeah, but we can't hang out together. Not just the two of us, at least," Aya mumbled.
"Oh, okay," Miki said, taking a hint to tone down the mean streak. "Anything else?"
Aya shook her head.
"No. That was it."
Miki nodded a few times, taking it in, and then she looked down at her magazine.
"Says here that soaking stinky feet in a solution of vinegar and water will help get rid of the smell."
Aya's face screwed up into one of surprise. What a strange thing to segue into.
"Ew, Miki-chan, that's gross. I don't have smelly feet, and neither do you."
They continued to read for another half an hour and then went to get dinner.
-
7.2
I'm sitting in the living room of Miki's apartment and flipping through a magazine half-heartedly. I'm reading, but I'm not really paying attention to the information. In my mind, I keep replaying the events of the past month. Things have been busy, and not just with work. My life - my social life - has been full of happenings namely involving two people. The two main characters. It hasn't been easy because their roles have fluctuated radically. One moment, one is the protagonist and the other the antagonist. The next, it's the other way around.
Miki's role has been the hardest to decipher. She's completely on my side. There's no doubt about it. But there's something about her that has me worried. I think her treatment of Keita has been particularly harsh. I know he's hopelessly stupid and boring, but what she seems to feel for him borders on hatred of the violent variety. I can't figure out the reason why!
Stirring me from my thoughts is the sound of my cell phone ringing. I pick it up and check the number, but it's blocked from recognition. I answer anyway with a "hello".
"Hi, Aya-chan."
I blink in surprise. It's Keita. Why is he calling me now?
"Ehh..." I utter, trying to think of what to say to him.
I look at Miki, but she's not paying attention. She's reading her magazine with a stoic face.
"Hi."
"I was just calling to ask something."
"Sure," I say, suddenly turning curious.
What could he possibly want to ask me? It'd better not be about getting back together. That's never going to happen.
"What is it?"
"Are we still friends?" he asks.
Now there's a question.
"Are we still friends?" I repeat without thinking.
It's too loud! I avoid looking at Miki and I lower my voice, turning my head a bit to the side. All of a sudden I feel very uncomfortable having this conversation. The two main characters of my recent life have managed to come onto the scene together once again.
"Umm... Do you want to be?"
If I throw the question back at him, maybe we can finish this conversation without me having to say too much on my side. I can just agree with whatever Keita says.
"Do you?"
His question is a monkey wrench thrown into the cogwheel that is spinning my idea.
Just then, Miki closes her magazine and looks at me for a split second as if she's just surveying the room and reorienting herself after an intense read and I happen to be in her line of sight. She looks away and I try not to wither under that brief of a gaze. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. But why should I? I'm just talking to someone on the phone. I watch as she looks through the pile of magazines, and I wonder what she would think if she was paying attention to my conversation.
"Uh, I... sure?" I reply to Keita's question distractedly.
"Is this a bad time?" he asks.
I can hear a frown in his tone.
"No no no," I say quickly, paying attention to him again. "I'm just, um, surprised you called."
I look at Miki out of the corner of my eye. She's found another magazine and seems to be absorbed in it.
But why am I looking at her? I ask myself. I tear my eyes away from her and look straight ahead at the wall.
"So are we still friends?" Keita asks hopefully. "I wouldn't mind. Just as long as I don't have to see Fujimoto-san."
Miki?! I think. What is with him and Miki??
"As long as... Mi- uh, huh?" I sputter in surprise, quickly cutting myself off before I say Miki's name out loud and alert her that she's the subject of discussion.
I look over at her, but she's still reading. I wonder if she's noticed or not.
"So can we be?" Keita asks, not bothering to explain why he's brought up Miki.
I know that he doesn't get along with her, but again, she has nothing to do with him and me.
"S-sure. But, um, I mean how can we be if, you know, if being seen together looks like... you know..." I trail off.
It doesn't matter whether we're friends or enemies. If we're even spotted standing in the same train car, people will assume that we're still dating, and the magazines will go nuts taking their pictures and writing their exaggerated articles about our torrid love affair.
My reply causes Keita to stay silent for a moment. He finally says, "I guess you're right."
"Well, no," I interrupt quickly, feeling guilty for many things, including having been a bad girlfriend. "I mean, it's just a practical thought. But, um, we can still mail each other and, um..."
I must sound pretty lame. It's not as if I totally hate his guts. I just don't want to be associated with him in that way, and unfortunately, in the public eye, that's how we will always be viewed as until we get married to different people. My career is not worth losing over an association with him, be it in love or in friendship. Whether I like it or not, the public has a large say in whether I get to keep my career as successful as it is now.
It suddenly hits me. Will there ever be anything more important to me than my career? Will I ever be so hopelessly in love with something or someone that I would quit my job without any second thoughts or regrets? Sometimes it feels like there is something in my life that I'd do that for, but I don't know what it would be. Sometimes it feels like nothing could ever take me away from what I love to do - singing and performing.
Keita sighs and I remember he's on the line.
"Yeah, I guess you're right," he concedes.
"And if it's not just the two of us, then it's okay to go out," I add very quietly, stealing another glance at Miki.
Surely I can't ask her to chaperone us if we ever decided to meet and chat over coffee. Someone would end up dead. I find myself hoping it would be Keita and not Miki. Just then, Miki stands up and goes to pour herself another cup of tea. I watch through my peripheral vision as she walks back to the table and gets another magazine out of the pile. She starts to leaf through it as I wonder just how much of my conversation she's listening to.
Again, Keita interrupts my wandering thoughts.
"I understand," he says.
He sounds a little more cheerful. It's as if he's on the same wavelength as me and understands what I'm getting at. That's a rare thing for us. I smile.
"That's all I really wanted to ask," he says, bringing our conversation to an abrupt end. "I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing. See you around."
I refrain from sighing in relief. I'm glad our talk has been short. I'd much rather not go on and on about these things with Miki in the room. It's just... wrong.
"Bye bye," I say softly, and I cut the connection, putting my phone away and picking up the same magazine I was reading before the call.
I glance quickly at Miki. She's still reading. She must be curious what I talked about. Who I talked to. I can sense anticipation in the air, although maybe it's just my imagination. Or maybe I want her to ask me. I'm a bit nervous about what she might be assuming, and I'm also wondering if she caught my slip up when I almost said her whole name out loud.
"So, who was that? It sounded classified," Miki asks, breaking out into that ridiculous laugh of hers.
I huff in annoyance. I don't know why. I mean, I asked for it - for her to say something - but somehow her turning it into a joke makes me not want to tell her anything. I want her to take it more seriously because... I don't know.
"Nobody important," I reply curtly.
"Oh, you mean Tachibana?" she asks, raising her eyebrow and smirking at me in that evil way of hers.
I'll admit that I like the look because she looks so bad that it's cute, but I find myself regretting ever wanting her to ask me about the call. I don't want to talk about Keita with her. I don't want her to ask what we talked about. She might get mad or upset, and ever since ditching her those times, I've wanted to do nothing to bother her too much.
I've been silent for too long, and she's smart enough to figure out what that means.
"Was he calling to get his things back?" she asks.
His things? What things? It's not like he and I moved in together! It's not like he ever kept a toothbrush or an extra shirt at my place. The nerve of her saying that when she knows perfectly well it's not the case.
"No!" I exclaim. "He just wanted to know if we could still be friends."
There, I've told her. Now I know she's going to ask more. It strikes me that she just said that to get a rise out of me and make me tell her the truth.
Miki, you tricky fiend...
"I see. And?" she asks, not showing any reaction.
I know that she can't possibly be happy about me being friends with him, but to her credit, she doesn't make a big fuss. Not yet, anyway.
"Well, I told him yeah, but we can't hang out together. Not just the two of us, at least," I mumble back.
I start to regret what I've told Keita. Maybe I should have just told him that it's a bad idea to be friends. I don't think I could ever live it down if Miki got angry at me and stopped being my friend just because I stayed friends with Keita. In the grand scheme of things, she's way more important than him.
No, that sounds weird. I don't mean like that. I mean we're friends and we understand each other and she's not boring or stupid or- well, sometimes she's stupid, but she's not actually stupid. She's pretty smart, and I'm sure she could do anything she wanted. She's got street smarts for sure. Her book smarts aren't the greatest, but with a little application and studying she-
Breathe! I command myself.
Sometimes I get too carried away thinking about Miki and I get off topic and completely forget what I was thinking before. Is that weird? Maybe. But she just has so much potential...
"Oh, okay," says Miki. Maybe she thinks my deeply pensive look is some sort of hint to tone it down, because she seems to take it down a notch. "Anything else?"
I shake my head and say, "No. That was it."
I purposely leave out the fact that her name was mentioned. I instinctively know that it's not a good topic to bring up. Awkward with a capital "a."
Miki nods a few times and then looks down at her magazine.
"Says here that soaking stinky feet in a solution of vinegar and water will help get rid of the smell."
Out of all the things to say, that's the last I expect. Why is she talking about stinky feet and vinegar? We're supposed to be talking about me!
I don't attempt to hide my surprise.
"Ew, Miki-chan, that's gross," I sniff. "I don't have smelly feet, and neither do you."
Despite the weirdness, however, I need to accept that this is simply the way Miki is. I have a feeling I haven't heard the last from her on this topic (Keita and I possibly being friends), but for now, I'll let her keep her silence. In fact, as I've said before, I prefer not to talk about that guy with her because he's not worth it. Our time is too precious.
We continue on as if the phone call hasn't happened, and I have the same difficulty concentrating on what I'm reading. All I can think about now are Miki and Keita and how I'm trapped in a situation that feels ridiculously like a love triangle.
Am I ever glad when dinner time rolls around.
-
7.3
I've managed to get Aya over here to hang out. She's been so busy with her tour and rehearsals with Melon and W that we've barely even spoken to each other all week. I've captured her for one evening, which is nice for the both of us. Our respective work ended relatively early, so we have come to my place to lounge about. I'm starting to get hungry, though, so I'm soon going to suggest we go and find dinner.
I feel much calmer these days. Ever since Aya dumped Keita, I've felt like a weight has been taken off my shoulders. It's funny how that works. I don't have to worry about her thinking he's more important than I am, because now he's totally out of the picture.
Now that he's gone, though, I've been thinking about what to do. Should I say anything? Or just let things go on as they are? If I say something, I could mess everything up forever. If I let things go, I may never get a shot at what I want. On the other hand, if I say something, I might get exactly what I want. And if I let things go, they might drift naturally in the direction I want them to drift in.
Ug. Decisions. I hate them. But this one is easy to make. I'm a chicken around Aya, or at least about this one very important thing, so I won't say a word. I'll let my feelings hover in the air around me. Maybe she's perceptive enough to pick up on them. Sometimes I get the feeling that she can sense them, but it's probably all in my head. Sometimes she says or does something that makes me think she's thinking the same way. But I'm wrong. I have to be.
These are the things I think as I pretend to read a magazine. Secretly, I'm not even looking at the words on the pages. I'm sneaking glances at Aya, wondering what she's thinking. Sometimes she makes a comment about what she's reading, so I force myself to reply.
We've been sitting there for about twenty minutes when the phone rings. Aya's phone. I don't look up. I pretend to continue reading as she answers cheerfully and waits for the person to be identified.
"Ehh... Hi," she says.
My ears perk up. I can't help but wonder who she's talking to. She seems surprised and maybe not too thrilled. If she's being harassed, I can help her find an excuse to get off the phone.
I don't show my interest, though, and I stare at an ad for shampoo as though it's a riveting piece of artwork.
"Sure. What is it?" Aya asks.
She now sounds curious.
"Are we still friends?" she asks in surprise.
My heart drops. It sounds like she's repeating a question, and the only person I can think of that would ask her something like that is the number one person on my hate list.
Tachibana.
I steal another glance at her, and she looks horrified at having repeated the question out loud.
Does she not want me to hear? Why?
"Uh..." she pauses for a long while. "Do you want to be?"
What I wouldn't give to be able to hear Tachibana's side of the conversation, too. How dare he call her after she's told him she doesn't want to see him anymore? Who does he think he is trying to weasel his way into her life again? He's supposed to be out of it.
I close my magazine angrily. I look up and my eyes meet Aya's for a millisecond. I want to give her a hurt look. One that asks why she's on the phone with my enemy when she's at my place. But I don't. I look away and look around the room, pretending to reorient myself. I start to go through the pile of magazines that's on the table, pretending to look for something that will top what I have just supposedly read.
"Uh, I... sure?" Aya says distractedly.
Did I just distract her? Did I make her remember that I'm in here, too?
"No no no," Aya responds quickly, trying to deny something. I wonder what. "I'm just, um, surprised you called."
I am, too. Very surprised. Now hang up before I grab the phone from you and yell some sense into that wallflower's ear.
"As long as... Mi- uh, huh?" Aya sputters in surprise.
I almost jerk my head up when I hear the first syllable of my name. Was that was she was about to say? My name? Why are they talking about me?
I feel humiliated. Here I am in my own apartment while my best friend is chatting to her ex-boyfriend about me right in front of my face. It feels even worse because of what I feel for my best friend. Isn't she going to jump to my defence? I'm sure he can't be saying anything polite.
"S-sure. But, um, I mean how can we be if, you know, if being seen together looks like... you know..."
She's speaking far more quietly than when the conversation started, but I can still hear every single word. I just want to walk out because I can't believe what I'm hearing. If I'm hearing it right, that is. Are those two going to start hanging out again? I can't believe it. There's a reason why people end relationships. It's not so that they can go on as if nothing ever happened a week later. At least give it more time.
But there I go being ridiculous. Why not let them be friends? I should believe Aya when she says she doesn't want that idiot as her boyfriend. She's strong-willed and won't let herself be fooled into reigniting old flames.
"Well, no. I mean, it's just practical thinking. But, um, we can still mail each other and, um..."
No. Don't mail him. You can mail anyone in the world, but not him, I think angrily.
"And if it's not just the two of us, then it's okay to go out."
I resist snorting. She's better not ask me to come along. No freaking way. I'd kill him.
I feel too antsy, so I get up to pour myself some more tea even though I don't want any. I can sense Aya's eyes on me for a moment. She must be wondering if I'm listening to her conversation. I wonder if she feels guilty. I hope she does...
I go back to the table with my tea and I open up another magazine, flipping to an Adidas shoe advertisement and staring at it intently.
"Bye bye," Aya said quietly, and she cuts the line.
That's an abrupt ending.
I watch out of the corner of my eye as she puts her phone away and picks up her magazine again. I notice her look up at me and then look back down.
If I ever want to find out what that conversation was just about, I have to ask. It's now or never.
"So, who was that?" I ask, trying to sound nonchalant. "It sounded classified."
I start to laugh at my own joke. I'm not at all amused. I'm nervous and upset.
"Nobody important," Aya says, getting annoyed at me.
I think she hates it when I laugh at my own jokes.
"Oh, you mean Tachibana?" I ask, giving her my special smirk.
I get my kicks in where I can. She set that one up perfectly.
She doesn't reply, so I know I'm right. It's so obvious anyway.
"Was he calling to get his things back?" I ask.
I know that there's only one way for her to respond. I know that they were never at the point where they kept things at each other's apartments, so she has to tell me I'm wrong.
"No!" she exclaims, sounding a lot more irritated than I thought she would. "He just wanted to know if we could still be friends."
I wasn't expecting to get as thorough an answer as she's provided. And such a passionate one. She definitely wants to drive home the point that she and Tachibana weren't that close. I can interpret this as something hopeful for me...
All I do is nod. I can't show what I'm thinking.
"I see. And?" I press on.
I want to know why my name was mentioned. Or at least I think it was.
"Well, I told him yeah, but we can't hang out together. Not just the two of us, at least," she mumbles.
I figured as much already. But what does she think about it? Does she really want to hang out with him? And does she expect me to be nice to him? Because I won't be. She could beg me to, she could give me everything in the world, but I would never be nice to Tachibana.
Well, okay, if she really begged me, then I'd be civil to him. But she'd really have to turn on her charm. As much as I love the girl, "be nice to Tachibana" is simply not in my vocabulary.
"Oh, okay," I say, taking the edge off my voice a bit as I think about how nice it would be if she really did get down on her knees and beg me to be nice to that guy. That way I would know I was important enough that she'd do something like that. "Anything else?"
My name. My name. My name...
But she shakes her head.
"No. That was it."
I nod a few times, but I feel a little blank. I guess I'm not allowed to hear what else they talked about. I'm not important enough. What a slap to the face.
I swallow and look back down at the magazine. I'm not going to cry. I'm feeling too annoyed to cry. I'm not even that annoyed at Aya. A little, yeah, but not as annoyed as I am at that moron. If he hadn't called, I'm sure Aya's memory of him would fade into oblivion.
Maybe I have to do something to make her forget him.
I look at the article beside the Adidas ad. It's an advice column. An anonymous person has written in complaining about constantly smelly feet, and my eyes flick to the advice that's written. Vinegar and water, huh? Maybe I should force feed that to Tachibana. I'd love to see his grimace of disgust.
"Says here that soaking stinky feet in a solution of vinegar and water will help get rid of the smell," I say, signalling that I want to stop talking about this and move on.
Aya looks surprised. I'm sure she can't figure me out at that moment, but I don't particularly care.
"Ew, Miki-chan, that's gross. I don't have smelly feet, and neither do you," she insists.
Of course our feet don't smell bad. Silly Aya. She must know I don't think that. It cheers me up, and we continue to read for half an hour until I suggest dinner.
Just before opening my mouth, however, I recall something.
Maybe I have to do something to make her forget him, I repeat my earlier thoughts in my head.
Perhaps it's time I stop being so stubborn about being a wimp and start doing something about what I feel. Seize the moment. Grab at whatever opportunity I can. Take advantage of what I've got. We're not going to live forever, and I obviously want this badly enough.
I need to do something drastic. Something daring. Maybe not quite a "let's get drunk and..." type of scenario, but who knows. Maybe that would work, too. I'll have to start thinking about it, and quickly, too. Aya's next suitor isn't going to wait for me to have my shot.
Ug. My life is so difficult.
-
8.1 of 9 - So Right
As Aya was about to knock at Miki's dressing room at half past twelve on a late May day, she heard the girl's muffled talking. She couldn't hear what was being said, but she considered not going in. If Miki had someone over, she didn't want to interrupt. However, curiosity got the better of her, so she knocked three times and waited.
The door swung open seconds later to reveal Miki still dressed in her dance practice clothes and holding a folder in one hand, her phone in the other.
Aya looked behind Miki and saw nobody. She looked at the phone and then figured she must have been talking to someone on it. She looked a little on edge. Perhaps it was because of the suddenness with which she seemed to have ended her phone call.
"Hi. Are you busy?" Aya asked, wondering if Miki had to call the person back right away.
"Uh, no. I'm not. Come in," Miki said, backing up, tossing the folder on a chair, and putting her phone down on the table in an effort to not look busy.
Aya walked in slowly and looked around just in case there really was someone else in there. There was nobody.
"What's up?" Miki asked in a somewhat unnaturally loud voice.
"Nothing. I just thought you might want to grab lunch at the convenience store with me," Aya offered tranquilly.
Miki's eyes wandered over to her folder, an action that Aya caught clearly.
"But if you're busy, don't worry. I'll see you later," she added quickly with a smile.
"No, I'm not busy!" Miki exclaimed, waving her hands ridiculously and then grabbing Aya's sleeve to make sure she didn't leave.
She let go hastily when she realised she was acting strangely.
"Just sit and give me a minute to change."
Aya sat down in the chair and studied a take out menu for pizza that was on the table as Miki changed into her street clothes and touched up her eyeliner.
"Ready!" the freshly changed girl cried out, all signs of nervousness having left her voice, replaced by excitement.
Aya looked at her amusedly.
"I was thinking we could eat up on the eighth floor. It's a clear day."
The eighth floor was often deserted at lunch time, and so it was one of their favourite retreats. It offered a spacious lobby full of high quality couches and an incredible view of the skyline, all tucked away behind a series of hallways that few people bothered to go down. On fine days, one could see far into the distance.
"Sounds good," Miki said, linking her arm around Aya's and pushing her out the door swiftly.
Aya laughed, and for their walk to the store, they goofed around like childhood friends that had known each other for twenty years.
-
8.2
I get out of dance rehearsal at a quarter past twelve, and I rush to my dressing room to change. I'm hungry enough to eat three cows, and I'm worked up from the amount of brain power I've had to use this morning. Dancing while keeping spatial orientation in mind is tough! I need to eat lunch and unwind. There's nobody I like to unwind with more than Miki. If she's free, we can go stock up on food at the convenience store and spend our break on the eighth floor, our favourite place to hang out.
Once I'm done getting ready (even for a quick run to the convenience store, an idol has to look her best), I hurry down a floor to her dressing room. I pass by Ogawa and Niigaki, and we wave hello to each other.
As I approach the door, I hear talking. I can't hear what's being said, but it sounds rather important. I slow down a bit and consider leaving and coming back later, or maybe just going to the store alone. I don't want to disturb Miki if she's busy. I understand that the kind of work we do doesn't leave us with much time to spend freely.
But I really want us to eat lunch together. We've been so busy that we haven't been able to hang out much. I can try knocking at the door, and if she's really busy, I'll at least get to see her for thirty seconds.
With a little reluctance, I knock three times on the door. The talking stops and footsteps come my way. Miki swings the door open. She's holding a folder full of papers in one hand and her cell phone in the other. She must have been talking about work to someone on the phone. She ended the conversation pretty quickly, though, which makes me think she needs to call him or her back. Either that, or somebody's in her room with her.
"Hi. Are you busy?" I ask, although it's pretty obvious she is.
I feel bad for having interrupted.
"Uh, no. I'm not. Come in," Miki says nervously.
She backs up to give me room to walk in, and she tosses her things aside as if they're not the least bit important. It looks like she's actively trying to look free when she's truly not. She could be being polite, not wanting to send me off after I've made an effort to come and see her. I question whether or not to enter, but of course my own selfish desires mute any other reasonable thinking, and I enter her dressing room.
I look around briefly to confirm that there's nobody in there. Not a soul is in sight.
"What's up?" Miki asks loudly, as if she wants the people next door to hear her.
She's acting awfully suspiciously. Maybe she was doing something questionable, although I can't imagine what. Drug dealing and prostitution are out of the question. I laugh at the thought of Miki snorting coke or trying to collect a fee for sleeping with someone. Those things are so not her. Maybe she was scheming with a friend. Maybe they're going to play a prank or throw a wild party. Something not illegal, but perhaps disagreeable to the authorities that govern us in this business.
But I have to stop thinking about that and answer the question she's asked.
"Nothing," I say in a peaceful way, perhaps to help her calm down. "I just thought you might want to grab lunch at the convenience store with me."
She looks surreptitiously at her folder, but I notice it, and I know that I shouldn't be here bothering her.
"But if you're busy, don't worry," I say quickly. "I'll see you later."
I add a smile to my words. I don't want her to think I'm angry. I really do want her to get her work done properly.
"No, I'm not busy!" she exclaims.
She waves her hands in a silly way and then grabs my shirt sleeve in order to keep me from leaving. I've come to expect odd behaviour from Miki when she's around me. I'm used to it, but still, she's such a strange one that I must give her some kind of amused look. She lets go and looks embarrassed.
"Just sit and give me a minute to change," she says as she moves off to find her street clothes.
I stifle a laugh and I sit down in a chair. There's a take out pizza menu on the table, so I pick it up and read it. I can hear Miki flinging clothes around wildly as she gets ready in her speedy way, but I don't look up. I tell myself it's because I'd probably burst out laughing at the rushed look on her face. But maybe that isn't the whole truth.
Oh look! I think, latching my eyes onto a picture on the menu. Shrimp pizza. Looks good. Please, shrimp pizza. Distract me for a few more seconds. Distract me with your yummy shrimpy cheesiness until Miki is-
"Ready!" she cries out.
All signs of nervousness have left her voice and have been replaced by excitement.
I chuckle as I put the menu back down on the table and finally look up. Only food can get Miki this happy and enthusiastic.
This girl is destined to marry a chef or the owner of a restaurant, I think to myself.
I can just imagine the wedding. The banquet afterwards would probably be the most scrumptious meal I ever ate in my life. There Miki would be with her new husband, who would keep her well-fed for life. There her parents would be. Her father would be glaring at the man, watching his every move and waiting for an excuse to come down hard on him. Her mother would be swooning, all excited about her daughter's happiness.
I'd be right beside Mr. Fujimoto, glaring at the new addition to the family. Tempt my Miki away with food? I don't think so. When they coined the saying "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach", they left out one important thing, and that's all mention of Miki. "A man's heart and Miki's heart", it should be.
I've always found that saying to be treacherous. As if you need to trick someone into loving you by feeding him. Well, if some chef tricked Miki into loving him because he could cook well, I'd certainly have something to say about it. If they had a Western-style wedding, right at the "is there anyone who opposes this marriage?" part, I'd jump up and declare war on the groom, claiming he didn't really love her, pulling Miki aside and imploring her to stop the silly shenanigan that was just a marriage of convenience and not love.
Sheesh, I'm starting to sound like Miki when she gets all protective and jealous of me. Her ways are rubbing off on me far too much.
"I was thinking we could eat up on the eighth floor. It's a clear day," I suggest.
We've got such a nice view from there. I love it when we're all alone and just hanging out there. Maybe eating lunch or even just sitting on the comfortable couches and chairs that are set up near the window. I love the silences that settle over us like warm blankets. It seems even cosier when there's a storm outside. We can sit and watch the lightening and the rain, listen to the thunder, and be dry and at peace together.
Am I cheesy? Am I as cheesy as that pizza I was just reading about? Maybe I'm even worse. But why can't I enjoy those moments? They make me feel crazily good.
"Sounds good," Miki says in reply to my question.
She links her arm around mine unexpectedly and pushes me out the door. I feel her elbow poke into my ribs, and I wonder what this feeling inside me that wells up is.
Probably just hunger, right?
I laugh it off and we skip down to the street level to go and find some food to bring up to our secret, eighth floor refuge.
-
8.3
It's been eight days since I decided to do something about Aya. I've tried to think of all sorts of ways to confess my feelings, but none of them are good. All my scenarios end in disasters, and all my speeches sound so stupid that I'd rather share a broccoli milkshake with Tachibana the Terrible.
Every minute of every day is devoted to figuring out my situation and formulating a plan. I'm all right at multitasking, so the girls don't notice me not truly paying attention to them when we're around each other at the studio or at performance venues, but it doesn't mean I'm at peace. My mind doesn't stop. Only for about six or seven hours each night does it stop thinking about Aya, and that's because I'm asleep. Even then, however, I have dreams, many of them based on the things I think about during the day, the main thing being Aya. It's terrible and yet nice at the same time.
It's late May, and I'm sitting in my dressing room after a strenuous dance rehearsal. I've declined offers from Yocchan and Takahashi to go and get lunch together because I need to sit and think. I've been doing this every break I have had. Sitting and thinking and plotting.
I have a folder full of magazine cut-outs. I can't believe I've stooped so low, but the sad reality of it lies between those two blue pieces of bound plastic. The magazine cut-outs are from advice columns and articles about love and relationships. Readers writing in and asking for advice on how to confess their love to the people they want. I've been reading them to get ideas, but none of the advice given is any good. None of it is my style.
"Write a letter to him and share with him honestly how you feel," writes one advisor.
"Seduce him with sexy lingerie and wine" writes another advisor from a more risky magazine.
I'm into honesty and wine, but the first one is too Care Bear, and the second one is too ridiculously unbelievable. Nobody really falls for that. Not in a long-term way. It's too superficial for what I feel. Moreover, Aya's certainly not going to fall for it. She's not even into me.
So why am I sitting here thinking about what to do when I know it's a lost cause?
Simple. Because I'm pathetic.
I laugh out loud. I'm so silly. Here I am feeling this incredible angst over my situation that nobody else has a clue about. It's funny because nobody would suspect me of thinking about these things. Maybe they don't even think I'm capable of thoughts like these. Little Kamei and Shige and Niigaki all think I'm so cool. So tough and balanced, not a care in the world. Nothing can take me down. I'm invincible. They bow down in fearful awe of me.
What would they think if they could see me now with a pathetic pile of magazine cut-outs from even more pathetic readers who can't think for themselves, looking for an answer that I know I'm not going to find yet keep searching for anyway?
They'd laugh, think I was someone impersonating the Fujimoto they know, and walk off quickly before the real me got back and went all violent on the impostor.
"Dear Aya," I say aloud to nobody. "This is a letter for you. Please listen to my thoughts. I like you a lot!! Have a nice day!"
I smash my face into my hands.
"Nooo," I groan.
That would be the worst letter ever written. A first year elementary school student could do better than that.
I take out my phone and find a picture of the two of us. We're making silly faces at the camera, our cheeks mashed together in an endearing way. You can see my arm stretched in front of me and going out of the shot, signalling that I'm the one holding the phone.
We look happy. We look like we fit together. Why can't she just see that and come to me? She's got magnificent ways of saying things. So eloquent. So right. If I heard her say to me first that I was the most important person to her, I'd rest assured that she was being honest and not speaking under duress or out of an awkward sense of obligation. That would give me the confidence to say, "I feel that, too, about you."
"Listen. I really like you a lot. Sometimes I wonder if you feel the same way," I say, improvising my speech as I address the picture of us. "Do you like me? You do things that make me think you might. I-"
Three knocks at my door interrupt my monologue. I flush red with embarrassment and pray that I haven't been heard speaking out loud to myself. Still holding the folder and phone, I go and open my door, ready to go back into my cool and collected mode. I feel a wave of terror pass through me when I see Aya on the other side of the door. That's not how I usually feel when I see her, but the fact that I've been speaking my confession out loud to a photo just might have something to do with it. Just might.
She looks at my folder and my phone, and my guard snaps up. I don't want her asking about what's in the folder. It's far too embarrassing. My phone. My saviour! Maybe she'll think I was talking on my phone. I clutch it a little more tightly and hope that she comes to that conclusion.
"Hi. Are you busy?" she asks.
She sounds a bit eager. I know she wants me to say "no". I've learned how to decipher her way of emoting. It's like a code. A special Aya code that I've cracked. Some things, however, still remain a mystery. I don't know how to measure the intensity of her eagerness, or what kind of eagerness it is. Eagerness to bother me? Eagerness to get an opinion from me? Eagerness to just see me?
"Uh, no. I'm not. Come in," I say.
I want to look convincing, so I throw the folder and phone off to the side, backing up to give her room to walk in. I want to appear completely free and available, because that's what I am. I'm desperate to do something other than sit around talking to myself (or pictures).
Aya walks in slowly and looks around. Maybe she thinks somebody's in here, but when she sees nobody, I hope she assumes I was on the phone.
"What's up?" I ask loudly, trying to distract her from any suspicious thoughts she might be having. I don't want her thinking I'm crazier than she already thinks I am.
"Nothing. I just thought you might want to grab lunch at the convenience store with me."
She speaks in a calm manner. She can probably tell I'm a bit nervous and she's doing her best to calm me down without even knowing the circumstances. That's the sign of a true friend.
I can't help myself, and I look over at my folder. I hope she doesn't ask what's in it. That would mean the end of the world. I'd have to move, change my name, and cut off all ties with my family if that folder were to ever be discovered in my possession.
Or maybe that's an exaggeration. Needless to say, I'd be highly humiliated.
I'm yanked out of my fantasies about entering a witness protection program by Aya saying, "But if you're busy, don't worry. I'll see you later."
Oh my god, she's probably noticed I'm looking at the folder. I don't want her to leave. I just don't want her to see my magazine articles. I swear right then and there to throw them all out once lunch is over.
"No, I'm not busy!" I exclaim.
I advance forward and grab Aya's sleeve without thinking. Her smile increases in amusement factor, and I realise I'm being bizarre. I let go of her clothing and back up a bit.
"Just sit and give me a minute to change."
She follows my instructions and sits down. Now I just have to change my clothes and we can get out of there.
"Seduce him with sexy lingerie and wine"
The written words of the advice columnist run through my head.
I'm not wearing sexy lingerie right now, but if she waits for a minute, I can go and grab a bottle of wine...
I look over at her, but she's reading a flyer that I accidentally brought over with me this morning. It slipped into my bag along with some important papers I had to bring.
Great. Pizza is more interesting than me. I don't know what I was expecting, though. Why would she want to look at me anyway? So much for that stupid columnist's advice. Even if I was wearing the nicest clothing I owned, she wouldn't be paying attention to me. See? Trash. All of those magazine articles. Pure trash.
I rush to get ready, all shyness gone and replaced by a general feeling of "ug". I could start line dancing in my spot and she wouldn't notice because she's so absorbed in - I squint to see what picture she's looking at - shrimp pizza.
Shrimp: 1.
Miki: 0.
But maybe she's keeping her eyes averted because she somehow feels embarrassed. Maybe she's actively trying not to look at me. That would be nice. My little Aya trying not to be creepy. I like that. I prefer this way of thinking over any other.
My confidence shoots up a bit as I fool myself into believing this, and I become excited. We're going to eat lunch. Food is fun. Food is half of my life. Food with Aya is even better because she's the other half of my life. She just doesn't know that.
Yet.
"Ready!" I cheer.
Aya looks up at me from the picture of Pizza-La's shrimp special and she looks entertained by the sight of me.
"I was thinking we could eat up on the eighth floor. It's a clear day," she suggests.
I love you! I think dorkily.
That's our special hangout place where nobody else goes. It's quiet up there and it's often just the two of us lounging around, talking, reading, or just staring at the scenery of the capital. When we go there, I feel like the rest of the world ceases to exist. All the encumbrances of daily life are forgotten, and we are in our own little world. It's one of my favourite things to do with Aya.
"Sounds good," I say happily.
I link my arm around hers without a single hesitation, and as she laughs, I cheerfully lead us to the elevator so that we can go down to the ground floor to buy lunch. Days like this are the kind that remind me the world is perfect and that me and Aya... we're so right for each other.
-
8.2 + ½: The Alternate Alternate Version
Once I'm done getting ready (even for a quick run to the convenience store, an idol has to look her best), I hurry down a floor to her dressing room. I pass by Ogawa and Niigaki, and we wave hello to each other.
As I approach the door, I hear talking. I can't hear what's being said, but it sounds rather important. I slow down a bit and consider leaving and coming back later, or maybe just going to the store alone. I don't want to disturb Miki if she's busy. I understand that the kind of work we do doesn't leave us with much time to spend freely.
But I really want us to eat lunch together. We've been so busy that we haven't been able to hang out much. I can try knocking at the door, and if she's really busy, I'll at least get to see her for thirty seconds.
I get closer to the door, and a naughty thought strikes me. I edge towards the door quietly, ready to put my ear against it to listen in on Miki's conversation.
"No!" cries the little angel on my right shoulder. She's the spitting image of me, but pure goodness incarnate. "Don't do it. You'll feel bad, and it's not right. It's impolite."
"Do it!" sneers the little devil on my left shoulder. She's the spitting image of me, but pure evil incarnate. "She'll never find out, and it's not like you've never eavesdropped on people before. Everyone does it."
The two figures do battle, and I shove them both aside. Screw goodness. This is Miki. As if she'd feel any remorse doing what I'm about to do.
I put my ear to the door and listen.
"Dear Aya," says Miki.
For a second I panic and think that she's discovered me. My racing heart slows down, though, because there's no way she could know I'm here.
"This is a letter for you," she continues. "Please listen to my thoughts."
She's written a letter for me? And she's reading it out loud in a silly voice? Miki's so strange!
"I like you a lot!! Have a nice day!"
I stand there a little befuddled. She likes me a lot? What kind of letter is that? She can just tell me that in person. It's not like she hasn't before.
"Nooo," I hear her groan, and I frown.
What is she doing? Is she drunk? It's not even one in the afternoon yet.
"Listen," she starts up again.
Maybe the letter isn't finished. I listen.
"I really like you a lot. Sometimes I wonder if you feel the same way."
That's when my heart starts to race and a thousand words and questions go through my head.
Is she saying what I think she's saying? Is she confessing some sort of strange love for me? Out loud to herself? Is she practicing? Or is it just a joke? And would she freak out if I said "yes", or would she actually be happy?
"Do you like me?" she continues, unaware of my presence. "You do things that make me think you might. I want to hear it from you. When you touch my hand, what do you feel? Do you feel excited like I do? Do you have daydreams about me like I do about you? Am I on your mind all the time like you're on mine?"
I've never heard Miki speak in such an embarrassingly mushy way before. She's never expressed these things about anyone, not even guys she's dated while I've known her. I've always been under the impression that Miki shares everything with me, but she's never shared these feelings with me. Of course, I understand she wouldn't want to say anything to me because these thoughts are about me, but still. It's a big surprise. It's almost as if I had thought all along that she wasn't capable of being so gushy about love. I know she's capable of love, and I've always known that she's a sentimental, soft person, but not to this extent. Especially not about me. It's no secret that she loves me. I love my friends, too. But like this? This is more like being in love with someone, which is a whole separate category from just loving someone. Definitely not a friendly love.
That's not the only surprise that I face. Some sort of massive wall of ice that has been surrounding my heart for the past while begins to melt. I didn't even know it was there until now. It quickly vanishes, and warmth floods my entire body as I realise what I've been missing all along. It has taken an immoral act to make me see that the reason I've been so riled up, nervous, and distracted is because of the girl inside this room. Somehow, somewhere along the path of life, my best friend has become more than a best friend, and I haven't even noticed it.
No, that's a lie. A damned lie. And I know it because I've been repeating it to myself for months even though I've known deep down inside that it's a lie. I did notice long ago. I was just terrified.
Well, not anymore. If Miki has the courage to admit those things to herself, and I have the courage to finally start breaking down the barrier of lies that I've created to block her from getting closer to me, then I think I can stop being afraid, walk in there, and let her know what's on my mind.
I do feel a bit guilty because I'm standing here with my ear pressed up to the door, hearing Miki's intimate thoughts when I don't have permission. I figure, though, if I say things that I know will make her happy, she'll forget about my little indiscretion.
There's only one way to do this.
I put my hand on the doorknob and gently twist it, opening the door silently. I poke my head in and see Miki holding her cell phone high up in front of her face, staring at it while continuing to mumble her words. Her back is turned to me, so she hasn't noticed the door open. I walk in, shutting the door just as silently as I opened it, and I approach her.
Her sixth sense flares up, and she must sense a change in the atmosphere because she stops talking and starts to turn around. She catches sight of me just as I'm at an arm's length away, and for a second, I can read her expression perfectly. She's too shocked to say anything, dismayed that I've heard everything. Her face changes, and she looks like she's about to cry, which catches me off guard. I suppress my surprise, though, and I reach out my hands and put them on her shoulders, drawing her into a wordless hug.
She doesn't return my hug in any way. She must be wondering what I'm doing. Or maybe she's wondering how many seconds it's going to take for me to start badmouthing her and telling her to forget it, there's no chance, and so on.
I have no intention of doing what she's thinking. Instead, I raise my head a bit to her ear and say quietly,
"Yeah. Me too."
When I feel her hands on my back returning my hug, I know that everything has changed from this moment on.
-
8.3 + ½: The Alternate Alternate Version
"Dear Aya," I say aloud to nobody. "This is a letter for you. Please listen to my thoughts. I like you a lot!! Have a nice day!"
I smash my face into my hands.
"Nooo," I groan.
That would be the worst letter ever written. A first year elementary school student could do better than that.
I take out my phone and find a picture of the two of us. We're making silly faces at the camera, our cheeks mashed together in an endearing way. You can see my arm stretched in front of me and going out of the shot, signalling that I'm the one holding the phone.
We look happy. We look like we fit together. Why can't she just see that and come to me? She's got magnificent ways of saying things. So eloquent. So right. If I heard her say to me first that I was the most important person to her, I'd rest assured that she was being honest and not speaking under duress or out of an awkward sense of obligation. That would give me the confidence to say, "I feel that, too, about you."
"Listen. I really like you a lot. Sometimes I wonder if you feel the same way," I say, improvising my speech as I address the picture of us. "Do you like me? You do things that make me think you might. I want to hear it from you. When you touch my hand, what do you feel? Do you feel excited like I do? Do you have daydreams about me like I do about you? Am I on your mind all the time like you're on mine?"
I pause and turn to face the window. The blinds are shut, but I can still tell it's a sunny day outside.
"I don't know how long I've felt like this. It seems like forever. I know it hasn't been that long. I mean, it's not like the second I met you, I felt these things. But I think I always knew that you had the potential to become the most important thing to me. I really, really hope I'm that important to you. If not, then I guess you can say goodbye to me and never talk to me again. It'll probably creep you out to hang around me after hearing something like this from me. I think-"
I suddenly stop because I feel like something has changed in the room. The air feels different. I turn around slowly, afraid of what I might see. A monster? A ghost?
What I see is more terrifying than any ghoul a horror film can offer.
It's Aya. She's about an arm's length away from me, and she's looking at me with this intense gaze. I think she's heard everything I've just said.
I want to die, and this time I'm not exaggerating. I really don't want to go on living like this, facing embarrassment every time I see her from now on. Remembering how I stupidly believed I could get a bit of privacy in my own dressing room. Repeating the words of rejection that she's going to sing to me any minute now.
She reaches out and puts her hands on my shoulders, and I know that the end is coming. She's going to let me down gently, but firmly. She's going to make it clear that she harbours no such feelings towards me and that I should forget about anything between us ever happening. It's just a joke when we say it on television. It's just something to shock the fans and make them watch our shows.
Then she hugs me. She actually hugs me. It's not exactly what I imagine a speech of absolute rejection to start out with, but she has her own ways.
I don't bother to hug back. How can I? I just want to cry.
She doesn't say anything for some time. She just hugs me lightly. Why does she have to drag this out longer than it has to be? Just say it. Something akin to "in your dreams, Fujimoto", and I'll get the picture.
Instead, she lifts her head slowly to my ear.
She says very quietly, "Yeah. Me too."
It sinks in slowly. The words permeate every layer of my mind.
And for once, I don't analyse. I just accept. I haven't coerced her into anything. She's heard my thoughts on her own and now she's making hers clear.
I reach up carefully and put my hands on her back, hugging her.
From this moment on, everything's going to be very different.
-
The format of this story changes from this point on so that it can flow into the next story.
9 of 9 - I Dream of You
It all started with a kiss. On television, that is. We were watching a movie together at her house, and the hero and heroine had just survived a terrifying ordeal. They'd been hinting at their feelings for some time, but right after almost losing their lives, they collapsed into each other's arms, and the usual passion ensued. So mushy it was soggy, so embarrassing it made me want to hit myself.
I saw Aya sigh, and I could almost see the fluttering hearts in her eyes. I knew that she wanted some knight in shining armour to come along and sweep her off her feet, protect her from the cruelties of the world, and make her forget what time was. That's why I had to keep quiet.
Almost since the first day of this stupid crush, I kept quiet because I knew that A, it was just that (stupid), and B, I wasn't that knight. There was no way I could tell anyone, least of all her, anything.
The truth is that at first, I thought it was silly infatuation. The usual idol worship. I told myself that I really admired who she was and what she stood for because it's what I aspired to be and do. I had myself convinced of this. But the feelings wouldn't go away, and when I started having dreams, I officially panicked.
Most of the dreams took place in a cute and innocent world, and nothing terribly exciting happened. We were just happy together, walking down a road, picking flowers, or eating ice cream. Those dreams I could handle and looked forward to.
However, there were other dreams I had from time to time that were not innocent and cute. They were, in a word, dangerous. Steamy dreams that I'd wake up from covered in sweat, confused, and feeling like if I didn't find some sort of outlet for all my energy, I'd implode. On those occasions, no matter what time it was and what the weather was like, I would get dressed, go outside, and run down the street until I was exhausted. Then I'd run back home and be so beat that I'd collapse into bed and fall asleep right away.
But one time, I wasn't alone when I had one of those dreams.
And it all started with that kiss on TV.
I watched her gush silently over the love struck characters and wished that she'd look at me like that. All I could say to myself in comfort was that she never looked at Tachibana like that either. Then in my mind, I started to construct an Indiana Jones-type fantasy where we just barely escaped with our lives, and I had to shake my head of my thoughts because the movie ended and she was asking me a question that I hadn't heard, yet was somehow answering.
She must have asked if I was tired. It was early by our sleepover standards, but we had to work the next day. Bedtime would be early. We got up and got ready for bed as I tried to put those crazy thoughts out of my head.
Baths taken and pyjamas put on, we got under the covers, each of us laying claim to a side, and saying goodnight. There would be no gossiping late into the night. We had long days ahead of us.
Some time in the early morning, perhaps around half past three, I woke up with a wild start, my hands gripping the sheets tightly. I'd just had the worst kind of dream I could have while on a sleepover with Aya. It was intense. The tension between us had been thick enough to see with the human eye, and we'd practically attacked each other before I woke up. A dream about a mistakenly sent e-mail, a bottle of vodka, and complete lack of control was what made me wake up soaked with sweat, heart beating and brain racing.
I look around wildly and spotted Aya beside me sleeping peacefully. My eyes bore a hole into her face, and I suddenly realised I had to get out of there before I did anything regrettable.
I slipped out of bed quickly and tiptoed out of the room, my hands shaking, my pyjamas sticking uncomfortably to my body. I could hear the sounds of rain falling and strong winds blowing. It was storming just like the weather forecast had predicted.
I had to fight every irresistible urge to jump back into bed and wake her up and do things I should not have. Every urge. It took all my effort.
As I was leaving the room, I tripped over something on the ground, making a loud noise, and despite all my efforts to quietly regain my balance, my foot landed in a pile of CDs, which toppled over and made horrible squeaking and clinking sounds.
To my horror, Aya stirred in her sleep and her eyes started to open. I dashed out of the bedroom, slamming the door shut and going to the living room. I couldn't think. I was confused. I didn't know where I was.
I opened the window, and a blast of air hit my face, bringing stray raindrops in along with it. The air was cool, and it chilled my sweat-soaked body, causing me to shiver out of more than just fear as my sweat began to freeze.
The door to the bedroom opened. Eyes half shut and looking sleepy, Aya walked out. She spotted me and headed straight towards me.
"What's the matter? Are you sick?" she asked, no doubt noticing my face covered in sweat and my shivering.
I shook my head, willing her in my mind to leave me alone.
"I'm fine," I said lowly.
I leaned out the window, holding onto the ledge tightly.
"You're not fine," Aya said.
She was suddenly beside me, touching my shoulder to pull me back in.
"You're shivering."
I shrugged her hand off my shoulder violently and then looked at her. She seemed hurt. She couldn't understand that I couldn't bear to have her touching me.
"What's wrong?" she asked sadly.
"I had a nightmare," I lied.
She reached out again and took one of my sleeves.
"It's okay now. You're awake. It can't hurt you."
I shook my head.
"It can."
She didn't understand my answer, so she ignored it.
"Come on. You're soaked. You have to change or you'll catch a cold."
She pulled on my sleeve, and I let myself be dragged back. She closed the window and then led me back to her room. I stared at a spot on the wall as she looked for some extra pyjamas. Finding some, she stretched her arm out to me and handed them over.
"Here. Change," she commanded.
I took the clothes silently and was about to start to change when I noticed her just standing there. I fixed her with an annoyed look.
"Do you have to watch?" I asked acerbically.
Aya stared at me for a moment through incredulous eyes and then turned on her heels. She got back into bed and turned away, pulling the covers up over the back of her head.
She was pissed off at me. I'd never get what I wanted.
I changed slowly, taking deep breaths to calm myself down. I no longer wanted to jump her, but I had to either fall asleep within thirty seconds or leave the apartment building because I would eventually lose control.
Finished, I slipped back under the covers and turned on my side to stare at Aya's back. It was covered in a blanket. I couldn't see her. Just the top of her head sticking out. I tried to imagine what lay under the covers, but I clamped down on those thoughts because they weren't helping me get to sleep. I closed my eyes and tried to forget where I was.
"Do you have to be such a bitch when I'm trying to help you?" Aya asked out of the blue.
I guess she couldn't go to sleep angry. I felt bad.
"Sorry," I said reluctantly, opening my eyes.
She turned around to face me. I really wished she hadn't.
"You need to control your temper," she told me, but I ignored her. I just stared. "Are you feeling better?"
I was glad about the change of subject. I nodded once.
"You don't usually have nightmares," she observed casually.
I shrugged. It was true. I usually didn't. And this was no exception. I hadn't had a nightmare. I'd had a good dream. I was just in the wrong environment.
"Do you want to tell me about it?"
I shook my head, controlling every action carefully.
"Did you lose your voice?" she teased me.
I shook my head, not laughing. She studied me worriedly.
"You're really that terrified?" she asked, reaching a hand out to my shoulder awkwardly.
Please don't, please don't, please don't...
I didn't reply in any way. I certainly was terrified, but not because of ghosts or monsters. I was terrified of the urge I felt to lose control. I was terrified of freaking her out. I was terrified of being the monster.
"A dream bad enough to make you shut up? Where can I find the people responsible?" she asked defensively.
You're the one responsible, I thought to myself.
"It's nothing. I'm fine now," I spoke in a cautious tone.
"Look at that. She speaks," Aya said with a glint in her eye.
I breathed slowly and deeply. She tickled me lightly and I squirmed.
"You're funny," I managed to say dryly.
Then she gave me that beautiful smile that always got to me and made me feel good. Like a star. The one that said I could do no wrong.
I felt my heart fall hopelessly through a canyon full of soft clouds, and so I shut my eyes.
The truth is that I came so close to doing something stupid. If I'd kept my eyes open for a second longer, that would have been the end of the hiding game I had been playing since this crush had started.
"You sure you're okay?" she asked, complete worry replacing any humorous tone in her voice.
I nodded slowly without opening my eyes.
"I'm fine," I mumbled. "Just tired."
She hummed a response and then scooted in a tad closer to me as every muscle in my body tightened and I pushed her away in my mind. She took my hand and put it on her forearm.
"If you have more nightmares, just squeeze and I'll knock some common sense into you," she said.
I could imagine her winking at me she said it, but I just kept my eyes shut.
"Okay. Thanks," I said, trying to sound nice about it.
Just leave me alone, my mind screamed.
"Good night."
"Good night," I echoed.
Ten minutes later, her breathing slowed down and she fell asleep. I opened my eyes and slowly took my hand off her arm, slipping out of bed and this time making sure not to make any noise as I left the bedroom.
Manoeuvring carefully through the dark, I went and sat down on the couch, crossing my arms across my stomach.
What am I going to do? I thought to myself in despair.
If I didn't do something, I would forever be stuck in painful situations like the one that had just happened. That night was a deciding factor. While sitting on the couch, I concluded that I had to tell her. The next time I saw her after this sleepover, I would tell her.
And that was final.
-The end of story 8
-
Past the Barrier and to the Left
Prequel. Story 9
Chapter 1 of 10
Miki walked into the room. She had been wringing her hands nervously as she approached the door, but upon sliding it open, she retained her cool appearance, quietly sliding the door shut behind her and turning casually to face her target.
"Listen," she started. "I wish you'd be clearer with me."
Silence engulfed the room, waiting for her to continue.
"But maybe more than that, I wish I was smart enough to understand you."
She took a slight step forward and stood her ground to carry on speaking.
"Sometimes I feel like you're playing a game with me. Pressing to see how far you can go and then swerving around to go down another path. I don't know how much is meant in earnest and how much is just you joking around and talking big."
She paused to take a deep breath and then ploughed on.
"And if I can't tell whether you're being serious or not, I can't figure out what to think. You drop hints all over the ground and then run them over with a car while I'm trying to pick them up and read them. It's hard. I wish you'd either stop dropping the hints or let me pick up on them and interpret them. It's not fair to me."
She felt her voice tremble, so she stopped, took a slow breath, and continued.
"It disappoints me so much when you do that because... because..."
She weakened momentarily. She hadn't prepared this part of the speech very well. She took another breath and hardened up.
"Because I like you a lot. Just seeing you makes me happy. Um, and your smile cheers me up. And your laugh is cute. And the way you do things your own way is, well, unique. Only you can do them that way and look that way when you do. You always have advice for me when I ask, and whether it fits for me or not, you give it. And you always listen to me when it really matters. Even when it seems like you're ignoring me, you really are listening. You surprise me all the time. That's why I like you."
No response came as she paused and regrouped her thoughts.
"What do you think? Um, because like I said, you're never clear with me. I don't know what to think. So... um, can you please tell me now? Be clear? Don't mess around with me? Just this once? Please?"
Only breathing could be heard after she finished speaking.
"Too much begging. One more time," Miki muttered under her breath.
She exited the room and re-entered.
"Listen," she began again, looking at her target. "I really like you."
She let out a deep breath and let her composure go, relaxing and walking over to the picture that was propped up on her desk. She put it back in the drawer and picked up her phone from her bed.
"All right. Ready."
Miki strode out of the empty room with confidence. Rehearsal was over. The real performance was on.
-
Chapter 2 of 10
Miki began to wring her hands together again as she got closer and closer to her destination. Her face remained stoic, her shoulders at their usual broad poise, her legs stretched out in front of her and reaching towards the middle of the train car. The only signs of her nervousness were in her hands' movements and in her eyes, which constantly flicked upwards to look at the upcoming stop announcement display.
Three more stops. Three more stops. Three more- two more stops. Two more stops. Two... she counted.
The train seemed to move like a pregnant snail.
Just knock on the door, get an invite in, say your bit, and hightail it out of there, she thought.
She proceeded to imagine horrific things happening, from being looked at awkwardly to being outright laughed at.
No. I can't do it, she panicked. I've got to go back. Now.
She stood up to get off at the next stop to switch trains in order to go home, but when the train entered the next station, she had second thoughts about having second thoughts.
No. Stop being a stupid chicken shit, Fujimoto, she thought vehemently. Just go there and speak your mind like you always do. This is no different.
She sat back down.
One more stop. Her hands twitched.
Fed up, Miki sat on her hands, attracting a vaguely odd look from the man sitting beside her. She didn't pay him any heed, however, because he looked like he had been drinking.
Why am I the one doing this? Isn't it supposed to be the guy being all brave and travelling forty minutes to confess...? she wondered.
Her stop was announced. Her stomach flopped and she walked out of the station, shivering in the warm, humid weather.
Listen. I want you to be... no, I need you to be clear with me, she practiced in her head. I like you. I really like you. No, I love you. No... I like you a lot.
These were her thoughts for the seven minutes she had to walk to get to the apartment.
Tell me if you like me, too. Then we can live happily ever after. The end, she laughed in her head.
The problem was that she did not believe that. There was no way there could be a "happily ever after". Her previous attempts at relationships had told her that much. Two broken hearts had taught her to stay away from all forms of romance. Flings were acceptable if and only if they remained just that: flings. The same applied for any sort of relationships she formed with people. Friends were kept at a safe distance so that they couldn't break her heart either. Authority figures, bosses, people in power - they were all kept far away so that when they turned on her, she wouldn't regret having trusted them. It was for the best, though, because there was nothing valuable that she saw in herself. There was no reason for those people to be loyal to her.
But she really missed that intimate closeness that one could only get with certain people. Certain people that one clicked with. Had chemistry with. In other words, she missed skin and sweat and sex.
However, in the past two years, she had been so busy and so restricted in her activities, watched like a hawk by authorities she wanted to tie bricks to and drown, that she had not been able to go out and meet all those boys that would all but tattoo her number onto their skin just to have a chance at going on one date with her.
It drove her nuts. To the brink of insanity. It made her want to call up her boss and scream so loudly that he'd drive himself into a river by accident. "Do you realise this is my youth?!" she wanted to holler into his ear. "Those guys should all be mine!"
Imagine her shock when she realised one day that there was someone who had snuck past most of her defences. Someone she wouldn't want to throw out of bed the next morning like she had the last boy she had picked up so long ago. Someone she wanted to hang out with.
At the base of the apartment, her feet got cold. She wanted to go home again. A hand tugged at her, trying to pull her back, but she fought it.
She found her way into the lobby of a building and into its spacious, clean elevator. Her legs shook as she stepped out onto the floor. She walked along, every muscle in her body tense, every strand of common sense telling her to stop. Her sense of survival told her to run.
She reached the door and ran her fingers over the nameplate. It was blank. No name was engraved in or pasted on it, perhaps in order to avoid unsolicited attention.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
She wasn't all that sure why she knocked instead of ringing the doorbell. Maybe it was because the physical action of banging loudly on a door helped her relieve a miniscule fraction of her tension.
When the door knob twisted and the door cracked opened, she felt like she was going to be sick. The curry rice she had eaten for lunch was going to be regurgitated ungracefully onto the floor before her. It would not be pleasant for either party.
When the door finished opening, however, she no longer felt the urge to throw up. A calm aura engulfed her as she was invited in casually. She removed her shoes and stood in the entrance, staring at an indistinguishable point on the white wall. It was now or never.
-
Chapter 3 of 10
"Listen," she began.
Everything became deathly silent, especially in her head. It was almost like talking to a photograph.
"I need you to be honest with me."
She forced her voice out, urging all parts of her body to stop trembling.
"Yeah?"
Attentive eyes waited for whatever she had to say.
"Does..." Miki took a deep breath and started her sentence again. "Does this colour of eye shadow look okay on me?"
Blown. Utterly and completely. If it had been an exam, Miki would have received minus two hundred points and been expelled from school.
"Ahh..." came the surprised reply. "Let me see? Close your eyes."
Miki closed her eyes and sighed while wondering what sort of punishment she could inflict upon herself. Something painful to remind her of her idiocy.
"Actually, it suits you really well, Miki-chan. It makes your eyes look bigger. Plus, it really goes well with your outfit."
Miki sighed.
"Thanks, Aya-chan."
If Aya really was the boy of their playful, for-the-magazine-interviews-only relationship, she would be the gayest boy that Miki knew. Funny how she was always claiming to be the more guy-ish of the two. When it really came down to it, she was 150% girl.
"Is that what you came by to ask?" Aya asked amusedly.
"Yu-huh," Miki said in a laid-back manner, groaning in her head, Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid...
"What? Hot date tonight?" Aya snorted.
Miki rolled her eyes.
"I wish."
"No, but really. That's all you came over for? Or was it just an excuse to see me because you're bored out of your skull?"
"That's all I wanted to know. Now that I'm here, though..." Miki trailed off, hinting to Aya that perhaps she really was bored out of her skull and wouldn’t mind company.
It happened to be true. She had nothing better to do than be a nuisance to the friend to whom she wanted to confess her love.
"I thought so," Aya laughed. "But the truth is, I'm getting ready to go out."
Miki took another look at Aya and noticed for the first time that she was dressed very nicely.
"Hot date?" Miki asked with a dash of jealousy.
Please say no.
"Yes," Aya replied with a wicked smile that Miki wished was aimed at her more often.
Her heart dropped. If her doubts before had been wishy-washy, they were now solidified certainties. Of course Aya didn't want her.
Not when the entire pop industry, not to mention every single one of my fellow citizens in his or her right mind want her, she thought dejectedly
"Don't look like the world is going to end. What, you actually believed me?" Aya giggled as Miki turned red. "I have to go to some dinner show with Tsunku-san and Nakazawa-san. Publicity thing."
Miki breathed a silent prayer of thanks in her mind.
"I see," was all she said out loud.
"I'd invite you, but I'm not in charge."
"I know, I know," Miki smiled. "Guess I'd better get going."
"I don't have to leave for another half hour," Aya said quickly. "You can stick around."
It was moments like these that made Miki think for a heartbeat that whatever she wanted could possibly come true. That Aya just might enjoy her company as much as Miki did hers. Aya had spoken in a way that suggested she thought she might lose Miki forever if they didn't spend those next thirty minutes together. She was a little too fast to react. A little too casual as a result of overcompensating for the desperation she felt. Altogether too unnatural.
However, a heartbeat was just a heartbeat. It hardly lasted any time at all, and within the small space of that time, Miki had dismissed her thoughts as a result of her overactive imagination.
She didn't say anything, but she nodded and sat down on the couch.
While Aya walked to and from the bathroom and her bedroom, they chatted about unbelievably mundane things. The hot weather, the rain, Miki's latest food obsession...
"You know what I want right now?" Aya asked out of the blue as she put her earrings in.
Me?
"What? A vacation?" Miki asked.
"You read my mind!" Aya cheered.
"Where would you want to go?"
The game of "anywhere but here" was one she and Aya often played, fantasising about being somewhere tropical or exciting with no work, no bosses, no responsibilities, and no disturbances. It was their favourite game.
"I want to sit in an expensive bath all day and relax. I want to do nothing but laze around."
"You sloth," Miki laughed, trying not to give in to the urge to get up, follow Aya, and poke her.
Instead, she made up a dream vacation. She rambled on about a trip to outer space.
"Why would you want to go there?" Aya asked, pausing in her preparations and scrunching up her nose at the idea of travelling hundreds of thousands of kilometres away from Earth.
"Because I'd have lots of time to think," Miki grinned. "And nobody could bother me. I could be alone and peaceful."
Aya became very quiet.
"So your dream vacation would be to stay cooped up all alone in a cold metal box with the same scenery outside for days on end?"
Miki laughed weakly.
"I was kidding, Aya. Of course not. I'm not that much of a loner."
Aya nodded, but she didn't smile. She turned her attention back to her make up. There was an awkward silence and Miki felt inexplicably guilty.
"Anyway, you know me. I couldn't possibly have that much to think about."
Sometimes she prided herself in her ability to say the right thing at the right time. It was a rare thing, so when it happened, she felt good.
Aya snickered in agreement, and even Miki beamed at the joke made at her own expense. If it made that one special person laugh, it was all right.
They left the apartment after Aya finished getting ready, walking to the station together.
"What are you going to do this evening?" Aya asked before they split up.
"Hm," Miki shrugged. "Watch a movie and be bored all by myself."
Aya gave her a scolding look. "Don't try to guilt trip me," it said. She said nothing out loud and Miki smirked.
"See you... Tuesday?" Aya asked
"Yeah, Tuesday. Bye bye."
The split up easily and quietly, going to their respective platforms.
When her train came, Miki got on and had to stand all the way to her station. Rush hour had just begun. She stood pushed up against the door and wished to be beaten for being such a failure.
You blew your chance. Entirely. There is no excuse. You idiot. Stupid. Ug.
She had been prepared. She had even practiced speaking.
Aloud.
To a picture.
She had done silly things all in the name of what? Make up? Eye shadow?
Does this colour of eye shadow look okay on me? she repeated acidly in her head, mocking herself. My eye shadow.
She went home and spent an angry evening. She watched an angry, violent movie, ate hard, crunchy food angrily, and didn't reply to mail from her sister and Yossi. It was her temporary self-inflicted punishment.
-
Chapter 4 of 10
A few days passed. It was a boring weekend for Miki. Aya had a concert out somewhere far away and Miki had work, but far too much free time on her hands.
She was sitting on the floor in her apartment and eating lunch on Sunday afternoon when she got a one-line e-mail from Aya.
Keiko drives me crazy!! she read in her head.
Keiko was her manager. Her stubborn, bull-headed manager. She was cool, but her personality was just as strong as Aya's, so while they often agreed on things, they would sometimes have disagreements when their strong wills conflicted.
Nevertheless, Miki scoffed. At least Keiko got to see Aya.
She wants a vacation... Miki mused to herself. A vacation?
That was it. That was what she had to do.
She wants to sit around all day? I know the perfect place.
Miki put her bread down, no longer hungry, and she went to place a few phone calls and make some inquiries, sorting out and scribbling down details as she went. All the while, she muttered phrases of encouragement to herself like a batty old lady who only talked to cats and any inanimate object within two metres of her sight.
By two o'clock that afternoon, she had a rough plan sketched out before her on a sheet of scrap paper. In addition to a plan, she had a fresh feeling of courage. She was going to do something crazy. Something insane. She was also going to speak her mind to Aya.
But she needed someone's help in order to make it happen.
The next step was to call the person in question.
Aibon was shocked that Miki had taken initiative and contacted her out of her own free will. After Miki finished explaining herself, however, the younger girl switched into 'mission mode' and forgot her surprise. She told Miki to hang tight for twenty minutes and that she would make some calls.
Miki paced around her apartment for the twenty-three minutes it took Aibon to do what she had to do. When the phone rang, she answered within two seconds.
Aibon, successful in her mission (although having had to call in a big favour) passed over the important information to Miki, who smiled widely and gave the girl her thanks, which came coupled with a threat not to tell a soul about their dealings.
There was a pause on Aibon's side of the line.
"Fine," sighed Miki after a beat. "You can tell Tsuji-chan. But keep it between you two only. Or else..."
It would be for the better in the end. That way Aibon would have someone to talk to about it and not go spilling the beans to any other person. As annoying as they were, Aibon and Nono were a tight unit, and if they were given a secret to guard, Miki knew they would do their best. There was nothing those two loved more than being sneaky.
The conversation ended and they both disconnected. With a final breath, Miki picked up the phone and placed a call.
By half past three that same afternoon, she had accomplished what she had set out to do.
If I fail this, I will throw myself off a bridge. I will pluck my eyes out and run into oncoming traffic. I will drink rat poison.
She went to bed feeling excited. Her new plan would work. It had to. It had cost enough.
In two weeks, Aya would get her longed-for vacation.
A long vacation in Hakone.
-
Chapter 5 of 10
"...and then he says to the girl 'I don't need you!' So of course she starts to cry. And, like, I'm so there with her. I'm on the verge of tears when the other guy that she met at the café the week before comes in and totally starts to dis her boyfriend and defend her. I was cheering for him. He’s so cool. But then her-"
"Okay, okay. I get the point. Can we please go to sleep now?" Miki begged, tears of exhaustion threatening to fall.
"Oh, let me just tell you what happened. It's half finished," Aya said, ignoring Miki's pain.
"No. Please. It's four-thirty. I have to wake up in two hours. Please, Aya-chan. Please..." Miki pleaded, regretting ever having asked Aya if she had watched any good television shows lately.
Tuesday had rolled around and they had met after work for dinner and a sleepover. It was a common occurrence, and it usually ended up with Aya rambling and Miki wanting to go to sleep. This time, however, they had talked too much and it was almost sunrise on Wednesday morning.
"Well... all right," the soloist said sadly, pouting ever so slightly.
Miki sighed. If there was something Aya loved to do to her, it was to make her feel guilty. This time, however, Miki refused to feel it. She was the one who should be guilt tripping Aya. They had stayed up all night talking, and while Aya was lucky and had evening work, Miki had morning work and of course had to wake up early for it.
She closed her eyes, feeling peaceful, thinking about the wonderful surprise present she was going to give Aya soon. She was ready to fall asleep any minute.
Aya sighed. Quite audibly. An obvious, melodramatic sigh. It drove Miki insane to hear it because no matter how tired to the bone she was, she could not ignore Aya, even though the girl was exaggerating and being a pest.
"Okay, what happened next?" Miki mumbled, not opening her eyes.
The atmosphere of the room sprung right back up as Aya perked up and seamlessly launched right back into the explanation of the episode to Miki.
"So her boyfriend, who I know she's going to dump next week before he dumps her, freaks out at the café guy, but the café guy is cool, so he humiliates the boyfriend, and Minako is so in love with him. You can see it in the camera angles and the music. She's not even a good actress, you know? But the story is so well written and the directing is surprisingly good. In fact, this is the same director that did-"
"Aya!" Miki cried out.
"Yes?" Aya squeaked.
"The story. Only the story."
Certain lines had to be drawn.
"Right."
No wonder they had given Aya the longest radio show. She could talk for hours and never run out of things to say. Lucky for her fans. Unlucky for a tired Miki.
But as Miki lay there in the bed listening to Aya chatter on about the cheesiest drama in the world, she felt grateful. She would rather have an Aya rambling on about miscellaneous topics rather than an Aya that had nothing to say to her. At least she got to listen to that unique, humming voice that could relax her and put her to sleep.
In fact, it was working a little too well - the "putting her to sleep" part. She started to nod off while Aya spoke. She blanked out and missed chunks of the story. She snapped awake at one point when she felt herself almost drool. She quickly turned onto her back, which prompted Aya to start talking even more, thinking that Miki was awake and restless.
"I... am tired," Miki slurred helplessly.
"Oh, but you have to see a picture of those two together. It's the definition of perfect!" Aya kept on going.
Miki stuck out a hand and grabbed Aya's wrist, tugging on it weakly.
"Please... no... Sleep."
"Are you tired?" Aya asked.
Miki's eyes shot open.
"I told you a billion times! I'm about to die!" Miki exclaimed.
She mentally scratched off "always listens to me" from her list of reasons why she liked Aya.
"Then you should have told me before. I would have shut up," Aya said, putting on her baby voice and looking at Miki sympathetically.
Miki rolled up and grabbed Aya's head, shaking it just enough to surprise the girl, but not hurt her.
"I told you," she groaned. "Several times. You kept going."
Aya shot Miki a doubtful look. Miki fell back onto her side with an "oof" and closed her eyes.
"Good night, Talkative-chan."
There was a twenty second stillness where Miki thought she was finally going to be able to fall sleep. Instead, she felt hands sneak across her body, and before she knew it, Aya had stabbed all ten of her fingernails into her abdomen.
Miki let out a surprised shriek and twitched violently. It was not painful, and she was too shocked to feel ticklish, but she wanted to kill Aya.
She whipped her head to the side to glare at Aya, but Aya had closed her eyes, her nose upturned, a light, triumphant smile on her lips.
"Good night, Grumpy-chan," Aya said sweetly.
Miki wondered if she should cancel the Hakone trip and get a refund.
If this was a regular Tuesday night with Aya, imagine two nights and two days of this kind of non-stop torment, she thought.
She couldn't wait.
-
Chapter 6 of 10
"What are you doing next Monday?" Aya asked one late night the next week.
"Uh, what am I doing Monday?" Miki repeated, her mind racing to find an excuse. "Yeah, um, I'm not sure. I might have stuff."
Brilliant, she thought. Stuff. I might have stuff.
"I've got a few days of rest, so if you're free..." Aya trailed off and left it open-ended.
I know you have a few days off.
"I'll check with my manager and let you know," Miki lied.
She had no need to check with her manager, and she had no intention of letting Aya know.
"If you're free, maybe we can-"
Aya interrupted herself with a high-pitched shriek.
"Hang on!" she said quickly.
Miki frowned and hung onto the phone and listened to more shrieking, some crashing sounds, and then silence.
What the... Is she being attacked?! Miki thought, suddenly becoming worried and getting up to run over there and try to help.
Right after the silence, however, she heard someone pick up the phone again.
"Sorry. Spider."
"Oh..." the rest of the words died on Miki's lips as she was not quite sure what to say.
She was part relieved, part amazed. It was certainly a good thing nobody was attacking Aya, but was all that commotion necessary? It was a spider, for heaven's sake. She did the only thing she could do, and that was laugh.
"So if you're free, let me know so we can do something," Aya concluded.
"I will," Miki lied again, although without feeling a trace of guilt.
She was beyond that. The outcome would be much better and quite worth it.
"I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay? I have to do some things before bed."
They said goodnight and hung up.
Miki sat down in her air conditioned living room and thought, thinking being what she had to do before going to sleep.
She crossed her arms and looked ahead at the television set.
"Listen," she said, addressing the blank screen. "I brought you here because I wanted - no - I want to tell you something important. Please listen. No, I already used that word."
Miki crossed her legs.
"Listen. I need to say something important. Please don't freak out."
She chewed on her words in her head for a second and then laughed.
"'Don't freak out'? I may as well ask her not to breath, sleep, or eat."
She rolled her eyes at herself. It was never going to work.
"Ug! I can't say anything right!" Miki yelled, throwing her hands up in the air. "She's going to freak out or laugh and think it's a joke and then leave. And then... why am I talking out loud? Ug!"
Frustrated, Miki got up and went to her washroom, where she splashed cold water on her face. Having cooled down a bit, she turned off the lights and went to her bedroom.
She lay down in the dark and stared at the ceiling. The lights were off, but the room was alive with light and colour from the great outdoors. Her neighbourhood was quiet, but Tokyo was a big city with big lights that left no square centimetre untouched.
Why? she thought. Just... why? Why everything?
She closed her eyes and tried to relax, something she hadn't been able to properly do in months. Not when her head was abuzz with thoughts. Always busy, always thinking.
Maybe I have bad luck. I was born with no charm and no grace. I can't express myself properly. I should never have come to Tokyo. I should never have become friends with Aya. Cupid's arrow wasn't supposed to hit me at that hour on that day, whenever that was.
And this is what she thought in those last few moments before entering the world of dreams and nightmares.
Why me?
But if not her, who else?
-
Chapter 7 of 10
Two more days, Miki thought to herself. Two more days until... my life ends. Her thoughts turned sour. She'll kill me. She will murder me. She will strangle me and then beat me over the head with a shovel. No, she'll beat me with her fists first, then with a shovel, and then strangle me. With my own shoelaces!
One could say that Miki had lost her optimism, but first of all, that was an understatement, and second of all, there was none to lose as she never had any to begin with.
I'm going to have to do something to prevent that. Prevent my utter humiliation. Or at least stave off my death. I have to stay alive. At least I have a fighting chance that way.
She began to wring her hands together. Wringing her hands lately meant that she was thinking about Aya.
Two more days until my life ends...
"What do you think?" someone suddenly asked her.
She looked up, startled.
"About what?" she asked, clueless, refocusing on her surroundings.
She was not at home, but out at a restaurant. She was drinking coffee. Aya was sitting in front of her. They were supposed to be having a nice, friendly chat, except that after Miki's question, Aya looked annoyed and anything but friendly. The girl let out a sigh.
"Could you listen to me for once?"
"Sorry?" Miki pleaded with a wince.
"About the nails. The colour I suggested. What do you think?" Aya asked in a dangerously exasperated voice.
"Um... Yes?" Miki tried cautiously.
Aya looked grumpy, but then made a sound to acknowledge Miki's answer as something she agreed with.
"I'm counting on your opinion here," Aya warned her. "If it doesn't work, it's my reputation at stake."
"Since when did lowly me become Her Majesty's fashion advisor? You're the almighty expert," Miki giggled, speaking with exaggerated airs as she announced Aya's title.
She was serious, though. She did not see why Aya would consult her about something that didn't necessarily require her opinion. Aya always went ahead and did what she wanted. When it came to fashion, she really was queen. And even if it was a fashion disaster, she could make it work, or at least nobody would laugh at her until she was out of the room. She did command some respect in the great wide world of popular culture.
Aya, however, seemed to forget all of that on that rainy Friday evening. Perhaps she was curious about what humble pie tasted like. She pulled it all in and seemed to retreat within herself for a minute, looking like she was trying to find the right words to speak her mind. Maybe words to tell Miki to stop being a pain.
"Your opinion does matter."
It sounded so honest that Miki could do nothing but believe it.
"But only when it's not that important."
And that was the humourous catch. Aya always was thrifty with her compliments, not giving them out often. She would disguise jokes as compliments. Miki knew that she did not like to let her guard down too much, but she wondered why she bothered to keep walls up with Miki. When she let them down, it was not as if Miki ever did anything bad. Miki chalked it up to personality. She had no problem with it, so long as she was allowed past the walls once in a while (which she knew she was).
Miki rolled her eyes and Aya laughed evilly.
"You didn't think I was getting all mushy on you, did you?" she cackled, patting Miki's cheek. Miki pulled away and glared.
"Fine. Paint your nails puke green, for all I care," she muttered.
She wasn't genuinely angry, but she sometimes did wish Aya would stop joking around with her like that. It made her uncomfortable hearing any compliments because she felt they would inevitably be followed by a punch line. When they were not, it felt incomplete. Like something lay in hiding, waiting for the right moment to pounce and tear open her jugular.
Aya gave her a look and they both laughed it off. Aya launched back into a long-winded rant about who knows what while Miki stared at her glass of iced coffee.
I can't do this. This is not good
She took a sip of the bitter drink.
"Don’t you think I did the right thing? What would you have done?"
Oh brother, Miki thought. Here I go again.
She made a decision.
I just won't wear shoelaces on that day.
She took a breath to muddle her way through another pickle, Aya inevitably scolding her about her recent short attention span and Miki cringing and apologising as though she were five years younger than her scary friend.
And so passed the last evening she would have before surprising Aya.
-
Chapter 8 of 10
June twenty-fifth, 2005, somewhere just past Nagoya.
I sit alone in a reserved seat on one of the fastest trains in the country, looking out the window and fretting over what to do.
I stayed up late last night trying to think of something good to say. When bedtime came, I was too worked up and couldn't get to sleep. As a result, I've only had three hours of sleep. Yet somehow, I've managed to get through the work I've had to do and make it on time to catch the shinkansen for Kobe.
I check my bag for the fifth time since leaving Tokyo station. I have my printed reservation confirmation paper for the hot spring resort in Hakone and the concert ticket that Kago handed to me yesterday with a devilish grin. That girl is going to enjoy Aya's surprise.
I close my eyes and try to get some sleep, but I'm too nervous. I haven't come to any decision about what to do. Right at that moment, my plan is to go backstage after the concert, give Aya the paper, and then hope that there's a good opportunity to start spouting the nonsense I've been practicing in front of mirrors and pictures for the past few days.
I remain uptight for the rest of the ride to Kobe.
When Shin Kobe station is announced, I practically jump up from my seat and head to the door, eager to get out. The minute the doors open, I race off to catch a connecting train that will take me to the concert hall.
Before leaving the train station, I duck into a washroom and change my clothes. I don't want to call attention to myself, so I dress down, making sure not to wear anything flashy. I then slip a medical mask on my face and leave the washroom looking completely different from when I entered.
I really like you, I practice in my head. I just came by to give you this and to tell you that you're the greatest person in the world... No! That's terrible! I can't say that.
I walk down the street and scold myself at the same time. I must look crazy.
Once I locate the concert hall, I walk a few blocks to a convenience store where I will read magazines to kill time. I'll slip into the hall ten minutes after the concert is slated to start. It's the best way to remain anonymous because all the fans will be doing their concert preparations. They won't pay attention to me coming in late.
Each minute that passes, the tension inside me grows. My stomach flips and flops like a landed fish. I have the feeling that this is it. This is the day. No more blunders. No more eye shadow questions and sidestepping the issue. My mere presence will raise a million questions in her, and I'll have to answer them. I'll have to eventually get it out, even if it's a short "I like you" in a tiny voice.
Am I ready for it?
Oh, no. Not at all.
The time draws near. I start my walk to the hall, and before I know if, I'm at the entrance giving my ticket in, having my bag checked briefly, and being ushered off to my second floor seat. The lights begin to go down just as I find my row, and I squeeze my way through cheering fans, making sure to look away from them. I'm sure that ninety-eight per cent of the people in this room could recognise me in an instant. I have to play it safe.
The stage lights go on, and suddenly I feel very nervous for her. I never feel nervous before I'm performing, but for her, I want everything to go right. It's her birthday today, after all.
When Aya appears on stage, I lose myself and just stare. I'm not used to seeing her like this. Not live at a concert from the audience. It's a very different experience for me. She looks and sounds great, of course, and I start to cheer up as I listen to the energetic songs.
When Kago comes out singing my last single as a soloist, I sigh. I feel nostalgic about the good old days of that silly song, and I also feel that the louder half of the Top Two does it justice. Of course nobody can replace me in that song. I am the original. But I feel proud of Kago just the same. I don't even know her that well, but we have shared the stage a lot together since I joined Morning Musume, and that makes us team mates, no matter how many times I've gotten annoyed at her silliness.
I stop paying attention for the talking part that comes after her song even though Aya's there, but I'm snapped back into the world when I hear the first sounds of Melon's sexiest single. I've heard Aya complaining about trying to master the dance, and now I'm going to see it.
I like my sexiness sexy, not raunchy. This choreography borders on the latter, but when I see Aya moving around as if the steps are completely natural to her, I blink and re-evaluate. I didn't realise the girl could move like that and look smooth. I guess she does have it in her. That proud feeling I felt when watching Kago perform my song fills me again, only this time multiplied by a factor of ten and full of more love than anything else.
The whole concert is lots of fun to watch. Everybody seems to get along perfectly, and you can tell it has been rehearsed well. Aya sticking her nose in her birthday cake makes me want to run up on stage and join them all for the celebration. I can't, though. I'm stuck up here on the second floor.
My favourite part of the whole evening is when Aya sings her latest single, "Zutto suki de ii desu ka". I know that she didn't write the lyrics, but they are striking all the same. I feel as if she's channelling me and singing about my heart. It's bittersweet, but her voice is so pure and so dead on that nothing but the good parts of it affect me while she's in the midst of singing. When she's finished, I clap the longest and the loudest.
The show wraps up, and they do their final bows after an encore. While they're still on stage, I slip out of my seat and go to find a staff member. I have a backstage pass courtesy of the conniving twin, and it will get me past security and into the dressing room area, although I'm sure that one show of my face will suffice.
I get in without a hassle, and I wander the halls until I find Aya's dressing room. I lean against the wall as I wait. I have an urge to check for the paper I'm going to present to Aya. I hold myself back, though, because she could round that corner at any given moment. The paper rests in my pocket. I transferred it there for easy access.
It takes a while for the triumphant crew to show up. I suppose they're doing a post-concert celebration and eating cake.
Then I hear it. Laughing and talking. They're coming. I hear the Top Two serenade Aya with a stupid song. As ridiculous and funny as it is, I don't laugh. My stomach has tightened painfully, and I start to tremble at the thought of what I'm about to do.
Chill out, I tell myself. You're just here to have fun with her. That much she'll understand.
I hear lone footsteps. They falter for a moment, and I know she's seen me. I listen as she continues to approach much more quietly, and I shift my position.
The moment of truth...
I turn around. Skin glistening with sweat, face screwed up in confusion, make up thick but artistically done. There Aya stands looking every bit as great as she's always claiming to be.
It excites me to know that I know what lies beneath that exterior. Beneath the make up, the bravado, and the extroversion. She's still the same person, but she's not impenetrable. I guess that's the difference between knowing someone and knowing of someone. To me, she's not impossible. She's accessible. I can know her. To the guys sitting on either side of me at the concert moments ago, she's part of another world. They can never really know her no matter how many books, articles, and interviews they read.
The look on her face is one of shock. After the initial surprise, she's either going to be excited that I've come all the way to Kobe to see her, or creeped out by my extreme act. The way I see it, these are the only two possible reactions Aya can have to any of my actions. Nothing in between.
"Heeee...?" she lets out in surprise as she stops walking.
"Hi," I say, blanking out and not saying anything else.
Aya looks around and sees that we're the only ones in the hallway.
"Wh- what are you doing here? Are you here to see me?" she stutters.
I pray for her not to go down the road of disgust. I don't want her to be put off by what I've done.
"Yeah, I dropped by to see you," I say far more casually than I mean to.
"'Dropped by'? Miki, where did you come from? Tokyo? Farther?"
This is that defining moment. I can just imagine she's going to freak out once I tell her where I've come from. Of course, I could always lie and say that I was working nearby.
"Er, Tokyo..." I say hesitantly.
I just can't lie to her. She stares at me with an expression I can't read. Is it shock? Disgust?
"I wanted to wish you a happy birthday..." I say timidly.
I've reverted to a mouse in front of a lion. A very kind, beautiful lion, but nevertheless, a creature that is stronger than me and can squash me with one paw. The question is, will she go for the kill or give me a chance?
I think she's about give me a chance because she starts to laugh. It's her defence mechanism for when she's so surprised she doesn't know how to react, but she knows nothing's wrong. I begin to relax.
"Miki, that's really sweet, but you could've just mailed me. Or called," she giggles.
She looks positively thrilled, and she walks the rest of the way towards me and hits me gently on the arm. I get so embarrassed by what I've done that I look down at the floor, unable to look at her.
"But that's what I did the last few times for your birthday since we were both working. It gets monotonous, Aya," I murmur at the carpet.
I feel her take my hands and pull me to her, and for a moment, I wonder what's going to happen.
"You are the best friend I could ever hope to have," she says.
Heart soaring, I finally look up at her and laugh. I like hearing about how great a friend I am from her. It fills me with that confidence I need to take those big steps forward.
"So, happy birthday, Aya-chan," I say, this time with much more strength.
I shake her hands off of mine and I grab her in a big hug. I'm no longer bogged down by fears of her being repulsed by my actions. She's obviously quite content to believe that I'm such a good friend that I've travelled a long distance to see her on her birthday. She doesn't suspect that I could possibly have any further feelings towards her, or if she does suspect it, she's good at hiding it.
I never want this hug to end because it might possibly be the last one I ever have with her. While this moment is one I've deemed to be good, who can tell what will happen one minute or one hour from now? I might let something slip out and she might react badly. She might want nothing to do with me after that, and of course that will mean no more interaction of any kind.
So I savour this warm moment as best I can before pulling out of it so as to not scare her. It could be my imagination, but she looks a little disappointed. I push it out of my mind. I'm too hopeful. But still, something inside me tells me to keep an eye out for any signs. I want her badly for some reason. Maybe she wants me for those same, unknown reasons.
Aya suggests we go into her dressing room because she has to get changed, so we go in. She finally takes note of how I'm dressed, and while she stands there looking at me, she pushes some hair out of my eyes. God, I love it when she does that. It makes me want to grab her hand and tell her to play with my hair some more. I want to simply sit still while she runs her fingers through it. I don't like when people other than my hair stylist touch my hair, but I don't mind if it's Aya.
When she asks me if I went to her concert, I feel like we've reached crossroad number two. Here's another chance for her to either turn away from me in disgust or to be happy.
I score good points again, because she laughs and hugs me when I tell her I watched her concert from the audience.
"How was it?" she asks me, genuinely interested in my opinion.
I'm unable to restrain myself, and I gush out, "It was amazing!" while grinning stupidly, remembering watching her the whole time.
"What was your favourite part?"
How am I supposed to answer that question? I can't tell her because she'll ask why, and how can I explain why a song about an unrequited love that she'll feel forever no matter what speaks to me so much?
"'Nikutai wa shoujiki na eros'?" she asks in a teasing voice when I fail to reply.
I can't help flushing because she's making one of those jokes again. One of those ones where she implies that I want her because she is just too hot for her own good. It's all a silly thing meant in jest, but she doesn't realise that it's actually true.
I shake my head.
"But that was pretty sexy, Aya-chan. Didn't know you had it in you," I admit with a bite. I may as well have fun.
She rolls her eyes at me.
"You know I'm damned sexy. Don't deny it."
I wasn't going to, I think.
Out loud, I giggle and pat her cheek. Before I know it, I've got my nose right up against hers, and I think I'm about to do something stupid. Like kiss her. Of some other absurd action. She scrunches her nose up at me. I can see directly into her eyes.
"Of course you are," I say.
I've spoken an honest thought to her finally. What I really think about her. Now the question is, can I keep going?
I'm not given an opportunity to test it out because Aya bumps her nose against mine and pulls away with a silly look that masks something I can't read. I think I just frightened her a bit there.
"But really... what was your favourite part? Your favourite song?" she insists.
She really does love to hear about herself, doesn't she? That's okay. That's what makes her the Ayaya that I love.
"Your performance of 'Zutto suki de ii desu ka'. That's my favourite song of yours..." I answer seriously after a moment's hesitation.
I wonder if she'll ask why.
"Thank you. That performance meant a lot to me," she says.
"Me too," I agree a little too quickly. I scurry to cover it up with, "Um... because it's a touching song, and... it's always nice to see your best friend sing something so deep."
"Thank you. Very much," Aya says shyly. "I'm glad that you could hear it today, too."
Does she mean it? Eyes wide with love, I look at her.
"Really?"
"Of course," she shrugs.
She's acting like me when I downplay something. Could she be doing that?
No, it can't be.
I think I pin her with a love struck look. She just grins back.
Time to try again.
"I wish I could've been onstage with you," I begin, regulating my breathing so that it's even, "and I wish I could've sung for you, too. I wish I could've sung with you. And, uh, I just want you to know that you looked beautiful up there. Absolutely gorgeous and cute and mature..." I trail off and chicken out before I can tell her why I think that.
Damnit, just say it. Just tell her you're absofreakinglutely in love and get it over with.
But I can't. Rarely can I follow my own advice. It never sounds like very good advice.
She lifts my chin up because I'm looking down. Maybe she's going to help me along with what I have to say.
"Thank you, Miki," she says with a serious look. "I wish you could've been onstage with me, too. That would've made the perfect birthday gift."
Birthday gift? Right! I almost forgot one of the reasons why I've come down here. Confessions of love pushed aside, I reach into my pocket and hand the paper in it over to Aya. I watch her face carefully as she reads. When her eyes widen the slightest bit, I know that this is another crossroad.
"Tomorrow?!" she bursts out.
I laugh and nod energetically, hoping to convince her to have a positive reaction.
"Are you nuts?! Are you joking? Are you on drugs? Do you even have time? Where'd you get the money?!"
Despite her questions, I know that I've scored my next point on the good side. She looks utterly pleased and, at the moment, utterly speechless. I grab the paper out of her hands and then write "surprise" on it, circling it with a heart. She looks at the word and a million kinds of emotions cover her face. I wonder if she's going to burst out crying, and then I wonder if this mix of feelings is a good thing.
It turns out to be a very good thing. She grabs me in a hug and kisses my cheek as she jumps up and down excitedly. I start to laugh because this is exactly how I've wanted her to react. She pulls back, looks at me, and then hugs me again, surprising me and making me go "oof!" as she giggles over my shoulder.
Maybe now is a good time to say a few of those words I've been practicing...
"You didn't have to do this, you know. You didn't have to give me anything. Especially something so huge," Aya murmurs before I can say anything, the vibrations of her voice making my shoulder feel nice and funny.
I shrug, and I carefully reach up and hug her back now that I have my balance.
"I wanted to," I reply.
I'm about to start speaking again when Aya pulls out of the hug. I consider not letting go and making her stay, but it's not good to forcibly keep someone, especially Aya, in a hug. It's not nice. It's not normal. I let her go, hoping she doesn't notice my hesitation.
"I didn't know what to get you anyway, so I figured I may as well go with what you said you wanted," I end up saying.
"The fact that you came to visit me just now is the best birthday present you could ever give me, you know that?"
I blush because it makes me happy to hear, but I have to get us off this topic because I feel like I'm going to die of embarrassment.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come earlier. Work," I say with a roll of my eyes.
"Idiot," Aya says, hitting me lightly. "You're here now. That's all that matter...s..."
She trails off suspiciously. She sounds like I do. Silly and in love. This is when I seriously start to suspect something's going on. Or is it wishful thinking?
Ug. I still can't tell.
"Well, I'm glad I could come and watch. Nothing could've made me happier," I reply.
The awkward atmosphere that we find ourselves in is unbearable. At least I'm not the only one acting strangely, but I'm dying to know what the motivation behind her odd behaviour is.
"I guess I should get changed," Aya laughs after breaking the silence with a cough.
I laugh along because I'm so nervous, and I go to sit on the couch while she changes.
I can't look at her, I think. If I do, I will cross that boundary line and stray from good friend to creepy stalker territory.
So I stare at everything that is not Aya. At one point I stare at a pillow on the couch and I wonder how long it would take to make one similar to it. The stitching is tight, surely done by a machine. Could I mimic a machine's work? I could try. I could go to Parco and buy some cheap thread, a few needles, fabric, and stuffing, and then...
Why am I thinking about sewing a pillow? This is really pathetic.
I look up to see if Aya's finished changing. She's just adjusting her shirt, and so I know it's safe to be looking at her.
Except that when she turns to look at me, I look away. I don't want her to think I was staring at her the whole time.
But wait. I wasn't doing anything wrong by looking at her. I look right back at her. She smiles, so I smile back, but I feel guilty. What are we doing? What kind of communication is this?
I ask myself this as Aya walks over to the couch and sits beside me. I hope that she can think of something to say that will get us out of this awkward rut we've dug ourselves into.
She asks what I want to do tonight, and I have to confess that I have very little money on me. I probably have just enough to buy a meal at the convenience store. Oversights happen, and I left my bank card at home, making me unable to withdraw any more money from an ATM before leaving Tokyo. It was a choice between missing my train or having no money. Seeing Aya was (and still is) more important. I couldn't miss that train for anything.
Aya offers to spot me money, but I decline until she hits my leg to silence me.
"Don't you dare start with that. And don't you dare not stay in my hotel room tonight," she says, and my heart skips a beat or two. "I know you don't know anyone in Kobe to stay with. Now come on, where do you want to go?"
She gets up and pulls on my hand to make me follow. I stand up and laugh to cover my excitement.
"You're the birthday girl. You tell me," I say, leaving the decision to her.
But isn't she going to go out with the girls? I know that she enjoys the Melons' company. I figure they must have planned something in advance knowing that they'd be in Kobe overnight.
"Aren't you going out with the girls anyway?" I ask.
"We thought we might, but I just want to spend my time with you," she says, and then quickly adds, "I mean, I just spent the whole day with them. I'm sure they're sick of me..."
I could never get sick of her. Not really. Get sick of the way she's holding my hand right now? Never.
"Sick of you? Hah. As if," I mutter, which makes Aya grin.
She then lets go of my hand to gather her things.
Hey, I was enjoying that, I whine in my mind.
She says something about dropping our things off at the hotel, and I just nod because I'm thinking about grabbing hold of her hand again and not letting go.
Instead, we leave the room, and I conclude that there will be no confessing right at this moment. We're going to meet the rest of the girls and get driven back to the hotel, so it wouldn't be a good idea to spring something so huge on Aya.
I talk about my day, which is a bit strange because we don't tend to talk about work, and all I did today before coming to Kobe was work. I tell her about some filming I did with Yocchan and Takahashi for some promotional thing that I can't even remember because it's not important, and we make our way to the back entrance of the concert hall like any two friends would.
So far so good. I haven't made any huge mistakes. If I can keep this up, I can build up my courage and say something. I'm going to have to be quick, though, because bedtime isn't that far away, and it would be nice to say something before midnight.
Midnight. That's it. Midnight will be my deadline. I will say or do something before midnight to communicate this mess in my mind.
Midnight.
-
Chapter 9 of 10
Aya and I run into the van laughing at how we're holding everyone up by being so slow. We climb in one after the other and everyone inside shifts spots so that we have room to sit. Tsuji and Kago grin at me and wink. I can't help myself, so I grin back. It's thanks to their help and silence that I've been able to give Aya this birthday surprise. Aya catches the smiles we're exchanging and she looks at us suspiciously as she pieces together what's happening.
"You two knew she was coming to visit and you didn't tell me?" she demands.
She sounds like an older sister who is angry after being left out in the dark about some secret. It's so cute!
"But isn't it better as a surprise?" Kago asks.
She's on the same wavelength as me. Good girl.
I look over briefly at the Melons, and Shibata catches my eye. We nod hello to each other. We're not particularly close, but we do play futsal together. It's amazing, though, that I hardly have any interaction with her off camera and off the field. She's a nice girl, though, and I remember her smiling and laughing onstage with Aya, looking like she was having the time of her life.
I look back at Aya, who is in the middle of telling the Top Two that she loves them. I'm having a ball just listening to the way she talks to them. She's not that much older than them, but she seems so. She's acts so maturely compared to them (noses stuck in cakes aside). Of course she's not mature all the time, and that dichotomy within her is yet another one of those beloved Aya traits that gets to me.
"I guess this means birthday celebrations with us are off," Saito pipes up with a grin.
"Yeah, leave the two lovebirds alone," Masae finishes for her.
I feel two things. One, of course, is utter humiliation. It's not like I meant to sweep in here and destroy their evening plans. I'm embarrassed to have called so much attention to myself because of my actions towards Aya. The other thing I feel is anger. I come this close to telling Masae to shut up and mind her own business. I don't, though, because there's no need to cause tension, and I will admit that the anger I'm feeling now is reckless and almost entirely brought on by my underlying nervousness.
I look back at Aya and see that she, too, looks a bit embarrassed.
What are we? Hello!Project's scapegoat "couple"? Come all ye merry jokers and release thy naughty jokes upon us?
"I never said anything like that," Aya complains, rolling her eyes.
"Nah, it's ok," Hitomi laughs. "I'm actually exhausted. I don't think you could drag me out for any more fun."
I look over at the Melons to see Shibata yawning exaggeratedly and resting her head on Murata's shoulder.
"Well," Aya says, causing me to look back at her, "I'm not asking you to stay in your hotel rooms. If you want to go out with us, come along."
What?!
I thought we just agreed a few moments ago that we'd spend some time together without anyone else around. Why is she suddenly going back on that plan? Does she not want to hang out with me because I'm creeping her out? Or did she already forget our plan? Why can't we be able to communicate telepathically? I'd remind her with a sharp poke to her mind.
Shibata and her crew confer silently with one another, and to my extreme relief, they decide that they'll stay in. I breathe easy once again because I know that the twins won't want to come along if there isn't a massive amount of eating of candy involved.
Right on queue, Kago asks, "Will you be eating cakes and sweets?"
I look at Aya and we both shrug simultaneously.
"We'll probably just have some dinner. Maybe go for coffee."
Aya's response inspires indifference in the two youngest girls, and they claim they'll order room service. I laugh as Aya reminds them of last week, and they glare at me for being so insensitive as to laugh at their pain.
When she came back to Tokyo after her concert last weekend, Aya had told me the story of how Tsuji and Kago had spent the night eating so many sweets that they hadn't been able to fit into their costumes the next afternoon. They had had to suck it up when squeezing into their skirts and pants, and apparently they looked a little green around the gills each time they had to twirl.
The rest of the van ride passes silently. I see the Melons all pass out at roughly the same time, followed by the Top Two, who, like babies, just conk out exactly the way they're sitting.
I feel Aya rest her head on my shoulder, and of course I feel a little mushy. I want to say something to her in this moment of weakness where she's about to fall asleep, but we're surrounded by people. I'm fairly certain they're all asleep, but if by any chance they're not, I would be making a huge mistake. All I can do is offer my shoulder as a pillow and enjoy the fact that she's leaning right against me.
I cross my arms across my stomach, and I lean my head against the window so that if I fall asleep, it doesn't droop over and bang against Aya's. That's happened before and it's painful.
Can I really do it? Can I confess my undying love before twelve o'clock?
That question sees me off to sleep.
When I wake up, my cheek is resting against the window and Aya is looking up at me. We seem to have just stopped, and Aya looks like she's just woken up. We smile at each other as if it's the morning and we've just awoken after eight hours of perfect sleep.
We file out of the van, say goodbye to everyone, get serenaded again by Tsuji and Kago, and finally get to Aya's hotel room. We drop our bags on the floor, and after seeing Aya fall back on the bed, I opt to take a seat in the chair. But maybe if I went to sit beside her, I could finally say something. I mean, we're both alone.
No, it's bad timing. We just got in. We need to eat some dinner first, and eating an awkward birthday dinner is not an option.
But maybe we don't need to go out to eat dinner. She looks exhausted lying there. It looks like the only thing she'd move for would be to escape from a missile attack. We could order room service, or maybe I could run downstairs and buy something for the both of us.
"Hey, if you want to just stay in, that's fine with me. You must be exhausted," I say quietly, afraid to speak any louder and disturb her moment of repose.
She rolls us with a jovial smile.
"Nonsense. You came all the way to Kobe. You are not leaving without going out and having some fun."
"But I came here to see you. I am having fun," I mumble.
It's strange. It's strange, and I know it the minute the words leave my mouth. She just smiles, though, showing no hint of thinking what I've said is as strange as I think it is. She reaches to the ground and tosses my knapsack to me. I catch it in surprise. It almost seems like she's kicking me out and telling me to take my belongings with me.
"Come on. Get changed. Let's go," she orders me.
Oh, so that's how it's going to be. She's starting with her bossiness again.
Two can play at this, I think gleefully. I love our power games.
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" I ask with a glare, daring her to tell me.
"You look like a boy. I'm not going out with no boy tonight. This is a girl's night out," she claims, rolling her eyes at me as if saying I'm so dumb for not being able to figure that out.
I laugh. She's won. I'm perfectly happy to let her win.
I quickly change my top so that now instead of that ratty old shirt, I'm wearing a much more flattering top.
Seduce him with wine and sexy lingerie?
Well, I've got a tank top and dinner. That will have to do.
"Okay, now that we're dressed decently, let's go," Aya says after giving me a look of approval.
No compliment? Just "dressed decently" and no jibe about how sexy I am? Even if it's a joke, I want to hear it.
Oh well. We still have some hours ahead of us. Nothing can make me feel down right now. I'm hungry and ready to eat. I grab her hand, and we skip down the hallway to the elevator.
"What'll it be, Birthday Girl?" I ask.
She squeezes my hand before letting it go to fix her hair.
"Anything suits me. What do you want?"
"You know what I want," I answer cheekily.
I wonder what would happen if she said she knew I wanted her. Hah!
She looks sneaky for a moment, and then breaks out her impish grin.
"Meat?"
I nod. That's the non-naughty answer to the question.
"I know a place," she says.
Having grown up nearby, she's been to Kobe many more times than I. I trust her to lead me somewhere good, and so I tell her that.
We end up in a cosy little restaurant where we're the only customers. We chat about life while we eat. I completely forget my nervousness because I'm so relaxed here with her. It's like old times. We just talk and talk, and sometimes we're just silent as we eat.
We finish up, and I have to watch ashamedly as she picks up the bill. Once we get outside, I grovel at her feet and thank her for feeding me. She laughs and tells me to shush up. I blush because she's too kind, but then I'd do that same for her. She'd never be forgetful enough to leave all her money at home, but if she ever did, I'd be there for her in an instant.
We start to walk down the streets. I follow Aya because she seems to know where she's going.
"What should we do now?" I wonder aloud.
"I wonder..." she repeats.
"I'd say karaoke because it's been ages, but you've just been doing that all day," I snicker.
She nods.
"Yes. No more singing in enclosed spaces, please. I need fresh air."
We walk a few more paces.
"How about we just keep doing what we're doing?" I ask, indicating the road ahead and our walking.
She smiles warmly, and so we decide that wandering will be good enough. She takes my hand and swings it playfully as we walk in the dark and listen to the sounds of the night.
Now would be a perfect time to say something. It's late at night, we're pleasantly sleepy, satisfied from a good meal, it's not cold out, we're alone, it's dark, she's holding my hand...
By the way, I really like you a lot.
I don't say it. We talk about other things, but we don't talk about my feelings for her. I can sense that she has something on her mind, too, but I don't ask what it is. She might shoot the question back at me and ask what's on my mind. I'm a chicken...
We fall into a deep, pensive silence that I break when I realise she's not paying attention to the streets.
"Where are we?" I ask.
She snaps awake and looks around at the buildings uncertainly. She hums and points in a direction.
"That's the way to the main street," she says confidently.
I contest her point. I could swear that the correct street is the one opposite to the one she's pointing at. We start to pull at each other's hands until I finally give in and let her lead the way, questioning whether we're going to end up more lost than we already are.
She's right, of course, and I decide to not question Aya when it comes to places she's been to far more times than I have. She obviously knows her way.
We get to the entrance of the hotel, and I sneak a peek at my watch. It's eleven-forty-five. I have fifteen minutes left before my self-imposed deadline. If I don't confess what I feel before twelve, I will hate myself. Such a failure will show that I have absolutely no backbone, no strength, and no will to succeed.
"You know, we didn't do much partying tonight," I say conversationally as we wait for the elevator.
"Well, we went out for a good dinner..." she points out.
"Yeah, but we didn't drink or sing or... I don't know. Party stuff," I shoot back.
How I wish we could have had something to drink. Even just one cocktail or a glass of wine. It would have relaxed me so much.
"I'm not old enough to drink," she reminds me.
It's funny how Aya's playing that card. I've seen her drink before. She's not a heavy one, but I've seen her cheeks get rosy from the alcohol
"Didn't stop you those other times," I say to her with a sly look.
"That's because we weren't out. We were at somebody's place."
Indeed. Abe sure knows how to throw a party.
I roll my eyes at her, though, to dismiss her flimsy excuse as we get into the elevator. I grab her hand and pull at it to get her to listen to me.
"So what now? Sleep?"
I can imagine she's tired. And when we're lying there in the dark, I can say something...
"I could go for a bath," Aya says with a yawn, letting go of my hand and stretching her arms out. "Get into bed, watch some TV, maybe order room service and eat sweets like Tsuji and Kago are doing right now..."
How cute! But I feel bad because I don't want to keep her up. I would sacrifice my happiness and leave if it meant she could get some rest.
"Is it really ok for me to stay with you tonight?" I ask. "I figure you need some down time. Er, alone time. That concert must've taken a lot out of you. You probably don't want to hear people talking or even moving around you."
I confuse myself a bit with that sentence, but I kind of hope that she doesn't want me around, because I'm starting to chicken out again.
"Sure I don't want to hear just anyone talking or moving," she agrees. "But I want to hear you talking and moving. Of course I don't mind. I'd be lonely on my own..."
She smiles at me and squeezes my hand.
The words are at the tip of my tongue.
Aya-chan, I-
But "PING!" goes the elevator, and we get out.
Better luck in the next nine minutes.
-
Chapter 10 of 10
Once we reach the room, I turn on the television set and pretend to become immersed in some variety show. I hear Aya go into the bathroom and start running a bath, and I'm suddenly filled with dread. While this is no different from our every day life when we get together, the fact that I'm so resolute about confessing my love makes me a whole lot more ill at ease.
"Bath time!" she cheers.
I hear the sounds of her taking off her clothes, and I keep my eyes glued to the TV screen. I know she's inviting me to go in there with her, but I just can't. My control is slipping. I've also seen something that makes my heart drop. On screen is the time. It's one minute past twelve.
I've missed my midnight deadline.
"You can go first," I call out in a preoccupied voice.
Before I know it, she has come up behind me and is dragging me towards the bathroom. I want to complain, but that'll look suspicious.
"Let's go," she insists.
We reach the bathroom, and I give up trying to be modest or in control of myself. I roll my eyes at her and strip down. I find myself calming down as I wash up then slip into the big tub of hot water. There's a lot of laughing and splashing, but we don't really talk about anything. Aya mumbles something about being tired, and with a sigh, she leans her head back and closes her eyes.
Unable to resist, I look at her. I stare at her.
What if I were to open my mouth right now and tell her that I like her more than a friend? More than yakiniku and animals and being an idol? More than anything? She'd probably be incredibly disgusted. Here we both are, naked as the day we were born. It's just not a good situation.
But it could be. It might get my point across. It might even turn out to be a good thing. Who knows...
Say it now before she opens her eyes.
But instead, I simply watch her, because looking at her makes me feel good. For a person that makes me get so worked up, she really does a good job of relaxing me at the same time. When her eyes are closed and she's resting, unaware of the world around her, she is able to reassure me that my life is a good one because no matter what has happened in it, I have been led to this point where I can be beside her and look at her.
I continue to gaze at her as I think these deep thoughts, and without warning, Aya opens her eyes. I'm staring directly at her face, and so our eyes meet and everything in me freezes. I swallow down the lump that pops up in my throat, and I look away.
"What?" she asks, her voice cracking.
I start to shake my head and am about to make some stupid excuse or joke, when I stop. This is my chance. Maybe it's past midnight, but we're still awake and alive.
"You just look so peaceful," I say softly.
What I really want to say is I just want to kiss you, but I have to start at a safe point.
"Do you like watching me sleep?" she teases me.
Something in her voice betrays another feeling. I don't think she believes me entirely. I'd better do something to earn her trust.
I nod my head to her question, which makes her blush. She lowers herself into the water a little.
"You do? When?" she asks, and my mind goes abuzz with thoughts.
This crossroad is going to be one of the hardest. What I say next will most certainly freak her out. But I have to say it because she's asked. I can't keep lying to her. Or covering up the truth. Same thing.
"Just... uh, sometimes when I can't sleep. Or... uh, when I wake up before you when we're sleeping over at each other's places," I mumble. "When I see you sleeping, it calms me down a bit if I watch you."
Aya nods.
"Mmhmm. I see. Interesting," she says in a voice devoid of emotion or understanding.
This sets me off. She looks like a scientist studying an amoeba. Why does she have to do that to me? Why is it that I'm starting to confess the feelings in my heart, and she nods at me like I'm some specimen in a laboratory experiment? Can't she be a little more sensitive to the things going on in my mind? Can't she see? She's supposed to be smart.
I hit the water angrily. Angry at her, angry at myself for being such a chicken and missing my deadline, and angry at the world for being full of complicated emotions that I can't explain or express.
"Don't give me that look," I growl.
"What look?" she asks innocently, frowning.
"That look," I repeat.
She knows what I'm talking about.
"The look where I've just said something weird and you try to pretend its normal. That condescending look."
This is it. I haven't scored any good points at this crossroad. I've creeped her out.
"Miki, I don't think you're weird..." she mumbles.
Great. So convincing, I think sarcastically. She could at least try to make up a better way of lying to me.
"Then why do you do that?" I demand.
A change comes over her eyes, and I realise I've angered her.
"I don't know. How am I supposed to reply to something like that? I don't exactly have a repertoire of stock phrases in my head," she snaps. "Don't blame me when you say abnormal things I have no answer for."
That settles it. She's disgusted. I don't know what she thinks I feel, but I can tell that I've crossed the line.
Goddamn her and her stupidity. Why do I have to fall for someone so inept at sensing other people's feelings? I know I don't show my feelings easily, but she's supposed to be my best friend. She's supposed to be able to read the things that other people can't see.
Fed up and unable to be in the same room as her, I stand up, grab a towel, and stalk out of the bathroom. I dry myself quickly and scramble into my clothes. I'm so angry that I breeze through all of the motions at light speed, and I'm starting to walk off to the door when I feel my bag has been snagged on something. I turn around to get rid of whatever is holding it back, and I come face-to-face with a towel-clad Aya. She's holding onto my bag and looking irritated.
"Where are you going?" she demands.
"I'll find some other place to stay," I mutter.
I don't know. I'll sleep in front of the station. I just can't be in this room with her.
She looks like she's about to spring forward and fight what I've said, but she suddenly deflates, and she looks down, letting go of my bag. I'm free to leave.
"Fine, just go," she murmurs.
Guilt washes through me. She's so tired, probably puzzled by me, and it's her birthday. I've treated her horribly. I hesitate and don't leave like I wanted to seconds before. I look up at her.
"I..."
"Do you always have to react like that when you don't like something? Is it possible to wait a few minutes and get an explanation for something you might be misinterpreting?" she asks before I can speak.
Not that I have anything good to say.
"I'm sorry," I whisper.
That's the only good thing I can think of to say to her. I'm sorry for so many things. She shrugs at my apology, and I wonder if it means there's nothing to be sorry about, or that she's not forgiving me.
"But I'm sorry for saying all that stuff in the first place. It was weird," I admit.
There's nothing I can say to take back what I said. I've said it, and there was no reason for me to lie to her before. All I can do now is apologise for its eeriness.
"No, it wasn't," she says. "Why do you think so?"
Why? Because everything I do will garner one of two reactions from you. Creeped out or happy. There's no way you could be happy about me staring at you while you sleep.
"Because it just is. I mean, come on. Staring at you while you sleep? Don't tell me that doesn't creep you out," I deadpan, turning it into a bit of a light statement with an injection of humour.
"Should it?" she asks. "It's you. Not some creep."
"Yeah, but..."
The truth is I don't want to argue her point. I want to agree and say that she's right. I'm definitely not some strange prowler that's followed her into her hotel room. I'm Miki, and staring at her is not meant to be creepy.
But I still don't understand her answer from before. I drop my bag and look her in the eye.
"What did you mean by your answer, then?"
Stock phrases and abnormal things that I say. Do I say a lot of abnormal things? Do I often make her uncomfortable?
"Just that... Well, it's a surprising thing to hear. I don't mind, Miki. It's nice and not weird to me at all..."
She trails off, or maybe it's just that I don't listen anymore. The way she speaks settles my heart. It tells me that there's something inside her, too, that wants to get out. Something she wants to say to me.
Just do it, do it, do it... I chant in my head, and so I take a deep breath and hug her carefully. She twitches, but then realises that it's just me. She hugs me back.
And then her towel starts to fall. She catches it before it completely unravels, but it's a bit embarrassing. I laugh at her, but I'm sure I look embarrassed, too. I kind of caused that.
"I didn't mean to get angry, but sometimes you can be really frustrating," I tell her.
I say it gently so that she knows I'm not picking a fight.
"...I know," she admits to me.
It makes me feel good to know that she can admit something like that to me. She's so sure of herself that sometimes it looks like she wouldn't be able to note her own shortcomings. But she knows she can frustrate me, and she admits it, so I know that she can see her weaknesses. That makes her stronger, and a stronger Aya is even more lovable.
"But you know better than to get all fiery when I say something questionable," she continues.
I sigh. I know that. My temper can flare up at untimely moments, and with her, sometimes I let it loose because she's like family to me. Just like I have no qualms about having screaming matches with my mom, I have no qualms about letting Aya know I'm pissed off at her.
"It's my nature," I say, and we both roll our eyes because I've used that excuse before.
We both smile at each other, and with that action, all is forgiven. We don't need to say "I'm sorry" anymore. Maybe we are kind of telepathic that way.
Then somehow, I start a tickling war. I push her, she pushes back, and then I jab my fingers into her ribs and push her down onto the bed, intent on making her scream out for mercy. I just want to touch her in a non-creepy, friendly way because I feel like it. I want to goof around and have fun because the past few minutes have been serious and uncomfortable. We need to forget about them. Laughter is the best medicine.
She shrieks and shrieks, and before long, I have a feeling that I'm going to ruin her vocal cords if I go any further, so I stop to let her catch her breath. She's crying from laughing so hard, and she wipes the tears away with a mixture of a grimace and a smile on her face.
I stay there on top of her, ready to launch into a second round of tickle torture, when I really take a look at her and see the situation I'm in. I look at her face and can't help but feel all of those lovely feelings kick in. I stare at her without reservation. I don't care if it creeps her out now. I'm going to have my say and way.
"Well... Anyway... Happy birthday," I say with a small, calm smile.
Something's rumbling under the surface of my skin.
Aya turns her head to the clock and then looks back at me, sticking her tongue out at me.
"It's already the 26th. It's not my birthday anymore," she informs me.
That's right. I've missed my midnight deadline. But that doesn't mean I can't still do this. I can.
I grin at my confidence.
"Okay. Happy start of the first full day you'll be nineteen years old," I say, making up a silly congratulatory sentence just to keep me there for a few extra seconds.
Thanks," she replies with a shy smile.
I look down at her and wonder how to start this off. I know I'm going to. I can feel it inside me. It's at the tip of my tongue.
All of a sudden, I find my head moving down quickly, and I kiss her quickly like I've seen people do in Hollywood movies with good friends, or even family members. It's always weirded me out a bit to see that, but now it seems like a good excuse here. If she asks, I'm just imitating all those people on TV. Not a smart answer, but a good excuse.
She looks back up at me and smiles. She looks utterly calm. It's like she knows I'm just being friendly. I turn a little more serious. I need her to change that opinion.
So I do it again. The exact same way, brief and soft. It can barely even be called a kiss.
We stare at each other, neither one of us smiling anymore. I can see a question in her eyes. She's asking me what this means. She's asking why I'm doing this.
She wants to know? I can't find the right words. They still won't come. I bend my head down, this time not just brushing my lips against hers, but actually giving the kiss a bit of substance, a bit of depth.
When I pull back, I can feel her heart pounding underneath me. I can see her trying to evaluate the situation. Now she knows exactly how I feel and exactly what I want to do. It's up to her. This is the final crossroad. She can either push me off and kick me out, or she can tell me that she likes what's happening. Either way, it's her call. I can't do anything but wait.
When she pulls me into her and continues what I've started, I lose it. I lose my control because finally, I'm getting what I want. I've asked her a question. This is her reply. After months of waiting, endless anxiety over her relationship with Tachibana, and fearing complete rejection, this is the result. This is my reward.
Perhaps because I'm getting this thing that I've waited so long for, I take it too far and scare her. I deem her towel to be in the way, so I kind of move it aside. She doesn't do anything to stop me, which is my excuse that I can keep going. And while I'm kissing the soft skin of her stomach, she suddenly blurts out, "Have you done this before??"
I come back to Earth, and I can see where I am and what I'm doing. I sit up quickly and look down at her, frowning. I know what she's asking.
"No," I mumble, embarrassed by what she's asking and upset that she has to ask. "I thought we had no secrets between us. I would've told you."
"Well, it seems like we kept this all one big secret," she says.
I can almost sense a nervous laugh in her tone.
"That's... that's different..." I mumble.
She puts her hands on my knees. Maybe to comfort me.
"I know," she says.
I want to say something, but I don't know what. I'm in shock.
"Miki-chan, it's ok," she says in an unconvincing voice. "It's all very weird to me, too."
I look down at her. She looks confused. I can't even tell if she's happy or not, such is the amount of uncertainty written on her face. This angle I'm seeing her from is new and different. She looks so... so exposed just lying there. So overpowered.
Oh god. Is that what I've done? Tricked her into a tickling match and forced myself on her without giving her a choice? Fooling her into thinking that she wants to do this with me by buying her off with an expensive birthday gift and then demanding this as payment?
What kind of monster have I become?
"God, what am I doing to you?" I ask aloud in disgust at myself and this whole mess as I jump off of her. "Oh my god..."
I hear her calling me back, but I just grab my bag and leave. I can't believe how wretchedly I've acted. I've lost control on my best friend. My best friend who has counted on me all this time to be a fine friend. My friend who has trusted me.
I head in the direction of the elevator, intent on going to sit out by the train station until it opens later in the morning. I'll get on that shinkansen and not look back. I'll go back to Tokyo and cut Aya out of my life. I'll delete her information from my phone, throw out my pictures of her, and send back anything of hers that's at my apartment.
I hear her follow me.
"Miki, wait!"
I ignore her.
"Why are you leaving? Stop."
Why does she have to make me say it?
"I'm sick, Aya. This isn't right. Just leave me alone," I growl back, my sights set on the corner.
Just as I'm about to round it and go to the elevator, she screams, "What the fuck is the matter with you?!"
I freeze in my spot. She sounds absolutely livid. And her language... I've never heard her yell at someone like that before. I can't do anything but stand still, afraid that the world will end if I keep walking and inspire any further wrath from her.
I hear her come right up behind me slowly, and I feel sick at the thought of the tongue-lashing I'm about to get.
"First you drop in unexpected with some mushy reason and a birthday gift, and you act as if it's the most important thing in the world, treating me like a princess. Then we go out and have a lovely night and get back and take a bath where you throw a fit, I win you back, we get all sexy on the bed," and at this point I grit my teeth and she walks in front of me, "and then you jump up and get mad and leave again. What the hell? Are you bipolar? Do you like me or hate me?"
I meet her eyes and stare back at her, stubbornly refusing to let her confuse me any longer. This causes her to sigh and throw her hands up in the air as if in defeat.
"I don't know what we're doing either, okay?" she admits. "But why can't you just go with the flow? Don't tell me you weren't having fun just now."
She can't really mean that. Not after what I did to her. I don't reply and keep my face the way it is, set in its hard expression.
"What is your problem, Fujimoto? Just tell me."
"My problem?" I growl angrily. "Is that I like you too much. And I have for a long time. Longer than you'd care to know. And it's all wrong because you don't really like me that way."
There. I've finally said the words, except it's definitely not how I planned to tell her. I have wanted the words to be caring and said softly. The words I have just spoken have been harsh and angry, and they are carried along a note of defeat.
"... How the hell do you know that? Have I even said anything to you about it yet?"
How can she think she wants me? Can't she tell that she's been tricked into it? I haven't meant to manipulate the situation. It's just unfolded this way.
"No, it's because I made you do those things just now. I set it up so it would happen."
The look on her face breaks my heart. She looks like she's going to throw up.
"What do you mean you set it up? What are you talking about?"
I glare back. I guess I'll have to spell it out for her.
"I'm pretty sure if Maki or Yossi had given you that gift and come all the way to see you and sweet talked you like that, you would've been flattered out of your pants, too."
I choose the first two names that come to my mind, but I really could have said anyone. Maybe I should have dropped Tachibana's name in there to remind her of him and how she fell for him so easily.
Instead of slapping me or doing anything violent like I'm afraid she might, she starts to laugh. My anger grows. How can she be laughing at a time like this? Why is she laughing at me when I've apologised and am clearly on my way out of her life?
"Ew," she says, and I have to agree. Ew. "You think I'd do that with those two? Or anybody else, for that matter?"
Caught unawares, I unclench my jaw and let a bit of softness back into my face. She wouldn't do that with anyone else? But does that mean with me... it's okay?
"Miki, I'll tell you one thing right now even though I'm still pretty confused about it all: I wouldn't let anyone - anyone- touch me like that. Nobody but you."
I must be hearing it all wrong. She's saying that she doesn't mind that I just jumped her? Threw myself upon her and didn't let her get up?
But why? Why me?
"Why?" she asks, voicing my question as though a mind reader. "I don't know. I guess I really like you. A lot."
So it was all in my head? I just imagined she was creeped out by my earlier actions? My god...
"But you're confused..." I say.
I feel dumb, but I have to find some sort of excuse for her feeling that way about me. It's just not possible for her to feel the same way for me as I do for her. It's too convenient. Too much of a happy ending.
"Well, of course," she replies. "You've been confusing me for a while, you know?"
I have? She's been the one confusing me for a while.
"Every time you do something that I like, I get these strange feelings, and I don't know how to deal with them. You make me feel things I don't feel when I'm around other people."
She does? Because... me too.
"I thought it was just because we knew each other very well, but... Obviously I was enjoying our foray into the unknown just now, so I guess it's a little more than just a friend thing, don't you think?"
It occurs to me that she has stolen my moment from me. All the speeches I've prepared and rehearsed have been rendered useless because she's gone and spilled all her thoughts in a much more elegant way than I ever could. I hollered angrily at her to tell her I liked her. She... she just spoke them as if reciting beautiful poetry.
I stay silent, and so does she. I don't know what to say anymore.
"Come on," she says to me after our moment is over. "We're waking the other guests."
She turns around and walks away.
This is her test for me. This is the crossroad that she's set up. She wants to know whether I'm going to follow or not.
Do I have a choice? This is Aya. There's no stopping to think and make a decision. There is only action. The right action.
I follow right behind her, and when she reaches for the handle to the door of her room, I quickly put my hand over it to stop her. We have to clear one thing up. I need to hear directly that she wants me here tonight despite our arguments and all the harsh words we've exchanged.
"Are you sure you want me to stay here tonight?" I ask in a serious voice.
I realise that by asking, I'm implying that I expect things to happen behind this door. Things that will have us going down that same path we were on just before I panicked and ran out. Things we won't be able to escape from in the future should we need or want to.
Aya reaches a hand up and traces a line with her finger from my chin, along my jaw, and to my forehead.
"Are you sure there'll be no more big secrets between us?" she asks me.
No more secrets? That's a promise I can handle. I nod and remove my hand from on top of hers, letting her open the door, after which we walk into the room silently.
I place my bag down in the corner and go and sit on the bed. She follows and sits beside me.
Now what? How do we get out of this awkward situation we've created? A promise to not keep secrets means nothing if we feel anxious about being in the same room together.
The solution to our problem comes with Aya's laughter. She starts to giggle, and I catch her laughing disease and start to giggle, too.
We are so ridiculous. The things that freeze us up are so trivial. I'm glad we can recognise that now.
I feel so much better after that release of laughter, and she looks a million times more relaxed. We lie back on the bed beside each other and study the ceiling.
"I would kill for some strawberry and mango pudding," Aya tells me.
"Mmm. Give me a piece of chocolate ice cream cake, and I'll be the happiest person in the world," I say, thinking of how nice it would be to bite into a slice of that.
"Or I could go for a caramel. You know that cheap kind at the supermarket? Red bean flavour."
I scrunch my nose up at that.
"Ew. I'll take a package of those chewy strawberry milk candies from Welcia. You can have the caramels to yourself."
"You only like those because they say 'Hokkaido' on the package in big letters," Aya teases me.
"No I don't," I protest. "You've tried them and you like them, too. They're delicious."
"Yeah, okay. I guess," Aya huffs playfully, giving in.
She rolls onto her stomach just then and puts her arm across my stomach, snuggling into me and making me revert back to my uneasy, awkward self. I'm not quite used to this yet. I can see her face, and I see her close her eyes, reminding me that she's just put on two concerts. I reach up to the little plastic panel above the head of the bed and turn the light off. We're not exactly dressed for sleep in our street clothes, but I'm too comfortable to care.
"You should get some sleep, Aya," I say soothingly. "You've been up since... what? Seven?"
I've been up since half past six, but my work today was far less straining than hers.
"Six," Aya corrects me, her voice muffled by my shoulder.
"Ouch," I say sympathetically.
Aya takes her head off my shoulder and looks up at me through the. The slightest bit of light comes through the curtains so that I can see her face. It takes on a mysterious air as her eyes shine intensely.
"But I'm okay," she claims happily. "I don't feel tired. I feel, er, energised..."
I imagine she blushes, but I can't see the colour of her face in this lighting. She quickly puts her face back on my shoulder, and I smile. Aya's just as shy as I am in this situation. I have nothing to fear. We're walking along new ground together.
I gently lift her head off my shoulder and peer into her face. I miscalculate the distance, because in the dark, I apparently have no depth perception. Or maybe I do, but I mess up on purpose. Nevertheless, I find my face much closer to hers than I mean for it to be, and it only takes a slight movement to close the gap that opened between us about twenty minutes ago.
She sighs in relief. I can tell. Me, too. I can't believe any of this is happening, least of all that I'm the one restarting it.
Off come our clothes, and I give into her completely. Call it a kind of apology for suddenly jumping into things before. I let her control me, and I love it. We're both natural born leaders, but she's a natural born leader of girls named Fujimoto Miki, so while I have control of my own mind in all other situations, I'm completely at Aya's mercy whenever she flexes that leadership muscle. The thought might have scared me once, but now I don't have time to feel scared. Just a million other fantastic things.
What is happening is a bit wild. You can tell we're both crazy for each other by the way we simply don't let each other rest.
And then much, much later (I'm not in the right mind to check when), it's time to stop and go to sleep.
High from a flood of hormones coursing through my body, I clutch her to me firmly. I momentarily close my eyes, waiting for my breath to even out and slow down.
I'm not ready to fall asleep yet. I am overcome with drowsiness, but what I have to say is far more important, for at this moment, I grasp the scope of what I'm in, what has happened, and what will happen after tonight. I want Aya to know everything about me. She's asked for there to be no more secrets between us, and we've shared just about everything else that we possibly can. I feel that I need to take the first step in breaking down and passing through the final barrier that remains between us.
I open my eyes, and still hugging her to me closely, I put my mouth right near her ear so that she can feel my words as well as hear them. I begin to talk in a whisper in an unprecedented spilling of all my thoughts. I have not considered saying all these things until this very moment.
I tell her a bunch of things that might be considered pointless but that I want her to know regardless. I save the most important things for last. She doesn't speak a word while I have the floor.
I finally start the latter part of my speech with a painful topic.
"I've been raving jealous of Tachibana since you met him," I say.
She still says nothing and listens.
"I wanted you to look at me the way I imagined you looked at him. I hated him because I thought he took you away from me. He had something I wanted."
I pause to let the next thoughts form in my mind.
"I've been trying to tell you how I feel since you broke up with him, and I came so close so many times. That's why I've been getting angry or nervous around you. It's been anger towards me, not you," I say, but I quickly reconsider it. "Well, I got angry at you for not being able to figure me out, but now I realise that maybe you did. I think maybe you knew this was coming. That this would happen eventually."
She still doesn't speak, but I can see flickers of affirmation in her eyes as she thinks about the events I'm describing.
"I hate it when I become weak. I mean, there are other things in me that I dislike, but it all boils down to weakness, I think. And mine isn't a regular weakness. It's a despicable one. Nothing honourable about it. And I also hate how I say the wrong thing at the wrong time, especially around you."
Silence. She lets me regroup.
"When I first met you, your presence struck me as... I don't know... so definite. There was no doubt that you were there. I was scared that maybe you wouldn't be as nice as the person you acted like while in the spotlight, but I found that you were even nicer. To me, at least," I finish that sentence with a little laugh. "I was happy that we became friends, and that was fine for a long while. But then I started to think of you too much. It scared me so much that I tried to ignore it, though when Tachibana came around, I had to admit to myself that I was in love with you. You know that, right? That I'm in love with you? That I have been for a long time? I think you've know."
Her eyes glitter with words unspoken. I think she agrees with me.
"When I was thirteen," I continue in a completely different vein, "I had a fight with my best friend. We didn't talk for four days. When we spoke again, we couldn't remember or care what the fight had been about. To this day, I don't remember. But it really affected me back then, and I think it changed how I viewed my friends. I started treating them better. That's why I am the way I am with the special, close friends I have now, including you. I cherish all of you because good friends are hard to find, and I know that you're all on my side. It takes a while for me to build up that trust. I've been hurt by people close to me."
I loosen my hold on her a slight bit just to give her free reign to move if she needs to, but she lies there waiting to hear what else I have to say.
"Some of the guys I've dated," I start, uncomfortable about bringing the subject up while I am where I am, "I've really liked. A lot. But a few of them hurt me tonnes in the end. Not all of them, though," I add quickly as to not paint a gloomy picture of my love life.
I haven't been kicked around in all my relationships since I was born. I'm not one of those ill-fated girls. Far from it. However, I have had a few knocks here and there.
"But it's always been the ones that I've been most head over heels about that have hurt me the most. I don't know why. I'm sure it boils down to my tastes and what I find attractive in a guy."
I'm about to go off topic here. I'm sure she doesn't want to hear all about my past love life. I mean, I've told her about it before, although not in detail. Casual "yeah, I've had a few boyfriends, and two were nice but the rest were jerks" types of conversations.
I look at her face, but the expression hasn't changed. She looks like she really wants to hear everything that I have to say. It's amazing. If I was the one listening now and she was talking about Tachibana, I would have thrown a pillow over her face at the first mention of his name. I'm still a little sore about that, but I guess that's between me and him, not me and her.
"But I have to say one more thing, and that's that what I feel for you is twenty billion times what I've ever felt for anybody else."
Again, no reaction, but I can see that in her eyes, she doesn't looked frightened. She might think I'm exaggerating or she might feel the same. Either way, it doesn't matter. I have to say it.
"And I know that you're a good person. So I'm going to trust you completely with everything about me from now on. I've made mistakes before, but I know that you're not a mistake. I'm going to protect this thing that we have. It's valuable beyond belief. You just... um, you make me happy."
I pause, wondering if there's anything left.
There's nothing. I can't think of anything else to say to her.
I feel surprisingly light. I don't feel ashamed or exposed from spilling so many of my deep thoughts in such a short amount of time. I'm relieved. Now Aya knows all about me. If she wants to shift away from me, she can. If she wants to stay, all the better.
I move my head away and rest it on the pillow, closing my eyes in peace. I haven't felt this clear in years.
Aya then runs a hand through my hair, stroking my head without a word. I smile with my eyes still closed. She can see my smile. I know it. And I imagine her smiling back at me. She reaches down and grabs a hold of the sheets, covering the both of us. She then settles down right against me.
I know that what I've said has gotten to her. She doesn't say anything, but the feeling I get is that she's relieved, too. My saying all these things to her has made it clear where I stand in this life of mine. She no longer has to worry or question what I'm thinking, because she's been told and she will continue to be told from now on. I sense that she wants to be here just as much as I do. She hasn't said it directly. She hasn't told me that she loves me or wants to be by my side forever and all that. She has, however, treated me kindly, lovingly, even protectively, and she hasn't pushed me away in a creeped out and disgusted rage.
With us, we don't need as many words as other people do. One look can do the trick. One touch, too. She's given me so many more indications than that. I'd be a blind fool not to know what she feels.
I imagine putting my ear on the left side of her chest to listen to her heartbeat. I'm too spent to actually move and do it, but with my words and my actions, and with her decision to stay by my side, it's been proven that I've passed the barrier and turned left into her heart.
There is no other way to go but forward. From now on, though, we will walk together.
-The Beginning.
(-The end of story 10)
-
Why? (Friday's Children are Certainly Full of Woe)
Alternate story. Story 10
Part One
In a high-rise building overlooking Shibuya, a rare interview is taking place. The interviewer, a young upstart named Miyauchi who has just graduated from a prestigious journalism school, has been assigned the task of interviewing a selection of celebrities who are involved in a company that is yet again the target of gossip and scandalous writings. To be more precise, Miyauchi has been charged with the task of finding out what fellow Hello!Project members have to say about the scandal that Morning Musume leader Fujimoto Miki is currently embroiled in. One interviewee has piqued Miyauchi's interest, however, and he secretly (not to mention immorally) records the interview.
Miyauchi: What did you think when you heard about Fujimoto Miki-san's scandal?
Matsuura: [Freezes in the middle of fixing her hair] Well, of course I was surprised at first. I mean, I found out through a co-worker who called to ask if I knew anything since Miki-chan and I are known to be close. It was the first I'd heard of the scandal. It was Saturday afternoon. No, not afternoon. Just before noon, I think. Maybe around 11:30am.
Miyauchi: Were you aware of the relationship between Fujimoto-san and Shouji-san?
Matsuura: [Glowers] I knew they had met, but I wasn't aware of this non-stop three day love getaway, or whatever they're calling it.
Miyauchi: [Coughs nervously] Oh, I see. So you mean to tell me that you did not know that Shouji-san was Fujimoto-san's boyfriend?
Matsuura: [Nods] That's right.
Miyauchi: [Crosses legs and leans back into chair] Does this mean that the publicised friendship between you and Fujimoto-san isn't an accurate depiction of your real relationship with each other? If you two are close friends, shouldn't you be aware of such a large detail of Fujimoto-san's personal life?
Matsuura: [Darkly] One would think I'd be. Wouldn't you agree?
Miyauchi: [Shifts in seat nervously]
Matsuura: To answer your question in a little more detail, no, we really are close friends, so I'd say that our publicised friendship is more or less an accurate depiction of our relationship.
Miyauchi: [Interrupts] More or less?
Matsuura: [Glares and repeats resolutely] More or less.
Miyauchi: [Nods weakly]
Matsuura: And so now you can imagine why I was so surprised to find out that Miki-chan indeed had a boyfriend.
Miyauchi: Err... So... What does this mean between the two of you? Is this the end of not just Fujimoto-san's career, but also her friendship with you?
Matsuura: [Holds head up high] I don't think that's something the public needs to know. We're dealing with it privately. I'm sorry, but are we done here? I have an appointment.
Miyauchi: [Sweats] Um... yes. We're through. Thank you for your time, Matsuura-san.
Matsuura: [Politely but brusquely] Don't mention it.
[Tape ends here]
An hour later, Miyauchi makes a call and checks in with his employer.
"I couldn't glean much about the Fujimoto-Shouji scandal case from Matsuura-san, although Fujimoto-san's attention to complete secrecy is quite evident. Not even her supposed best friend knew of her relationship with Shouji-san. I have an appointment with Takahashi Ai-san later this evening, but I have a feeling we won't find out much from her either."
He is silent as he listens to his boss' opinion.
"Yes, that's true, sir, and I'll get on it. However, if you wish for me to also pursue this secondary scandal story - the dissolution of GAM's friendship - I have enough to get started on it..."
Miyauchi is silent for another few seconds.
"I'm sorry, from whom, sir?"
More boss talking.
"Occhi? It doesn't ring a bell."
More boss talking.
"She requested?"
Boss.
"Ah, I see. A connection. Got it."
Boss.
"Ah, right. I understand, sir. Higher ups are higher ups, after all."
Disgruntled boss.
"Um, yes, sir, I'd like to keep my job. I'm very sorry. I didn't mean anything like that at all. As far as I know it, you're at the top with them."
Placated boss.
"I understand, sir. No GAM stories because of that, um, what'shername-san. Got it."
Boss.
"Yes, sir! I'll check in after Takahashi-san."
Boss.
"Goodbye."
And now it's time for this part of the story to end and another more important one to begin.
-
Part Two
Later that evening, I sit in a café. It's storming outside, a sign of the rainy season that's just around the corner.
The owner and manager, Ochiai, comes out to welcome me after one of the regular servers goes to the back to inform her I've arrived, but she must see the look on my face because she settles for simply nodding her head at me and slipping back into the kitchen.
My face is darker than the storm cloud-covered sky that has hovered over Tokyo the whole day.
Almost two years and then this.
Hell, more than two years. How long have we known each other? Add on a few years.
It's going to be my birthday in a month.
My birthday....
In Kobe two years ago...
I remain still as the anger in me builds up. I want to put on a perfect front of calmness because I have yet to find out any real information.
I lied in the interview this morning. I said Miki and I were dealing with this blow to our friendship, but the truth is that we haven't spoken about it. I sent her an e-mail yesterday asking her what Friday was all about, and she sent me back an e-mail saying she needed to talk to me. She suggested our usual haunt - Terrace Café.
So here I am.
Miki has some sort of boyfriend? It can't be. Last I checked, she was swooning over me. And I over her. We were happy and making it work. For two years.
For two freaking years.
Therefore, the magazine has to be wrong. The article has to be all wrong. It wasn't Miki they saw. Or it's all been made up. Or... or else it's completely true, and my best and closest friend in the world is not the person I thought she was. I thought she was honest with me.
I sit and fume silently.
I'm going to have to watch her carefully from the moment she walks in. She's so good at hiding her thoughts and feelings, and while I thought I was so good at figuring them all out, now I've worried myself into thinking that I'm not as skilled as she is. She may have been hiding all sorts of things without my noticing for the past... who knows how long. How long has she been seeing him? If it's true that there's something going on between them, that is. How come I never noticed before? If. If it ends up being true.
The door opens and a familiar figure walks in. She has her head bowed down as she looks at the door and closes it behind her. She turns around and raises her eyes to take in the cafe, searching for someone. Me, of course.
She spots me immediately. She averts her eyes quickly and puts her umbrella in the umbrella holder at the front entrance. She then walks over to my table, making a show of wiping off any stray raindrops that have fallen past her umbrella and onto her clothes. I can tell it's an act so that she doesn't have to look at me.
I fix her with a solid look, and when she finally meets my eyes, I can see apprehension in hers as clear as the sunny day that preceded this stormy one. To her credit, though, she doesn't break our eye contact until she sits down and looks up at the server who has appeared by her side and is handing her a menu.
"Thank you," she says politely, and the server walks off looking concerned, no doubt feeling the tension that has suddenly increased in the room upon Miki's arrival.
Miki gives the menu a cursory glance and then puts it down. She looks at the table and sees that I'm drinking iced tea. She doesn't make any motion to order a drink. I guess I'll be footing my own bill. No problem.
I stare at her, but she just looks down at her hands, which are neatly folded on the surface of the table immediately in front of her. Her nails are neatly done. I take a look at the rest of her. Her clothes are sharp, although a little wrinkled. She must have been busy with work-related things. Filming or interviews or press conferences or whatever. I have no clue.
"So, you and Shouji-san, huh?" I open up.
My voice comes out sounding far too bitter. Far too sarcastic. It's laced with poison that I didn't even know I was capable of producing in my own body.
She looks up at me sharply.
"Tomo-kun is..."
Tomo-kun, I think. So that's what she calls him. Pretty stupid if you ask me. Sounds girly. Not that I should talk.
I cough to clear my throat of that bitter taste that has been there for two days.
"Miki," I start, testing my voice and glad to hear that it's expressionless. "I've seen the news and all the other crap that they've been saying the past two days. I've even done an interview about it, which was an unbelievably embarrassing blow to both you and me and our public friendship. So I'm just going to ask you once. What's going on?"
I count the seconds that pass. She looks down at a spot on the table, focusing on it intently, not letting up her determination for anything. I can't even tell if she's breathing.
I count one hundred and twenty-four seconds go by.
"I do know him, and we did spend those three days together," she utters, the volume of her voice so low that I can barely hear her.
I wait for her to continue, but she doesn't.
"And?" I ask, pressing her to speak some more.
I'm not going to jump to conclusions. I've watched too many movies where at this point in the story, the victimised person bounces to her feet, slaps her companion, and screams accusations of infidelity, while her companion sits there, astonished, assaulted, and left without a chance to give his perfectly reasonable and truthful excuse that would make everything better.
Another thirty seconds pass, and when I think she's not going to say anything, she looks up at me, fear in her eyes. Is it fear because she thinks she's done something wrong? Or fear for her safety? Does she think I'm going to get mad at her and do something outrageous?
"The things that they're saying are, uh, kind of true."
Oh.
I feel like I'm floating on a cloud. Birds are singing in my head, chirping sweet songs to their cousins and neighbours. Down below, I see elementary school children playing in a park, and I spin around idly and think about cotton candy and ice cream.
Ain't life grand?
"So you and Shouji-san, huh?" I ask, my voice distant and calm as I unwittingly repeat what I first said to her.
She looks up at me, and the fear in her eyes has grown. She stays silent. She knows that I've interpreted correctly what she's telling me.
"Well, good luck with him," I smile.
I stand up and drop a bill on the table to cover the cost of my iced tea. Matsuura Aya never has any debts, after all.
My one purpose in life becomes to walk out of that café without any reaction at all. To stay completely calm, even to smile as I nod goodbye to the server who will hurry over to bid me farewell.
And I do. I nod at the server who scurries over nervously, and I slip out the door. I neglect to pick up my umbrella. Who needs an umbrella? Humans are seventy percent water, right? I'll be in my element.
I walk right into the storm, a strange ringing in my ears. I can't even hear the rain. I see a flash of lightning and feel the rumble of thunder that follows it, but it doesn't really register any further than that. They are occurrences that don't concern me.
I walk in the opposite direction of the train station, going somewhere else, although I don't know where.
The further away I walk from the café and Miki, the more detached I feel from my life. So much so that I could jump in front of a speeding train and I wouldn't feel any pain. I'm so numb that now I'm not sure if I'm breathing.
I walk headlong into a tree, and that's what wakes me up.
I'm in a deserted park. The rain is coming down in sheets so thick that I can't see a few metres ahead of me. I'm drenched, not a centimetre of me spared.
I reach up and touch my face to make sure it's still there. It's wet with rain, but it feels peculiarly hot. I have to keep blinking. Rain is getting in my eyes and irritating them. It burns and I can't see clearly. Too much rain. Too much... rain? No, it's not rain. Those are tears.
I'm crying. Crying very hard and very loudly.
Without a thought for my clothes, I kneel down beside the tree that I just walked into, and tears pour out of my eyes. I sob out incoherent words. I mumble Miki's name and ask why over and over and over again. I claw at the muddy ground on either side of my knees, my fingers sinking deeply into the earth.
Why has she done this to me? She's lied to me. She's thrown away everything we're supposed to have together.
I never expected this from her. Not her. Not the girl who, on that hot day two summers ago, had confided in me all her secrets. The one who had told me that she had been hurt before but that she trusted me not to hurt her.
She knows how it feels to be betrayed. So why has she done it to me??
"I hate you!" I scream into the rain, and I let out more sobs that threaten to cut off my air supply.
I don't mean that. I don't hate her. If I hated her, I wouldn't be reacting like this. I wouldn't feel so heartbroken.
But I want to hate her. I don't even want an explanation. What is there to explain? She went behind my back with someone else, all the while snuggling up to me and telling me she thought of nobody but me. I can't believe I let her do that. Or maybe I can't believe that I didn't see it happening.
I'm the world's biggest idiot. The world's biggest loser. I've been humiliated in so many ways. I've been violated. I've been broken. Trampled on. Shot through the heart.
So here I kneel, utterly helpless, rain and tears streaming down my face, no will to go on anymore.
And the worst thing about it?
I have to suffer through it all alone.
-
Part Three
Fuck.
Crapcrapcrap!!
What have I done??
That's all I can think as Aya smiles at me calmly and walks out of the cafe, displaying a devil-may-care attitude that gives me chills.
It all started ten months ago when I met Tomo-kun. He was funny and entertaining. He made me laugh. We exchanged e-mail addresses just to keep in touch. He seemed like a good and interesting guy to know.
A month and an inbox full of mail later, we started to hang out. Just going for coffee here or there when we had twenty minutes to spare. Nothing serious, although we were well aware of the potential reporters hidden around us in plain sight. We always made sure to be careful about where we went.
It was all innocent and harmless. We were just becoming friends.
The thing that I know I did that was questionable was that I didn't tell Aya a thing. When we went to bed and talked about what we did all day, I never mentioned that I met him for coffee. I never mentioned that he and I exchanged long e-mails every day.
Why? Because I loved (and still love) her way too much to worry her over something that shouldn't be worried over.
Then one day he invited me to go over to his apartment. I went, and while he was showing me some of his paintings around the house, he suddenly turned around and kissed me. My world was turned upside down because I really liked it.
I freaked out a bit, though, because I'd only known him for a little over a month. No, that's my front. Of course it was because I had Aya, with whom I was perfectly happy. He didn't know about her, though, so he thought he wasn't doing anything wrong.
The next day, he sent me a long e-mail apologising for scaring me and saying that he'd still like to be friends. He promised to never do anything like that again.
That's what made me fall for him.
I agreed to meet him again, and so we had coffee. We then went back to his place, and this time I made the first move and kissed him. He was surprised, but happily so.
We didn't go that far at all for a while. We just acted like we were fifteen years old, holding hands and making out on the couch, but eventually it got serious.
Two things of interest to note.
One was that I kept it all a secret. Aya didn't know about him, and he didn't know about Aya. He never questioned the time I spent with her. She never suspected that on the days I didn't spend the night with her, I was with him.
The second is that I was (and still am) massively in love with her. But I like Tomo-kun, too.
So that leads me to the here and now. I just want to be with them both.
Aya is like my safety net. My security blanket. But an exciting one! One that keeps me guessing. One that knows me inside out and backwards. One that knows exactly what to do to please me or annoy me. Always there for me. Always my pillar of strength. My inspiration. My idol. So adorable when she tries to be funny, because she's really not cut out for the kind of humour her fellow Kansai mates are seemingly born to produce.
But Tomoharu... He's new. He's different. He's funny. He treats me in a silly way, but respects me like mad. With him, I feel like a flirty high school girl. He's such a gentleman. He holds doors for me, and I actually like it.
What the hell?! How can I be in love with two people at the same time? And two people who are opposites in every way imaginable!
I know that what I've done is wrong, and I know that I should have come forward and admitted to Aya what I was doing. I should have gotten her forgiveness early on, forgotten about Tomo-kun before I really fell for him, and gone back to my happy life with her.
But that fresh and new something in him tempted me far too much, and...
Now I'm ruined.
I don't care what happens to my job. I've been getting sick of being UFA's lackey, and I've been sensing that the ship is about to start its painful descent into oblivion.
I do care what happens to my personal relationships.
Ever since Aya's nineteenth birthday, my fear has been a scandal involving me and her. I never imagined that I'd first be involved in a scandal with some comedian I met by chance at a television studio.
I want to explain it to her, though. I want to tell her that I have never stopped thinking about her. That everything I've said to her the past two years is true. Each time I've said "I love you", I've meant it even more than the last.
As for Tomo-kun... I have to tell him about Aya. About me and her. As painful and as awkward as it will be, I have to be entirely honest with him.
If I was an optimist, I'd think that I could explain things to both of them and then choose one to stay with. The one that was least pissed off with me.
But I'm an realist (usually), and I think that neither of them are going to be too pleased with me. If anything, though, Tomo-kun will be the lesser of the offended.
But I don't want to have to choose him. Not after seeing Aya in such a shocked state that all she could do was smile in the wake of such terrible and life-destroying news. I feel like I have to dedicate the rest of my pathetic life to making it up to her.
Then what am I waiting for?
I spring up from my seat, running by the server that has just seen Aya out and yelling something about money on the table. She'll get the point.
Just like Aya, I leave my umbrella behind. There's no time for that. I look around wildly, but I don't see her on the street.
I'm about to give up when the door to the cafe opens and the server pops her head out.
"She went that way," she says, pointing in the opposite direction the station.
She must have seen what way Aya turned after stepping out.
"Thanks!" I exclaim gratefully to the observant girl as I take off sprinting.
The surface of the street is slick with rain and devoid of pedestrians. Nobody - even people with full rain gear - dares to brave this storm. But I don't care. I'm soaked within thirty seconds, but finding Aya is more important.
However, I do slow down to a slight jog because I keep slipping. Also, if I'm going too quickly, I might run right by her.
As I scour the streets for her, I think of what I can possibly say to start making things better. I guess I have to start with an apology. But that's not going to be good enough. Not even close. After saying "I'm sorry", I'll be at a loss.
Then I see her. She's backing away from a tree in a tiny park.
What is she doing??
I carry on at a fast but cautious walking pace.
I watch with a heavy heart as she kneels down in the dirt and starts to cry.
So this is her true reaction. It has hit her now.
I move in closer.
Her skirt is getting muddy. I wish she'd stand up again. I can't bear to see her like this, getting dirty, crying, and looking helpless.
"I hate you!" I hear her scream clearly above the tumultuous roar of the rain and the wind.
The words stab me in the chest like no other words before. She has every right to say and mean them. I've hurt her. I've shredded her trust to pieces and thrown them to the dogs.
But I want her to know that it's not what I wanted to do. It just got out of my control. I made stupid mistakes. I got a bit confused.
I watch her mumble things that I can't hear, her face contorted in the most painful display of sadness I have ever seen.
I feel my eyes start to burn, and I swallow down my own tears.
I have no right to cry. I've been selfish and idiotic. I've thrown her away. Nobody's hurt me. This time I'm the one who has hurt the people I care about. I don't deserve to cry and be pitied.
I walk to her slowly, terrified of what her inevitable reaction to me will be. I fear serious bodily harm.
And then I find myself standing in front of her. She's got her face covered by her muddy hands.
"Aya..." I mumble under my breath.
My words are carried away by the wind. She hasn't heard me.
"Aya," I say a little more loudly.
She takes her hands away from her face, and when she sees me, the hatred in her eyes can't be mistaken for anything else.
Regardless, I kneel down in front of her. I want to wipe away the spots of mud that stick to her skin, but touching her wouldn't be a bright move.
"I'm sorry."
She looks right through my face. I don't know if she's heard me.
"Aya-chan, I'm sorry," I repeat.
"Leave me alone," she utters in a blank tone.
"Can't I talk to you for a minute?" I ask.
She shakes her head.
"I don't want to hear any lame excuses. Just stand up and get the hell away from me," she says, her words carrying a wild bite meant for my jugular.
"Please, Aya," I plead.
Her face is a stone when she looks up at me, and it tells me to leave or she'll get physical about it. I don't doubt it, but she can kick and punch me as much as she wants. I'm not going to give up.
"I've never stopped loving you, and that's the truth," I tell her in a soft voice that has just enough volume so that she can hear over the storm.
She breaks down crying again. I take this as my cue to reach out and hug her. She pushes me away violently, but I expect that to happen, so I just hold her tightly.
"Stop it!" she cries.
I don't let go.
"Stop!" she repeats again.
I tighten my hold on her, putting my head on her shoulder.
"Stop..." she mumbles, but she stops struggling, her voice losing its power.
"I'm so sorry," I whisper into her ear. "I'm so sorry, Aya."
She tries one more time to pull out of my embrace, but all her strength seems to have left her body.
"I'm sorry," I repeat again and again, and she just cries, her head hanging over my shoulder.
"Please," she manages to sob out.
"Please what?" I ask.
"...don't..."
Don't? Don't hug her? Don't stay? Don't leave?
"Don't what?" I ask gently, not wanting to set her off.
"D-don't- don't say you're s-sorry," she says between gasps of air.
I instinctively rub her back even though I know that more contact between us might make her get serious about trying to push me away. However, years of experience comforting her has built up automatic reactions in me, and this is just one of them.
"But I am. I can't believe I did this to you," I respond.
"Why did you do it?" she asks.
I wince. At least she's talking to me. The problem is that I don't know what to say.
"Would you believe me if I told you I was lost?" I try.
I can feel her shake her head.
"Aya, I was confused. It was all new with him, and it just unfolded that way."
That's got to be the lamest thing a cheater has ever said to the person who has been wronged.
She pulls away from my arms, but not in a rough way. I let her go because it doesn't feel like she's about to run.
"If you were bored with me, you should've said something," she says, her tone angry, her face hurt.
I put my hands on her shoulders, but she flinches away, so I take my hands away.
"No, I've never gotten bored of you. He was just different, and I enjoyed his company."
"I can't believe it, Miki. I just..." she breaks off as a lump of tears seem to come out of her eyes and spill down her cheeks, although with all the rain still falling, it's hard to tell.
"I made a mistake in judgement and I hurt you. But you have to know that I still love you. Even more than ever. You know that. I know you do."
I'm bluffing. I have no idea if she thinks I still love her. But it's the truth.
"I know!" she yells at me, suddenly clenching her fists. "And I hate you!!"
I flinch, but when I look at her eyes, they betray the opposite of her harsh statement. Those aren't eyes full of hatred. Sure she's sad, hurt, and angry, but she doesn't hate me. She's disappointed because she is looking at someone that she loves, but that someone has fallen from grace.
"You don't mean that," I say, and for some reason, the tears that I swallowed down earlier have resurfaced, and they start to climb down my cheeks slowly.
"No, but I wish I did," she hisses.
A loud clap of thunder that shakes the ground makes us jump, but we don't laugh like we normally would.
"Can you forgive me?" I ask, even though it's not the right place in the conversation to insert such a request.
"No," she replies in the same voice without thinking.
"Can you give me a chance?" I beg.
Her hesitation to reply gives me hope. It means that she's listening to what I'm saying and thinking about it hard.
"How can I?" she asks, all the malice in her voice gone again to be replaced by weakness. "You've betrayed my trust. You've ruined the entire foundation that you and I stood on. You killed my heart. I'm so... so embarrassed."
I sniff and scream at myself in my head for my tears to stop. She's going to get angry at me for crying. I don't deserve to cry.
"I'm sorry," I babble.
I'm starting to see the futility of my actions. We're going to go round and round and spar with our words, never reaching a conclusion that either one of us are satisfied with.
"I'm sorry," I repeat, and I stand up.
To my surprise, Aya looks up at me, slightly startled.
"If you don't want to listen to what I have to say, just tell me. I'll leave you alone," I say, defeated.
Another crack of thunder tears through the city, but this time neither of us jumps. We're locked in a battle of monumental proportions. A battle of two wills that are so stubborn that no good can come out of it.
Aya is the first to break and look away. She looks at her dirtied hands and wipes them on her skirt. She then stands up and faces me squarely, looking back into my eyes. She looks serious. A bit like when she's on stage and she's just about to start a song that means a lot to her.
"I'm going to give you one shot to talk, and that's only because we've known each other for the amount of time we have. I hate what you've done to me, Fujimoto Miki, and I'm not going to forgive you. But if it'll clear some of the air between us, then by all means, talk. And make it good."
I can't believe she's going to give me a chance to explain myself. Not that I have anything to say beyond what I've already said, but at least there's hope.
"But let's get out of the rain because I'm highly uncomfortable," she says.
She turns away and starts to walk to the main street. I follow quickly, wondering where we're going to go.
We walk like that the whole way. Aya in front, me trailing behind, and no talking. Just before we hit the main road, Aya turns around to me.
"I want us to be clear on something. You are a liar and a terrible person. I can't believe that I've been blind for however long you've been going around behind my back like that. I'll never forget what you've done to me. I'll never forgive you. Never. You disgust me. Clear?"
I nod in shock, and when she turns around and starts to walk again, I clench my fist as more tears spill out my eyes.
I know that she means it. No matter how many times I apologise and show her that I can be trusted, she'll never be able to forget this. She'll hold it against me for the rest of her life, and if I should die before her, not even that will thaw out her heart and let her forgive me.
Well, there you go, Fujimoto. You've gone and done it again. Ruined a perfectly good thing.
You stupid screw-up.
-The end of story 11
-
Why? II (Friday's Children are Certainly Full of Woe)
Alternate story. Story 11
One - Prelude
I stare at the old, dog-eared photograph in my hand. I haven't looked at it in a long time. Years, I believe. It's the same as I remember it. Maybe a little gloomier.
No, that's probably just my mood at the moment.
It's been about ten years, I think, addressing the subject of the picture in my mind. Ten years since we last spoke to each other.
I sigh and put the photo back in the folder I keep it stored in, burying it in the back of the drawer with the small pile of things to which I've attached the invisible and fitting label of "memories".
I sit and wonder what she's doing now. I look at my watch. Probably still at the post office. There was a long line up and she was near the back of it when I saw her.
When I saw her. I saw her just now. Not twenty minutes ago. At the post office near my new apartment complex. After ten years. She has no way of knowing I live in this neighbourhood now, so her visit must have been unplanned. It couldn't have possibly been an attempt to make herself seen by me. To rub in my face what we've lost. No. What I've lost.
I wonder what she does these days. She quit the business a few years after we stopped talking. The reason she gave to the public and her fans was that she wanted to concentrate on her life and starting a family. Now whenever her name comes up in the news, it's a sighting of her with a man or with a child, and there is no lack of fervent speculation as to what it all means. She's done an excellent job avoiding the press and prying eyes. Nobody really knows what her situation is. Is she married? Does she have a child? What does she do for a living?
She's a mystery and will remain a mystery to the end. Even to me. I used to be the closest thing to her. Closer to her than her own skin. But that all changed. Mistakes were made and there was no returning to a normal life after that.
The way in which she got angry at me... It still chills my blood to think about it. To see the look on her face when she sat me down in that café and asked me to tell her the truth. The way she cried and yelled later in the rain. And then it was like a light switch was turned off, and she became a blank piece of paper to me. She shut me out completely and didn't let me know what she was thinking. We went somewhere to talk - another café - and I explained things to her, and she sat there, not protesting, not crying, not giving me dirty looks. When I was done, she said that she didn't want to talk to me ever again, and she said it in the calmest voice I've ever heard her use. Then she stood up and left, leaving me to pay the bill.
Of course that wasn't the last time we talked. Work called for us to talk. But just barely.
I got kicked out of Hellopro for having a boyfriend for ten months while I'd had Aya for two years, but not before some super-tense meetings. Aya was at some of them, and we had to be civil to one another. Being in the Project hadn't taught us nothing. We were good actors when we needed to be, and so we used that skill around each other.
I got chewed out by various authorities, and even Tsunku expressed his concern.
What a hypocrite. He was always telling me he wanted me to be happy. When he told me he was going to allow me and Aya to work together, he said it was to make us happy. And then when I was photographed and stuck in a magazine without my permission, he got angry and told me I should be more serious, take responsibility, and not hurt those around me.
Come to think of it, maybe he knew about Aya and me. Maybe he got defensive because he always liked her better. That was no secret. Aya could do no wrong in his eyes. She was the perfect example of how he wanted his students to turn out. I never had a problem with this, even though it left me with an inferior position as the slightly off-kilter sister who was just one point shy of matching the star. I honestly didn't care what he thought. All I cared about was what I thought and what Aya thought. But if his adoration for that girl was the reason why he was so strict with my punishment, then I had to raise the "it's not fair" flag. He probably couldn't stand to see her heart broken, and so he took revenge in her place. He dealt me the ultimate blow. He cut me from the roster. He fired me.
And one of these days, I'm going to have to stop being so paranoid. Tsunku probably didn't know about me and Aya, and even if he did, he was too much in love with money to bother with petty revenge. The truth was that he saw that I was no longer of financial use to the Project, and so he cut me loose.
I drifted around after that trying to find work. I found some here and there. It seems like I still had marketable potential. But the big companies I could have gone to didn't want me. I wasn't fresh meat. People knew my name, and I already had a reputation. They preferred introducing new talent to an unsuspecting audience, not re-using other companies' leftovers.
So now I work for a magazine. I'm not even sure what my official job description is, but it keeps me busy and amused. Of all the people to work for, I work for Michishige Sayumi. At first I refused to work for her, but when I couldn't find anything better, I figured I could just treat her the same as I always did and I could get away with it because we were old comrades who worked side-by-side on a battlefield long ago.
I was pretty much right. Shige lets me trample all over her playfully, and she keeps telling me she's the cutest thing on Earth. She certainly is cute, but I'm never going to admit to her that I agree with her. She never uses her position as owner of the magazine to force me into submission. She listens to my suggestions and lets me speak honestly with no holds barred. I guess my job description could be aptly put as "Boss' Right Hand Man". Not her secretary. I have a lot of say in what goes into our weekly publication. I attend meetings and meet high-profile people. I make big decisions all on my own. I only make tea for myself (and sometimes Shige if it's cold out and I feel sorry for her). Not bad for a girl who only finished high school.
I work all day, but when I come home, I revert to an unprofessional me. I sit around, read, listen to music, eat, and do normal things just like everyone else does.
Unlike today. Today I took the day off. This morning I went shopping and then to the post office. That's how I was happened to see her. I got home at twelve-fifteen and am now sitting here. I haven't prepared anything for lunch yet, although I know I should. Instead, I'm sitting on my bed looking at a picture of a girl I knew ten years ago. A girl I haven't seen in all those ten years. A girl who I keep trying to forget about. There have been things that have helped me erase those memories, but every once in a while there's something that reminds me.
I sigh. The front door opens and I wince. I should have gotten something for lunch.
"I'm home," says a voice.
I smile. This is probably my favourite thing. Those rare days meet up at home for lunch on a week day. It happens maybe once every year if we're lucky. I lean back and wait. I hear soft footsteps come towards me and I look up.
"Welcome back," I say, opening my arms for a hug.
I'm smothered with a good one, and I hold on tightly, trying to get the bad taste out of my mind. Trying to forget about seeing Aya. It's just a moment that I know will pass, but I want it to pass quickly.
"You're uncharacteristically affectionate today, Micchan."
I laugh.
"I missed you."
"Made anything for lunch?"
I scowl.
"What am I? Your personal chef?"
I expect nobody to expect anything from me.
"Don't get angry. You know I don't mean it."
Good save. I like our playfulness.
"Let's go out," I suggest.
"Where?"
I think.
"Anywhere away from the post office," I mutter without meaning to.
"Eh? Why?"
I take a long look at the man who has sat down beside me. He doesn't have any idea about that chapter of my life. I'd like to keep it that way. Nobody should know.
I delay my answer to him.
What would my life be if he hadn't come to Tokyo? He's an old friend from school. One of the ones I left when I moved down here. Everyone always thought we'd end up together. I delighted in proving them wrong for a few years, but it turns out they were right. He happened to come to school and then find work here, and somehow we picked up our friendship where it was left off when we were teenagers. Our friendship had always carried that potential to someday become something more. We were given the chance.
But why? Why did we have that chance? Because I messed up what I was really supposed to have. But I've resigned myself to settling for second best. Although I hope Hiroshi never finds that out.
"Because there's a good Korean restaurant in the opposite direction," I quip, jumping up and grabbing Hiroshi's hand to pull him up. "Let's go."
As I pull him after me, I wonder what the near future will hold for me. Somehow I believe that seeing Aya at the post office can't have been a coincidence. It must be a sign. One of those signs that I don't believe in, but a sign nonetheless. A prelude to a dramatic three-act play that will unfold in my life and rock the steady boat that I sit relatively comfortably on. I make a mental note to have my proverbial umbrella ready for the downpour.
-
Two - Prelude
I saw Miki at the post office today. She thinks I didn't see her. She looked all proud when she dodged her way out of my line of sight, hiding behind the tall man that stood in front of her.
But I saw her. It was definitely her.
She hasn't changed much. She looks older, of course, but still the same. She's aged well, and I'm surprised. One would think that she would have let herself go downhill. I guess it's just another one of those surprising aspects that you learn about someone you think you know really well. And with her, I've got some experience finding out that kind of thing.
I thought that without me, she might have given up caring. That maybe her last few words to me were true and that I did matter. That whatever I said mattered.
But evidently I didn't (and still don't) matter quite enough. She looks like she's doing very well for herself, and part of me is angry because I want her to look rundown because I haven't been there to take care of her. I want her to feel even more regret about what she's done.
I sigh. I haven't thought like this in years. Once I stopped talking to her, I quit thinking about that whole period of my life. I banished all thoughts of Miki's actions from my mind. I actually came to accept her in a way. Not quite forgiveness, but I realised that thinking about it and being angry all the time wouldn't get me anywhere. I let go of it all.
I tolerated my job for two years after that. Thank god she got kicked out right away. If she hadn't been, I would have quit. Perhaps I should have quit anyway. Just seeing all those other people made me think of her. But I stuck through it and worked hard. I saved up an incredible amount of money. When I finally went to my manager and showed her the letter of resignation that I was going to hand over to the agency, I had nothing to hold me back. No insecurities. I knew exactly what I wanted.
Once I was out of that bad atmosphere, things looked up. I moved to a suburb of the city where an apartment just as nice as mine was a fraction cheaper, and I invested my money. I didn't know how to on my own, so I asked a banker friend of mine to help me, and he did so happily and expertly.
I didn't work for a few years. I didn't have to. I spent my time relaxing, taking a well-earned break. I mostly stayed around my neighbourhood and took up some activities in and around home, but I got out and travelled a bit around the country and a few times overseas. It was during my travels within Japan that I met someone that could distract me from my misery and my recently developed fear of getting close to people.
Kazuyoshi became my best friend, actually, and I told him everything about myself.
Everything.
In turn, he told me everything about himself.
He had a daughter named Yuki from a previous marriage. She was one-and-a-half years old. Her mother, Kazuyoshi told me, was actually a lovely woman, but they simply didn't click. They'd always known that and they had jumped into marriage without any deep consideration. His ex-wife had agreed to let Kazu take care of Yuki because she was planning to move to China to take up a job there. Apparently she was always wild and not so good with commitments. As a result of having sole custody of their daughter, Kazu often brought Yuki along when we got together.
When Yuki started addressing me as "mommy", we knew something had to be done. Children are intuitive little creatures, though, and Yuki was always exceptionally brilliant. She could sense something in the air when I was around her father, and so she clung onto the idea of me being her mother. She knew I wasn't her real mother, but aside from being brilliant, she was forgiving, and didn't seem to have any qualms about welcoming me into her little family of two. No feeling of being betrayed by her blood mother. No feeling that I was trying to replace some other woman.
Kazu and I had a discussion. We didn't have to say much. It was pretty obvious what we felt. A few months and a short ceremony later, I officially became Yuki's stepmother. I swore just the day before that I would never be evil. I would never treat Yuki like Cinderella. I told her so much in a half-joking way, but she didn't understand the reference. One day soon I'll sit her down and make her watch the Disney movie. Hopefully we'll be able to laugh about it together.
So I became involved in another one of these unconventional relationships that I so much like to be in. Married to a divorced man who has a daughter and is on amiable terms with his ex-wife. I don't think my mother has quite forgiven me yet. My sisters, however, have stopped thinking I'm stark raving mad. My father straddles a tipsy wall. On the one hand, he wants to support his wife's opinion. On the other, he wants to support his daughter. Thus, he is always dodging the bullet, avoiding questions and simply not becoming involved in anything that requires mention of Kazu. He is an atypical father. None of my friends' fathers are like him. I'm lucky to have him, but sometimes I wish he'd take a firmer stand and tell me what he really thinks. Whether he approves or not. I want to know.
I disappeared from the entertainment world right after my retirement. I refused to be associated with anything public anymore. I received intermittent requests to do ceremonies or benefit concerts, but I always turned them down, often without reply. Tsunku, the man who helped me start my career, gave me the occasional call just to check up. Even though painful memories resurfaced whenever I spoke with him, I took his calls because he was genuine in his caring. I trusted him to keep his mouth shut and not say a word to anyone about where I was and what I was doing. I told him about Kazu and Yuki, and I told him I was happy. He confided in me some of his secrets, and the first time he told me personal things about himself, I felt like I had finally grown up enough and was now invited to go and sit with the grownups at the grownup table.
Ceasing all entertainment industry activities didn't keep me out of newspapers and magazines. That would go on (and still goes on), but they had nothing but empty speculation. I was spotted with Kazu or Yuki (or both), and then whole pages were written about my secret pregnancy and the shotgun marriage. I did my best to ignore it all. My family and my friends knew the truth.
As for Miki... I didn't care what she thought. It would be better if she believed those articles. Then she wouldn't think I was heartbroken forever. She'd see I had a life. A post-Miki life. That she didn't matter anymore. Not one bit.
I expel another sigh. Thinking of Miki makes me think about my entire life. I have to push her out of my mind. Otherwise I'll sit here all afternoon and reminisce, analyse, criticise, and blah blah blah. She's not important. Not important.
But sometimes Kazu tells me that she was important. Maybe not anymore, but that once upon a time, before step-moms and step-sisters were a thing of reality in my life, she did matter. I'm not sure that he's right. Once upon a time I was misguided. Blind. Or blinded by something. I thought something was important when it really wasn't. I get angry at him for telling me what I thought. I'm me. I should know. He becomes silent when I snap at him, and it makes me feel uncomfortable and guilty. As if maybe I've just proven the point he was trying to make.
My phone rings.
I check and it's Kazu. I hold the little ringing machine in my hand and watch it, knowing that after ten more seconds, the caller will be directed to my voicemail box.
After nine seconds, I pick up.
"Hi."
There comes a thoughtful pause from Kazu's end.
"What's bothering you?" he asks.
It's obviously not what he is calling to talk about. Who calls someone out of the blue and asks "what's wrong?" when they have no idea something could possibly be wrong? He must've picked up on my mood. But from one short greeting? That's pretty amazing. Yuki definitely gets her smarts from him.
"Nothing," I lie automatically, and then I think better of it. "Uh, I'll tell you later tonight."
And I will. Hiding things from people is no good. I've learned that.
"I hope you're okay," he says, and I can picture him winking at me as he says it. "I was just calling to ask where you are."
"I'm sitting on the left side of the new couch," I reply in a serious tone.
He laughs, which is what I intended.
"Is Yuki-chan still out with Aunt Yuu?"
Aunt Yuu is Kazu's aunt. Yuki loves her more than she loves me and Kazu combined. That's because Yuu spoils the girl rotten.
"Yeah, they were just breaking for lunch before going to the zoo last time I got mail from them."
"Okay, then. Come and meet me for lunch!"
He sounds excited. Maybe something good happened at work. He works at a lumber company that imports from North America. He's the head of his department and loves his job. I've never met someone who loves and knows so much about lumber. Japan is lucky to have such a dedicated man working for the sake of the people.
I tell him I'll get ready and go meet him.
"Meet me in front of that fountain across from my building, okay? We're going for Korean," he says enthusiastically.
When he's bursting with excitement, he gets bossy like that. It's funny because sometimes I check him. I tell him to stop ordering me around, and he flushes with embarrassment and quickly retracts everything he has said. This time I don't tease. I tell him I'll be there as soon as I can. We hang up, and I sit back on the couch before getting up.
I haven't brought Miki up in conversation in a long time. A few years at least. I feel apprehensive about doing it today. I'm worried. I don't want him to think that I'm obsessing over something. Because I'm not. I'm not obsessing over anything. It was just a chance meeting.
A chance meeting, but an odd one. What are the chances of going to the post office after having just moved into a new apartment complex in the neighbourhood and almost bumping into someone that you haven't seen in ten years? Maybe she works in the area and was taking some time off to pick up or deliver something. Kazu happens to work within easy walking distance. I'll have to be careful in the future. If Miki does work around here, I don't want to make it a habit of bumping into her. She might not matter anymore, but-
No. That's it. Full stop. She does not matter anymore. No more. The only thing she's important for is as a reminder of the tough lesson that I've learned.
I stand up and go to the washroom, touching up my makeup and then making my way out to make sure I have everything I need in my purse. I turn off all the lights and lock the door.
I get the strangest sense that I'm forgetting something. Maybe an umbrella. But the weather forecast has called for clear skies and zero percent chance of rain. I shake my head and take the elevator down to the street.
I take out my phone and message Kazu.
I've just left the building. Be there soon.
I look down the street in the direction of the post office. I sigh for the umpteenth time. I turn on my heels and walk in the opposite direction.
-
Three - Act I
My vision is blurred by the tears pouring out of my eyes. Hiroshi says something to me, but I can't pay attention to him. Whatever he's saying is unimportant in the face of my greatest challenge since I was born. I look in the direction of the door where two customers have just entered.
"Miki!" Hiroshi's voice finally gets through to me, and I sniff, looking back at him.
I'm still blind.
"Are you okay?"
I grab a tissue from my purse and wipe my eyes and nose, followed by gulping all of my water down. A waiter who is sensitive to my distress is standing nearby, and he quickly fills my glass up again.
"Ahhh," I gasp, finally able to make a sound, my breath laboured. "That was spicy."
I shudder as I think of the size of the chilli pepper I just ate. It was just sitting there in my food looking all mild and delicious. How was I supposed to know that this restaurant used the real thing and not the dumbed down version for wimps (of which I can swallow down ten at a time)? I hadn't been mentally prepared. I like my food spicy, but I have to know. I need that vital information.
"Why'd you eat it?"
Does he have to ask me such a stupid question? It's food and was on my plate. Do I have to explain it to him?
I reply by scowling, and he pouts angrily at my reaction. We sit there glaring each other while I take frequent sips of water to sooth my burning mouth. The waiter hovers nearby, frightened by the looks on our faces but obligated to refill my water glass.
"Oh, come on," he finally huffs out in a frustrated voice. "Don't glare at me like that."
I can't help but smirk. He's always the first to break. I let the smirk turn into a pleasant smile, and I stop looking at him as if I want to kill him.
"Then don't ask me stupid questions," I sniff jokingly. "Are you done yet?"
I eye his plate which has one last bean sprout left on it. He looks down at it and then catches my eye.
"That's a statement," he says, indicating the solitary bean sprout. "I won't eat it. It stays behind."
I roll my eyes at his wannabe artiste-ness, and he stands up and goes off to pay the bill. I hurry close after, wishing I had a bottle of water to take with me. My tongue hurts. I stand beside Hiroshi as he pays and I look through my bag for anything to soothe my mouth. A piece of gum, a candy, a chocolate... anything.
I get a prickly sense at the back of my neck. It's like my Spidey senses are acting up, except that I don't have Spidey senses. I look around the restaurant and see a few couples and a family. It's on the later side of lunch time, but it looks like none of them have ordered anything yet.
I brush off the feeling, hook my arm around Hiroshi's, and pull him out of the restaurant as he fumbles to put his change away. I take a look back and see movement out of the corner of my eye, but all I see are people ordering lunch. No assassin coming to shoot me.
I pull Hiroshi over to a nearby ice cream shop, and finally my mouth is soothed and starts to return to its normal state. We stand on the street in front of the shop and eat our cones. I look at all the people walking by us, keeping a careful eye out for anyone I know.
"What's got you all riled up today?"
He sounds a bit rude asking, and if I didn't know him any better, I'd shove him away and stalk off. I know, however, that it's his weird way of displaying curiosity.
"I'm not riled up. I'm just recovering from that pepper."
Hiroshi bites down into his ice cream with top and bottom teeth. I suppress a wince. It looks painfully cold to do that. He doesn't notice my discomfort at his way of eating ice cream, and he continues obliviously, staring at me and waiting for an answer.
"Did something happen to you this morning?"
I shake my head.
"I went shopping. That's all."
I don't even want to mention the post office. If I do, I might start to say too much.
"You're no fun."
He scrunches his nose up at me and then takes off walking, his legs capable of long strides.
"Wh- hey!" I yell angrily, running to catch up with him.
"If you're going to be like that then I may as well get back to work."
He sounds a bit angry with me.
"I went to the post office and saw someone I used to know a long time ago, okay? I'm just a little worked up because of that."
He stops walking at his fast pace and slows down to a slow shuffle, allowing me to keep up with him perfectly well.
"Old friend?"
"Something like that. We parted on bad terms," I mumble.
He takes a deep breath and thinks it through.
"Since when does Micchan get all gloomy about people that are obviously not worth having as friends?"
I would have laughed if he'd been right, which he would have been in any other situation. In this case, however, I'm the one who is not worthy to be had as a friend. I'm the one who did something very, very wrong.
"Since it's Micchan's fault," I reply.
"The reason why you fought?"
I nod.
He thinks again. It looks like he's going to dreg up the best things he can and pass on his wisdom to me.
He slaps me on the shoulder like I'm one of the guys.
"The past is the past, eh?" he laughs. "You lived it, you learned from it. Now you get over it!"
He gives me a cheerful grin, which I reply with a nervous smile that must look more like a grimace. He then takes off with his long strides again.
"Walk me to work, will you?" he asks me.
I stay silent, but jog to catch up with him, shocked by his reply to my worry. He really has no idea the kind of terrible things I've done in the past. The way I've lied.
He can never know.
I walk him all the way to work. If he thought I was riled up before, I wonder what he thinks now. He doesn't seem to notice that I've become one hundred times tenser, however. I say goodbye to him at his office, and I then wander back down the street in the general direction of my house, hoping to make it back without incident.
-
Four - Act II
We walk into a Korean restaurant. The room isn't that big, but it's long, making it appear twice as spacious as it is in reality. Kazu is updating me on his morning. He's gotten a promotion and is now in charge of a new sub-department in addition to his regular one.
"... so we got Canfor to sign the deal with us after such a short period of time. And they met all our requirements. No compromises. If it proceeds well, we'll start the operation within the month and..."
Kazu continues to talk, but I do not continue to listen. I come face to face with her and fear spills through my guts.
She's crying and she looks right up at me. Across from her is a man whose face I can't see. What did he say to make her cry? Did I just walk in on a break-up?
But then she wipes her face with a tissue and drinks water as the man says something to her in surprise and concern.
"...spicy," is all I hear from the conversation.
"This way," Kazu says, tugging at my elbow to lead me to a table.
I tear my eyes off of Miki. Why is she here at a Korean restaurant that I'm supposed to be enjoying my lunch at? Who is that guy with her? And why did she do a stupid thing like that and order a dish too spicy to eat?
We sit down. I happen to take a seat where, if I shift a bit, I can see Miki's table. I have to be careful our eyes don't meet. She looked right at me a few seconds ago, but I don't think she saw me because of her tears.
Kazu goes on about his dead trees while I sit and pretend to listen, all the while dreading the moment when Miki realises I'm in the room and comes up to me to talk.
No, she wouldn't do that. She's either too cool or too scared of me. Once we fell out, she wasn't one of those annoying stalker-types that kept calling to ask if we could talk. She got the message and stayed away from me.
"... and with fifteen bananas, we can create a thermonuclear shield that will bring balance to the force."
"Fifteen bananas, huh?" I mumble, imagining feeling a hand tap my shoulder.
"In our battle against the Temperons."
"Oh, those Temperons," I agree, looking down at my hands.
I feel a hand tap my arm, and I jerk up, looking up and beyond Kazu.
"Right here," Kazu says.
I look at him and see him waving one hand at me, the other on my arm. I sigh with relief and give him an apologetic smile.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"No problem. I was having fun talking to you about imaginary aliens."
I smile warily.
Should I say something to him? Should I alert him to the fact that Miki is sitting in this very room? Or should I just keep my mouth shut and not make a big deal of it? If I point out that she's in here, I'll have to explain about the post office, and if she happens to overhear me... it's not a situation I'd like to be in.
I'll keep quiet. I'll tell him later. Besides, when I walked in, it looked like the two were almost finished their meal.
"Would now be a good time to tell me what's up with you?" Kazu asks, interrupting my internal debate.
"No," I say quickly. "Later when you get home, okay? Now I want to enjoy lunch with you."
I smile and chuckle inwardly at myself as I begin to relax. There's nothing to get worked up about. So what if that girl is sitting across the room from me? It's not like I'm obligated to talk to her. It's not like I did something terrible to her. It's not like she can hurt me now. There's nothing she could say - nothing - that could make me hate her more than I hated her for a long time. The hate has worn off with time, and so while I would push her out of the way of a oncoming traffic or call the police if a gun was pointed at her head, I would not want to speak with her. I have nothing to say to her. I am indifferent to her and her opinion. I'm beyond it all.
"I kind of tuned out. What were you saying about a can of four?" I ask, trying to get Kazu back onto his beloved topic of trees.
"Oh, Canfor. The lumber company. So we signed a contract with them..."
And just as he begins to explain everything I tuned out for the first time around, I see Miki and her date get up. I look over Kazu's shoulder carefully and watch as they leave. The man goes ahead and pays for the dinner and Miki walks up to him, still looking a bit pained from the spiciness of the food.
All of a sudden, as if she knows somebody is watching her, her head twitches up and she looks around the restaurant through searching eyes. I feel a chill go up my spine as I watch her eyes seeking out the person that's staring at her. I shrink back a fraction of a centimetre, and then as her eyes sweep by our table, I bend down and rummage through my purse, pretending to grab at a vibrating phone.
When I straighten up and put my purse back down without retrieving anything, I see that Kazu is still talking and Miki has turned away, apparently satisfied with her inspection of the restaurant. I see her cling onto her companion's arm and pull him out, and a flash of something goes through me. Perhaps it's sympathy. For the guy.
Good luck handling her, I think.
I wonder if she can be completely honest with him. If she can tell him about her past and still have his respect.
As soon as Miki is gone, though, I stop thinking about her. She's like a mosquito. Only an issue when in sight, but when not around, forgotten. Kazu and I finish our meal with a normal conversation. A very family-oriented one. We discuss schools for Yuki. The time is coming soon for her to start primary school, and we want to make sure she goes to a respectable one.
We leave the restaurant talking about the schools available in our neighbourhood, and by that time, I've forgotten all about the post office encounter.
"Don't you think Yuki'd like a sister? Or brother?" Kazu asks me while in the middle of crossing an intersection.
I stop. Kazu has to grab my arm and pull me to safety because the light has turned red. We get to the sidewalk and I refuse to go a step further until I've thought about what he's just said to me.
We haven't talked about that in a long time. We did initially, but he was so distressed at the thought of having to be away on frequent business trips that he refused to let anything happen while he wasn't around for half of it. We decided there was no rush. We had Yuki. We were young.
But now with things soaring at work and fewer business trips, he can be home more often. I'm more than ready for it. I'm not getting any younger. But now is not a good time to talk about, what with being on a busy street corner.
"Maybe she does need some company," I agree with a smile. "See you after work."
He smiles back happily and says goodbye quietly. I walk home, cheerful, nothing able to shatter my happy world.
-
Five - Act III
I push the post office incident out of my mind. Several days pass and I mostly forget it has happened.
Shige calls me in for a one-on-one meeting on Friday afternoon, telling me that she has a new project we're going to get started on for the issue that will appear in the last week of next month.
"Anniversaries," she says to me when I walk into her office.
I take a seat and look at her blankly.
"Whose?"
"Suzuki Haruka: three years. Onitsuka Mayo: four years. Yumi: two years. Do you know what all these three have in common?"
I don't know what she's getting at.
"They're all girls?" I ask.
Shige shakes her head, no doubt wondering where all my intelligence has gone.
"Um, they all like the colour pink?" I try again, only trying half-heartedly to guess at what she's talking about.
This time she rolls her eyes.
"June!" she tells me in a shrill, all-knowing voice.
"Their birthdays?" I ask, wondering if it's part of my job description to know those kinds of inane details.
"No!" she scolds me. "Their month of debut."
Oh.
Well how the hell was I supposed to know that?
"I hate June," I mutter.
"Here we go again," Shige mutters back in response.
Here we go again, I think about her statement.
"I know that you have some built-in genes that don't let you let go of your past, but could you, like, try for once not to mention it out loud?"
Oh, nice one, Shige, I think. You actually sound intelligent. You also sound like Hiroshi.
"I wasn't complaining about that," I say defensively.
She thinks I'm making reference to getting kicked out of the Project.
"About what?" Shige asks.
Is she dumb? She's the one implying things with her sentences.
"Getting kicked out," I roll my eyes. "And anyway, I wasn't talking about that. I just hate the month."
Plenty of other things - good and bad - have happened in June. I traditionally hold it as my unlucky month of the year.
"Well, if it's not that, then it's something else. But you know, it doesn't really matter what it is. Why should you let it bother you anymore?"
"Listen," I say, shifting to the edge of my chair. "I don't have a complex where I can't let go of the past, or whatever. I just don't like this month."
I'm actually itching for her to continue. I feel a need to yell something at somebody. Shige makes an excellent scapegoat for my pent up frustrations. She always forgives me in the end.
"Maybe it's because it's Matsuura-san's birthday," Shige goes on, not seeming to have heard me.
There's an unspoken rule between us. We don't talk about Aya. All she knows is that Aya and I don't talk anymore, but she never questions it. She has respected that until this very moment.
"What??" I ask in disbelief. "That has nothing to do..."
"I know you guys haven't talked in forever. Maybe that's what's bothering you," she says, sounding thoughtful and a little inquisitive.
The girl must be taking random shots. She can't possibly know I saw the girl just days ago. It must be all one huge coincidence.
It's ridiculous. Why does this sort of thing have to happen in my life? Why can't my life be normal? Without stupid occurrences that seem more like instances of divine intervention rather than just coincidence.
"No, that's not it."
"Or maybe it's 'cause you got dumped by the guy that caused you to lose your first job," she continues.
That was a cruel thing to bring up.
Right at the end of June, that oh-so-wonderful, funny, relatively new, great guy introduced a new element into our relationship, and that was the break-up. He had found someone else, and he'd given me a day's notice before going to move in with her. Some who knew what I did to Aya would have thought I had it coming to me, but it was a very different situation. I cared about both people. Mister Spectacular stopped caring about me completely. It was like the light bulb illuminating his eyes died and could not be replaced.
Don't. Freaking. Remind me.
If Shige were a doctor, I'd complain about her bad bedside manner.
"It was-"
"-an amicable break-up," Shige says with me. "I know, I know."
She doesn't believe that, though. Of course not. I always say it, but a few people know it's not true. I've even talked to her about it when she was caught in a similar situation and I was imparting my wisdom.
"Then maybe it's the recent rainy weather," she finally finishes, a hint of a caustic tone in her words.
"Yeah, it's the weather. Makes me cranky," I mumble, praying that our discussion is over.
"Anyway," Shige says, reverting to her bubbly tone, bouncing up from her chair and handing me a paper. "Take a look at this. It's just an outline of my idea. Let's set a meeting for tomorrow and discuss it. Bring your ideas!"
I find myself taking the paper and switching to my professional demeanour, making some preliminary comments off the top of my head. I then excuse myself to go back to my own office. When I get there, I sit at my desk.
Do I really let the past have such a hold on me? It's not like I'm still longing for days of old. I no longer obsess about going back into time and fixing my huge mistakes. I don't constantly sit there and think "I wish Aya'd forgive me." But Shige's right. I have to stop thinking negatively. Hiroshi's right. The past is the past. I've got to get over that last bit of it. I'm almost there.
I look at the list of names on the sheet of paper Shige has given me, and I start to think about past Junes. June twelve years ago: good. Eleven years ago: good. Ten years ago: everything went bad. The next two Junes I wallowed in self-pity the entire month. Now the month approaches again, and while in the last few years nothing has gone awry, I still remember certain things. The weather reminds me. The things in the city that I see remind me. The dates on the calendar remind me.
However, this is work. I don't want to let our readers down by being so self-involved that I don't do my part properly in producing an interesting magazine for them to read. I swallow whatever hesitation I have, and I jump into the work.
That evening, Hiroshi and I go out to meet some friends of ours. We are lucky and have Saturday off, so we can stay out late and sleep in late. There's nothing like a night out to erase all worries from my mind.
The following Saturday, we wake up at noon and go out for lunch. After we are stuffed with soba, we take a walk in the park. We're talking about a story one of our friends told us yesterday, and I hang onto his arm, squeezing it as I laugh until a tear makes it way out of the corner of my eye.
It is then, gasping for breath from so much laughter, that I come face-to-face with the last person I want to meet.
-
Six - Act IV
Kazu and I have a nice and long talk that evening after tucking Yuki into bed. When I was a bit younger, planning the future used to come with a mixture of fear and excitement (mostly the latter), but now this time, it comes with a huge sense of relief. It's a comfort to learn that we both are on the same wavelength.
A few days pass, and I feel recharged. I consider the future of my career. I have a secret from the world. I may have removed myself from the entertainment industry, but I have certainly not taken music out of my life. I've kept practicing on my own, and I've been working on creating my own music. Kazu is my greatest supporter. He's always hinted that I should go back out into the public and show them what I've been doing. I've always ignored those hints. But now... Now I might consider it. I don't want to make a big deal about it, but it would be nice to show where I've managed to go since quitting the business.
On Saturday, Kazu has a day off. Yuki goes off to play with her second cousin, so Kazu and I go for a long walk in the park. We stop for ice cream and eat it by a tiny pond filled with carp. Then we continue on our way, no plan in mind.
We walk along a small path wide enough only for two. I notice another couple in the distance coming towards us, so I make a note to remember to move out of the way when we cross paths. What I don't make a mental note of is what to do in case it's Miki, and of course (because my life is full of silly twists of fate) it happens to be Miki and that man I saw with her at the Korean restaurant.
I notice this when they are about three metres away. I look up and simply don't believe what I see. Miki is hanging off of Korean restaurant man's arm and laughing till she's crying about something. This is the second time I've seen her crying in the past few days, although these tears are brought on not by sorrow. The last time I saw her crying out of distress was ten years ago.
She looks up, her eyes lock with mine, and then it's clear that we're in a whole load of something that is not shaping up to be pleasantly fragrant like fresh roses.
I stop. She stops. Kazu looks at her. I look at Kazu. He recognises her. Miki looks at Kazu. She looks at the man she's with. I look at the man she's with. He does not show any sign of recognition. He looks at Kazu. He looks at Miki. Miki looks at me. I look back at her. She takes in a breath. Maybe she's going to say something.
Say "excuse me" and walk by. There's not even an acquaintanceship between the two of us.
"Friend of yours?" Miki's man asks, seeing the obvious flash of recognition between us.
Don't start. Please, I find myself begging desperately in my mind.
She's hanging off of his arm and they seem close, but if he doesn't know who I am, then I wonder how close they really are.
Also, have I really changed that much in ten years? Have people forgotten my face? He seems to be at an age where he should have known who I was growing up unless he was raised in a remote island village in Okinawa or a foreign country.
"Yeah," Miki says in a quiet tone. "Old co-worker."
The man looks at me a little more closely and understanding lights his eyes up. Now he recognises who I am. I guess he hasn't seen an updated photograph of me in years, much like the rest of the public. I've been largely forgotten. Three quarters of my old fans probably wouldn't notice me in a crowd.
"Long time ago," I add redundantly, speaking my first words.
There's a silence. I can feel Kazu beside me. Miki, Kazu, and I understand the tension in this situation. It seems as though this man Miki is with hasn't a clue. Miki has let go of his arm. The four of us stand as if locked in a face-off. The awkwardness doesn't come close to anything I've felt before.
"I'm Tabe. Nice to meet you," Kazu says suddenly, addressing Miki and the mystery man.
What are you doing?
"Oh. Sato Hiroshi. The pleasure's mine."
Now the man has a name. It sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't have time to think about it. My eyes lock with Miki's. She looks away.
"Fujimoto," Miki says simply to Kazu, and then gives him a trace of a smile to lighten the impact of her greeting. "I used to work with Aya-chan."
She gestures toward me with a brief flick of the hand. I cringe at my name being spoken by her. In a way it seems right that she still address me like that, but in another way she shouldn't even be using my name. It's strange. I should simple be "this girl" or "her". Not "Aya-chan" or "Matsuura-san".
"Yes. I've heard so much from Aya," Kazu says pleasantly, and for a moment I want to kick him.
Great. Now Miki can jump to conclusions and imagine what sort of a nasty picture I've painted of her.
Miki's reaction is no reaction at all. If she's upset to find out I've told Kazu things, she hides it well. No surprise there.
The tension is such that I can see the man named Sato starting to feel it. I look up at Kazu, who meets my gaze for a brief second before turning his head to Miki.
"Say, why don't you two go grab a coffee and catch up. I've got to go and attend to some business anyway," he says.
Oh my god. You are dead, Kazu. Dead. When we get home tonight, I'm going to beat you to a bloody pulp, drown your head in the toilet, fling you over the side of the balcony and-
"Oh, I don't want to take up any of your time," Miki says quickly, addressing me verbally but looking at Kazu.
However, her oblivious man (whose aggravatingly innocent role in all this reminds me briefly of a certain boy I used to date), pipes up.
"Yeah, why don't you two go on?"
I can tell from the way Miki's eyes narrow the slightest bit that she, too, wants to murder the man she's with.
Now wouldn't that make an interesting novel? Two girls with a complicated history reunite ten years later and murder their respective husbands, leading to a thrilling epic tale of two girls turned friends turned lovers turned enemies turned accomplices in crime over the course of over a decade. Racy. Unsettling. A page turner.
"I think-" I start.
"Excellent, then. It's settled," Kazu says, clapping his hands together and then turning to Miki. "It was nice to meet you."
And before I know it, the two boys have walked off, leaving me and Miki standing in the middle of a park on a sunny, warm day.
"What the hell, Hiroshi," Miki mutters under her breath.
I see she hasn't lost her particular charming self over the years.
I don't say anything to her. What do you say to someone you haven't seen in ten years? Someone who you used to be so close to but then was betrayed by? She doesn't say anything either. I wonder if guilt is eating at her.
"I'm sorry," she says suddenly, cutting into my thoughts.
For a second I think that she's apologising for ten years ago, but then she speaks some more.
"I didn't mean for us to get us into this situation."
It's not like she could have prevented it. We both happen to be strolling through the same park at the exact same time. We also both happen to have aggravating significant others.
We don't speak another word, and in silent agreement, we start to walk to an empty bench by the fountain. We sit down facing the water and both look forward.
Just as I've always thought. We have nothing to say to each other.
"So is that guy your husband?"
No. She doesn't deserve to ask that question. She doesn't deserve to know anything about my life now.
"Yes," I reply simply.
I'm too polite to avoid answering a straightforward question.
"What are you now? Tabe Aya?"
It sounds funny to hear her say that. Like she's tasted something peculiar and isn't quite sure what to make of it. Like tasting two fruits never before mixed together.
"Oh, no. I kept my name," I reply firmly.
"That's just like you," she comments with a small, genuine smile that seems out of place here.
And she would know, wouldn't she. I have to resign myself to the fact that despite her stupidity in the past, she knows my character well.
"What about you? Married?"
She shakes her head.
"Not yet. It's been a busy few years."
What has she been doing? I wonder.
Nothing to put her on billboards or television commercials is all I can figure out. It's amazing how even when you completely ignore the entertainment industry, you can know so much just from the everyday things you see pasted on every available surface in the city.
"What have you been up to?"
The part of me that doesn't want to talk to her is slowly diminishing. I'm extremely wary of what I say to her, but once faced with the beast, curiosity outweighs flight instincts, and I decide a little poking and prodding can't hurt.
She raises curious eyebrows at me.
"I suppose you don't read that magazine, then."
Enigmatic reply. She's been in a magazine recently? For what? Modelling? She's too old for that. She doesn't look it, but she can't get away with lying about her age since it's an easily checkable fact.
"Remember Shige-san? Sayu?"
Michishige Sayumi? A name I haven't heard in years. I nod.
"She's the head of the most famous girls' magazine in the country. Ever heard of Superbly? I work right beside her editing that."
I try not to let my jaw drop in surprise. Of course I've heard of Superbly. Nobody in Japan hasn't heard of it. I've never touched a copy, but I've seen the cover of it at stores since it started as a small, humble fashion magazine. To learn that Miki is some sort of high-ranking staff member of that magazine sends me into fits of disbelief. That's only half of the astonishment I feel to hear that Michishige heads the publication.
How could a dolt like Miki be an editor? Aren't editors supposed to be intelligent university graduates who are good at reading and writing and have an excellent command of the Japanese language? Aren't editors supposed to be... not like Miki at all? Where'd she get the smarts to do that sort of thing? Miki meeting deadlines while under strict management is fine because she's motivated by a natural aversion to punishment. But Miki meeting deadlines while being the management is impossible to believe. Simply impossible.
"Oh," I say aloud, hiding my true thoughts.
She looks at me. Peripheral vision allows me to see her eyes studying my face.
"You don't believe it, do you," she states.
I angle my head to return her look.
"But it's true. Some time in the past ten years I really grew up. Left that path of youth we used to walk down. It's far behind me now."
She really has changed. I can tell. She's still the same Miki, but she's done extraordinarily well for herself. Working as the sub-head of Superbly, living with a tall, handsome gentleman, and still looking not a day over twenty-five.
But as I look in her eyes closely now for the first time in ten years, I see something more there. Under the thick layer of good feeling rests a kind of uneasiness. It's probably brought out by my presence, but it seems something she's accustomed to.
"Are you happy?"
Maybe I'm bullying her with this question. Maybe I'm trying to wrest out some admission of misery from her.
Her look doesn't change at all.
"Yeah."
She sounds like she means it.
"Are you?" she shoots back.
I think over my life.
Am I happy?
Yes. Yes, I definitely am. I'm surrounded by people who love me and who I love back. That's what I've always needed and wanted.
"Yeah," I echo her reply.
But there's one thing I'm not happy about, and that's her. I realise that she represents my one failure in life. The one big one. She represents all my regret, because she's the only thing I truly regret. But not in the way one might think. I think if I never got to know her, I wouldn't be the person I am now, so I don't regret meeting her. Kazu is right. She was important. Was. I guess the thing that I regret is that it couldn't have worked out for the better or at least ended in a cleaner way. That maybe it was destined to happen this way, and nothing could stop that stupidity we went through. I regret that it happened, but understand that it had to happen. We had to carry it out to the bloody, painful conclusion.
"Have any regrets?"
More bullying courtesy of me. But I'm curious. That's all.
She shoots me a look.
Should I not go there? Or does she not mind and is just surprised?
"Don't we all?" she asks with a hint of acidity in her voice.
Well, I'd say I just struck a nerve. However, I don't feel so good about it. I need to stop before I become nasty, cruel.
I stand up, making it clear that I want this conversation to end soon.
"Well, I hope that you can get over them. No use worrying about the past anymore."
It almost sounds like forgiveness coming from me.
She stares down at the dirt.
"See you," I finally say after she doesn't reply.
I turn around to go, thinking that leavings things like this will be a lot better than how they've stood for the past ten years. I'm not refusing to acknowledge her and she's not begging for forgiveness.
"Aya," she calls out before I can leave.
Do I want to hear what she's going to say? I kind of don't. Her voice sounds a little anxious.
Don't say anything stupid, I beg her. Don't say anything awkward. Don't say anything to rehash a past that's done and over with and buried underneath heaps of rubble. And most of all, don't admit your undying love for me. Just let me walk away.
I stop and turn around, taking a few paces forward to the bench so that she doesn't have to broadcast her thoughts to the ravens that are puttering about nearby.
"I'm really sorry," she says quietly. "For everything."
This time, I know for sure that it's an apology for all that mess. I haven't heard one in ten years.
I've imagined this moment before. We meet again after many years and she apologises... and I snub her. I rub her bad deeds in her face, or I just ignore her words. I say something nasty to hurt her.
"It's okay. Don't worry anymore," I reply in the same genuine tone.
And then I give her a bit of a smile. Not a big one. Just a small, comforting one.
I am Ayaya, after all, and always will be no matter how much I grow up and remove myself from the period I used that name. Hatred doesn't suit me. Love does. Compassion does. It's time I remember that. If I can smile and forgive Miki, then my heart can be saved from becoming a bitter, vengeful organ that holds grudges that do nothing but fester and make me feel like a dreadful person.
I hope that she can tell I mean it. I want her to stop thinking about it. I don't want to see her or anyone suffer. The past is the past, after all, and I should make an example of taking my own advice.
I get a good look at her face before I nod goodbye and turn around to walk home. I'm conscious of every step I take. I half expect to hear footsteps come running after me, Miki asking in a roundabout and awkward way if we can be friends again. But I know deep inside that she won't do that. Before I turned around to leave, I saw in her eyes acceptance. I saw gratitude. And I saw understanding. We're not best friends again, and we can probably never be, of which I am ninety-nine point nine nice nine percent sure of that. I am sure she knows that, too. She knows that it's best to just leave things as they are: on the good side of neutral.
And if we see each other on the street again from this day on, we can exchange polite greetings and continue on our separate ways.
I have a feeling, though, that this isn't our last meeting. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring, but the way things have always worked out in my life, twists of fate seem to rain down on me in sheets. If I decide to go back out into the public world, we might end up crossing paths at work. Regardless of the direction of my career, we might end up in the same line at the supermarket.
The past will never come back. Only our future will come. And it won't be nearly as shiny and ideal as the one we imagined together a decade ago. But that's okay. We have our other sources of happiness. Or at least I do.
I walk home no longer wanting to kill Kazu. I want to hug him and thank him. Not many people would do what he's done for me. Because of him, I've discovered that I'm able to forgive. That, I now know, is one of the most important things you can do with your heart. Now that I've written the final sentence of the book that's been unfinished and waiting for years to be concluded, I feel renewed, and after ten years of going through life as though swimming through molasses, I can now start living life at my normal, vibrant pace.
I stop once I'm far away enough, and I turn around. I can't see Miki, but I imagine that I can. In real life, I take a deep breath and hold it in to remember everything that has just happened before turning around and walking home; in my mind, I smile at her, wave bye-bye, and skip off cheerfully towards the horizon.
-
Seven -Act V
Why? Why do we have to meet like this? On my day off. In such a peaceful atmosphere. When I was having so much fun and finally forgetting about my sighting at the post office.
"Friend of yours?"
Those are the words that pull me out of my trance. Hiroshi speaks them, and I remember that we're in a park. He and I have been walking and laughing, and we've run right into two people. One who I know, one who I don't. I stare at both of them.
"Yeah," I reply almost straight away, surprised that my voice sounds normal, although quiet. "Old co-worker."
That has to be the greatest exaggeration ever. "Friend of mine"? The answer to that is not even close to "yeah". Now if it was "former friend of mine", then yes, that would be right. But Hiroshi has no idea.
How can he have no idea who Aya is? He knows I've worked with her. She's famous! Stupid Hiroshi. Can't even tell when he's standing in front of one of the most famous idols in-
Former. Former idol. Many years ago...
I correct myself. I scold myself. Hiroshi shouldn't be expected to remember Aya's face so many years after she disappeared. The only reason why I remember her is because I knew her. He never knew her. He never met her. And I have rarely spoken about her. He knows we had a falling out, and that's about it. He asked me before - a long time ago - what it had been about, but I gave him a vague "it's a girl thing" kind of answer and that averted his curiosity.
I look at him quickly, and I see him eying Aya and starting to recognise her.
'Atta boy, Hiro-kun.
Sometimes he acts like a dumb dog, which is weird because he's so smart. I love that about him. But now is not the time to be thinking about my favourite Hiroshi charm points. I let go of his arm subtly.
"Long time ago," Aya speaks, and after ten years, her live voice flows into my ears.
She sounds exactly the same. Exactly. It matches perfectly with my memories. Memories of good times listening to that voice on lazy days, and being lulled to sleep by it...
Stop this line of thought now.
I follow my own command, and am engulfed by the awkward silence that settles over us.
Finally, the man Aya is with speaks.
"I'm Tabe. Nice to meet you," he says to us.
And who are you, Tabe? I wonder.
Her boyfriend? Her cousin? Her co-worker?
Her sugar daddy?
Don't think things like that!
I look at her, and she has an unreadable look on her face, although if I had to guess (and it's really not hard to), I'd say she wants to break up this little party as soon as possible.
I wonder if she'll hit me. Slap me or punch me. Or scream at me...
"Oh. Sato Hiroshi. The pleasure's mine."
My Hiroshi is as polite as ever, and even though he's starting to sense something a little off about this group of four, he keeps his nerves in check and turns on the charm.
Aya looks at me, and I look away quickly, addressing this boyfriendcousinsugardaddy named Tabe.
"Fujimoto," I say in a voice that is far too serious.
If I act angry, I'm not going to get anywhere. I'm not going to get anything. I'd better be polite. I smile a bit.
"I used to work with Aya-chan."
The minute I say that, I bite my tongue. What am I doing referring to her as if we're still friends?
But better yet, what do I think I'm going to gain by being my most polite? It's not like she's going to suddenly run up to me, give me a hug, and suggest we go for manicures and catch up on the past ten years. I'm surprised she hasn't walked off already.
"Yes. I've heard so much from Aya," Tabe says.
I resist the terrific urge to raise an eyebrow and look at Aya. What has she told him? Everything?
I keep my outside features perfectly calm.
It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me... I chant in my head like a monk.
Tabe looks up at Aya and then at me.
"Say, why don't you two go grab a coffee and catch up. I've got to go and attend to some business anyway."
"What are you saying, you idiot?! If you've heard so much about me, you obviously know that Aya never wants to talk to me again. What the hell, you moron? Get off my planet!" is what I want to say.
Of course I don't say that.
"Oh, I don't want to take up any of your time," I say, looking at Tabe.
I can't look at Aya. I'm afraid of what I'll see.
But maybe I should. Maybe Tabe is privy to some information about Aya. That she wants to talk to me. That she wants to be friends with me again. That... I'm delusional and should be shot for thinking I'd ever be forgiven.
I cast a quick look at Aya, and I breathe a sigh of relief in my mind. She's looking at Tabe. She's looking a little angry.
I try not to feel like my one little flame of hope has been trodden on. I know a snowball has a better chance of surviving in hell, but I suppose seeing how much she doesn't want to be left alone with me stings nonetheless.
"Yeah, why don't you two go on?"
Oh my god. Shut up, Hiroshi!
I can't help but narrow my eyes and look at him. If Aya doesn't want to be alone with me, I don't want to be alone with her. I don't want to be in a scary situation where she obviously does not want to be there and is liable to blow up at me at any time.
"I think-" Aya starts, and I praise an almighty being for giving her an idea of how to get out of this.
However, she's interrupted by her own man.
"Excellent, then," he says with a clap of the hands. "It's settled."
And the truth of it all is that I'm glad. Even if she doesn't want to talk to me. Even if she throws dirt in my eyes (which is a real possibility). I want to give it one try.
"It was nice to meet you," Tabe continues, looking at me.
The boys nod goodbye to us, and they leave us standing on the path together.
"What the hell, Hiroshi," I mutter, trying to relieve the enormous tension I feel by scolding someone else aloud.
It doesn't work too well. I'm a bit terrified that Tabe is going to say something to Hiroshi. Hiroshi is best left in the dark. It's not that I don't trust him. He'll just worry. And my past is my past. Mine mine mine. It's private. He doesn't have to know. They're my accomplishments and my mistakes. They've shaped me, and he gets the final product. That should be a good enough thing for him.
So here we are. Two former friends in a park. There's an obvious pause where the first has to be brave and speak up. I decide that I have to be the first.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for us to get us into this situation."
Not that it's my fault, but I figure she's going to blame anything that goes wrong on me. She'd probably blame me for last year's huge and fatal flood in Rio de Janeiro. Anything to take a stab at me.
She doesn't say anything to me, and I stand there feeling awkward, my face probably red from embarrassment.
And what happens next? Something that gives me hope.
After the uncomfortable silence, we make a decision together silently just like in the old days and move to sit on a nearby bench. We still have that synchronised touch. It seems it becomes one of the laws of nature when we are in each other's presence.
We sit facing a fountain. I don't dare try to start the conversation again. My attempt before was too lame.
But I have so many questions. I have so much I want to say to her. I can't keep quiet. Not when I have this chance. The tiny flame of hope is re-lit. She hasn't shoved me in the fountain and run off laughing like a madman, so it means she can tolerate being in my presence.
I need to apologise to her. I need to say I'm sorry for all the bad things I did to her. But if I do, she'll get angry. I can tell. She doesn't want to hear another apology from me.
I settle for a polite but nosey question.
"So is that guy your husband?"
"Yes," she replies.
She doesn't even seem annoyed that I've asked her something personal.
But wait. They're married? Well, that's... a relief? I guess all wounds heal after time.
Right?
How much time left until mine heal?
"What are you now? Tabe Aya?"
It sounds weird to say that. I could never imagine her changing her name. Tachibana Aya. That would've been ridiculous. Tabe Aya... that sounds even stranger.
"Oh, no. I kept my name," she replies with a shake of the head.
Now that's a true relief!
"That's just like you," I say, the relief showing through in a smile that I let past my defences.
She looks a little irked to hear me say that, and I hush up, trying to wipe the smile off my face. I don't need to remind her that once upon a time, I was the closest thing to her. Before I screwed up.
"What about you? Married?" she asks me.
Her turn to be intrusive. I wonder if she really cares or if she's just being polite and returning my inquiries with fake interest.
"Not yet. It's been a busy few years," I say with a shake of the head.
It's not because I can't get over you. Don't think that for a minute, I think a little too forcefully in my mind.
"What have you been up to?"
Is she serious? She doesn't know?
"I suppose you don't read that magazine, then," I say, raising my eyebrows in surprise.
I guess when she disappeared from the public, the public disappeared from her, too. Like, seriously disappeared. If she hasn't heard about me and Sayu and our magazine, then she must be living under a rock.
She gives me one of her "go on" looks. I remember that expression. She used to use it a lot with me...
God, even her expressions are still the same.
But then what did I expect? A completely different person? Maybe parts of her are different, but her mannerisms are all exactly the same. Of course she's far more cautious around me now, but there are things, expressions, that she can't control and that I know oh so well. It starts to hurt just a little bit more. What did I do? How could I have been so stupid?
No. I have to answer the question.
"Remember Shige-san? Sayu?" I ask Aya, picturing Shige's cheerful face in my head, willing myself to concentrate on it so that I don't lose myself in a puddle of regret.
I think Shige would die of happiness to hear I am visualising nothing but her face in my mind and trying to make it as cute as possible. The cuter it is, the less I'll think about my problems. The more I'll want to poke fun at Shige for being so sickeningly adorable.
Aya's eyes light up in recognition.
"She's the head of the most famous girls' magazine in the country. Ever heard of Superbly? I work right beside her editing that."
Aya keeps her head pointed towards the fountain, but I can see the utter shock on her face. That expression. That one I know so well. I used to get it a lot, although often as a joke. But sometimes I really did do and say things to surprise her to great extents. Let out some hidden layer of myself or made a smart statement she'd never have thought me capable of.
"When did you turn smart, Miki? How the heck can you be editing a magazine when you can barely spell?" is what I bet she's thinking.
"Oh," she utters aloud, her voice filled with barely-hidden disbelief.
"You don't believe it, do you," I say, a little amused.
She looks back at me and says nothing.
"But it's true," I assure her. "Some time in the past ten years I really grew up. Left that path of youth we used to walk down. It's far behind me now."
I don't need you anymore. I don't I don't I don't...
Who am I trying to convince?
Left that path of youth? I may have left it, but I didn't advance forward. I'm walking on a path parallel to it and trying to find a bridge that'll take me over to the side I belong on.
Lend me a hand, will you? Throw me a line. Show me a weakness in the wall.
But I hide my desperation behind my well-practiced adult face. I'm a grownup now. I'm over thirty years old. I have to be responsible for my life. I can't go gallivanting around and messing things up like I used to. Back when I thought there was no harm in giving two people my heart. Different parts of my heart, but still the same organ. Now that I have what I have, I need to settle down with it and keep it. Not gather more and more.
I laugh at myself. Who am I kidding? I don't even have a choice about gathering more. Aya's definitely not going to be coming over for tea any day soon.
But wait. She's looking at me closely. She's studying me. What is she thinking? She doesn't look angry. She looks curious.
"Are you happy?" she asks me.
It's as if she can sense this inner struggle of mine. Maybe she's getting her secret weapon ready. She's going to stab me in the gut with a phrase. Make me feel terrible all over again.
So I decide on my answer.
"Yes, I am happy. Hiroshi makes me happy. Maybe not as happy as yo-"
Good thing I've learned how to think before speaking. Sometimes.
"Yeah. Are you?"
She pauses to think. Her face looks pleasantly pensive.
"Yeah," she says in the same tone as I just used, yet she manages to sound three thousand times more confident.
"Have any regrets?"
That's it. She's officially gone into bitchy bully mode. I don't deserve the luxury of angry. I deserve exactly what I'm getting. But I'm not going to follow the rules. I shoot her a look that's halfway between angry and sad. She must know that I have tonnes of regrets. Tonnes.
"Don't we all?" I ask, trying to mask most of the bitterness.
I stare at her, wanting to yell at her for asking me such a thing.
But her eyes change. Something goes through her like a ghost through a wall, and she's a different person than she was a millisecond ago.
She stands up and looks down at me.
"Well, I hope that you can get over them. No use worrying about the past anymore."
I need to clean my ears about because she can't have said what I think she just said.
Or can she have?
It sounds like she's forgiven me. She's telling me not to feel bad anymore. She knows what my regrets are. But does she know my thoughts right now - that I regret the past, and that despite everything Hiroshi and Shige and the entire world tell me, I want to reclaim that past?
I stare down at the ground. I can't answer her. I don't know what to say. I want her to know everything that I'm thinking right now. I want her to tell me again without a doubt that I'm forgiven. That I'm not the evil monster I think I am - or was. That she knows I didn't mean any harm. That she understands what we've lost. That she'd do anything to get it back.
"See you," I hear her voice come in through my partially blocked ears.
She turns around to leave, and no. I can't let her. Not until I've said something. Anything.
"Aya!"
I call her back to me.
Oh my god. She's not going to turn around. She can tell what I'm thinking. I'm sure of it. She doesn't want to turn around because she's scared of me. My thoughts. What I want.
She turns around, though, and walks up to me. She doesn't sit, but she stands beside me and listens. She doesn't look angry. She doesn't look nervous. Just attentive.
What do I say? What do I say to that face that won't give me any kind of clue?
Shige's face floats past my eyes again.
"I know that you have some built-in genes that don't let you let go of your past..."
She gives me a menacing look that just looks cute.
Hiroshi joins her.
"The past is the past, eh? You lived it, you learned from it. Now you get over it!"
He laughs and gives me a playful whack on the head.
I do want to get over it. I do want to fix my DNA and make it so that I don't care about Aya.
But you can't fix something when it's not broken. My genes are not broken. It's the way they were from the beginning.
But Aya's genes are different, I guess. She's better at adapting to changes. She's better at moving on. She's a better person than me. Always has been. Always will be. That's why she deserves to keep this happy life she's found. Who am I to ruin it for her again? I have to show her that I'm not a degenerate human being. I have a heart.
"I'm really sorry," I almost whisper. "For everything."
Everything bad I did to you. Even everything good I did to you. Because if I hadn't been around you at all, you wouldn't have had to deal with all that crap I put you through. You could've done better.
She considers my apology, which is a lot better a reaction than I would ever have expected.
And then she speaks magic words. They're the open sesame and abracadabra of my heart.
"It's okay. Don't worry anymore."
And accompanied with her acceptance of my apology is a smile. One of the ones she used to give me when I was sad and needed a little bit of subtle cheering up. A smile specially reserved for me that I never saw her use on anyone else.
She stands there staring at me, and I wonder if she wants to say more. I want her to say so much more.
But I know it'll never come.
She nods goodbye.
Maybe I'll never see her again.
She walks off slowly, but with a purpose. I stare after her.
I wish she hadn't said those words to me. She's given me more than I have earned. She's handed me a pass that should lead me out of my prison of regret.
But it doesn't, because after talking to her again, what I want is not just forgiveness, but her. Hiroshi can take the apartment and all the furniture and the money. All I want is that person walking away from me.
Just you, I think, staring at her back.
But she turns off the path and walks beyond some trees.
And that's the moment where I know without a doubt that I have finally completed the process of losing the most important thing in my life.
-The end of story 11
-
This picks up where Love x ∞ left off in the "other world" Aya was thrown into. What if at that point, Aya returned to her own world, but another copy of her remained in the other world?
Restart (Love x ∞ Part II)
Final story. Story 12
Chapter 1 of 29
I woke up suddenly. My eyes just snapped open and I saw a sight completely different from what I usually saw in the mornings. I was lying beside someone I'd only met two months ago. A girl with long, dark hair and light, creamy skin that most people in the world would only ever see in moisturizer commercials.
Dear god, what did I do??
I panicked and started to hyperventilate as I rolled onto my back and looked at the unfamiliar hotel room ceiling.
I had cheated on my boyfriend, my almost-fiancé, with a famous idol. Willingly. And she was a girl. I had stayed overnight in a hotel where guests of guests were not allowed to do so. And I'd forgotten to call my parents to tell them I wouldn't be home for the night! Somehow, even that last one seemed vitally important to note during my crisis.
My parents. Oh, my poor parents! If they ever discovered what the precious baby of the family was secretly doing behind closed doors, they'd never forgive themselves (or their precious baby). I'd be disowned, ridiculed, shamed, gossiped about, run out of town...
But wait. I was being selfish. What about Aya? Her career would be destroyed. Her life would be even more ruined than mine. I was just some country daughter, but she was nation-wide famous. She wouldn't be able to walk to the store without being stared at or whispered about. Her face would be plastered on all the gossip magazines and the newspapers. Maybe they'd say she'd been seduced by some crazy Hokkaido delinquent whose goal was to tarnish the reputation of her most hated idol.
No, wait another minute. That would hardly seem fair. If anybody had been seduced, it had been me. She was the one who had come here to this town, gotten to know me, kissed me, and then had made me stay overnight after she wouldn't let me get up from her bed. She had led it all. The attack. She knew exactly what it all meant, and she knew exactly what to do with me and how to keep me there all night without a complaint.
Okay, so I had asked for it. I had wanted it. At the time. I was feeling sad because she was leaving, confused because Hiroshi had proposed, and bewildered about a million other things. But it had to have been a momentary lapse in judgement.
What am I going to do? I thought in desperation.
I blinked. Maybe it had all been a hallucination. But no, she was still there, curled up under the covers and facing away. I couldn't see her face. It was covered by her hair. All I could see was the back of her head. I knew she was asleep because of her breathing. It was slow and steady, hardly making a sound.
What time is it? I wondered.
I looked at the bedside table at the standard hotel-issue alarm clock. It read eight-thirty-eight. Considering her flight time, I did the math and figured out that she'd probably want to be getting up in an hour to get ready to leave.
What was I supposed to do? Stay? Maybe I could sneak out and just let her go back to Tokyo, pretending this had never happened.
That's what I decided to do. I'd leave before she woke up. It would be perfect. Nobody would ever find out. I'd tell my parents I'd stayed at a friend's house, and Aya could go back to Tokyo peacefully without having to exchange any awkward words and excuses with me. We'd never have to meet again.
That's what I would do.
And yet I continued to lie there on my side and stare at the back of her head. I found myself wondering what would happen if I stayed.
If I stayed, I could find out her true reaction. If I stayed, I could ask her all the questions in my head about what it all meant to her and why she did it.
My heart lurched when I thought of Hiroshi. What would he think if he saw me now? Or worse, what would he have thought if he had seen me last night, wrapped in someone else's arms as she said things to me that made me want to forget every point of my comparatively miserable existence until I met her.
What if I didn't really care what he thought?
That struck me as an oddity because I still really loved him. Very much. He was a lot like me. Normal, but with a hidden quirky streak (although he was much weirder). Raised in a small town but yearning to break out of this enclosed life and strive for something more. He'd tried to do that by going to university in Sapporo, but somehow we both knew that he'd wind up coming back here to this rundown town to live.
For a brief moment as I lay there, I wanted nothing more than to marry him. I had to. We were a perfect match.
But the uncertainty came back. If we got married to each other, we wouldn't escape that thing we both hated. We'd be clinging onto each other because it would be the safe thing to do. What we wanted, though, was to reach out and grab a bit of excitement, and we weren't able to provide that for each other.
With Aya, that had changed for me. The minute she came to town, everything changed. The time we spent together was the best I'd ever had. She had piles of things to offer me. She had a way of connecting with me that made me want nothing else. Being with her may not have been safe or secure, but it felt more like living. Maybe Hiroshi would understand that I couldn't marry him. It would be for our own goods.
Just then, Aya stirred and my thoughts came to a halt. Was she going to wake up?
She turned around and settled onto her side so that she was facing me, but her eyes were still closed. She didn't seem ready to wake up. She was teetering on the edge of consciousness, just barely there. Her face looked radiant to me, even in such a state of sleep. It looked like she was smiling.
I grew impatient, and with a bout of self-confidence that flew at me from nowhere, I reached my hand out and tapped her wrist, which was curled in front of her chin.
"Good morning," I whispered.
The first half of my greeting came out nice and strongly, but the confidence slipped out of my grasp in mid-word, and so the second half ended up weak and mumbled.
What was I doing??
Aya's eyelids fluttered open slowly, and I shrank back a bit as she focused on my face.
"Hmmm. Good morning," she purred back with a sleepy smile.
How did she do that? She sounded so at ease. As if this was the most normal thing in the world. It was baffling. I smiled warily at her, and the smile dropped from her face.
"Bombs away!" I heard a little voice in a fighter plane yell as Aya's expression quickly sped from content to something closer to the opposite end of the spectrum.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I got a little carried away."
A little? I'd say a lot. She got so carried away that there I was in bed with her the next morning, completely naked, might I add, and I'm sure with not just a few red marks here and there.
I didn't say anything to her because I had no clue what to say. What was I supposed to say? I didn't even know how I felt. How could I get her to try and understand anything in my brain when I couldn't understand it?
She must have mistaken my silence for anger or discomfort.
"But you kind of asked for it," she said, giving me a pointed look.
I certainly had asked for it after she'd stirred up my curiosity.
"I'm not upset," I said quickly.
I was clear on that much. I wasn't upset. Just confused.
"You look upset," she countered, sounding so sure of herself.
I wasn't upset. She was wrong. But then it struck me that maybe this was her method of trying to give me a way out. I could leave and it would all be okay. We wouldn't have to talk.
But that would be cowardly. The truth was that I wanted to stay. Stick it out. Figure it all out.
"I'm not," I said firmly. "I just want to ask you a question. What does this mean?"
I had done it. I had asked a good question.
"What does what mean?"
I didn't get annoyed by the question being thrown back at me because I knew she wasn't trying to be difficult and skirt the issue. There were many ways my question could be interpreted.
"Well, do you usually sleep with your friends?" I asked in a blunt and perhaps far too sly tone.
I couldn't help it! The idea of Aya being that type of person was foreign to me.
"No," she said, a look of surprise on her face.
Strangely enough, that was all she said.
"Then tell me why you did it," I demanded, gaining back my confidence.
"Couldn't you tell?" she asked so quietly that I had to strain my ears to hear her.
"Tell what?" I mumbled.
"Couldn't you tell last night why I did that?"
Her eyes pierced me with a look that I had seen the night before just as we had started down that long road that had led us here. It had been erased early on, but now it was back. A lost and needy look that was so out of place on her beautiful face.
I shook my head, and her gaze only intensified in its sadness.
The truth? I knew. Deep down inside, I knew. I saw it in those eyes the night before. Why she had made me - no, let me - stay over. It was because she needed me. She wanted me. I didn't know how long she'd felt that way, but it was pretty obvious, especially after she'd almost uttered a confession during a very quiet moment we had shared.
She really almost had. We were lying facing each other. I was looking at her, and she had a hand on my shoulder, running her thumb lightly over my skin. A look came over her face and she took a breath to say something, but she never said it. She resigned herself to letting it go, and then distracted me from asking any questions (such as "what were you going to say?") by casually pushing me away and onto my back.
But that look. I knew that look. I'd seen it before twice. Once was when Hiroshi had uttered the words "I love you" for the first time. The other time was when Hiroshi had asked me to marry him, which had just been the other day.
The sheer absurdity of the latter being Aya's reason to almost speak, I assumed it was the former.
No, I didn't assume. I knew. There was no doubt that what was in her eyes was love, and I stupidly ignored it, brushing it off as a facial expression brought on by the heat of the moment.
The next morning, though, it was clear.
And what did I feel?
I didn't know. It couldn't be love. Not after two months. But chemistry? Yes, there was a whole lot of that. I couldn't deny it. But I needed to know something first.
"Why do you like me so much? You've only known me for a few months."
She stayed silent, her eyes downcast. I had to fill up that silence.
"Is there something you want from me?"
I shouldn't have said that, but it just tumbled out of my mouth in a clumsy, unplanned way. Aya looked at me with a glare, under which I withered.
"You think I'm trying to get something from you?" she asked sharply.
In my weakened state, I only shook my head. She huffed out a breath of air.
"I knew this was a mistake. I should have sent you off home before it happened," she snapped self-admonishingly.
What was I? A kid that had to be told when to go home? What a condescending girl. She started it. I just asked her to continue it, and she most certainly did continue it.
Living with my mother for twenty-five years, however, had forced me to learn how to not explode with anger. (My mom could be a scary woman when aggravated, and I sensed some of that in Aya.)
"I didn't mean it like that," I said evenly, but with a hard tone. "I guess I can't imagine why someone like you would be after someone like me."
I thought what I said was supposed to console her, but it had the opposite effect of making her angrier.
"Will you stop it with that?" she bit back. "Stop saying 'someone like you' as if we're from different worlds. Just because I'm on TV and people know my name, it-"
"Wait a minute," I interrupted. "I never said anything of the sort. I meant a person with a strong heart and mind like yours. I wasn't talking about fame or whatever. I don't give a crap about that."
She looked positively embarrassed for having misinterpreted my words, but she quickly relaxed
"Anyway," I continued. "My first question still stands. Why do you like me so much?"
"I can't explain it well without sounding crazy," she sighed, dropping the last vestiges of her guard. "I just know you and your heart better than you think. You complete something in me."
I couldn't deny that I felt something like that in the air between us. The feeling that together, we made an ultra duo. A perfectly working, well-oiled unit. We were in tune. I wouldn't call if love, but the potential for it was almost smothering.
"Oh," I said softly.
Her eyes flickered up to look at my face and gauge my true reaction. She saw me looking probably a little bewildered and shy.
"Anyway, forget it," she said quickly, rolling up to get out of bed. "It's crazy talk. I have to shower."
She grabbed the top blanket and covered herself to get out of bed, but I grabbed onto the edge because the rest of the sheets were tangled at the foot of the bed. I didn't want to be left lying there, exposed to the cold.
I also did it to entice her to stay for a moment.
She mumbled a distracted apology and reached for the other sheets, but I quickly took her wrist and forced her to lie down again, covering her up with the blanket I'd yanked away from her.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Let's stay here together a bit more," I said with newfound courage. "You don't have to get up this early."
But as usual, the courage left me and must have gone into her, because a look came over her face and she scared my by slithering up to me and planting a big, sleepy kiss on my lips. We'd done more than that the night before, yet it surprised me and froze me up. I thought that despite all our talk this morning, last night would have been it. There would be no continuation. We'd return to what we were before.
Then I thought, Screw that.
It was us. We weren't computers that terminated programs and started new ones according to system and order. We were human beings with feelings that led us down winding corridors of discovery and excitement.
I wrapped my arms around her and let her climb onto me lazily. Before anything got very serious, however, she lay herself back down beside me, her chin on my shoulder.
I want her to stay, I thought suddenly. I want her to stay here with me so that I can figure all this out.
She must have seen my look. Read it.
"I'm leaving today, you know?" she reminded me.
Everything inside me deflated. So she wasn't going to stay. I wasn't a good enough excuse to stay. I couldn't believe how much I suddenly wanted her here.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Yeah."
I grew curious. She'd come here a few months ago claiming that she used to have family that lived here. She told me about the big project she'd abandoned, and how coming here was her escape.
But why here? Even if she once had had family here, what was the point? They seemed to all be gone. She didn't know anybody around here other than me, my family, and Baachan's family. If she had really wanted to escape, she could have just as easily gone overseas, or at least she could have gone somewhere with a more hospitable climate in the winter.
And why had she suddenly quit that Italy project? It didn't seem all that bad, and she wouldn't have been alone. Her best friend from her Hello! Project days would have joined up with her there along with another former co-worker. Aya avoided talking about it, though, and whenever I brought it up, she'd skilfully change the subject, although not without my noticing it.
"What was your point coming here?" I asked.
Maybe a bit forward, but then again we'd slept with each other the night before, so I assumed I held a bit of a privileged position that would allow me to be so direct.
I pulled away a bit so that I could see her face. She looked down. At first I thought she was just staring at my body and trying to make me feel uncomfortable, but then I realised it was because she was thinking hard.
"I came to find this," she finally answered, looking at my face as she spoke.
"Find what?" I asked, frowning.
"This," she repeated, and she put her arm around my stomach and hugged me to her.
She came to find me? This closeness? What did she mean?
"What do yo-"
She cut me off by putting her face right up to mine.
"Do you want me to leave?" she asked.
Was that a trick question?
"No," I mumbled.
"Do you want to come with me?"
I wondered if I had heard her properly. Come with her? To Tokyo? No. She must have just meant the station. Or the airport. I'd told her the night before that I'd wanted to go to Tokyo with her, but I'd gotten the sense that she hadn't taken me seriously. I didn't even know if I had been serious.
"The airport?" I asked, pushing her away from me to see her face clearly.
She shook her head.
"Tokyo."
She meant it? Go to Tokyo with her? I wanted to. So desperate was I that I would have jumped up from the bed at that moment and run onto a plane completely nude if it was the only way.
I nodded my head, but then stopped.
"I don't have a job there. I'm in school. My parents-"
She cut me off with one of her special, fiery kisses, leaving me a bit dazed and embarrassed. Did she have to be so... touchy-feely? I was still trying to get used to being naked in front of her, even with a bed sheet covering me.
"Forget it all. Just come with me. We'll find you a job. You can stay with me until then. And we can... we can hang out."
Hang out? She meant do this every night, right?
"And Hiroshi?" I asked.
I saw her cringe as I said his name. I hadn't wanted to bring him up, but I wanted to know what she thought. I'd been going out with him for two years, and I'd been friends with him for even longer - about twelve years. I did have a sense of loyalty and commitment.
"He's not invited," she said, eyeing me carefully.
I looked to the side, staring at a tiny brown mole on her arm.
"Do I just leave him?" I asked her.
And I really did ask her. I wanted her opinion. Her advice. Biased or not.
"You do what you want. If you want to marry him, fine. I'll be going back to Tokyo. You can forget that this happened and I'll never bring it up again. If you want to leave him and come with me, then we'll be in it together."
Why did she want me in her life so badly? How could I have impressed her after two months of friendship? Was I really that great?
"What if you get bored of me?" I asked seriously.
It could happen. The underlying reasons for her coming here could have been to find a distraction from the pressures at work. Maybe she'd wanted to go somewhere that was familiar enough to her (within Japan) but far away enough from Tokyo so that she couldn't be traced as easily. The trip would have been an outlet for her stress. By finding some form of highly different entertainment - in this case, me - and amusing herself for a few months, she could work everything out of her system before going back and restarting her career.
Maybe she was a mind-reader, because she looked at me like I was a rare specimen of amoeba. She laughed, hugging me tightly and kissing my ear in a sloppy and wet way that kind of grossed me out, kind of made me feel mushy.
"You don't get it, do you," she giggled into said ear. "We're meant to be together. It's destined. It's written in the stars. It's not a question of getting bored of you."
"There's no such thing as destiny," I frowned, avoiding the issue for a moment.
She drew herself up and looked down at me again, smiling.
"I knew you'd say that. I just mean that I'm positive I want you to come with me. Last night changed everything."
It certainly had. I hadn't seriously thought of following Aya to Tokyo until that morning.
So dump Hiroshi. Say goodbye to mom and dad. Let Baachan give someone else a chance to work in that wonderful environment. Drop school.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay what?" Aya asked.
"I'm coming with you."
Her face broke out into a smile, and she hugged me, putting her forehead against mine.
"See? It's meant to be."
I smiled back.
"But I can't leave this afternoon. I'll need a few days."
I would have to pack, fill out forms to officially drop my classes, talk to my parents, talk to Hiroshi, buy a plane ticket...
"Take your time," she said. "I'll be waiting for you in the capital."
"A few days only. I promise," I said unnecessarily.
In a few days it would be a new year. I wondered if it would be possible to get a flight or a shinkansen ticket on such short notice. Probably not, but I'd try.
"Do you have the money?" Aya asked.
A painful and potentially awkward question. Obviously, my family wasn't rolling in riches, but we were doing all right for ourselves. I did have enough money for a plane ticket and initial daily needs, but not enough to start a new life in a new city, especially a city that was said to be one of most expensive ones in the world. The rent would eat me alive.
I hesitated for too long.
"Just worry about your plane ticket. I'll take care of the rest."
"No," I protested. "I ca-"
"I still owe you for all that cooking at Baachan's"
"That's her place, not mine," I mumbled.
"And you know you're staying with me," she went on, ignoring me. "My bed's big enough for the both of us."
At my look of mortification, she made an exaggerated show of correcting her sentence.
"Oops. I mean my apartment's big enough for two."
Her eyes twinkled wickedly. Living with a beautiful devil child? It could be very fun. But I still had to turn down her offer.
"Aya-chan, I can't impose on you like that. You have a life. A job. You're busy. I'll get in the way. You-"
She put a hand over my mouth, and my words came out muffled and unintelligible.
"If there's anything I want from you," she started, making a pointed reference to my earlier stupid question, "it's for you to be beside me all the time."
I pulled her hand away with both of mine and rested those three hands on my stomach. I gave up.
"Okay."
A simple word and her face broke out into a radiant smile.
"But I'm going to find a job as soon as I land. Or, uh, maybe the next day," I insisted.
"Fine by me. I'll probably be getting fired while you're being hired," she laughed.
With that statement, I remembered that she was going to be in very big trouble when she got home. She had told me she'd probably be out of work, but I wondered what kind of company would be dumb enough to fire such a popular idol. She had come such a long way since her Hello! Project days and was arguably even more stable in her position as a familiar face than she'd ever been before. Unless they planned to deliberately sabotage her reputation so that no other agency would take her, they were better off keeping her.
She stayed like that for five minutes, breathing being the only sound that could be heard.
"I have to call Hiroshi," I said out of the blue.
"What will you say to him?"
"That I'm moving. That I can't marry him."
A deep silence greeted my reply.
"But not break up with him?" Aya asked curiously, betraying no other emotion.
"I'll do that, too," I said quietly.
Did she realise how painful it was for me? Did she really understand what I had with Hiroshi? He was first and foremost a childhood friend, and no matter how mysterious and weird he was, he'd been there with me during the big moments in my life. It was going to be difficult cutting off ties with a part of my history, especially such a safe one.
But Aya had a way of comforting me that nobody else had. Her hand tightened over mine as though she could sense the pain and the struggle in me.
"I'm really glad you're coming with me," she said quietly in a near whisper.
"Me too," I whispered back.
Breaking up with Hiroshi would be easier if I could hold Aya's hand while doing it. Maybe she did offer me some semblance of security after all. I felt like I could do anything if she was around.
When the time came, I helped her pack. We took showers, and I had to borrow more clothes from her. I knew, though, that I would be able to return them soon. I offered to go to the airport with her, but she told me to go home and start working on my parents. I was afraid they'd be hard to convince to let me go. I was the baby. They were used to having me there. My mother would miss having me around to shop together, to cook dinner together, and to have incredible disputes together.
We said goodbye in the hotel room. I would leave a few minutes before her to avoid the front desk's suspicions. Aya could have gotten into trouble for having a guest over against the rules, and walking out together would make it quite obvious she'd broken the rules.
The goodbye was uncomfortable on my part because I wasn't very good at that sort of thing.
"See you in a few days," I said, holding a bag with my still-wet clothes from the previous night's romp in the snow.
"I'll contact you when I land," Aya smiled brightly.
There was an awkward pause.
Were we supposed to hug?
I settled for nothing but a tight smile and a nod. I turned around and put my hand on the doorknob.
"Hey, Miki. Wait," Aya called out, making me stop instantly and turn around expectantly.
She studied me seriously for a moment and then smiled.
"Bye bye," was all she said with a loving look on her face that was starting to become familiar.
I smiled a big, relaxed smile.
"Bye bye."
I waved my hand, turned on my heels, and walked out feeling like a shooting star during its blaze of glory. I went down the elevator and strutted out of that hotel as if nothing were amiss. Nobody at the front desk said a word as I walked by, and I smiled secretly to myself. Maybe I could make it in Tokyo. If I toughened up, nothing in the capital could take me.
And I knew for certain that if I had Aya there to help me, I'd surely go a long way.
-
Chapter 2 of 29
It was a bitterly cold morning. My hands froze within minutes of being outside. I tried my best to cover them with the sleeves of my jacket. The rest of my body, though, felt warm, partly because I was thinking of Aya and the past seven hours, partly because I was scared out of my wits about facing my parents and Hiroshi and explaining to them my decision to leave home.
Despite my frozen fingers, I took out my cell phone and checked my messages. There were three from my mother. The first asked when I was coming home. The second asked where I was. The third stated that she was going to sleep, but to please get in touch in the morning.
I sighed and typed a quick message to her saying that I was on my way home from my friend's house and that I was sorry if she had been worried. I continued to walk, and my mind started to prepare different thing to say.
"There's nothing for me here anymore. I'm moving."
No...
"I'm moving to Tokyo and becoming a celebrity."
I laughed in my mind. Silly.
"I'm moving to Tokyo and sleeping with a celebrity."
No, no, no. No good. I cringed at the thought of slipping up and saying that by accident.
"I can't marry you, Hiroshi. I'm sorry."
My phone rang and mercifully pulled me away from my thoughts. The message was from my mother.
Get home quickly! There's a surprise for you.
A surprise? I wondered what sort of surprise awaited me before noon. Maybe my dad had gone out early to the bakery and gotten a loaf of that good bread we sometimes liked to buy on the weekend. For a moment, I forgot about Aya, Tokyo, and Hiroshi, and I thought of nothing but eating yummy, warm bread fresh from the oven.
When I got home, there certainly was a surprise waiting for me. It came in the form of a pair of old, but well-cared for sneakers. They were very familiar to me, and when I saw them after opening the door, I tripped over my own feet and did a face plant on the floor in the entrance hall, alerting the whole family with a loud crash that their recently-turned-clumsy daughter was home.
"I'm home," I muttered into the chilly floorboards as several people gathered around me.
"Are you all right?" my mother asked worriedly, although I could hear the laughter that was masked by her tone of concern.
I groaned and nodded while getting up and slipping off my shoes.
"Are you sure you'd like to marry our daughter?" I heard my father say in a joking tone.
I cringed inwardly and turned around. There was my father standing a metre away from me, and just behind him, a head taller, was Hiroshi.
What was he doing there? And how did my dad know about the proposal?! Had Hiroshi come here to elicit my parents' help in getting me to marry him? If so, I was going to wring his neck.
I caught his eyes and sent him a death glare. His eyes twinkled back, seemingly unconcerned with my irritation.
"She has her good moments," he told my father with a confident laugh.
I decided that the second we had a bit of privacy, I would throttle him.
"Hiroshi, what are you doing here?" I asked, trying to cover up my annoyance for the time being.
Hiroshi looked at my father first, then my mother, and then me.
"You left early and he missed you, so he called to ask if he could come over and surprise you late last night," my mom said for him.
That, I decided, was very, very sweet. He had lousy timing, but he had a good heart.
I became cold with fear, though, after that warm and fuzzy moment. This threw my whole plan off. I couldn't just up and leave with him there. Also, the fact that not even an hour ago, I'd been kissing someone else made me feel like a low life. I was a cheater. I hated people who cheated on their lovers. Now I was one of them.
"Oh," I said reluctantly, and then added, "That's sweet."
Hiroshi and I exchanged glances, and I realised that I couldn't very well talk to him in the house. The walls were paper thin. My parents did not need to know the intimate details of our relationship. I sucked in my guilt and smiled.
"Let's go," I said, reaching my hand out to him.
With a puzzled but easygoing look, Hiroshi took my hand.
"Where are we going?" he inquired.
"Out for a walk," I replied
We slipped on our shoes, said goodbye to my parents (who were somewhat bewildered by my behaviour), and set out towards the mountains. It was the same walk I'd taken with Aya countless times during the past few months. Hiroshi and I used to do it a lot when we were younger and he still lived in Takikawa fulltime. We hadn't done one of these walks in a while, though.
I held Hiroshi's hand tightly as a million different phrases ran through my mind. I wanted to explain everything to him, but I needed to find the right words because he deserved at least that much. I also wanted to know why he'd told my parents he'd asked me to marry him. Why would he do something like that when he knew me and my unwillingness to be swayed by other opinions? Why would he try to get outside help?
We didn't talk while we walked, which wasn't unusual. Sometimes we waited until we got to where we were going so that our conversation could be completely private. Just between us and the trees, not the buildings, streets, and post boxes that we passed by.
We reached the edge of a cliff and stood to look out at the land below us. Nothing but hills and pastures devoid of sheep.
"I need to talk to you seriously," I said, still holding his hand.
Hiroshi continued to look forward, but his hand squeezed mine in a comforting way.
"You can't marry me," he said.
A...amazing, I thought, rather flabbergasted.
I looked down, my hand tightening around his. He must've known from the moment he asked on Christmas Day. The moment I said I needed to think about it. And he'd been able to read me well enough just now to predict what I was going to talk about with him.
"I can't," I confirmed, my hand tightening around his, afraid that if I let go, I'd lose him forever.
Funny. That's what was happening. I was losing him - pushing him away voluntarily by breaking up. And it hurt. It hurt more than I could have imagined. When I'd told Aya I'd break up with him, I hadn't imagined how much my heart would ache. It was awful. If only she could be here to tell me it was okay. To hold my other hand and to comfort me...
"Can I ask why?" Hiroshi asked quietly, looking down at me.
I set my jaw in a hard way and tried to make a grim line with my mouth, but my heart wasn't in it. I gave up, and I just rested my head on his chest as if listening to his heartbeat. I couldn't hear it because of the thickness of his jacket and the layers he was wearing underneath.
"You and I aren't going anywhere," I murmured just loud enough for him to hear. "We match well, but I know you can feel it too. We're digging ourselves into a rut."
I spoke truthfully. It was the only way that I could with him.
A few weeks after we'd started officially going out, Hiroshi had sat down with me and started a serious talk.
"If you're going to break my heart, just do it honestly," he had said to me.
At first, it had put me off. He sounded so weak saying that. Like a wimp signing a prenuptial agreement just in case. Like he was accusing me in advance for doing something terrible like cheating on him.
The more I had thought about it that night and all through the next day, the more I had realised that he was stronger than any of the other boys I'd known. He had had the courage to say that to me just as we were starting our relationship. He'd wanted to set things right from the get go, and that was admirable. It had made me fall for him just a little more.
From that day on, I never beat around the bush with him. I was already a direct person, but with him, I could be myself and not have to worry about how hard I stepped on his toes. If he was bothering me, I'd tell him. If he was wrong, I'd tell him. I expected (and received) the same treatment from him. It was a mutual respect that I knew a lot of my friends hadn't been lucky enough to discover yet (if ever), and it was love of the real kind.
Fast forward through a few years, and there I stood, leaning against him and telling him that I couldn't marry him.
"Do you still love me?" he asked in a wavering voice.
Once I would have thought a wavering voice a pathetic display for a man. But when you loved someone, that outlook softened and changed.
"Yes," I said honestly, looking up at him. "I do. But I can't marry you."
He looked down at me and I could swear that I saw unshed tears in his eyes. They didn't spill out, though. He was good at controlling that sort of thing. The fact that I could see tears at all meant he was far more upset than I had imagined he would be.
"Will you ever be able to?"
I sighed. This was it.
"No. And what's more, I can't be with you anymore. Like this. I just can't."
He let go of my hand, and I suspected that he'd push me away from him, but instead, he hugged me closely. I hugged him back. There was no harm in a final moment with him. We'd dated for two years. You didn't just shut off your habits in one day.
"And I'm moving to Tokyo," I added in a small voice.
This caused him to suck in a surprised breath of air and push me away to get a clear look at my face.
"What?" he asked in disbelief.
"I haven't told my parents yet," I continued, looking away from him, "but it's pretty much a done deal."
"I... What?"
I looked down at the snow-covered ground between our feet. I was shattering a life. I was breaking it up into tiny fragments. I was ripping apart his heart.
"You met someone else?" he asked in a tiny voice.
No, he didn't really ask. He said it. He could tell. Maybe he'd seen one of those marks on my neck. Aya had left a few.
Come to think of it, she probably did that on purpose...
"It's complicated," I started, and he put a finger under my chin and forced me to look up at him.
His eyes were gleaming with emotion. A lot of sadness and confusion, and a touch of anger.
"Don't avoid the question," he said to me.
"I'm not," I said defensively, shaking his hand off my face. "I was just starting. Yes, I met someone - a friend - who opened my eyes to the world out there, so now I have to go and see it."
Just at that moment, it started to snow. Out of the blue. Small flakes fluttered down on us, making the scene look unnaturally beautiful. It would have been a confession scene in a movie, not a break up.
Hiroshi, indifferent to the snow, looked hurt, but when he spoke, he sounded so much more controlled.
"I thought that having each other would be enough, you know?" he sighed. "Even if we moved here and became shepherds, at least we'd be together. We wouldn't need fancy things."
This was Hiroshi, ace of the basketball team, frequently voted by his classmates as the handsomest boy in the school, and on his way to getting his doctorate. A man who appreciated the simple things in life. A man that loved me so much that he'd let go of all his dreams of playing basketball professionally or being a professor in a Canadian university just so that he could be with me. That was why I loved him. I loved his loyal heart, his gentleness, his carefully pursued ambitions, his way of thinking, his quirky habit of wandering off and disappearing in his own little world, the amount he loved me... and okay, yes, the sex was fantastic.
And for a second - a long second - I asked myself why I was throwing all that away for an idea of a glamorous life in Tokyo with a girl I hardly knew. Why toss out this kind of love for something that was still floating in murky, unclear waters?
But when Aya's face came to mind, and I remembered the way she looked at me the previous night and that morning, it defeated all my senses and launched my feelings up to a whole different level. Hiroshi was stable, Aya was not. She was like a flame. A flame that burned on and on, but that flickered constantly, leaving you guessing where it would jump to next. She made me feel excited and invincible. She filled me with hope, dreams, and optimism. She filled me with the need to be beside her all the time.
"I love you, Hiroshi, but I need more. So much more," I said softly.
Neither of use spoke. The snow continued to fall, and I could almost hear each flake hitting various surfaces.
"So that's it for us?"
By the time Hiroshi spoke those words, the tops of our heads and shoulders were white with snow.
I nodded.
"That's it for us," I said with an air of finality.
He sighed.
"I just wish you hadn't told my parents that you had proposed to me. They're going to worry now," I added in.
He looked up at me with a frown.
"I didn't tell them anything," he said.
Huh?
"But my dad-"
"Oh," Hiroshi interrupted me with his revelation. "You thought he was... Okay. No. He was making a joke. I never told him a thing."
That made me feel better. Hiroshi was let off the hook. He hadn't been trying to get my parents to force me to marry him. It made everything a little bit better.
"Are you upset?" I asked.
"Do you even need to ask that?" he asked back in a sombre tone. "Are you upset?"
I looked down.
"Yes," I said honestly. "I'll miss you. But I'm happy that I know what I want."
He tried to force a smile to come out, but it was gloomy.
"You're just going to quit school?"
There was definitely disapproval in his tone. My silence told him that that was indeed my plan.
"Miki, if there's one last piece of advice I can give you as someone who loves you, it's to not quit altogether. At least just take a semester off. Ask them to hold your spot. If you go to Tokyo and don't like it there, then you'll have something to come back to. You're so smart, you know that?"
He reached out a hand and gently brushed the snow out of my hair, letting his fingers run through the dampened strands.
His advice made sense, but it seemed to dull the excitement of taking off for a new city and going in blindly with no safety net.
No, I would have a safety net. Aya. Nothing could go wrong if she was there. That heightened my desire to drop school.
But I owed Hiroshi a lot, including comfort, reassurance, and trust. I reached up and took his hand in mine, entwining my fingers with his and looking at him directly in the eyes with a soft smile.
"Thank you. I can always trust your advice."
He put his hands on my shoulders, bent his head down, and without hesitation, he kissed me. With our last kiss, I gave him everything that was his. I sealed up my history with him, gave him the last ounce of love that I could, and said goodbye.
When he pulled back up, he wiped at his cheek hastily. A tear had managed to work its way out of his eye. Hiroshi. A tough man on the courts. A sensitive soul on snowy mountain paths.
"I'll go by your house and pick up my things later," he said quietly as if not to interrupt the concert the falling snow was putting on.
"You're not going to come now?" I asked with a frown.
He shook his head.
"I'm going to stay up here for a bit. You go on ahead."
I gave him a concerned look, but he smiled.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything stupid," he said, touching my shoulder comfortingly.
I nodded, told him not to catch a cold, and then as if nothing heart-shattering had happened mere moments ago, I turned around and walked down the hill.
This was a pivotal moment in my life. The era of Hiroshi had ended. The era of Aya was about to begin. When I finished walking this mountain path and entered my home, it would be time to talk to my parents and tell them about my plan to move.
So for the entire walk back home, I thought of Aya and pretended she was right beside me, holding my hand and giving me that unique strength of hers that warmed me up and made me indestructible.
With an image like that, there was no doubt in my mind that I was doing the right thing.
-
Chapter 3 of 29
When I got home, my parents were eating lunch.
"Miki-chan, Hiroshi-kun," my mother sang out when she heard me open the door. "Dad bought some of that delicious bread from the bakery at the supermarket. Come and have some."
For a moment - just a moment - I was happy again. So my dad had bought that bread. But my heart fell again because I had to explain why Hiroshi wasn't with me.
I popped into the room and looked at my parents. They looked up at me. My mother smiled and glanced behind to me to look for Hiroshi.
"Mom, dad," I greeted them, walking into the room and sitting on the opposite side of the table, putting lots of space between us.
They came to realise that something serious was going on and that Hiroshi wouldn't be joining us for the conversation.
"I know this is rather sudden," I said, taking a deep breath, "but I've decided to move out."
In the silence that followed, you could have heard a pin drop all the way in the Swiss Alps.
"With Hiroshi-kun?" my mother asked, expecting me to answer in the affirmative.
"No."
More silence.
"And where do you intend to move?" my father asked.
"Tokyo," I said bravely.
I didn't feel brave. I felt like I would crumble the minute my parents raised their objections.
"What will you do in Tokyo?"
My father again. His voice was far too calm and controlled. I could tell that there was a storm gathering, and it was ready to unleash its power.
"I'm going to work."
Silence.
No need to ask what kind of work I was going to look for because it was obvious I had no idea.
"Did that friend of yours put ideas in your head?" my mom asked.
So it was that easy to tell that Aya had been involved? I almost broke my eye contact with my mom, but doing so would have weakened my position. I steadfastly kept my gaze on her.
"Aya-chan helped open up my eyes," I confirmed, "but this is something I've wanted to do for a long time."
That was the breaking point.
"You can't leave now," my father said, voice like a razor-sharp knife. "You're starting your last term of the year at school. You have a job, too, and responsibilities-"
"I don't care about school!" I exploded.
My father jumped to his feet and looked across the table and down at me furiously.
"Don't go throwing that kind of attitude around in this house!" he thundered. "Nobody in this family is a quitter. Nobody runs away from their duties. You can't go and make a selfish decision like that and spring it upon us expecting our full support!"
I had never seen my father so angry. He had never yelled at me like that before. Such fury. I tried not to tremble in fear as my mother stood up to pacify my father. Her face showed, though, that she sided more with him than with me.
But wait. Me? A quitter? Here I was about to embark on an exciting and difficult journey, and he was calling me a quitter?
I jumped up to my feet, and what could possibly be called the fiercest Fujimoto family feud began.
"I'm not a quitter, Dad. I'm going down there to follow my dream," I said harshly.
"Miki, you can't just drop school. That's quitting," said my mother in a firm tone.
I trained my eyes on her.
"No, Mom. That's not quitting. Quitting would be if I stayed in school," I bit back. "If I stayed when every centimetre of me wanted to move out and pursue my own life. Do you think I want to be a bookkeeper?"
I pierced my father with a glare.
"I've hated studying economics at school. I've found it a waste of my time. I've only been doing it because I lacked the motivation to get out of here. I've been too scared to leave this safe place."
My father's face grew red.
"How dare you throw our kindness back in our faces like that. We've given you everything and provided you with a safe and comfortable environment in which to grow up. You're an ungrateful, spoiled child."
That hurt. I wanted to scream at him, but I kept a tight rein on my temper before I said something that would get me disowned by my family.
"I do appreciate everything you've done for me," I said through grit teeth. "I've had a wonderful life. But it's time to move on and grow up. Start my own life."
I wasn't sure if my words had had any effect, because my mother changed the subject.
"You're going to let some wild, famous girl convince you to do away with this good life?"
Wild and famous? I had thought that she liked Aya.
"Aya-chan is not wild," I said in a controlled voice. "And she only let me see what's out there. She didn't force me into anything."
There was a pause in the air as everyone tried to think of something new to say. I took advantage of it and broke the silence.
"And besides, what happened to you two supporting my dreams, huh?" I asked, the heat coming back to my voice. "You were going to let me go that audition all those years ago. If I'd made it, you would've let me move to Tokyo."
My parents both looked chagrined, and I knew that I'd hit upon a good argument.
"I was in school back then, too. You would have let me leave. The way I see it, you're just upset now because it has to do with money and convenience. We pay for university classes. It's convenient that Inaba-Baachan has known me for years and thus trusts me with handling the till at the restaurant. It's a good thing for you two that your youngest daughter is studying bookkeeping so that she can take over the family business one day," I continued. "What happened to my supportive parents who helped me fill out my audition applications? My parents who let me practice in front of them? Who nursed me back to health after that stupid flu, and who assured me that my chance would come again? Did you forget all about that? Your promise to support me unconditionally? Were they just empty words?"
I was on a roll. Nothing could stop me. Years of bottled up dissatisfaction came pouring out of me.
My parents stood silently, my father with a disturbed look etched into his face, my mother looking blank and maybe a little pale.
"I can't believe I live with a couple of hypocrites. I've just told you that I'm miserable with my life and what do you do? On the surface you tell me you want me to be happy, but in reality, you chew me out and tell me I can't get out of my situation. You try to play on some sort of guilt I should feel because you raised me well. But I want to leave."
They certainly looked chastised. My mother's eyes showed a little shock. My father's concerned expression had deepened.
"If that's the way it's going to be, then I definitely don't want to stay here. I'm moving. You don't have to support me in any way. I'll find a job and pay you back for everything you've ever done for me."
I fixed my father with a chilly look, and after a few seconds, I shifted my gaze to my mother.
"I don't see how my departure will affect anyone in the long run. I've broken things off with Hiroshi-kun, and other than him, I don't think any of my other friends are going to be very heart-broken about my leaving. I'll be out of your hair in a few days."
With that, I turned on my heels and walked calmly out of the living room and up the stairs.
Once in the privacy of my bedroom, I sat down on my bed and let out a breath of disbelief. I reached up to fix my hair, but my hands shook uselessly. I sat on them, a habit I'd had when I was young and got nervous easily, and tried to formulate a plan.
I had told my parents off and angered them. I couldn't count on them for any support.
Next, I had to call the registrar's office at my university. The only problem was that I'd have to wait because it was a holiday. Nobody would be in until after the New Year vacation. I couldn't stay here and wait that long. I decided I would call from Tokyo. Long distance charges be damned.
Next on my list? I needed a plane ticket. Or a shinkansen ticket. Or a boat ticket. Any way to get south of here. I'd take care of that in the afternoon. Luckily, I had a stack of money with me, so no holiday bank closures could stand in my way.
Next? Baachan. I had to go and explain things to her. I'd do that after securing transportation.
And then? Packing. I could start that now. I needed to calm down before going to the travel agency. Moving around and sorting through clothing would help.
I sat on my bed for half an hour, trying to gather the strength to stand up and start packing.
When I finally did stand up, it was on surprisingly strong legs that did not shake. I went to my closet to find an appropriate suitcase or bag. It was then when I heard a knock at my door.
It could only be one of two people. I didn't want to argue anymore. I just wanted them to leave me alone so that I could get my affairs in order and leave.
"I'm coming in," my mother announced, and she opened the door before I could object.
She walked in carrying a large bag. I would have almost called it a sports bag, but it was a little more refined. Classier. She put it down in the middle of the room.
"I thought you might need a big enough bag for all your things," she said quietly.
I looked at her, keeping my expression neutral while my insides churned with disbelief. I didn't say anything.
"If you want to leave, that's your decision. I didn't realise we were holding you back and that you were so unhappy."
I started to feel bad because I hadn't been unhappy about everything. Just certain things. Important things.
"But I want you to know that the reason why we want you to stay is not because of money or convenience. It's because we love you and worry that you won't be able to take care of yourself. You seem to be going into this blindly and with high ambitions. Tokyo life is tough. Do you realise that?"
I sat down on my bed and looked up at my mother. She didn't look angry anymore. Her face was lined with anxiety.
"I'm not going blindly, Mom," I assured her, but she looked sceptical. "I'll have Aya-chan to help me out. She's letting me stay with her until I can find my own place to live."
This only made my mother give me a disapproving look.
"I don't want you to be a burden to other people. Aya-chan's a kind girl, and I really like her a lot, but she's busy. You know that. She lives in a different world than the rest of us."
I balled my fists up.
"No she doesn't. She's just like me. Like us. Why don't you give people a chance?" I snapped defensively. "Just because she's a celebrity, it doesn't make her inhuman. She has feelings too, you know."
Aya would have been proud. I was fighting on her behalf. My mother, much to my surprise, laughed.
"Oh my. We've raised you so well that you've gone and out-moralised your own mother. Must be my old age."
I unclenched my fists.
"You're right, Miki-chan. I shouldn't judge like that."
My mother was a stubborn woman, but a smart one. She knew when to admit she was wrong. At least when it came to family members.
"It's okay. It's natural to think that at first," I mumbled.
Even I had been guilty of that. When I'd first seen Aya at the restaurant, my first thought had been "What's a top rate idol doing at my restaurant in Takikawa?" But ever since she'd burst out with a plea to not think like that, I'd smartened up and done as she'd asked.
My mother came over and sat beside me on my bed.
"But still. You can't impose on her forever. And do you know how expensive it is to find a place to live? A decent place?"
"She said she doesn't mind how long I stay," I insisted.
I was certain I could stay for a year and she'd love it. I thought that she got a kick out of dominating me like she had the night before and then seeing me be all squeamish about it the next morning.
My mother still looked unconvinced.
Oh well. Let her just assume Aya's just being polite on the outside. I know for a fact that she means it. Mom doesn't have to know the truth about last night.
"Anyway, Dad wants to apologise, too," my mom said.
"Eh?" I exclaimed with a frown. "I thought he wanted to hurl me into the river."
"He got so angry because he loves you. You're his little girl. His favourite little baby. You really gave him a shock."
Oh, Dad...
My heart ached just a little bit in advance. Out of my whole family, I'd probably only really miss having my dad around the most.
"He's forgiven," I said quietly, and I looked up at my mother. "I know you two want to protect me, but you have to let me go. I'll be okay."
My mom smiled and ran a hand through my hair (everyone was doing that to me lately!).
"I know, Miki-chan."
We sat like that for a moment until my mother spoke again.
"Do you need any money?"
I squirmed. I could use anything I could get, but I wasn't about to ask for it. Talk about bad luck starting a period of independence by begging for a loan.
"No, I'm okay," I said with a persuasive smile.
"If you ever need anything, just call."
I nodded.
"When are you leaving?"
She didn't even try to mask her fear. Or if she did, it didn't work. I could read her perfectly.
"As soon as possible," I said softly as to not offend her. "I'm going to JTB today to enquire about airfare."
My mother looked like she was about to say something important, but she exhaled and cut it off, starting in a different vein.
"If you need help packing, let me know."
And then she was gone, out of my room as though carried away by a strong gust of wind. Such was the abrupt nature of the Fujimoto family.
I sighed and picked up the pseudo-sports bag. It would do. It was big enough for the essentials. I'd have to buy a new wardrobe in Tokyo anyway.
Or borrow Aya's clothing, I thought slyly.
If she let me take off her clothes, I'm sure that meant we were close enough to wear each other's clothing on a regular basis.
For a moment, I pushed my parents out of my mind and I focused on starting to pack my things up. I didn't even know when I'd leave, but I needed to do something to make it all feel more real.
I was single again. I was going to drop school. I was going to move to Tokyo. I was going to live with a girl I'd met two months ago.
Life certainly did have the habit of throwing the oddest things out at the strangest times.
This time, I was going to seize it and never let go, because suddenly my life had meaning. Worth. A purpose. Thanks to Aya, I was finally going to start living.
-
Chapter 4 of 29
Plane ticket - check.
Baachan - check (but have to pick up last pay cheque tomorrow afternoon).
Parents - check and check.
Rest of family - check.
Hiroshi - check point five (one more talk).
School - x (call next week).
Aya - x (check e-mail now).
My mental checklist looked good. Much better, in fact, than I ever thought it could. Several things had been accomplished in the space of half a day: I had gone to the travel agency and booked myself a plane ticket for - and I couldn't believe it - the afternoon of the first of January; I had gone to Baachan's and gotten her enthusiastic blessings for my journey (old people were so grand that way); I had made peace with my parents after a reasonably long and calm talk with them (more like I listened to my dad lecture on and on about Tokyo being dangerous for a girl on her own and what kind of men to look out for); and Hiroshi had come back from his solo mountain hike. It was decided that he would stay the night since it was late and he'd come all the way to visit. My mother was the one who insisted on his staying, and I knew that some part of her was scheming to get us back together. But no matter. He would sleep in a different room, and I was resolute in my decision to end things with him.
All that was left to do that day was to get in touch with Aya. I had e-mailed her earlier, but I had gotten no response yet.
Late that evening, we finished a delicious dinner. My parents were washing dishes together (my dad actually did help with the housework), and Hiroshi was in the bath ("Guests first," said my mom). I was in my room with my phone. I had still not received a reply from Aya. I was gripped with an icy and ridiculous fear that the things she'd said hadn't been heartfelt and that it had all been a bout of temporary insanity that had made her say and do the things she had. Maybe she'd said them to get rid of me. Maybe she-
My phone started ringing. As I was receiving mail, I all but tore the screen off flipping it open to read.
I sighed with relief. It was from Aya. Her flight had been delayed and her phone's battery had died. She'd just gotten home that minute. She'd read my mail about my flight, and she said that it sucked that we couldn't spend New Year's Eve together. I blushed at the thought of spending such a family-oriented holiday with her. She also wrote that she missed me, which made me bury my face into my pillow and squeal in giddiness and mortification. I quickly stopped that and composed myself. Acting like a fifteen year old girl with a massive crush on Kimutaku was probably not an attractive quality on me. So "un" Fujimoto.
I wrote back and, while sucking in a big breath of air and clenching my jaw out of embarrassment, said that I missed her, too, and that at least we could celebrate the first day of the brand new year together. I said good night, and that was that.
It took so little to make me feel so happy. So excited about the future.
I lounged around until Hiroshi got out of the bath. I took mine and then got into my pyjamas, ready to hit the sack a little earlier than usual. I was about to slip under the covers when I had a change of heart. I padded out of my room and made the trek over to the guest room Hiroshi was staying in. I knocked, asking if I could come in.
"Yeah," Hiroshi called out.
I walked in and saw him sitting on the bed playing a video game. He looked up as if he had to check who I was and then quickly paused the game, putting it down and giving me his full attention.
One of the reasons why I liked him. A guy who would pause his precious video game for me? A winner.
When he looked at me, though, his eyes were still full of love. Maybe a bit of hope, too. Hope that I'd take him back. I felt sorry for him because he had to be around me and not act like we had up until that very day. If he really was uncomfortable, though, he could have left. There were several polite ways to decline an invitation.
"Playing games, huh?" I asked in a mock-scolding voice.
He grinned like a little boy.
"I remember a certain someone who came over to my place last summer and wouldn't let go of the game controller for two days straight."
I scoffed at him, but then laughed and sat beside him on the bed.
"Thanks for being so understanding, Hiro-kun," I said, shifting gears and expressing what I'd come by to express.
He looked down at his knees.
"As long as you're happy, I can't complain. Just... whoever he is, be careful."
I tried not to react too much to that because it was so much more complicated than I cared to explain. I sighed
"I'm not leaving you for someone else. I'm doing it for me. And you. You can do better than little old me," I said in a light tone.
He looked up at me, eyes wide with longing.
"But all I want is you."
I shook my head.
"I'm sorry."
He looked back down and then up again (I was getting dizzy watching him), a silly smirk gracing his face.
"I know you hate weak men, Micchan," he said. "I'll stop with that whiney crap."
"Stupid," I said, bonking him on the forehead. "I know you're strong. It's okay for you to have feelings."
He grinned back at me, and it felt like old times when we'd sit around and flirt harmlessly. Only now, it didn't mean the same thing. It would lead to nowhere.
Out of habit, I fixed his bangs, which I had displaced with my scolding tap. I stroked the soft strands of slightly damp hair gently back into place and then took my hand away.
"You're a good man, Hiro-kun," I said in a moment of pure, unguarded honesty. "Keep being good."
We shared a smile, and for a moment I thought that he was going to lean in and kiss me. But he knew we were over. He knew he'd upset me if he did anything. I could see him restrain himself. Very admirable. But also fearful. He knew I could throw quite a punch when I wanted to.
I stood up and walked to the door.
"Good night, Hiro-kun."
"Good night, Micchan."
I left.
Closure.
I sighed in relief.
I got into bed and checked my messages one last time. Aya had written back to me while I'd been off chatting with Hiroshi.
Love you and good night!
Added on the next line were musical notes, a smiley face, and a heart.
I snapped my phone shut and turned the light out to try and lower the temperature of my face.
What a girl.
I had never expected in a million years that she could feel something like that about me. It never would have occurred to me in the past two months we'd been hanging out.
Well, okay, no. I admit that sometimes I wondered why she acted so familiarly with me, but I really had no proper inkling of her true feelings. I chalked it all up to her friendly personality. Not until last night had I had any real idea how strongly she cared for me.
I lay back and tried to remember every detail of the previous night.
I started to cry when we got to her hotel room. It was something I hadn't done in front of another person for years. But I desperately wanted her to stay. My life became exciting because of her.
To try and let her know how truly grateful I was to her for being my friend, I reached out and hugged her. She stood there stiffly for a moment, during which I was filled with the fear that maybe I'd been too presumptuous as to get close to her when she didn't want to have a friendship like that. Maybe I'd crossed some sort of line that I didn't know was there.
But then she relaxed completely and hugged me back.
"Don't worry. I'll visit again."
Liar, I thought through my tears.
I forced myself to stop crying, though, because it was humiliating. Even in front of Aya, who I'd grown to trust more than some of the people I'd been friends with since elementary school, I couldn't stand being so weak.
I sensed something in that quiet moment, and before I knew it, she kissed me. It was like a blunder. One of things you couldn't help. There was a tear on my lip, and she simply wiped it away with her own lips.
But to me, it felt like more. The way she did it was so full of adoration that it initiated some sort of urge in me. Suddenly, I wanted her to do it again. And I wanted to do it back. I just wanted to stand there and hold her and maybe kiss her so that I wouldn't have to lose her so quickly. Maybe by doing so, our friendship would deepen. I didn't really understand, but it seemed exciting to me. It felt right because it was different. And she cared. I could tell from that moment when our faces were so close together and her warmth became mine and vice versa. It was something I had never felt, not even from Hiroshi. It confused me, but made me happy.
I felt this overwhelming need radiating from her in that split second after she did what she did, but she controlled herself and forced me away from her. She pushed a speechless me out the door. I was about to allow myself to be shut out because I was in such shock, when my brain snapped.
This was what I wanted. This moment and this situation. I needed someone who understood me. Aya was the only one who knew how I didn't like the direction in which my life was headed. She knew I needed excitement, and she understood and supported me.
So I stopped her from closing the door.
"You know, I've never tried that before..." I propositioned her indirectly.
She snapped back without taking the bait, so I dug into her. I got angry. How dare she start something like that - give me the tiniest, briefest taste of excitement - and then yank it all away? I wanted to see where she wanted to take that slip of the lips.
It seemed as though I angered her with my words, but quite the opposite turned out to be true. She grabbed at me with needy hands, pulled me back into her apartment, and shoved me hard against the wall
They say there is a fine line between love and hate. For a moment, I believed that the same was true for beating someone up and sex. The way she dove into things with me was a shock to my system. She seemed so desperate that she was almost rough with me, and she went much further than I thought she would ever have had the mind to.
But letting her take the lead, I grew courageous, and whatever desperation she felt was transferred to me through her kisses.
She seemed to know me so well. Maybe even better than Hiroshi did. She teased me. Every minute we went at it, she would dangle something in front of me and laugh at how I couldn't get it. She'd push and push and then retreat a bit, push some more, and then pull back. It infuriated me in a completely animal way, and a primal side of me that I'd never known about came out to play. I didn't even know what I was doing. I had never even touched a girl like this before.
Well, actually, I was kissed by one once when I was in my second year of high school, but we were at a party and she was drunk. She threatened to take off all her clothes in a room full of twenty-five boys and girls unless she got to kiss every single person in the room. We figured letting her kiss each of us was the best thing, since she was a notoriously rowdy drunk who liked to run around outside. Being completely naked while doing so would attract much more attention. Small towns were not good for this sort of thing.
But it was time to stop reminiscing about my high school days while I was being... attacked.
The more she pushed me, the more I reciprocated. We probably generated enough energy to heat all of Siberia for the entire month of January.
It had been a long, exhausting day. I'd done school work in the morning, driven my sister to the hospital, and then gone immediately to work. After work, I'd had to pick my sister back up, drop her off at her house, and then go on a hike with Aya to look at the night sky, where she dropped her bomb - she was leaving in less than twelve hours. After that emotionally draining event, we'd gone back to her hotel room, talked, and then suddenly ended up in bed.
It grew very late - or rather early in the morning - and I could barely hold myself up anymore. Aya was merciful, and she let me go to sleep. As I lay there, drowning in waves of bliss and exhaustion, I felt her hand on my back. I made a sound to acknowledge it. She then drew a shape on my back. A heart. I groaned out loud, trying to tell her that it tickled and that I was too drained, my nerves too frayed, to deal with more of her teasing. She put her hand flat on the left side of my back. She was feeling for my heartbeat. She wanted to feel the thing that was keeping me alive, pumping warm blood through my body. Blood that she had just lit on fire.
It was a loving gesture that I would never forget. Even if the next day we woke up and awkwardly parted with regret coursing through our veins, that one gesture would still mean something. Millions of words. She cared.
I tried to mumble something, but I was far too sleepy to even take a deep enough breath. I fell asleep while hoping beyond hope that this all meant something.
The memories were vivid in my mind. As I recalled them, I started to feel the pressing need to see her. To repeat last night. This desire built up in me, and I started to fidget.
What could I do? She was almost one thousand kilometres away from me. I held my breath, counted to twenty, and let it go. I took another deep breath, and then counted to fifteen before letting that one go, too. I forced myself to be still, and I took deep, calming breaths in an attempt to put myself to sleep.
It worked eventually, and my dream... was lurid.
In it, I got out of my bed. I could sense with that mysterious sixth sense in dreams that Aya was nearby.
It was the dead of night and the neighbourhood was asleep. Not a creature was stirring. Not even a sheep.
I left the room and tiptoed past my parents' bedroom, slipping through the next door. My sister's old room. In the bed, basking in the moonlight that peeked in brightly through the thin curtains covering the window, was Aya, her skin looking smooth and inviting in the pale light. I walked quietly and stood over the bed, studying her.
I reached out a hand and touched her cheek. Her eyes opened slowly. She smiled at me. I looked down, serious, desperate.
"One more time," I whispered softly.
I demanded.
She looked surprised.
"Now? You sure?"
I didn't reply. She'd heard me. I got onto the bed on my hands and knees and hovered over her. I slowly lowered my face to hers. Soon, we were clawing at each other's pyjamas, and I recall thinking in my dream that she looked so cute in pyjamas that it almost saddened me to take them off of her. Almost.
But as we undressed in order to touch as much skin as possible, something about her felt different. Familiar, but different. The handful of X-rated dreams I'd had in my life paled in comparison to this one. This one felt real. Like she was actually there underneath me, doing things that made me shudder and gasp out mindless phrases. Uttering them quietly, softly, muffling my sounds in her neck. My parents were right next door, and in my dream, it was just as important as in real life not to subject them to play-by-plays of my sex life.
"Miki, I..." she whispered into my ear.
The chills I felt were not because of her warm breath hitting and tickling my ear, but because she sounded different.
I tried to pull back a bit, but things were spiralling forward, and I couldn't stop them. Part of me pulled back, but part of me needed that release that was so near. So I kept going.
Then two things happened.
One was that I felt impossibly good. The other was that I felt the world come to a disastrous end.
The moment I was about to gasp out something - maybe her name, but most likely miscellaneous nonsense - I woke up.
The moment I opened my eyes and looked down, I realised that Aya was nowhere to be found. I was not on top of her. Instead, the person I was clutching to me as waves of ecstasy crashed through my body was Hiroshi.
The breath left my body, leaving me numb, unable to move. He didn't seem to notice as he kissed me and then pushed me onto my back, continuing to move above me and then eventually muffling his own groan in the pillow under my head. He fell (carefully) on top of me, both of us breathing hard, sweating, trembling.
He rolled off to the side and caught his breath while I lay there, stone still, trying to catch my own breath and figure out what was happening.
I was awake and in bed with Hiroshi. Once again.
But I hadn't meant to come here. I had been dreaming. And not even about him!
What have I done? I thought in fear.
For the second day in a row, I cried in front of someone.
-
Chapter 5 of 29
The next few minutes passed with varying degrees of speed. At first, the entire world slowed down, and I could feel each tear tumble down my cheek like large boulders rolling down a gradual incline. Before Hiroshi could notice, I rolled onto my side, facing away from him, unsure how to explain what I felt. I didn't even know what was happening.
Then time sped up. Some minutes passed, and I felt him sidle up to me, spooning me, kissing my exposed shoulder tenderly. He reached a hand down in front of me and tucked it in between the side of my stomach and the mattress, holding me like he always did when we spent the night together, tracing small circles on my skin with his thumb.
"Micchan," he whispered. "You surprised me."
He spoke in a calm voice, his desires satiated. He was oblivious to what I was thinking. I tried to respond, but all that came out was a choked sob. He craned his neck and peered into my face.
"What's the matter?" he mumbled. "Did I hurt you?"
I burst out with a laugh and a sob. He hadn't hurt me. As far as I could tell (although it was all based entirely on conjecture), he'd done nothing wrong. I was the one who'd make a mistake and hurt myself. It was all very funny while not being funny at all.
"Miki..."
I took a shaky breath.
"Hiroshi, I, uh..."
How could I tell him I'd been having a dream about Aya and I'd accidentally sleepwalked into his bed, thinking he was her.
"I didn't mean to do that," I said quietly.
He let go of me and backed away, pulling gently on my shoulder and rolling me onto my back. He had a perfect view of my tears, and nothing but concern played across his features. He wiped the tears away from my cheeks, looking surprised. He hadn't seen me cry since the summer before we'd entered high school.
"Were you awake?" he asked, his voice cracking in fear.
He desperately wanted to be told I'd been awake the whole time, but I had to be honest with him. I shook my head.
"I was dreaming."
He moved further away from me, letting out an unsteady breath and smoothing his hair back nervously.
"I-I'm sorry," he stammered. "I didn't mean to-"
But I brought a hand up to silence him.
"Not your fault. Don't apologise."
A part of me did hate him, though. How could he not have noticed that I was sleeping? I'd done things like this a few times before - come onto him while I was asleep - but never had I gone this far. I guess the part of him that still wanted me had denied the scepticism within his heart, and he had convinced himself that I was awake and back for more.
I saw his expression grow cloudy.
"Were you dreaming of me?"
His voice was weak and pleading. He wanted me. He wanted me so badly. I was still attracted to him (these things didn't simply disappear overnight), but a sense of loyalty to Aya protected me.
"No," I replied solidly.
I didn't want him to follow up his question, although it inevitably came.
"Who was it?" he asked.
How could I tell him? It barely made sense to me. I could never explain it to him.
His eyes pierced me with a glare, and I grew angry.
He wanted to know? He had the audacity to ask me after what he'd done to me while I was asleep? Her name was on the tip of my tongue.
No! I yelled to myself. Get a grip.
"Never mind," I mumbled.
He became visibly incensed. He sat up and grabbed my wrist. I fixed him with a icy look, daring him to hurt me in my own home, my protective father right next door.
"I believed you when you said there wasn't anyone else and that you broke up for your own sake."
"I told you it's complicated," I snapped back.
"No, it's not. You're just making it out to be. Cut the crap already and tell me. Is he from Tokyo? Did you meet him here? Did he trick you into a glittery, cosmopolitan life in the capital? Did he dangle stories of excitement in front of you just to capture you for his own pleasure?"
I shook his hand off me violently.
"Aya-chan's not like that!" I hissed.
I immediately regretted it.
"Who?" he demanded.
"Never mind," I said with a blank look, praying that he hadn't heard.
"That girl you're friends with?" he asked in disbelief.
He tried to compute, but there wasn't enough believable data. The wires got crossed in his mind.
"Miki, tell me what's going on."
By now, our voices were at normal speaking levels.
"Did she somehow-" he started, but he cut himself off uncertainly, aware of how embarrassing it would be if he spewed out his assumptions and was chastised for thinking such naughty things. "Are... She... Do you like her?"
I sighed.
"Things happened. Complicated things."
Understanding dawned on him.
"Is that where you were last night? With her?"
I gave no reply, which of course meant a loud and clear "yes!"
"Did you sleep with her?"
I shot him a look that could have frozen Ecuador.
"I can't believe this. You cheated on me with some girl from Tokyo, and now you want to go off and live with her?" he muttered, laughing bitterly. "Have you gone insane?!"
I rolled up from the bed.
"Keep your voice down," I hissed.
I got off the bed and put my pyjamas back on.
"No," he snapped back. "I think I deserve a bit more than all this secrecy."
I ignored him and stalked out of the room. I didn't want to talk to him anymore. I couldn't face him. I'd cheated on him, broken up with him, and then somehow cheated on Aya, even though Aya and I had not exactly established yet where we stood with each other. I still felt like I was cheating her heart.
I heard him jump up and scramble to put his clothes on as I made my way downstairs and slipped on my heavy jacket and a pair of warm boots. I opened the door and left as quickly as possible, but I heard Hiroshi coming down the stairs in pursuit. I zipped up my jacket as I trudged through the driveway and into the snowy street.
The front door to my house opened sooner than I expected, and Hiroshi raced out. I tried to walk quickly, but his legs were longer. He confronted me, forcing me to stop.
"How could you let some girl you barely know seduce you like that?" he demanded.
"She didn't seduce me!" I yelled back, now feeling a little less restricted.
"Then you're going through a phase," he said. "You're just bored, but if you'd come and told me, we could've fixed it."
"It's not a phase," I insisted. "And there's no fixing what you and I have. It just doesn't work unless I want to get married and become a shepherd's wife."
"But... she... she's a girl!" he sputtered incoherently.
The last person in the world who I thought would be close-minded was Hiroshi. The only reason I didn't knee him in the crotch for saying something like that was because he had a reason to be spewing nonsense angrily - I'd done him wrong.
"Don't give me that crap," I growled. "It just feels right with her. Okay? I can't explain it any better than that."
That shut him up, and for the first time, I realised that it was freezing cold. Maybe minus ten degrees. I was shivering.
"Damnit, Miki. I thought... I don't even know. What the hell...!?"
He threw his hands up in the air.
"I mean... how long has this been going on?"
I crossed my arms, hoping it would make me look tough, but really, it was just for warmth.
"We've been friends for a few months," I said firmly, "but nothing happened between us until last night."
I didn't mind being honest about that much. In fact, it was kind of a relief to talk to somebody about it, even if that somebody was slowly turning into a raving lunatic and happened to be my ex-boyfriend as of that morning.
My answer did nothing to relieve his anger and worry.
"God, Miki. How could you? What did you even do with her? How-how the hell would you know?"
I uncrossed my arms and shoved him viciously. He fell to the ground, caught completely by surprise.
"Don't be an ass, Hiroshi," I spat out. "If you understood even a tiny bit how confused I feel over this whole thing, you wouldn't be talking so rudely to me."
He didn't get up immediately. He sat in the snow, looking up at me.
"I hope you're happy with her. Maybe she can give you whatever I can't."
His tone was bitter and sarcastic. However, somewhere underneath all of that was some kind of sincerity. In a way, he conceded that he couldn't make me happy, but that Aya could. It made me angry, though, that he refused to see things from my point of view.
"This is not fair," I railed on. "I can't help who I fall in love with. It's not like I planned the whole thing or was dreaming about her ever since I met her. I've been miserable about my situation for a long time, and you haven't noticed. When Aya-chan came here, she noticed right away, and she made me feel better about myself. We clicked. So I'm sorry if I hurt you, but things happen. Bad timing or not."
Finished with my tirade, I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets and stared across the dark street. Hiroshi sat on the cold, wet ground. We must have stayed like that for five freezing minutes.
"And anyway," I spoke up again. "At least I let you know as soon as possible. As soon as I knew that my feelings had changed."
He looked down at his knees and then stood up with such speed that for the briefest of moments, I thought he was going to lunge forward and hit me.
He didn't, though. He wiped the snow off his pyjama pants.
"Let's just end this here," he said quietly, turning away from me. "Let's just end our association now. I think that's best."
So much for trying to stay friends.
"You've always been one of my best friends, Saito Hiroshi."
He needed to hear that. Or it could be that I needed to say it. Maybe we'd drifted apart in the last few years, but we'd still gone through thick and thin together.
"It's my birthday next month, but do me a favour. Don't call me."
His words were like an old, rusty nail hammered through my heart by a clumsy carpenter.
I deserved it. I deserved it for every bad thing I'd done in the past twenty-four hours. I deserved it for breaking his heart. I deserved it for becoming one of those girls that I hated hearing about. Those girls who seemingly let their voracious sexual appetites get in the way of every meaningful relationship they could potentially have.
But no, it wasn't about sex, I told myself. It was so much more than that.
But then why had I had a dream like that? A dream that had created such a desire in me that I found the closest non-family member to take it out on?
Ugg. Hormones confused me.
But Hiroshi was not to know that I was so affected. I walked by him and turned to face him.
"You coming back to my house?" I ask in a casual, unaffected voice.
He shrugged, a habit he'd picked up from me.
"I'll be back in a minute."
Those were the last words he spoke to me.
I nodded distractedly and turned away, walking back to my house and leaving the door unlocked so that he could get in later. I went back to bed, numb with cold, numb with sickness, and terrified. I had completely lost one important person that day. The other, Aya, might very well follow if what I had done came to light. If I lost her, too, I felt like I would lose myself.
-
Chapter 6 of 29
The next day was full of tension. Hiroshi left first thing in the morning. He didn't speak a word to me, except in his general "goodbye" to everyone when he stepped out the door. My mother had been eying me the entire time, and I knew that she wanted to ask me what was going on. She must have heard the commotion the night before, and only a fool wouldn't have noticed the distinctive atmosphere the house had been thrown into. The second Hiroshi stepped out of the door, my mother started to turn to me, but I ran up the stairs before she could catch my eye. I got ready and ran back down, claiming that I had a lot of errands to run before the next day.
I walked slowly through the streets and found myself at a Gusto. I thought nobody was going to be at a family restaurant on the morning of New Year's Eve, but there was a crowd. Not packed, but not deserted. I went in and got myself a booth with a window seat, ordering the all-you-can-drink deal. I started sipping oolong tea and thinking.
I would see Aya tomorrow, and I didn't know what to say or when to say it. First thing when I got to her apartment?
"By the way, I sleepwalked right into Hiroshi's bed, took of his clothes, and had sex with him two nights ago," I could say to her.
Or should I not say anything to her? It's not like she'd find out. We didn't share the same friends, and Aya and Hiroshi had never met before. All he knew was that her name was Aya. He didn't even know her last name, which turned out to be a good thing. I wouldn't want him to get nasty ideas of going to the press with a juicy story, or some other such nonsense. Not that he'd do that. He had a little more class and intelligence than that.
I gulped down a big mouthful of cold tea and grit my teeth. Was this even worth getting worked up over? Aya and I didn't even have a definition. We'd had one night together. One. And it had been a moment of infidelity for me. So technically, she shouldn't get angry because she already knew I was cheating on my boyfriend at the time. Not only that, but I'd also been asleep when I had been with Hiroshi. I had had no control over my motor functions. What's more, I'd been dreaming about her. How could that not make her happy?
Even with all these justifications and defences, I still felt guilty. I still felt like she'd murder me if - when - I told her. And I had to tell her. I wanted to. Some crazy part of me wanted to be completely honest and upfront. There was no other way to proceed with her if I wasn't truthful. There'd be no point being with her if I lied and covered up big things about myself. My parents had always emphasised honesty, taking responsibility, and admitting my mistakes. If I couldn't own up to my mistakes in front of Aya, then there were few people beyond my family that I could trust.
Various scenarios played through my head as I started to drink coffee instead of tea.
In one of them, I'd get to Aya's home and sit down.
"Listen," I'd say seriously. "Two nights ago when I was asleep, I accidentally walked into Hiroshi's room and slept with him."
She'd look at me in disgust.
"What?!"
"I didn't mean to," I'd say. "Can you forgive me?"
"Get out."
I'd try and reason with her, but she'd haul me out of her apartment and throw my bag after me.
No, that was a little extreme. Aya would be mad, but she wouldn't be that unreasonable. I restarted from my first line.
"Listen. Two nights ago when I was asleep, I accidentally walked into Hiroshi's room and slept with him."
She'd stare at me long and hard.
"Do you want to get back together with him?"
"No."
"Then why'd you do it?"
"I was asleep. I was having a dream about you. I couldn't control it," I would reply sadly.
She'd shake her head in disappointment.
"Dream or not, how can I trust you if you go around doing things like that?"
"But I promise I won't do it again!" I insist.
"You just said you can't control it."
She'd win like that. She'd tell me that I could stay at her place, but she'd put a futon out in the living room for me. I'd have to find a new place to live after that.
No, telling her was no good. Too depressing.
If I didn't say anything...
"Hi, Aya. I missed you," I'd say, walking in.
She'd lock the door behind me and lead me into her apartment.
"I missed you, too," she'd say back, and she'd pull me into her bedroom for round two, leaving the grand tour of her residence for the next day.
And I would live with my guilt for the rest of my life.
No! No good.
While I sat and imagined my scenarios, I lost track of time and my surroundings. I didn't notice someone walk in and sit across from me until she waved a hand in front of my face.
"Micchan," she called out.
I blinked, looking up. Only Hiroshi and a few other close friends called me that anymore.
"Nakanoko-chan!" I mumbled in surprise.
I hadn't seen her in about three months. She worked in Asahikawa and didn't have much time to visit home. We kept in touch through mail, but even those had been sparse, especially in the past two months with Aya being around and the holidays approaching.
"What are you doing here all alone and with that long face?"
Nakanoko Yuu was one of those people who simply embodied the words "cheerful" and "cool" in a breathtakingly perfect mix. She was hip and had everyone fawning over her, trying to be her best friend, and she was happy, always sparing a smile for her friends and even strangers. We'd met at the beginning of high school and had taken a liking to each other immediately even though our personalities didn't seem compatible at first. I considered her one of my closest friends.
I ignored her question.
"What am I doing? What are you doing? I haven't seen you in months!" I laughed to soften the statement.
"I brought my boyfriend home for the holidays," she replied.
So Nakanoko finally decided to introduce him to the family. I suppressed an amused smile. Her conservative parents would be in for quite the surprise.
"Your parents will be thrilled," I said innocently.
She smirked.
"I need to show them that I'm living in the world, not a convent," she quipped. "But what about you? What's your deal? What's wrong?"
Oh, what an interesting predicament. To tell the truth or not. That was the question. I hadn't told her much about Aya, other than the fact that I'd made a new friend from Tokyo.
"I broke up with Hiroshi," I blurted out.
That much I had to tell her. She knew him, too, and would find out anyway. Her face broke out into a distressed expression.
"Oh no. What happened?"
I sighed and tried my best to explain.
"I've just been getting really antsy living here, and he and I were in a rut. I was the one who broke it off with him."
She looked sympathetic, but she was smarter than that. She knew that wasn't my big news. I couldn't keep things from her, and it troubled me.
"Anything else?"
"I'm moving to Tokyo tomorrow."
"Wow!" she cried out, and then quickly slapped her hand down over her mouth, continuing in a quieter voice. "Tokyo? Micchan... why?"
I sighed again.
"I need a complete change of pace. And, uh, I have this friend there who'll put me up for a bit."
"Guy or girl?" she quizzed.
"Girl."
She breathed out a sigh of relief.
"For a moment I thought you'd met some Taro off the street and let him trick you into moving in with him."
I stayed silent, in pain.
"You didn't," she gasped, seeing my look, and I turned red.
"No way, Micchan," she said in disbelief.
"I, uh, I didn't mean to..." I stuttered.
"So you did meet a new guy after all. Who is he? How'd you meet him? And how do you know this friend, by the way?"
So she hadn't quite figured it all out. That has half a relief.
"No, it's not like that exactly," I denied calmly. "And I met that friend here."
Nakanoko let it go through her mind.
"I can accept that," she said. "But why so sad? You're the one who broke things off with Hiro-kun, right?"
I nodded.
"But last night I accidentally, uh... I kind of..."
"One last time together, huh?" she finished for me.
"But I was sleepwalking," I added hurriedly.
She gave me a disbelieving look, but she must have believed me in the end. She knew I did weird things like that.
"Okay, so you guys had sex one last time. Big deal. You did that with Nakajima-kun, right?"
"That was different. This time I feel guilty," I said uncomfortably.
"Guilty?"
She tasted the word, rolling it around on her tongue before continuing.
"One often feels guilty about something like that when there's another guy involved. Another new love or crush."
I took a gulp of coffee.
"I..."
I had no idea what to say.
"Oh my god!" Nakanoko exclaimed. "You slept with someone else!"
The entire family restaurant must have turned around to look at us. On the outside I remained calm, but on the inside I spazzed out.
"I can't believe it. And you didn't tell me," she scoffed.
Shut up, Nakanoko.
"And how was I supposed to tell you when you'd freak out?" I asked.
"Why would I freak out?" she laughed.
"Because it wasn't a guy," I mumbled.
Dead silence.
Somewhere in the back of mind, I thought Gee, I hope she doesn't announce this, too, the restaurant.
She studied me, presumably to make sure I wasn't pulling her leg.
"Micchan, I know that your life is boring and this town really lacks entertainment besides that silly animal history museum you like so much, but were you so desperate that you had to go and score with a girl?" she asked me.
I flared up, insulted, disappointed. I was about to speak my mind when Nakanoko put a hand on my arm.
"I'm joking," she said in a monotone, a twinkle in her eye.
I relaxed a little. It seemed like she was going to take it in stride. I could always trust her to remain cool about the weirdest thing, especially when I told her about the time this strange friend of mine licked the sole of my foot, claiming that he thought it was a friendly gesture.
Nakanoko resumed with a serious expression.
"I have no clue how you got yourself into that one, but here's my advice: do yourself a favour and don't get in way over your head with something you don't understand."
What? Did she mean give up on Aya?
"And what I mean by that," she clarified, "is that if you're confused about your feelings and don't know what you want, don't do anything drastic like moving halfway across the country."
Just then, her phone rang and she picked it up to read the message.
"Aoki-chan's arrived," she announced. "You want to join us?"
Aoki Yuka was almost the spitting image of me. Cool, collected, honest, kind of plain, and fairly easygoing around friends. If something wasn't funny, she wouldn't laugh. If she was bored, she wouldn't hide it. She and Nakanoko had been friends since elementary school, and I'd become friends with her after meeting Nakanoko. We got along fairly well, but we usually needed a third person there with us to move things along. Otherwise we'd just sit there and be content to pass the time in silence, staring at the television for hours.
As much as I liked Aoki, I didn't want to be in a group situation. Having her around would complicate matters. We didn't share secrets. Nakanoko had heard about every person I'd slept with before (not that I had a huge list or something), but Aoki had not. That was just the kind of friends we were.
"No, thanks," I declined politely. "I need to do some more thinking."
"Don't worry yourself to death," she said with a wink, standing up to leave.
"Wait," I said before she could go. "You're not grossed out, are you?"
She snorted.
"I'm surprised, I'll give you that. But grossed out? No. You do what you want. And come on, I'm a little too mature and open-minded for something like that to gross me out."
I sighed in relief on the inside.
"When did you grow up?" I asked with a mock sneer to hide my gratefulness.
"While you were off exploring home team territory," she retorted.
I rolled my eyes and gulped down the last of my coffee.
"Go meet Aoki-chan," I shooed her off. "Say hi for me."
"Will I see you before tomorrow?" Nakanoko asked, turning serious.
I shook my head.
"Probably not."
"Then good luck. But think about it carefully. Only if she's worth it. Only if you know what you feel is actually a feeling for her and not just the overwhelming need to get out of this lovely hometown of ours."
Her words echoed in my head long after we said goodbye.
I had to decide what I felt for Aya. Maybe it really was just my desire to get out of town. But I had told Hiroshi that I couldn't help who I fell in love with. Had I meant that in a deep, love sense, or just in the general way of having feelings that went just a step beyond normal friendship?
No, it couldn't be just my desire to leave town. I really did like her and want to keep spending time with her. There was love potential.
Right?
If there was that potential, then I had to figure out what I was going to do about this "last night with Hiroshi" issue. That could throw a wrench in the works and make everything grind to an untimely halt.
I got up and went to pay my bill. Thinking alone wasn't helping. I needed a revelation brought on by a lightning bolt. Skies were clear, though, so no chance of that. I'd have to wait. I prayed for a miracle before the next day.
I went for a two hour walk in the hills while contemplating life, and then spent the remainder of the day doing what I was supposed to do. I picked up my final pay from Baachan, said goodbye, and then went home.
To my relief, my mother was out when I got home, so I went directly to my room and sat down with a magazine. I flipped through it mindlessly. I was still wondering what to do. My phone lay right beside me. I hadn't had any contact with Aya so far, and it was already four in the afternoon. I wondered if she was being grilled by her manager. It was a holiday, but the entertainment world never seemed to sleep. I wondered if she was okay.
Of course she's okay, I scolded myself.
The girl had an iron will, and she'd been in the business for so many years. She'd have had to have built up good defences against harsh words.
As if knowing I was thinking about her, she e-mailed me. When the phone rang, I simply knew it was her, and I checked to see what she had to say.
I just got back from a meeting with some of the top executives of my company. They're furious with me and they're probably going to fire me. No final decision yet, though. But you know what? I don't care. It was worth it to meet you. What are you up to now? Have time to talk?
I froze up in fear and guilt. She'd lost her job because she spent two months hanging out with me. I was going to be moving into her apartment for an unspecified amount of time. She wanted me there. She wanted me by her side and, presumably, for her only. Nobody else. Not Hiroshi. Nobody.
What I had done last night had been out of my control. I had been asleep. But would she see it that way? And on second thought, had it really been beyond my control? What if a subconscious part of me had wanted it? A last time with Hiroshi just to make sure...
All I knew is that what I had to say couldn't be said over the phone or in an e-mail. I had to stand in front of her and tell her.
I raised my phone and typed.
I'm sorry. Don't do anything crazy. Try to save your job. I don't want you to lose it 'cause of me. I'm at home now. Go ahead and call.
I sat there with a icy fear growing in my stomach. I waited for the phone to ring, but it was taking a long time. Maybe she didn't want to call. Maybe I was supposed to call. I was about to dial her number when I received another message from her.
Ug. Got to go again. Boss called. Sorry!
I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd been temporarily saved. But this safe haven that was her ignorance wouldn't last forever. I would either reveal everything to her and get chewed out, or I would hide it and be eaten alive by my guilt. Either way, there would be a lot of gnashing teeth.
I wrote her back.
It's okay. I'll contact you tomorrow when I land. Good luck!
I felt cheap adding a little heart and a smiley face, but I did it anyway.
I continued to look at my magazines and do idiotic love quizzes until my mother came home an hour later. She came straight to my room and didn't bother to knock. She whipped the door open and glared at me.
"Are you going to tell me what happened?" she asked.
I liked being friends with my mother, but sometimes there were things I didn't want to talk to her about. Details about sex were some of those things. Now added to that was all talk pertaining to me looking at Aya in a different way.
I closed my magazine.
"It's complicated, Mom. Hiroshi and I aren't friends anymore."
She looked dismayed.
"Miki-chan, he's such a nice boy."
"I know," I huffed and then calmed down, deciding not to take things out on my mother. "He's just not right for me."
"What did you argue about last night?" my nosey mom ploughed on.
I grew irked, but kept my composure.
"About me moving. About breaking up with him. My reasons and all that."
I could tell that my mother wanted to ask me more, but she could sense my genuine discomfort, and for once in her life, she towed it in and let her daughter be at peace.
"Well, I hope your spirits aren't too dampened for tonight. We'll be heading to Grandma's house soon. You're still coming, right?"
New Year's celebrations would go on forever and ever no matter what crises I faced. Holidays were so reliable that way. Always there, only changing once in a blue moon. I could choose to skip it and spend my time here, but what good would that do? I'd accomplish nothing but scaring myself. I nodded at my mother.
"Of course."
My final duty to the family before I flew off into an unfamiliar land.
But, oh, what a crappy way to end a year. With a heavy set of chains weighing me down. When I went to the shrine on New Year's morning, I would pray for a good start to the year. I would pray for Aya's forgiveness. Even Hiroshi's forgiveness. I'd pray to stop making mistakes and become the kind of adult that Aya would appreciate.
-
Chapter 7 of 29
Things always got interesting at my family New Year gatherings, and that was a very mild way of putting it. Some of my family members held onto opinions as if they were clutching hard-earned gold medals at an Olympics award ceremony. As I sat there and watched them cheerfully bicker away that evening, I thought about myself and my own views. Going to university must have opened up my eyes and allowed me to develop a mind with broader horizons. I was a small town girl, but I wasn't completely set in my traditional ways. I could see what was out there and I wanted to taste it.
I wonder what would have happened if I had moved to Tokyo liked I'd wanted to when I was a teenager. Maybe that would have been the equivalent of going to university. I would have been thrust into a whole new different world. A cosmopolitan city full of variety. A completely new and different education. Maybe one that was much better than the one I got sitting in a lecture room and taking notes on a piece of paper. Although to my university's credit, it allowed an unusually high number of foreign students to enrol, so while economics did little to expand the scope of my cultural understanding, talking to those foreign students did.
All "could have been" and "what if" statements pushed aside, the undeniable fact now was that I was about to move to the big city. I was about to become re-educated. A new chapter of my life was beginning. Or maybe it wasn't a new chapter. Maybe it was a whole new book. A whole new life. That's how it felt.
At around half past eleven that evening, I was getting another drink from the kitchen when I decided to check my phone for messages. I flipped it open and saw that I'd missed a call twenty minutes ago. A call from Aya. In addition to the missed call, I had a new e-mail. It was from her.
Just wanted to hear your voice one last time this year, but I guess it's okay. Have a Happy New Year!!
And that was how this girl made my heart melt. Forgetting my worries, and having had a few drinks and feeling fairly relaxed, I called her up.
"Hi!" she exclaimed into the phone.
Was she drunk?
"Hi, Aya-chan," I said quietly in a vague and stupid voice.
"I called you just now but you didn't pick up," she stated.
"Yeah, I didn't hear the phone. I was with family. Thanks, though."
There was a bit of a silence as we both waited for the other to continue.
"What are you up to tonight?" she asked finally.
"I'm at my grandmother's house with my family. We're doing the usual. Eating, drinking, arguing, and watching TV," I grinned. "What about you?"
"Lucky," she whined, and I could imagine her pouting. "I didn't have time to go down to see my parents so I'm just out with a couple of friends."
It sounded like she was in a busy place. I could hear a lot of buzzing going on in the background. I wondered what friends she was with. She had mentioned her friends from time to time in the past few months, and of course I knew some of their faces because some were her fellow singers and stars. I had an idea of which ones she was close to and which ones she simply hung out with, though.
"Shiba-chan?" I asked, calling to mind a picture of the former Melon Kinenbi member.
In the media, they always claimed to actually be good friends outside of work. I had found out that this was true. Aya spoke about her as one would a close friend. It was nice to know that not everything in the newspaper was faked.
"Yeah, among others," Aya replied perkily.
Well, at least she was in good company and having fun. Let her end the year on a happy note. I just hoped that tomorrow, the start of the New Year, wouldn't be a big disappointment for her.
"That's good," I said, lacking anything better to say. "And how'd things with work go?"
"My boss calling was a false alarm. Still no decision yet. It might take a few days, so I'm not thinking about it 'till then," she replied in good spirits.
There was that optimistic side of her. I really liked it.
"Good to hear," I said with a smile in my voice.
"Anyway, I'd better get going because we're off to go... haha, somewhere. I'm not sure where," Aya laughed a contagious laugh that made me chuckle.
"Okay, you go do whatever it is you have to do. I've got to get back to my family and make sure they don't kill one another."
"See you tomorrow?" she asked in a voice that reverted instantly from loud and jittery to shy and hopeful.
I swallowed hard, pushing my guilt back down into the pit of my stomach.
"I'll contact you when I land," I said quietly.
"Can't wait. Bye-bye."
"Bye-bye," I mumbled after she'd hung up.
With a sigh, I closed my phone, put it in my bag, and then gathered up my energy to make my re-appearance in the living room, trying to forget all the bad and focus on the good.
I slept at my grandmother's house that evening. After we brought in the official start of the New Year with our traditional jump and then a silence where we all e-mailed our friends, my two cousins and I went off to go to bed. We were similar in age and got along pretty well, so we were able to chat and laugh a bit before turning out the lights in our shared room. A little crowded, but it kept us warm. It was exactly what I needed to relax after a tense day and to forget about my worries.
In the morning, we woke up bright and early and went to the local shrine to open up the New Year.
As I stood there, my eyes closed, my hands clapped together, I wondered what to wish for. I could do what I did every year and ask for happiness or success during the year. But this year, I felt like I owed Aya something approaching gigantic, so I prayed for her. Of course I included myself in my wish, but it was mainly for her sake.
I hope that whatever happens with me, Aya's happy. If she's upset by what I've done, please let her get over it quickly and find happiness. Let this year be a good year for her.
It was all superstition. I didn't believe there were great powers in the rocks and trees making sure I had a wonderful life. But there wasn't much else I could do. Not for another few hours. At least praying at a shrine calmed me down, surrounded by family and friends and the natural tranquility of the shrine grounds.
The morning passed by quickly, and suddenly it was time to leave. I finished packing in a hurry, positive that I'd get to Tokyo and find that I had forgotten to bring my favourite jeans or skirt.
When I went downstairs, my mother went on about how she was going to miss me. She gave me a big, smothering hug, and then pushed me away, telling me to leave quickly or she'd start crying. My father remained stoic the entire time. He would be driving me to the train station, so there was no need for him to say goodbye yet. I said goodbye to my mother, smiling to prove to her that I really was happy and that this was really what I wanted.
The ride to the station was quiet. We didn't speak, so I flipped on the radio and listened to some oldies from the seventies and eighties.
When we got to the station, my father lifted my bag out of the trunk and put it beside the car.
"From here on, you're on your own," he said.
Superficially, he meant that I'd have to find my own way to the airport, but in a deeper sense, he was reminding me that the moment I stepped off this island, he wouldn't be able to come and help me in a jiffy if need be. I'd have to find someone else to come and fix the clogged up sink pipes and spent light bulbs.
"Take care of yourself," he finished simply.
No big speech, no angry words, no sad words, not a hint of emotion on his face. That was my father. I knew that he really did feel a whole slew of things and that he would miss me terribly, because I took after him. I often hid what I felt, too, if I thought it would cause a scene or was too exaggerated. The complete lack of emotion meant that there was lots of emoting going on inside.
"Thank you," I replied.
Thank you for driving me to the station. Thank you for letting your baby go off into the world without (too much) objection. Thank you for taking care of me for almost twenty-six years.
Words left unspoken. Words that I meant. Words that he knew already.
I smiled at my father one last time. He didn't smile back, but for a moment, his eyes weakened, and I could see all the worry and hurt, but all the happiness and curiosity that he felt for me, reflected in them. I picked up my bag, turned around, and didn't look back as I walked off.
The airport was easy to get to, and the crowds were mercifully thin, so while my bag became tedious and heavy, at least there was enough room for me and it to travel side-by-side. The entire trip to the airport I spent thinking about what I was going to say to Aya. As I checked in at the airport and sat waiting at the gate, I began to wonder what I thought about the whole thing.
What was my opinion about what had happened the previous night with Hiroshi?
I had been so consumed with worry over what Aya would think that I had barely had time to really decide what I thought.
What happened with Hiroshi was, simply put, wrong. It had been a mistake - an accident. It wasn't supposed to mean anything, and in fact, it meant very little compared to what I'd been dreaming about. Of course I still cared for him, but it was quickly fading as other feelings started to take over my heart. So in the end, what had happened had been out of my control, and not something that Aya should worry about or blame me for. The fact that I wanted things to work out with her - work out in what way, I didn't yet know, but if we were going to be living together for at least a small passage of time, I didn't want there to be bad blood between us - clearly made The Hiroshi Incident an unimportant issue.
And that was what I thought. If only Aya would see it that way.
For the plane ride, I reverted back to worrying about what she'd think and say, and dozens of new scenarios ran through my head, ranging from her slapping me to her pretending not to care and then sabotaging my life to get revenge.
Dozing off for the last half hour of the flight brought me a brief respite from my worries. I woke up just in time to watch us land.
In Sapporo, it had been snowing lightly before taking off, causing a slight delay until it was deemed safe to fly after the twenty minute flurry session had brought itself to a close. In Tokyo, there was not a hint of the white fluff. By the time the plane landed it was dark, but still noticeably warmer than back home. I concentrated on the disembarkation procedure and didn't let my mind wander until I had my luggage in one hand and was safely waiting for a train that would get me out of the airport area. It was then that I sent Aya an e-mail telling her that I'd arrived and was waiting for a train, followed by a quick e-mail to my mother to tell her I had arrived safely.
Aya's reply was a little delayed, and I laughed inwardly as I wondered if she was suffering from the night before. She sent me detailed directions to her apartment, and I committed them to memory. Then, once the train had arrived and I'd found a seat, she sent me another e-mail saying she'd meet me at the station. I sent one back insisting that I could find her place on my own, but she sent yet another e-mail back telling me to shush up and listen to her. And so I relented.
Hey, since when do I give up that easily? I asked myself as the dark Tokyo scenery sped by outside the window.
The question remained unanswered because I didn't bother to give it a second. I was merely following my instinct when dealing with this girl. It was simply the way it had to be.
It took just a little over forty minutes to get to her station from the airport. It would have taken less time, but I got a bit confused at one station and ended up missing the train and having to wait for the next one. I wasn't completely inexperienced in the ways of the Tokyo train system, having been to the city several times before, but I was generally bad at directions, so I never trusted myself to be right, and that's what caused my delay. It was one of the silly complexes that I'd have to work on fixing now that I had dozens of train lines to choose from in daily life.
As I was walking down the platform to find the station exit where I would meet Aya, someone came up from behind me.
"Hi! Long time no see!" he said happily.
I looked at him, a man perhaps in his late thirties, my mind racing to find out what thirty-year-old men I knew in Tokyo. When I studied his face, though, I didn't recognise him.
"I'm sorry?" I asked politely.
I looked at him in confusion, and his face slowly fell, matching my expression.
"Oh, sorry," he mumbled in confusion, taking a closer look at me. "I thought you were someone I knew. Sorry."
He bowed his head quickly and peeled away from my presence in embarrassment as I tried not to burst out laughing. Well, at least my first real human interaction since landing hadn't been dangerous, rude, or a sleazy pick up attempt. Just an honest case of mistaken identity. I supposed the back of my head looked very much like many other girls'.
I reached the exit and immediately started scanning the crowd, looking for Aya. I couldn't find her, so I went to a wall and stood there, waiting nervously.
She appeared a minute later, her hair wet from what I assumed had been a recent shower and wearing a hat and sunglasses, making me smile secretly in amusement. Her disguise wasn't all that bad since it covered most of her face, but the fact that nobody else was wearing that much head gear made her stand out even more. I saw her walk towards me, so I saved her some of the trouble, picked up my bag and met her halfway.
"Welcome to Tokyo, Miki-chan," she smiled underneath her "disguise".
"Thank you, Aya-chan," I replied cutely.
"This way."
I followed her out of the station and down the street.
I'll tell her when we get to her place. That way we can have some privacy so that she can yell and scream and throw me out without causing too much public embarrassment, I decided.
It took about ten minutes to walk to the front of her apartment, during which she asked me how my flight had been and what I felt so far about being in the city. I answered honestly that the flight had been nerve-wracking and that the people seemed nice enough in Tokyo so far.
I looked up when we stopped in front of a set of doors that would lead us to her place. From what I could see of it, it was a new building, and it did not look cheap. Not by a long shot. For a second - just a tiny second - I wondered what I was doing walking into this rich idol's fancy Tokyo condo when I came from an average-sized house in a small town in the middle of Hokkaido. I waved the thought off, however, because it was not conducive to making me feel better.
"Like it?" she asked, obviously seeing that I was impressed.
"It suits you," was my reply.
She smirked and took my bag from me, letting me wander in with nothing to weigh me down.
The lobby was a quiet and pleasant affair, spotless and homely. The elevator that we stepped into was in pristine condition, boasting trendy paneling, large, clean mirrors on the back wall and ceiling, and a smooth, turbulence-free ascent.
"Seventeenth floor," Aya said as we got in, and I obediently pressed the appropriately marked button.
We rode in silence, and when the doors opened, Aya gestured for me to get out.
"To the left. Number forty-seven."
I stepped out into a neatly-carpeted hallway. The lighting was soft and delicate, somehow urging all who passed through to relax and be at peace. The walls seemed so soft that if I fell against one, I thought that I might feel like I was sinking into warm butter. This place did everything to make its residents want to stay permanently. I was already getting the feeling that I didn't want to leave. I hadn't even seen the inside of Aya's room yet, but I knew that if I lived here for the rest of my life, I'd be content.
I led us down the hallway, counting the numbers as we walked by the doors until we reached number seventeen-forty-seven. I stood at the door while Aya put my bag down, took her key out, and opened the door. All I saw was darkness. I picked up my own bag, and after she indicated for me to walk in, I did so, slipping into the darkness. She followed right after.
The darkness disappeared promptly. Aya flicked a switch up, and we were bathed in a bright, warm light, it alone starting to take away the chill that had crept into our bones from the cold winds outside. I took off my shoes, not even bothering to arrange them neatly, and walked around the living room slowly, inspecting everything briefly.
Her apartment was clean, and so utterly "Aya" that I just let out a laugh.
"What?" she asked.
"It's so you!" I cried out in delight. "I mean, it's exactly what I expected."
From the pictures on the wall to the plants to the books and magazines she chose to leave on her bookcase, it all matched what I knew about her from the time we'd spent together. Her small laptop computer sat in a corner beside her television set and DVD player, all dust-free and brand new models.
This place was a home, not just a temporary residence that she was using until she decided to move back to her hometown.
"I hope that's a good thing," she said with an uncertain laugh from behind me.
I heard her walk up beside me.
"Definitely," I assured her with a smile.
This place... I could live in forever. I forgot about Hiroshi. All I could think about was waking up every day in this room with her and going about our daily life in peace and harmony.
"Come on, there's more," she said, linking her arm around mine and pulling me along.
I let myself be taken on the tour.
"This is the kitchen," she said in a childish way.
I huffed out a laugh, as it was quite obviously a kitchen and I had no need for her to tell me so. It was clean, a few recently-washed dishes sitting and drying beside the sink. She pulled me over to a door and opened it.
"Bathroom," she announced, pointing to the invitingly large bath in the room that called out for me to fill it up with hot water and sink into it in order to warm my bones.
She pulled me past two doors.
"Toilet," she said, "and a closet full of cleaning junk beside it."
She didn't need to open those up as neither would be very big nor impressive.
"And last, my bedroom."
She slid open a door, and in the tatami room that lay behind it was her Ayaesque bedroom. A few bookcases, a nice poster of some landscape, a large closet presumably stuffed with her mounds of clothes, and a chest of drawers that doubled as a vanity, makeup and other accessories neatly lined up on it.
"It's usually very messy. I just cleaned it up to impress you," she admitted after seeing that I was surveying the types and brands of makeup she had.
I could imagine it becoming awfully cluttered, but she struck me as the kind of person who would clean it up before it got too bad.
She hadn't lied before when she had said the bed was big enough for two, but I tried not to keep my eyes on it for too long because I didn't want her to get the wrong idea. Not that that would be such a bad thing. It just didn't feel right. Not yet. Nonetheless, the bed looked comfortable and warm, and I wondered if I'd ever be allowed to sleep in it.
I instantly remembered what I had to tell her, but her arm encircling my waist and pulling me close to her made me hesitate, and then it was too late.
"So, do you like my place?" she asked.
I nodded, starting to sweat a little, and it wasn't just because of her proximity.
"It's really nice, Aya. Like... really nice," I said.
"You don't mind living here?"
Why would she ask something like that? Of course I wouldn't mind. The question was more appropriately directed at her.
"I think I should ask you that. You don't mind if I stay here for a few weeks 'till I find my own place?"
I chuckled to myself, imagining what kind of place I could afford. Nothing as glorious and clean as this place. I would have to start small and work my way up.
"You can stay longer," she said, not specifying how much longer.
"How much longer?" I asked curiously.
"As long as you can tolerate living with me," she said, squeezing me gently.
That was it. I had to tell her now. She would be the one not able to tolerate living with me once she knew. I opened my mouth to speak when she interrupted me.
"Did you eat dinner?"
It was half past nine in the evening and I hadn't eaten, but I was so nervous that I wasn't a bit hungry.
"No, but I'm not hungry," I claimed.
She looked at me, doubt strewn across her face like a veil, but she ended up believing me.
"Want to take a shower then?"
Oh my god, I thought. With her?
I didn't let my terror show, but I think she sensed it, and she let me go, pushing me to the bathroom she'd shown me earlier.
"I have to make a phone call, so go ahead and get cleaned up. Sorry I didn't fill the bath up earlier, but you can try that out tomorrow since it takes forever. And don't worry, I'll be here when you get out and we can just stay in this evening."
I let out an inward sigh of relief, and I thanked her, grabbing some things from my bag and letting her provide me with a clean towel.
As I let the magnificent high-pressure shower wash away my sweat and urge some more warmth into my muscles, I started to decide on the best way to tell her about the incident. I came to the conclusion that short and to the point was best, and so once I got out of the shower, I would talk to her right away.
I was in there for twenty-five minutes, washing my hair and body carefully, stalling and running up a bill with all the hot water I was using. When I finished, I put on some neutral pyjamas that could double as a quick getaway track suit in the event that she threw me out suddenly, and feeling quite a bit refreshed, I left the bathroom.
Aya was still on the phone when I went into the living room, and she looked up at me, holding up a finger to indicate that she'd be done soon.
"So Tuesday at eleven?" she asked, confirming some sort of plan.
I sat down on the couch, and leaned back, pretending not to pay attention.
"No, I hate that one. Oh, come on, we went there last time. Can you choose another place?" she whined
She paused to listen to the response.
"Ah, that's much better!" she said, her voice reverting to its cheerful state. "You're the best!"
She said goodbye to whoever was on the line, and then apologised to me, getting up from the floor and sitting beside me on the couch.
"So, how'd you like the shower?" she asked.
"It's great. Much better than the one I have at home," I laughed, finding it cute how she kept checking to make sure I was enjoying everything I encountered.
"Good," she said happily, and she snuggled into me.
I tried not to groan. How could I start to talk to her when she was being all close and cute?
"Are you actually happy you came here?" she suddenly asked with uncertainty in her voice.
"O-of course," I stammered in surprise. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You just seem a little quiet."
There I had gone making her feel like a bad host. I put a hand on her leg comfortingly.
"I'm just a little overwhelmed," I said, which was the truth. "But I like being here very much."
I just don't like keeping things from you, I finished in my mind.
"Good."
Now I really couldn't say anything. Not in this situation. Maybe I'd wait a few minutes until she moved away, but she didn't move away. She started to ask me what I wanted to do the next day and the next weekend, and she had all sorts of suggestions of what we should do together. I tried to follow her fluctuating topics, but I found myself clumsily flailing about, hiding my distraction behind the guise of being overwhelmed. She sensed my tension.
"Bedtime," she said cutely when I tried to stifle a yawn.
Oh brother.
She showed me to her room again, and while she got changed, I inspected her bed, checking the thickness of the blankets, the bounciness of the mattress, and the position of the window, trying to judge whether it would impede efforts to sleep in by letting in the sunlight too early.
"The window faces west, so don't worry too much about the morning sunlight," she informed me, reading my mind.
It had the effect of relaxing me, and I slipped in under the covers without invitation, curling up on my side and facing the wall. She soon followed after turning out the light, and things got very uncomfortable again for me the minute that happened.
"You're really tense, huh?" she said, crowding me and treating me like a teddy bear, speaking with her mouth a few centimetres away from my ear. "I know this is all really new and weird for you, but try to relax. I'm not going to bite your head off or do anything bad to you. And if I do, you can hit me and yell at me for being a moron."
I giggled despite myself, and she hugged me even more tightly.
"Yeah, I'm just, um..." I mumbled, trying to find some way to lead into what I had to say. "I-"
But she pinched my side.
"Maybe you should give your brain a rest. It seems fried."
She put her hands on my shoulders and started to massage them, and somewhere in the back of my mind, some crazy statistical information about the high percentage of massages that led to wanton behaviour danced about.
And we did not put that statistic to shame, for what started as a massage indeed led to more, and before I could say "stop, I need to tell you something important", hormones usurped the throne from reason in my brain and I became my hungry old self around her for the second time in our lives.
A good deal later, it was no longer cold in the room, and the sweat on my body wasn't from my nervousness, but from the heat we had generated. However, as the hormones slowly cleared out and reason inched its way back to its rightful seat at the head of my brain's central functioning centre, a cold fear swept through me and I felt like I had to say something as soon as possible before the chance slipped away.
But how could I say anything when neither of us was wearing a stitch?
Then again, I'd argued with Hiroshi while in the nude. But we'd been going out for two years and we'd known each other for longer. It was a bit more normal.
I sucked in a huge breath until my lungs felt like they were going to explode, and I let it all out until I felt my lungs would collapse. Then with one more medium-sized breath, I spoke.
"So..." I started awkwardly, pulling the sheets over my body a little more and backing away an infinitesimal distance.
"Mmm?" Aya uttered, stretching out on her back in a languorous, teasing way under the thin sheets that covered us.
"Two nights ago I, um..."
I stopped, my heart beating like wild, my arms tensing up to defend myself when she inevitably started hitting me.
Aya closed her eyes, a sated smile on her lips, and I wished she didn't look so happy. I wished we hadn't done what we'd just done. I wished that I had had the courage to bring the subject up the moment I saw her at the station, not now in bed at midnight.
I steeled myself and ploughed on through my nervousness, chastising myself for being such a wishy-washy wimp around her.
"Two nights ago I sleepwalked and I kind of went to Hiroshi's room and slept with him."
I said it quickly, purposefully, matter of factly, and with grit teeth. It was the moment of truth.
Aya, however, did not change her position, her eyes remaining closed.
"Is that so?" she asked conversationally.
Her mind must have been wandering and not listening to a word I was saying. Not that I could blame her, but I wondered if all pillow talk with her would be like this - words going in one ear and immediately exiting out the other. If so, there would be no point talking in bed, and there would go my opportunity to do something I really wanted to do with her.
"Are you paying attention?" I asked testily.
"Mmmhmm," she replied in the same way, dragging out the mumble.
"I slept with him. As in sex. Naked. Skin-on-skin. Hot and passionate. In the guest room in my house," I continued, rolling my eyes at being ignored.
"Yeah, thanks. I heard it the first time. I don't need the details," she said surprisingly sharply.
Oops. So she was paying attention.
"Ehhg... I- uh-" I stuttered
She opened her eyes and pierced me with a look I couldn't read.
"Two nights ago? The day I left?"
Her voice revealed nothing either, but angry or not, I had to tell her the truth, so I nodded.
"And you were sleepwalking?" she asked, and this time I could have sworn she sounded almost amused and perhaps inclined to question the possibility of my doing such a thing while remaining asleep the entire time.
I nodded again, this time embarrassedly.
"And?"
Details. She wants details. Not about the actual act, but about the after part.
"He misunderstood. He thought I was awake, and he apologised after, and then, um, we got into a fight outside and I kind of told him a bit of what happened between you and me, and he got even angrier..."
She seemed to latch onto something I said, because she lost the neutral expression and looked at me with interest.
"What did he think about that? About your situation with me?"
I squirmed uncomfortably, sweating profusely under the scrutiny of her gaze.
"He thinks you're just a phase for me," I said in a voice that barely made it past my lips. "He was really angry. He felt really cheated."
She remained silent, no reaction. I didn't like grovelling, but considering the mess I'd gotten myself into, I had to do something to repent.
"I'm really sorry. I didn't want it to happen, and I couldn't control myself. A-and it didn't mean anything. I was actually having a dream about you," and here my face must've turned red at my unplanned admission, "and it kind of transferred into a real life, ah, situation, only you weren't there. And I've been killing myself with worry because I hate what I've done and I don't want to upset you and-"
A cool hand touched my overheated arm, and I stopped talking. Aya was looking at me with a look of pity. Maybe she thought I was a pathetic excuse for a human.
"Miki, it's okay," she said quietly.
But it couldn't be that simple, so I waited until she spoke again.
"Somehow, it's okay," she sighed. "You're here now. Your heart is here. Right?"
I nodded, unable to form words.
"And you were asleep then when it happened."
But why isn't she upset?
"So you're not upset?"
She shook her head.
"Of course I am," she said clearly, and my heart plunged. "But things happen that we can't control. Like I said, you're here now. And it's not like I had any right to demand anything from you before. I can't be completely upset with you."
My heart floated back up slowly to its normal resting spot. What she said made sense, which stunned me. She was being very sensible here, thinking hard with her head. Maybe I was important enough to bust out the logic and reason. The head was a useful tool when used properly, and while I believed matters of the heart should be left to the heart, there were some situations where a broad mind was required.
"Now that you live with me, however, you'd better not be going off and doing that with just anyone."
She spoke mostly playfully. A bit serious, but softening her words with a joking tone. I let out a sigh, my body feeling like it was a parched victim of a shipwreck finally tasting sweet, spring water after days of thirst and hunger.
"I'm really sorry," I said, my apology gushing out of my mouth uncontrollably. "I don't have a habit of doing that. I really don't."
"And you say you were dreaming about me?" she asked, the twinkle in her eye increasing tenfold.
I closed my eyes and made a pained face.
"Don't ask," I muttered.
"You're so shy around me," she laughed, stroking my hair in adoration.
"Give me time," I mumbled.
We exchanged silly banter for a few minutes until she told me to stop worrying and to get some rest. We could talk more in the morning. We lay there silently, each of us trying to go to sleep, but with some sort of uptight anticipation in the air. Maybe she wanted to talk more but had decided to wait until the morning. I definitely wanted to talk more. I wanted to tell her that I was happy about the way things had worked out.
A perfect resolution. Life could not possibly be this good.
But it was. Sometimes it simply was. Good things happened, and there were no bad effects to counteract them. This was one of those lucky breaks in life that few people got. With an inward chuckle, I wondered it some tree god had been listening to my thoughts at the shrine that morning and had decided to grant my wish.
Happiness bubbled up in me, and it came pouring forth in the form of words, again words that I could not control.
"Thank you, Aya-chan," I said, breaking the silence that had settled over us. "And I promise you that from now on, I'm yours only. Okay?"
My life was so strange. Saying these words to a girl I had only met two months ago, a girl whose music I had listened to so many times on the radio. A strange, strange life indeed.
She shifted a centimetre towards me and rubbed my arm.
"Okay. And just so you know, I've been yours since before the first evening I met you."
Ug, how romantic, I thought sarcastically, yet still embarrassed.
There she was again saying how she felt like she'd known me long before she met me. But that was okay. If that was her way of telling me I was important, then I'd take every word I could get out of her.
We didn't speak anymore that night, but the tension from the air disappeared, leaving behind only the anticipation of being able to wake up beside each other the next day.
-
Chapter 8 of 29
Aya lied to me last night in a terrible, unforgivable way.
The instant I opened my eyes - no, even before I did that - I wanted to scream at her for misleading me so maliciously.
"Uhhh..." heard her groan beside me as I turned to face her.
"You lied to me," I accused her, my first words of the day coming out in a scratchy voice.
"Eh?" she asked, yawning and rubbing her eyes innocently, turning onto her side to mirror my position. "About what?"
She didn't seem particularly concerned about anything.
"You told me not to worry about the sun in the morning," I said, my voice gaining a little more smoothness. "The window may face west, but your curtains suck."
She gave an almost unnoticeable shrug in response and didn't say a word. She turned around onto her other side and backed into me, grabbing my arm and putting it around her, forcing me to hug her. She then reached down and tugged one of the thin sheets up so that it covered our heads. My protests died on my lips as I revelled in the warmth, the freezing tip of my nose quickly becoming a distant memory. Before it could warm up completely, however, I moved my head and poked it into Aya's shoulder. She twitched slightly, but she did nothing more to stop me.
I tried to drift off to sleep again, but I found it strangely difficult. Everything was so new and fresh that I wanted to get up to explore it. I wanted to see what books Aya had, the kinds of clothes she had, and what food was in the fridge. I wanted to walk around outside and see what shops and restaurants were nearby. I wanted to go to Shibuya and Shinjuku and window shop because it had been so many years since I'd gone to those places with my mom. I wanted to go out and find a job so that I could become self-reliant. For once in my life, I wanted to take the initiative to get out of bed and go out to do something. Many things.
"Stop fidgeting," Aya demanded, shattering my giddy excitement.
I hadn't noticed my fidgeting, but I went stone still on command.
"Okay," I said obediently.
There I went again. Letting her order me around. But it didn't bother me for some reason. It felt nice. Protective and loving, even.
"Are you asleep?" I whispered after a minute and a half.
"No," she sighed.
"Me neither."
Why did I revert to the mental age of six around her? I wanted to ask someone that.
"Do you want to get up? It's only seven," she asked in a sleepy voice that sounded like she needed a few more hours of slumber before she would feel human again.
Maybe one more hour wouldn't be such a bad idea. It was a precious day off, after all.
"No, let's sleep more," I replied.
I had a feeling that Aya was a grumpy one when she didn't get enough sleep. That won her this round. But it was frustrating. The one time I actually wanted to get up, I had to clamp down on my energy and relax.
It wasn't such a big problem, though, because I could enjoy this, too. In fact, it was rather nice. Still weird, but nice. This was my second time spending a whole night like this with her, and it was different from the first. Inexplicably different. Maybe it was the setting. We were in a real home in a real bed with real sheets. They were her things, and she felt comfortable here, by default making me fifty percent more comfortable than I'd be in a strange hotel. The setting was normal.
The weird thing about it all was us. I couldn't fathom how I'd gotten involved in this situation. One minute I was a good friend, the next some sort of sex buddy, and then from there it snowballed into a mutual promise to not look at anyone else the same way we looked at each other. It looked like it was going to work out perfectly. The only thing left to find out was whether or not we could live together for more than one day without driving each other up the wall.
"Hey, Aya," I said, forgetting that we were supposed to be sleeping.
"Uhh... huh?" she mumbled, already halfway to dreamland.
"Isn't this a little weird?"
I grabbed the sheet from above our heads and tugged it down so that we had some light and some fresh air.
"What?" she asked, her eyes closing tightly to block out the offensive light.
"Our whole association," I forged on. "I mean, we met by chance in a restaurant, became good friends, and then, um, slept with each other... and then I essentially moved in with you and we suddenly promised ourselves to each other. Don't you think it's all a little..."
I couldn't find the right word to describe it, and she opened an eye.
"So? That's pretty much how it works with people and things like this," she mumbled sagely.
"But... I mean, after two months?" I pointed out uncertainly.
Aya opened her other eye.
"Then think of it as being destiny."
I couldn't believe in that.
"How can you be so sure about something? Why do you have so much faith in your idea of me?"
She rolled her head up a bit so that I got a good view of her contemplative expression. She seemed to be weighing her answer carefully in her head, deciding what the appropriate thing to say was. It looked like she was ready to start a speech. A monologue of epic proportions.
She opened her mouth to speak.
"I just do," was all she uttered.
All that preparation for three measly words? I wanted to know what happened to the other million words in her head, but I couldn't ask.
"Okay..." I conceded softly.
She looked up at me and smiled comfortingly, telling me not to worry about things like that and to just go with what felt right. When she closed her eyes to get that extra hour of sleep, I wondered what felt right.
Being here felt right. Being beside her felt right. Discovering a new world in Tokyo felt right.
What did not feel right was that it all seemed a little too perfect. I didn't think Aya was lying about her feelings, but I did think there was more to our relationship than I could see. I just didn't know what it was.
I stayed awake for an hour thinking about this while Aya drifted off to sleep and rolled away from me, almost falling off the bed. I caught her before she tumbled over and tugged her back to safety, somehow not waking her up.
That hour passed by slowly, and when eight o'clock rolled around, I impatiently shook Aya awake.
"Ah... ah...?"
"Come on, let's get up," I urged her, pulling on her hand.
"Ahh... hug," she mumbled.
Was she asking me for a hug?
I was jolted out of my thought by an arm being thrown around me. I think she misjudged the force with which she threw that arm, because it hit me hard and made me wince in pain. The pain was swept away, though, by her rolling into me and hugging me tightly
"You forgot," she mumbled.
"I did?" I asked in an amused tone.
"Mmmmm. No," she said after some thought. "But... every day. Okay?"
"Uh, okay," I replied at this sudden request.
She rolled away and got up, putting her pyjamas back on before walking out of the room as if completely forgetting me. I scrambled to follow suit. When I left her room, I saw her in the kitchen starting to boil water for tea. I went to the living room and spotted the heater.
"Can I turn this on?" I asked.
The apartment was quite cold. She called out that it was okay and that I didn't have to ask next time, so I put the machine on the highest setting, standing in front of it to warm my shins as I looked through the balcony window.
"We never did decide what we're going to do today," Aya said, making her way over to me after having finished making the tea.
She put two cups on the table and we sat down. I was eager to stop being a parasitic presence in Aya's life. I'd only been there for half a day, but I was already starting to feel guilty for being a burden. Two cups of tea instead of one wasn't a big deal, but things would only get bigger.
"I need to look for a job," I said, taking a sip of the tea.
It was bitterer than I expected, but it warmed me up.
"I know you're all keen about that, but why don't you take a few days off and get to know this place a little more? Hang out with me a bit."
Was that her ulterior motive? To spend more time with me? I laughed in response.
"Am I really that fun to be around?"
She looked thoughtful for a few moments.
"No, not really," she said seriously, and my mouth dropped open. "But I'm bored waiting for my bosses to make a decision about my future."
She looked at my surprised face and started to laugh as if she'd just made the funniest joke in the world.
"Of course I think you're fun," she inserted in a scolding voice. "Since when did you start taking me so seriously?"
I laughed along and took another sip of tea.
"Fine, I'll take a rest for a few days."
"Now that we've decided that, what do you want to do today?"
Because many stores were closed and the streets would be packed with holidaying people, we would hold off on anything like shopping or sightseeing. Aya told me she hadn't been to the shrine yet this year (I didn't ask, but it was probably because she slept in yesterday and then scrambled to get her apartment ready for me), so we came to the decision to go together.
"But to one far away," she said. "It's too crowded around here."
I wondered if that was because she didn't want to be randomly approached by fans, or if it was simply that she liked to visit shrines in peace. I didn't ask. Instead, I asked her what we were going to do for the rest of the day after that, and she gave it some thought.
"You like hot springs, right?"
I nodded. Of course I did. She gave it some more thought.
"Bring a change of clothes. I'll take you to a nice one."
I wondered if "nice one" was code for "super expensive". Again, I didn't ask. It probably wasn't. She knew I was on a tight budget.
I was excited, though. A hot spring visit was exactly what I needed. The tension I'd been feeling non-stop for the past few days had drained, but it had left behind actual physical pain in my neck and shoulders. Nothing serious. A twinge or two now and then, but it was an unpleasant reminder of my paranoia.
We got ready once we knew what we were doing, ate breakfast quickly, and made off to the train station. The weather was beautiful. Clear, not a cloud in the sky. It was chilly, but the sun would eventually warm everything up once it was at its peak.
We ended up riding trains for over two hours. So much for trying to save money. We talked animatedly during the first two short train rides, but we fell asleep, rocked into a shallow slumber by the steady vibrations coming from the third train's engine.
At some point while I'd been dozing off on Aya's shoulder, four university-age boys had gotten onto the train. They sat opposite to us and a few seats down, and they kept looking over after I woke up. Amused, I nudged Aya awake.
"Those boys are staring at you," I informed her in a hushed tone.
Aya's eyes shifted over to the bunch for a split second, and then she looked forward with an unaffected air.
"Oh."
But it was too late. I'd seen a satisfied light grace her eyes. She liked the attention and would have been perplexed if she hadn't attracted the attention. I turned my face slightly away so that she didn't see my amused look. I put my head back on her shoulder in a territorial way and closed my eyes.
"Mine," I declared to the boys in my mind. "Look, but don't touch."
I drifted off to sleep with a smug smile still on my lips as I imagined the four boys watching, wishing they were me. I awoke not long after. I sensed a change, and I was right. I had leaned over to the other side, but head now resting against a pole. Aya was awake, and I could see half of her face. Curiously, I followed her gaze and found that she was looking at the four boys. Every time one looked over, she'd casually refocus her line of sight slightly to make it look like she was staring out the window. It was a well-practiced move, which made it obvious she'd had years of experience. I wondered if she'd looked at me like that in the past two months without my realising it.
I noticed something just then. The boys weren't staring at her. They were staring at me. One looked smitten, the other looked somewhat puzzled, and the other two had unreadable expressions on their faces. I imagined they would have spared me some glances, me being "the famous girl's friend", but to continually stare at me was a bit strange. I knew that I could turn heads sometimes, but beside Aya, I would have expected less attention.
My eyesight locked with one of the boys' by accident, and he immediately averted his eyes. This alerted Aya, and she looked over at me.
"They're staring at me," I said, not really meaning to say anything.
"I was just noticing," Aya replied, sounding neutral.
I wondered if she would get jealous that I was stealing her spotlight.
"You shouldn't question why, though," she continued. "You're the cutest girl on the train."
I rolled my eyes to get her to stop from saying anything more, but deep down inside, I had a feeling she wanted to say something more serious but was holding back. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. I leaned my head back, too, and closed my eyes after a last look at our audience. I fell asleep.
Aya shook me awake when we got to our station. The boys had gotten off before us, and I found it amazing that we would probably never see each other again. The world was full of people you saw only once in your lifetime.
We got out in a small town in the middle of nowhere. It reminded me of home, and I wondered why I'd come all the way to Tokyo only to return to a place like mine minus the snow. We left the train station and I followed Aya. She seemed to know exactly where she was going.
"How do you know this place?" I asked curiously.
"I used to come here with a friend," she responded with a smile and no more information than that.
I laughed inwardly at how mysterious Aya could be. Sometimes I had the feeling that she expected me to be able to read her mind. While I'd been getting used to her pattern of thinking, I couldn't quite read her like an open book yet. Nakanoko-chan was still easier for me to predict. Not a surprise since it was two months of friendship versus eight years.
We chatted about New Year's Day as we walked, and I found out just how busy she usually was. She was always performing on New Year's Eve, so she hadn't had a real chance to spend that holiday in her hometown for many years.
"But it's okay. My parents sometimes come up to visit me, and there have always been friends nearby for me to celebrate with."
I told her about my New Year celebrations with my family, but they were all the same every year, so there wasn't much variety. Sometimes something crazier than usual happened, but the overall format of the get togethers each year was the same.
I wondered where I'd spend my next New Year. In Tokyo? Or would I go home?
It's January second and I'm already thinking three hundred and sixty-odd days into the future. Oh man.
As I spoke about my family gatherings, Aya was all ears. She listened intently to every word I said. So intently that it made me shake. It made me self-conscious about the words and phrases I used because I wanted to sound like I knew how to speak naturally. Several people had complained to me that I didn't speak well. It wasn't lack of intelligence, but just the way I phrased things. It was plain and not very expressive. I wanted to change that for her, however. She was just the kind of person that made me want to speak from the heart. From the evening I'd met her, I'd been open with her. I wasn't quite spewing out poetry yet, but if someone could make me want to, it was her.
I was talking about my cousins when we arrived at the shrine. There were people milling about, but it wasn't half as busy as the one I'd gone to the day before. We walked in and bought fortunes. As I was about to read mine, Aya took it out of my hands and held it up in front of her face
"I'll read yours and you read mine, okay?"
I nodded, wondering if this was a bit of Matsuura family tradition as I took her paper from her.
"I'll read yours first, though, since this is your first of the year," I said.
Yesterday, I'd gotten a fairly good reading. Not the highest, but I was guaranteed average success throughout the year. When I opened up Aya's, I laughed.
"Going a day late was lucky. You've got the best luck," I told her.
She grinned happily, and I read out the predictions for her future. Work, money, and love would all go smoothly for her. If the fortune was true, she wouldn't have to worry about her job. Even if she lost it, something good would come. As for love... I had no concrete thought.
Aya opened up my fortune and smiled.
"One down on the luck-o-metre from me," she announced.
One step down from her top luck, but one step up from what I'd gotten yesterday. Not bad.
She read about how spectacular my year was going to be, but how there'd be a delay in starting with the good things. I gave her a lopsided smile when she suggested that I'd find my dream job next month as opposed to next week, and then live happily every after.
We tied our papers to the board with everyone else's and left the shrine grounds.
"What do you think? We're going to have a really lucky year?" she asked me as we stepped over the threshold of the shrine.
"Mm," I thought aloud. "Looks like we'll both have jobs, money, and each other."
She liked my answer because she took my hand and swung it in an exaggerated way. We walked down the street like that as she hummed one of her own songs.
We found a warm shop for lunch and ate piping hot bowls of spicy noodles before continuing on to the hot spring.
"This place is great. They have a natural outdoor hot spring," Aya said, launching into an explanation of the place we were going to. "The service is great, and the massages I've gotten there have been better than most of the super-elite ones I've had in Tokyo."
The more she talked about it, the more I wished we were there already. I forgot all about saving money and focused solely on what sorts of things we could get done to relax us.
The place was cheap. The way Aya had been going on about it, I'd almost expected to be putting down the price of a small car. It turned out that seven hundred yen was enough to grant us access, and that was what I was used to paying. The massage cost quite a bit more, but I indulged myself. We booked them for forty-five minutes later and went off to undress.
Maybe someone would have expected us to feel awkward stripping down and bathing together with people all around us considering what we'd done before when we took our clothes off in the same room, but there was none of that. The bathwater was far too inviting. We washed up and then sunk into the hot indoor baths to wait for our massages.
"Do you come here often?" I asked, feeling sleepy from the heat.
"Not often enough," she mumbled in a similarly sleepy voice, closing her eyes in satisfaction at the water's temperature.
"Who introduced you this place?" I asked, wondering if it was someone I had heard of from her before.
"Shiba-chan," she replied without missing a beat.
Shiba-chan. The best friend.
"I'd like to meet her," I blurted out.
She was spoken so highly of that I felt the need to meet her. I wanted to know more about Aya, and meeting her friends was a very good way to do that. Seeing the kind of company someone kept could tell you a lot about that someone.
Aya opened her eyes and smiled at me.
"I'd like you to meet her, too."
I nodded and smiled, wondering if she would suggest a time and place to do that, or if it was one of those things that would be left up in the air until an opportunity spontaneously presented itself.
"I'm supposed to go out for lunch with her next week. Want to come along?"
It seemed like my first option had been correct.
"If I don't have a shift at the convenience store at that time, then sure," I joked.
Working at a convenience store would be horrible. I'd have to wear one of those monkey uniforms with those hats and be nice and polite to rude people, telling them to please come again to our lovely store.
Aya chuckled at my joke.
"I'll let her know you're coming along. She's interested in meeting you, too."
"What's she like?" I asked curiously.
Aya crossed her arms and looked up in thought.
"She's really easygoing. Well-spoken, friendly, helpful. Brilliant, too. She has a brain like you wouldn't believe."
She sounded pretty much perfect, which made me nervous about meeting her.
"Did you, uh, tell her anything about me?" I asked.
As in "me", I meant "us", and Aya knew that. She shook her head.
"I've talked about you, but I haven't had a chance to go into much detail yet."
"But you would?" I asked in surprise.
"Sure. She's one of my closest friends. If I can't tell her anything, then the world is hopeless," she laughed.
I hated jealousy, but for a second, I felt jealous. I wished that I had known Aya for as long as Shiba-chan had. I wished I was her closest friend. I wanted that title for me and me alone. I didn't want to share it with some other girl. Besides, I had more than Aya's friendship. Or at least I thought so.
"What did you say about me?" I asked, trying to get out of what could become a miserable mood.
"None of your business," she shot back with a sly look.
I harrumphed, and then she turned serious.
"But actually, I've been meaning to ask you about Hiroshi."
I turned serious, too. Maybe even glowered. I was still sore and a bit guilty over the whole thing.
"Yes?" I asked, trying not to sound upset or angry.
"How much did you tell him about us? About me?"
I sighed. I could see why she'd be worried. An offended ex-boyfriend intent on revenge would not be the greatest career booster. But she was just worried because she didn't know Hiroshi like I did. No matter how angry he was, he would never ever do such a malicious - and I'd even call it childish - thing, whether he knew of her fame or not.
"He doesn't know which of the thousands of Ayas in this country you are. I told him we spent the night together and that I was going to move here. And that, uh, I really like you..."
That was enough for now. There was no need to start going into that while in public.
"I hate to ask you this, but can you trust him to keep his mouth shut? Because it wouldn't take long for him to figure it all out if he ever saw a picture of us together."
A picture of us together? When would he see one? She was just being paranoid.
"I trust him with my life," I said truthfully. "He may have acted like a jerk that night, but he's the kind of guy that will think things through eventually and is not afraid to change his opinion. He won't stay stuck on one viewpoint - that I'm evil or that whoever 'seduced' me away from him is evil."
Aya breathed out in mild relief.
"Sorry to ask," she said.
I shrugged. As long as she didn't ask anything more about that night. I felt so stupid.
"One more question."
Oh no... I thought, but I nodded for her to go on.
She scooted in a bit closer to me and leaned sideways so that her words wouldn't echo in the room. She had a look on her face that could only be described as hopeful and enthusiastic.
"Do you usually do naughty things when you're asleep?"
I growled and pushed her under the water while she laughed and inhaled the water, resurfacing with sputtering snorts and coughs.
"Ahem!" came a voice from behind us.
We froze and looked up. There was an elderly woman walking by, and it looked like she was one of those disgruntled types that did not appreciate a little rowdy laughter during her bath. We both apologised and settled down, shooting each other looks until the lady had disappeared, at which point we burst into fits of giggles.
"I hope I don't turn into an old woman like her," I sniffed.
"I hope that if I do, I won't encounter any young, noisy girls like us in a bathhouse," Aya retorted cleverly.
I laughed at her reasoning, and we settled down. Aya looked pensive, and just as I was about to ask her what she was thinking, she turned to me.
"Since chocolate is like an aphrodisiac, if you eat it right before going to bed, do you think that you'll have vivid dreams that'll make you want to-"
"Aya!" I hissed, putting my hand on top of her head and shoving her down under the water.
In the past few days she had shocked me with the extent of her sexual appetite. It seemed limitless. We'd never really spoken of such things, but suddenly, after spending one night with her, our conversations were laced with innuendos, and suggestive looks spilled out from her like waterfalls at every opportunity. I wondered if she'd undergone some sort of transformation over the days, or if it was simply that she'd hidden this layer of her personality from me. Either way, it took some getting used to, but it was definitely a fun thing.
She struggled under the water, and I let her come up for air. She was still laughing, not at all showing that she was perturbed about being drowned twice by me until she spoke.
"You are so dead after this. I'm going to do something so horrible to you that you'll wish you could not just work but also live in a convenience store. When I'm through with you..." she said with an evil chuckle.
"When you're through with me?" I asked, this time inserting my own suggestive look into the mix. "Please, bring it on."
She looked surprised that I'd finally raised my fists and started to play her game, but she quickly replaced it with a satisfied smirk.
"Fine, I will."
We nodded at each other in a businesslike way, and I snuck a glance at the clock.
"But not till after our massages. It's almost time," I told her.
We got out of the bath and got dressed again, making our way down the hall and into the massage room.
We were able to get two cots side-by-side, and after we were asked what parts of the body in particular we needed treated, we lay ourselves down and relaxed. Sometimes our heads were turned towards each other, and we'd lie there exchanging looks or just staring at each other with no purpose.
After the best hour-long massage I had ever received in my entire life, we stumbled wearily back to the baths and sat outside. The winter air kept our faces cool, but the water we were submerged in kept our bodies pleasantly warm. We sat there, chatting and occasionally splashing water on our own shoulders to warm them up.
Before we knew it, the sun began to go down. Early sunsets in the winter were useful because they indicated that there was still a little more time before one had to go home. We wouldn't miss our last train.
"Did you have a good day?" Aya asked me as we sat for the final moments of our bath.
I nodded.
"Thanks for bringing me here. It's just what I needed."
I felt even more relaxed than I had the night before when Aya and I had talked.
"I feel refreshed, too. Thanks for coming with me."
We watched the sun's light diminish a slight bit more, and with satisfied but slightly melancholic sighs, we got out of the bath and went to get changed.
We took our time getting ready (well, Aya took more of her time, which also meant she took up my time, too, since we were there together), and found our way back to the train station. It was very cold outside, the temperature having dropped along with the sun, but we were warm from the hot spring and from being together. We distracted each other from the unpleasant coldness.
When we got on the train, a hush settled over us. We sat in peaceful, meditative silence before dozing off all the way to our train transfer. We somehow found our way back to Aya's place without too much trouble. We didn't oversleep on any of the trains, which was a miracle.
When we got into the apartment and as if by telepathic agreement, we both dragged our feet into her bedroom, changed into pyjamas, and collapsed onto her bed in two exhausted heaps of flesh and bone. We pulled the warm covers over our bodies and fell asleep. The combined effects of heat and a massage had beaten the life out of us in a pleasant way, and our journey into the next day passed with no grand statements or actions.
-
Chapter 9 of 29
The following few days passed by eventfully.
The next day - a Sunday - Aya was ordered to her boss' office. She got a call early in the morning, and she'd reluctantly dragged herself out of bed and into suitable meeting clothes. In the short time I'd spent with her, I'd grown attached and didn't want her to leave.
"Go find a job," she teased me as my hand weakly tried to grab a hold of her skirt and pull her back to me before she left.
I was successful in pulling her over to stand by the bed, but I did nothing else. What could I do? I was half asleep and she had to leave. She bent down and kissed my forehead.
"I'll leave an extra key by the door. Don't forget to use it," she said, and with that, she was gone.
I got up half an hour later and sent her an e-mail, to which she didn't reply. She was probably in a meeting. I got ready for the day and quickly dropped by the convenience store to buy a newspaper. When I went to pay for it, the cashier gave me a friendly smile, as opposed to the robotic acknowledgement most people at convenience stores gave customers.
"Hi," he said as he began to ring up my purchase.
"Hi," I greeted him politely, wondering if all Family Mart employees in Tokyo were required to treat their customers like old mates from junior high school.
I paid, and with a "thanks", I left the store feeling good.
I got back to Aya's apartment, sitting down on the floor and spreading the newspaper's classified advertisements out in front of me. There was nothing suitable available for me. Nobody wanted someone with a partially finished degree in economics. Nobody wanted an ex-waitress to work for them. Also, I didn't want to work as an office lady at some second rate company office (which would probably be an easy job for me to get if I played nice in the interview). I wanted something challenging. Something that didn't have me doing the same thing over and over every minute of the day.
I sighed and grabbed my things. It was time to go out into the field.
I wandered around the neighbourhood. I spotted one "help wanted" sign, but I didn't have the qualifications to be a hair stylist. I had to forego it. I sighed and skipped over to Shinagawa on the train, wandering around the shopping centres. There was nothing. I couldn't even find a "help wanted" sign for a waitress job, which I would take to at least tide me over until I found something better. I was pulled out of my bad mood by my phone ringing. Aya had sent me an e-mail back.
That fortune slip was right. I get to keep my job! More details when I see you. Where are you?
I smiled, happy for her, and incredibly relieved that she didn't lose her job because she was off having fun with me. I wrote back.
Good. At least one of us is having luck. I'm job hunting nearby. Nothing so far. Know any places that want to hire a university dropout?
Her reply came quickly.
Have you tried offices? I've found that a lot don't advertise that they need help.
I sighed. Not the kind of job I wanted, but it was useful to know that there might be something out there that I just couldn't see.
I'll try that. Thanks, I wrote.
Aya sent one last e-mail.
I'm going home now. I'll see you later. Let's go somewhere for dinner!
That wrapped up our communication for the time being. At least I had something to look forward to - dinner. It was hardly anything new, but she would probably take me to some tasty place or her favourite hangout, and it would be my first real meal in Tokyo since getting there.
I spent the afternoon wandering around Shinagawa, but not just searching for work. I did a bit of browsing around the shops and the department stores. I found no job, but I did see a shop I wanted to inspect further once I was settled and had a source of income. It looked like it had been constructed for me personally. Anything I would ever want to wear was hanging on the hooks in the small establishment. So although I went back to Aya's place unemployed, I at least found yet another incentive to find a job.
I rang the doorbell when I got to Aya's. I had a key, but I felt weird just walking in. She came over and opened the door, rolling her eyes the minute she laid them on me and muttering something about how spare keys weren't just for show and were useful for something. When I tried to give it back, she insisted on my keeping it. She didn't specify how long I should keep it, but I put it in my mind to give it back once I moved out.
We sat down, and she explained what had happened. Her boss had fought hard for her and had had the rest of the top heads of her music label admit that they needed Aya no matter what. They had said she could stay, but they slapped her with a heavy warning that if she ever pulled any silly stunt like that again, they'd have no second thoughts about dumping her from their label. She had received yet another stern lecture for an hour about the rules of the company, and she'd been made to promise to apologise to all the people involved in the Italy project that had not gone through.
"They were probably so lenient because the public didn't know about this project. It was going to be one of those surprises that caught everyone off guard and then sucked them in. If the country had known that Matsuura Aya was going to Italy to train, I would have been shot for deserting," she laughed.
Amused she may have been, but the idea of Aya being shot (even just metaphorically) made me sad.
"I'm glad you got to keep your job," I said quietly, not laughing along, and she smiled gratefully.
"What about you?" she asked. "Any luck since we last talked?"
I shook my head.
"I checked some offices, but it's a little hard to just walk in and say 'hey, need help?'"
She nodded sympathetically.
"Well, it was only your first day," she said a little unnecessarily. "Maybe you'll have more luck tomorrow."
She put a comforting hand on my shoulder and kept it there as we sat in silence, thinking about our own situations. Maybe she was right. Maybe her extremely lucky fortune slip had assured her that she'd get her job back with hardly any problems, while my own job would take some time to find.
"But now, let's go out to eat and celebrate."
We got up and went out for dinner. She took me to an extremely expensive Thai food restaurant that she said she loved and ate at whenever she had an excuse to. She told me in a confident tone that I'd enjoy it. As we sat down and looked at menus, my heartbeat quickened when I saw the prices. This was no place for me to be eating. I didn't say a word, though, because I didn't want to ruin her thought-out dinner plans. I chose the cheapest thing on the menu and asked for water. Aya eyed me curiously.
"Water?"
I nodded.
"Water."
When she placed her order, she ordered cocktails for us, and I smiled cautiously, thanking her for thinking of me.
"And by the way, this dinner is free of charge," she said.
I wondered how that was possible.
"Do you know the owner or something?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"I don't know him. This is from me."
I sighed and was about to tell her not to start doing this kind of thing, but she raised a hand for my silence.
"I wasn't able to give you a Christmas present," she said, reminding me both that I'd spent Christmas with Hiroshi and that I'd given her the stupidest gift.
I groaned inside and winced. I wondered if she would even use the gift.
"Oven mitts don't equal dinner at the most expensive restaurant in this region," I mumbled, accidentally letting my opinion of the restaurant slip out.
She slapped my hand a little harder than I thought she would, and she gave me a sharp look.
"It's not supposed to be an equal trade," she reprimanded me. "It's the thought that counts."
She sounded so angry.
"But..." I started, and her look hardened as if daring me to say something to oppose her opinion.
I shrunk back and shut my mouth.
"If you don't want to be here, then you can go, but then you'll also be short one living space."
"If I don't let you buy me dinner, you'll kick me out of your apartment?" I asked in disbelief.
She nodded and then laughed.
"Do people usually have to threaten you before you'll accept a gift?"
"No," I sighed, "but I just don't want you to feel like you're obligated to give me anything or help me out with money. I don't want to be a burden or a moocher."
"You're not a burden," Aya said quickly. "You're really not. I'm always here to help you. Don't let your pride get in the way of common sense. If you need help, you can always ask me. I'd much rather you do that then suffer and get into situations that are hard to solve."
Drop the pride. Ask for help. Trust her. She was asking a lot, but I had to try.
I thanked her, apologised, and thanked her again. I made sure to relax and enjoy every bite of the delicious and late Christmas present. We made a toast to Aya for getting to keep her job and to me for moving to a new city in pursuit of a new life.
When we got home later that evening, we were all partied out. It was rather ridiculous that two young people like us would have gotten exhausted from dinner, but we couldn't stop ourselves from going to bed by eleven o'clock. My eyes drooped shut as we lay there on our backs, side-by-side under the covers. Aya seemed restless, however. She started tapping out a rhythm with one finger on the back of my hand.
"What?" I asked her.
"Nothing," she replied quickly.
Who had given her coffee before bedtime? She couldn't stop tapping out the rhythm.
"Uh..." I started.
I didn't mind her being restless, but tapping my hand repeatedly like a drum was a little weird.
"Sorry."
She stopped tapping and turned onto her stomach, breathing quietly, apparently calm.
My mind started to slip down a slide, descending into a pillowy bed of clouds...
Aya coughed and cleared her throat loudly. My eyes snapped open, and she shifted a bit, her elbow brushing my shoulder. When I closed my eyes again, she flipped onto her back. When I opened my eyes, she rolled onto her side and faced me. I turned my head to look at her, but her eyes were closed, so I looked back up at the ceiling. As I was staring up and trying to imagine a starry sky, I noticed her eyes open, so I looked towards her again. She closed her eyes quickly before she could be caught staring, and I thought that she was either dying to tell me something important or having some sort of strange, prolonged seizure. I kept my eyes on her until she opened her eyes again, looking at me sheepishly.
Was she playing a game? Was she not tired?
"What's up?" I asked, putting sleep on hold.
"I can't sleep," she said like a child.
"I noticed that," I snickered. "Why? Are you cold?"
I pulled the blanket up a bit more.
"No," she said with a shake of the head. "I'm excited.
I raised my eyebrows.
"I'm just glad you're here," she admitted. "I don't want you to go back to Hokkaido."
For reasons unfathomable to me, she cared so much. It gave me so much hope. I couldn't ever doubt what she felt when she went along saying things like this out of the blue.
"Me too."
I have to find a job tomorrow, I thought.
Even if it was just waitressing, I needed to show her that I was serious about staying in Tokyo. I thought that part of her might grow worried if I did nothing to start finding my niche here. If I got a job, an apartment, and made friends, she would see that I really wanted to stay.
"Tomorrow I'll find a job," I promised her.
Maybe she'd be able to get to sleep with that promise. I took her hand and squeezed it.
"Mmm," she acknowledged.
We spoke no more than night, and we went to sleep.
The second eventful day passed by. Aya woke me up by drying her hair. Now that she was back, she had a job to do, and that meant waking up early in the morning. I figured I may as well get out of bed and join her in getting ready for the day.
She launched into a list of things she had to do, but I didn't pay attention. I was busy using her computer to look at a map of the neighbourhood. I caught the words "filming" and "conference", so I assumed she'd be off doing some sort of "I'm Ayaya and I'm alive after these two months!" TV appearance.
She came by to say goodbye to me, but I only gave her a wave over my shoulder, too engrossed in what I was looking at for it to click in my mind that I wouldn't see her until late that night. She pulled me back into the world literally by grabbing me and hefting me up awkwardly to stand in front of her, twisting me around and then hugging me. It all happened in a blur, so I reacted instinctually and hugged back. She pulled back and then leaned in to kiss me, at which point I deftly slipped out of her grasp, avoiding her and her poisonous lips, sitting back down on the floor and returning to scrutinising the map. I hoped she hadn't noticed how shy and embarrassed I felt. Of course she did.
"I estimate seven more days till you stop freaking out every time I get close to you," she announced.
"What? I don't freak out," I said defensively, looking up at her.
She suddenly crouched down right beside me and stuck her nose against mine, making me pull back in surprise.
"Yes you do. See?"
I rolled my eyes while trying to put some distance between us.
"Whatever's holding you back, though, cut it off. It's not getting you anywhere."
She grinned, stuck her tongue out, and licked my nose. I scrunched it up.
"You have a strange way of expressing your love," I stated with a glower.
"Oh, come on. As if you wouldn't do that," she laughed.
Funny, she was right. I would do the same kind of thing... if I'd known her longer than two months. It was too early, though, to do that kind of thing and expect her to find it endearing. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe I could be my normal, weird self. Maybe I should.
Aya patted me on the back, said goodbye, and left. I sighed and hoped I hadn't offended her too much.
I went job hunting for the entire day. I faced failure after failure. I even went into a restaurant and offered my skills as a waitress or a chef, claiming that I could mix a mean cocktail and whip up the tastiest Hokkaido-style nikujaga. The elderly owner gave me a wary send-off.
I took a break for lunch at a convenience store, sitting outside and eating quickly to keep from freezing. It may have been warmer than Hokkaido, but cold weather was still cold weather. To me, winter had only two settings – unbearably cold and even colder, each as bad as the other.
The afternoon was a flop. My feet began to hurt from all the wandering and standing in one spot. I couldn't find a job. I headed back to Aya's apartment, completely dejected. Before I crossed over to the main road, I dropped in at the 7-Eleven to pick up a snack to tide me over until dinner time.
As I stood in line, I read the various posters on the walls. Nakashima Mika had a concert tour coming up in the spring, and I intended to go. I hadn't listened to her latest album, but I'd spied it on Aya's shelf that morning. I would definitely have a listen when I had a spare moment. There was also an advertisement for some sort of winter illumination festival happening in Ebisu, and I wondered if it would be a good thing to go to. I'd never seen the winter illumination in Tokyo, which was supposed to be world famous. Then a help wanted sign caught my eye.
Wanted: Cheerful, enthusiastic youths for part time jobs. Reasonable hours. Great pay. Start immediately. Become part of the 7-Eleven team!.
It was my turn to pay. I put my things down on the counter, and before I could stop myself, I opened my mouth and asked, "What would I have to do to get a job here?"
I pointed to the sign. The cashier, a girl who looked around my age, looked at the sign and then looked back me.
"Um, bring your resumé and talk to our manager," she replied helpfully.
Simple.
I thanked her, paid for my snack, and left.
No. I can't get a job at a convenience store, I scolded myself. I can do better.
And yet I found myself going back to Aya's, printing out a copy of my resumé from the disc I'd brought, and walking back to the store I'd seen the sign at.
I'd worked at a convenience store when I'd gotten out of high school, so I had a good idea of how things worked in such stores. My store had been a Family Mart, but they were all the same in the end.
I went back into the 7-Eleven. The same girl wasn't surprised to see me, and she called the manager upon my request.
The manager, Fukuda, was younger than I'd expected. I guessed he was in his mid-thirties. He studied me carefully as I spoke, and he glanced at my resumé as I explained that I'd just moved to Tokyo a few days ago and had free time on my hands. He listened some more and asked a few questions about my experience and whether I'd feel confident adapting to 7-Eleven after having worked at a Family Mart for almost two years. What kind of fool searching for a job would say he wasn't confident? I assured him I'd be okay, and I suddenly had a job without any check of credentials. Fukuda told me that since I knew how to work the till, I'd probably only need a day or two of training to accustom myself to 7-Eleven's particular system and procedures. He asked if I could come in the next day, and I said that I could.
An hour and a half later, I was walking back to the apartment with my new uniform shirt, a folder full of papers related to procedure, and a mind full of "are you stupid?!" thoughts running around.
I got back just past six and e-mailed Aya to tell her I was waiting. She said she'd be back in about an hour, so I decided to run a bath and relax. I sat in it for about half an hour, letting the hot water cure me of my aches and pains. Before I could fall asleep, I got out, dried myself, and went off to get dressed. Spotting my work shirt, I decided to quickly try it on to make sure it was the right size. I went out to the entrance to look in the mirror, and while I stood there making sure I looked all right, the door opened and in walked Aya carrying a bag of groceries. She noticed me right away and stopped in the middle of kicking her shoes off, staring at me.
"It's just a temporary thing until I can find a real job," I explained quickly.
She studied me and then walked over slowly.
"It's cute," she said finally, and she moved off to the kitchen.
Cute? The uniform was cute? No it wasn't. It was hideous. And didn't she have anything else to add? An opinion? A question as to how I'd gotten the job?
"Hey," I said, following her to the refrigerator, where she paused in putting away her recent purchases.
"Mmhmm?"
"Don't you think it's dumb? Like, me working at 7-Eleven?"
She shook her head.
"I know you'll keep looking for something else," she smiled.
"I will," I reinforced. "It's just that I saw the help wanted sign, and I used to work at a convenience store..."
Aya stood up and traced the company's emblem on my shirt, making me blush.
"I know it's not your dream to work at 7-Eleven for the rest of your life. I don't think you're any less cool because you've got a part time job there."
I smiled and sighed.
"There you go lying and making me feel all good about myself."
She punched my arm in an ungentle way, and I rubbed it.
"Now go change!" she barked. "You're going to cook for me!"
I laughed at her order, but I went to change into my pyjamas, folding my shirt carefully and putting it with my clean clothes.
Seeing that the bath was full, she decided to take a bath while I cooked. We each took our sweet time. By the time I finished preparing the nikujaga I claimed to be so good at making, Aya had gotten dressed in her pyjamas.
Pyjamas at eight pm and before dinner? How very geriatric of us.
We sat down, turned on the television set, and chatted as we ate my delicious meal. She loved it more than the Thai food we'd eaten the day before, or so she said.
"If you can cook for me every night, you can stay with me as many years as you want."
I laughed giddily, tempted to take her up on her offer. We were interrupted an hour later by a phone call. Aya took it, and for five minutes she sat there scheduling. When she hung up, she told me that Shibata had had to cancel her Tuesday plans, but that that we'd meet up with her next weekend. That worked perfectly for me since it turned out I was going to have a shift at the convenience store. My joke had turned into reality.
We spent the rest of the night talking on the couch, where we fell asleep. We woke up soon and dragged ourselves to the bed, where we proceeded to fall into it in a messy pile of limbs, falling back asleep almost instantly.
My new part time job was easy. My training lasted only three hours. I was quick on the uptake and was ringing up customers' purchases by lunch time. Fukuda was full of praise for me.
On the day of my first real shift, I found myself working with Kuniko, the girl who had helped me the other day. She ended up being very friendly. We became instant friends - or at least we mutually agreed in thinking that the other wasn't bad.
Kuniko was two years younger than me, born and raised in Chiba, and was currently doing an MA at Waseda University. A true brain with a pretty face and a pleasant, outgoing disposition. She had been working at this particular 7-Eleven for a year, this part time job preceded by a year at Lawson.
I told her the basics of myself, and she was surprised to hear that I'd moved all the way from Hokkaido.
"Have you got a decent place to stay?" she asked while we stood at the cash register, the manager in the back office and the store empty of customers.
"My friend's putting me up until I can find my own place," I explained. "It's a nice place, but I feel bad because she's really busy. There I am hanging around with all this free time."
Kuniko nodded sympathetically and then clapped her hands.
"You need a welcome party!"
"I'm not really into..." I trailed off, but stopped.
If Kuniko could become my friend, that would be perfect. And a party meant I could make more friends. Then I'd be able to reassure Aya that I would stay here.
"Nothing big. We can go out for dinner and a few drinks. We've got an awesome team at this store. We're lucky. And we've got some other friends we can invite. Kind of like a 'welcome to the neighbourhood' party!"
One thing led to another and suddenly I'd made plans with Kuniko to go out on Friday night. We exchanged contact information, and before I knew it, I'd made my second friend from Tokyo. We ended our shifts at the same time that day, but she went on ahead of me because I had to talk with the manager.
Fukuda praised me some more, telling me I was doing an excellent job. He told me to keep it up, and then he sent me off. I left the store feeling happier than I ever thought I could working at a convenience store.
I got home that evening and cooked before Aya came back. When she did, the first words out of her mouth were: "That smells delicious!"
We sat and dined. I told her all about my day and how Fukuda had praised me and how nothing had tripped me up, even the French couple that had come in trying to buy stamps without understanding a single word of Japanese. When I told her about Kuniko, I became shy because I realised I sounded like an elementary school student gushing to her parents about her first day at school and her first friend. I finished up quickly by saying that my welcoming party was on Friday night.
"I'm glad you made a friend," Aya smiled, and I felt like even more of a child. "And good thing you made plans for Friday night. I was feeling bad before I heard that because I'm being dragged to some formal dinner event by my boss."
I wondered how many of these events she had to attend and whether I'd ever be able to go with her to one. Probably not. But maybe she could get me on the invite list one day. I was so curious what she was like when mixed with all those celebrities. To me, she wasn't a celebrity like them. The thought that she was famous made me giggle. She was a regular girl. No, not regular. Of course not regular. She was special. But not a snobby celebrity.
"I don't envy you," I teased her, sticking my tongue out. "I'm sure my event will be much more relaxed."
She sighed.
"You're right. And they'll probably give me glass after glass of champagne just to knock me down and make me do silly things they can talk about for months to come."
Aya drunk? I wondered what that was like. I hadn't seen her get anything beyond a little tipsy, which just meant she was extra giggly and silly.
"That's okay. They'll probably give me glass after glass of beer in order to see how long the tough Hokkaido girl can hold out."
Not as long as they might have expected.
"And then the next day we're supposed to meet Shiba-chan," Aya groaned, suddenly remembering.
"Not till one o'clock, right? We'll make sure to get to bed early and to have some good painkillers close at hand."
Planning for our hangovers was a new thing for us.
"Always thinking about the future," Aya said, ruffling my hair, de-aging me yet another year.
"Anyway, what about you? How was your day?" I asked, remembering she'd mentioned filming.
"There was a big meeting in the morning where we all got our stories straight about my absence, and then I had a press conference with the media. They all wanted to know where I'd gone."
"What did you tell them?" I asked, in awe of how entire companies could pull together to make up a huge story about one girl.
"Mostly the truth. That I'd gone up to Hokkaido, but that it had been for an inspirational retreat. Getting in touch with nature and all that."
It sounded appropriate. We had done a lot of hiking.
"And what did you film?" I asked.
"Oh, some stations did a bit of interviewing. Nothing big. If you wake up early tomorrow morning, you'll see it on the news," she shrugged.
We stopped talking about work because it simply wasn't as fun as talking about other things. We kept busy until bedtime.
Later at night when Aya was fast asleep, I remained awake, shivering from the cold, covers pulled up to my nose. I was squeezed between the wall and Aya's back. Ever so carefully, I latched onto the sleeping form in front of me, trying to steal some of her body heat. She shifted a bit as if trying to shake me off but then stopped as though it wasn't worth the effort. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the cold, listening to her slow heartbeat and cursing why I felt perfectly at ease when she was asleep and couldn't witness my affectionate nature. When she was awake, it was much more difficult. She was almost intimidating.
As I lay there holding this living, breathing human being, I had a revelation. I had to get over this other complex of mine. My fear of Aya. She'd proven countless times that she wasn't being wishy-washy with her feelings. It was time to start really trusting her. I looked down at her peaceful face. Starting at that exact moment, I'd let go of my fears and inhibitions. When she woke up in the morning, she'd see a relaxed, natural me.
-
Chapter 10 of 29
It took me a little more time to fully let go of the things that prevented me from being entirely close with Aya. Several days passed, and on Friday morning we woke up and went about what was becoming our usual routine of getting ready together. Like most days, Aya had to leave first.
"See you tomorrow," I teased her, reminding her that whoever got home first would probably pass out before the other arrived.
"Be careful with your new drinking buddies," she shot back, reminding me that I didn't really know what my co-workers were into.
Soon after she left, I bought another paper, reading the classifieds as usual to see if anything better than 7-Eleven would rear its head. As usual, nothing caught my eye. As I browsed, I listened to Mika's new album, and I was quite impressed. I wondered if Aya had ever met her. They must have met several times at some of those TV shows they did. Their new releases must have overlapped at some point in their long careers. I daydreamed about what it would be like to meet all of my idols.
At ten, I headed to work. I was teamed up with an older man named Hasegawa, who I'd worked with twice already. He hardly spoke to anyone younger than him, he was rude, and he ignored me in an almost aggressive way right from the first day. I wanted to pound his stupid, 50-year-old face into the ground. I retained my cool composure, however, and ignored him back. He may have been the more experienced one, but at least I was nice. Waitressing had opened me up to a whole variety of types of people ranging from rude to overly friendly, shy and reserved to loud and obnoxious. This 7-Eleven got an overload of weirdos, but I was more than capable of taking care of them. An armed robber would have caused me less grief than Hasegawa did.
During my break, I sat back with a can of coffee and curry bread, and I e-mailed Aya. I said nothing important. "Hi. How are you?" That kind of thing. She replied just as Hasegawa's voice interrupted my giddy excitement.
"Fujimoto! At the till!"
I rolled my eyes, hastily (and stupidly) stuffed the remains of my bread into my mouth, and while chewing ferociously, cursed the rude man and hoped that he'd trip and fall into the oden stand.
I sauntered out of the back and opened up the other counter to help more customers, the first being a girl with bright (and tacky) purple and green hair. I sighed, wondering why we didn't get more people like her in Takikawa. Life was far more interesting in Tokyo.
I helped straight through my break and worked non-stop until my shift was over. When I went into the back to collect my things, Hasegawa ignored me, so I made sure to leave the little stool in the back pulled out from the table in hopes that he'd trip over it. So maybe I wasn't the nicest person. But he deserved it!
I went back to Aya's, took a shower, changed, and called Kuniko.
"Seven o'clock sharp, Fujimoto. Don't be late!" she warned me.
I regretted having told her that I had a habit of being late for social events.
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, hanging up.
Of course, as tradition would have it, I was ten minutes late arriving at the restaurant. From the look in Kuniko's eyes, I knew I'd get hell for it later.
The impudence of that girl to assume such familiarity! was what I thought on the outside, but on the inside I was grateful to have made a friend like her. She'd taken on the role of "annoying little sister", which I secretly really liked. I'd always wondered what it would have been like to have had a younger sister. Aya was too mature to play that role. Kuniko was childish like me (or even more so) and fit it much better.
Most of our co-workers and some of their friends were already at the long table, so we began our celebration.
"Here's to a convenience store career!" cried out Oshima, who took on our store's role of team spirit leader.
"Career? This isn't a career. We're all in it for the money," laughed twenty-year-old Momoko, the youngest of our group that night.
"Here here!" came cries of agreement.
"Except for Hasegawa," someone snickered. "He's a lifer."
"I hate that guy," Kuniko groaned.
I agreed inside, chuckled outside, but didn't pipe up with my agreement.
They finally wrapped up the extended toast with a heartfelt "Welcome, Fujimoto!" and ordered food. We had a merry time, the fifteen of us, all of us under the age of thirty.
Throughout the night, I heard strange stories from those unlucky enough to be saddled with night shifts, and I shared some of my own convenience store stories from back home. They seemed fairly plain to me, but the group had some terrific laughs at my former Takikawa customers' expenses.
At ten o'clock, we decided to move to another place. Some sort of bar or club, but nobody was sober enough to give me any more details. Apparently, it was a place that they liked to frequent. We hopped on the train, and seven of us brave souls headed over to Shinjuku.
Kuniko had forgotten all about my previous tardiness, and she came by as we were walking through the crowded district, slinging her arm around my neck drunkenly and almost strangling me. She wouldn't let go until I'd confided in her the number of people I'd slept with. Talk about intrusive! But I was feeling friendly with drink (that was always my term for "tipsy", which I don't consider even close to drunk), and so I whispered the answer in her ear.
"Six?! You've slept with six people?!" she yelled out, and I put my hand over her mouth.
"The point of whispering it was for everyone else not to hear," I hissed with a murderous look.
"But... wow... six? My answer's two. Your town's really boring, then, huh? You've got to find other ways to have fun."
I rolled my eyes. Six didn't seem like that big of a number to me. I wasn't running around rampant like some of my friends. It just so happened that six people had sufficiently moved my heart. Okay, five. One had been a one-night thing with a friend, but the next morning we'd realised our big mistake and remained friends, nothing more. Plus, we never drank together again.
But I supposed compared to Kuniko, six was a lot.
"Yup," I agreed exaggeratedly. "Nothing much else to do around there."
"What about now? Got a boyfriend?"
Oh, there it came. Wonderful.
"Just recently broke up with him," I explained briefly.
"You need a rebound!" she practically screamed.
I wondered if she realised all of Shinjuku ward was staring at us and now knew that I'd slept with six people and needed a rebound.
"No, I'm all right," I said quietly. "Right now I'm happy."
I didn't need a rebound because I had Aya, and she was not a rebound.
"Come on Miki," she said, dragging out her vowels. "You're so hot!"
Even better, now the friendly folk of Kabuki-cho could assume that drunken Kuniko had the hots for me.
"Yeah? I didn't notice," I scoffed.
Kuniko stopped walking and yanked me back as our group continued.
"Ya kidding me?!" she yelled in my face. "When I first saw you, I thought you were a celebrity, or something. Jeez, girl. Don't be so modest!"
She shook my hands to emphasise her words, and I blushed.
"Thanks, but, um..." I mumbled.
She took no notice of my discomfiture and pulled me after the group. We dropped our conversation because we had arrived at our destination.
"This is the wickedest club in the city," Koda declared.
He was the one who had suggested we come here. He was tall and quiet, but it looked like he was about to explode with excitement now that we were standing outside of his approved hangout. It looked a bit flashy on the outside, and I groaned in my mind, hoping the place wasn't as tacky on the inside.
We bypassed the line that stretched around the corner and we went in. It was surprisingly good. Excellent music and fast service at the bar. The crowd was also of a slightly higher calibre than the usual club. I assumed Koda must have had some really close contacts to get us in, because we weren't exactly the richest bunch of youths.
We found a table and crowded around it, ordering drinks to continue our descent into madness. Kuniko and Momoko grabbed each other and went to find strangers to dance with. I watched them get started from the corner of my eye, envious of how talented they were, their bodies flowing naturally to the beat and attracting a circle of men in no time.
I focused on my companions and chatted with the ones I hadn't worked with yet and had only just met that night. Maybe it was just the alcohol, but they all seemed like amiable people, and I must have been having an incredibly good personality day because they all liked me immediately. I received lots of offers, from help to finding an apartment when the time came, to phone cards for calling my parents (one girl worked part time for a phone company and received lots of freebies from the office).
It was approaching midnight when I left the group to go to the washroom. On my way back to the table, I decided to pick myself up a glass of water because my head felt hazy. The bartender was on the other side of the bar taking care of a huge order, so I waited patiently, standing a bit back and letting my mind wander. The music changed, and something at the back of mind tried to tell me something about the song. That's when I accidentally eavesdropped on a conversation going on just behind me.
"Fake? She's more than a fake. She's a fucking retard."
The voice was a girl's, but it sounded vicious. This was no regular gossipmonger. She sounded as friendly as a gang boss ordering her goons to rub someone out. I felt sorry for whoever she was talking about.
"Too bad he sampled her for this track. Stupidest thing Nakao ever did," another girl's voice said.
Nakao. Nakao... That was it! A small, unassuming man from Aomori known only by his last name - Nakao - had recently made a splash in the hip hop scene. In the past year, he'd skyrocketed to popularity that must have made pop queen Ayu insane with jealousy. The song playing at the club was the song that had made his popularity soar, and one of the reasons why it had been so popular was because of the singer he had sampled. Matsuura Aya. It was an older one of her songs whose name I couldn't remember, but it struck a chord within the population, this new man reviving this young girl's old image. It was one of those things that just became popular for no one apparent reason. Kind of like that annoying "Mai-a-hi, mai-a-hu" song from so long ago, but less annoying and more high quality.
But wait, backtrack. These girls were talking about Aya. They were insulting Aya. I sighed angrily. Everyone was entitled to their opinions, and I knew that celebrities were easy targets for jealous or disgruntled people, but I didn't like it.
"She never graduated from high school, you know?" a third girl piped up.
Everybody laughed. There seemed to be a small group of them, but I didn't dare turn around to look. I was starting to fume.
What difference did it make if someone graduated from high school or not? As long as he or she was a good person with a good heart, it didn't matter if he knew when the Battle of Sekigahara had been or how to conjugate the verb "to sleep" in English.
"Have you ever seen any of her interviews?" the first girl who had spoken asked.
She seemed to be the leader of the group. Her voice was the cruellest and most authoritative.
"No, I wouldn't waste my time on that sort of shit," said the second girl.
She seemed to be the "second in command" of the group. The leader's sidekick. The one who was allowed to speak directly to the top girl.
"Same old rhetoric. Flakey beyond belief," Leader confided in them. "She makes my ten-year-old sister look brilliant."
I grew angrier and angrier. It was one thing to call Aya a name or two, but it was another to go on and on about it. How dare they?
"I've heard she has no friends because she's so prissy and demanding."
"Who'd want to be that bitch's friend anyway? She has nothing to offer. Hah, except for, you know, service."
I'm her friend, you horrible people!
"Hah, not even that. She's a prude. And fuck, look at her. She dresses in drab clothes and goes on about being an adult. It's like she has to convince herself she's grown up."
"Yeah. She's trying way too hard."
Enough. I'd heard enough.
I turned around and spotted the table that the four girls occupied. They were dressed to the nines, obviously not lacking in money (or sugar daddies to buy them fancy schmancy stuff). They were sipping martinis, and they looked like they thought they owned the club. I could immediately pick out which one was Leader. The others seemed a bit stupid, but she looked sharp. Her eyes were bitter.
They noticed me studying them, and Sidekick called out to me in a threatening way.
"What?"
It didn't occur to me that I had a chance to walk away and avoid getting hurt. Nothing but confronting them made sense to me. It was my only option.
"Excuse me," I said, making my way over to stand by the table. "Want to stop that?"
I looked directly at who I suspected was the leader. The girl flashed me a disgusted look one might spare when encountering a slug in an expensive shoe.
"What? Were we talking to you?" she asked.
I had been right. Her voice confirmed that she was the girl who I thought was the leader.
I turned my body to address the whole table of girls.
"No, but I don't like what you're saying."
The girls exchanged looks and they simultaneously stood up, almost surrounding me. I could see right away that these were the kind of girls who bullied the weaker students all throughout junior high and high school. The ones who had money and flaunted it. The ones who had messed up home lives.
The unfortunate thing was that while these girls looked like they would snap if I raised even just a baby finger against them, it was just an image. Girls like this were deadly because they looked like they couldn't hurt a fly, but really could. Because they had tempers shorter than a smoked cigarette. Because the rage in them was such that it gave them the extra strength they needed to do damage at the most crucial of times. If I wasn't careful, I might end up seriously hurt.
Surprisingly or not, the leader of the pack had a dirty mouth even when talking to strangers.
"To hell with what you think, you bitch. Get the fuck out of our club."
At the back of my mind, I pondered what would happen if I left the club as recommended. Leader was probably the manager's girlfriend. Or well-paid sex slave. Same thing in these parts.
My thought only lasted less than half a second.
"I don't want to start trouble with you. I just don't like hearing you talk about her like that," I said in a reasonable but firm voice.
"You don't like the way we talk about that princess?" Leader asked with a laugh. "What are you, her personal spokesperson?"
The girls burst out into high-pitched, annoying laughter that made me grit my teeth. Why couldn't they laugh in tune with their hearts? Nasty, dark, loveless. It would be easier to tolerate.
"Just don't go assuming things about people. You don't know her at all."
"Oh, and you do?" Sidekick snickered. "Are you fucked in the head?"
I squeezed a fist, but kept my face expressionless.
"She's my friend."
"Oh no," groaned Sidekick Junior. "Don't tell me you're one of those gross fans that think her idol actually gives a shit about her."
The other girls called out "amen" to her statement. I could barely keep calm with all the rage that bubbling inside me.
"Believe what you want. Just don't talk about my friend like that."
"Okay, first of all, I don't think she'd keep company like you," Sidekick snorted.
"What do you mean company like me?" I demanded in a low, dangerous tone.
"Some hick whose accent is so thick that what she's speaking is hardly Japanese? Famous snobs don't go for that," she laughed.
For a second I forgot where I was and wondered if I really had that much of an accent. I'd never really noticed before. But Aya had a definite one, too, and I'd heard her slip in and out of it once in a while. If these girls claimed to know so much about her, they surely must have noticed that.
"And second of all, obsession doesn't look good on anyone," Sidekick Junior grinned, jabbing at my arm with my hand.
I almost pounced on her for touching me. If she did it again, a million policemen wouldn't be able to hold me back. I remained calm on the outside, though, because my policy was one of indifference. Show indifference, and things would eventually sort themselves out. Lose your cool with people like this, and you either became a joke or got into serious trouble.
"I'm not obsessed. I'm just asking you to-"
"Listen," Leader interrupted, grabbing the front of my shirt and forcing me look at her as I shut up and remained still. "Last I checked, my man fucking owned this club, and as far as we're all concerned, you're nobody. Whatever we think is how the rest of the club thinks. You obviously don't fit in, so get the fuck out before I beat your stupid face into a pulp."
A girl in a very pretty dress and beautifully-done makeup speaking those words would have made me laugh in any other situation, but the look in her eyes convinced me that she wasn't bluffing. I had to get out of there as quickly as possible. I had to accept a defeat and come out of it with my life and my face intact.
But nobody talks about Aya like that in front of me, I thought angrily.
I opened my big mouth to protest. Leader saw it, and she started to raise her other hand - perhaps to hit me - when things got even more interesting.
"What's going on?" a voice asked curiously.
Leader stopped and looked over her shoulder. There was a handsome young man (he had to have been younger than me) standing there with a drink and a cigarette.
Oh great. Is this her man? I wondered dismally.
But Leader didn't react in a way that would indicate this young (was he even of legal age?) man - boy - was anyone she knew. She ignored him. He obviously didn't like being ignored, because he strode over and grabbed her hand in a move that surprised me. She'd be screaming lines about sexual harassment in no time. Sidekick and the Juniors started to crowd him, but he pushed them away.
What the hell is he doing? You can't just rough girls up at a club like this! I thought.
On the surface I was criticising his crude methods, but deeper down, I was slapping myself for not taking the same initiative as he was.
"Why don't you girls quit messing around with people every night and try to fix your own screwed up lives? I'm sick of seeing this kind of crap every week," he hissed.
So he did know them. Maybe that's why they weren't screaming out for someone to call the police.
"And stop throwing out the manager's name as if he's your boyfriend. His wife wouldn't be very happy to know that his personal prostitute is so vocal about her job."
Leader's eyes turned murderous, but she backed away. Her group realised the situation had turned against them. Leader's standing with the manager was obvious a sore point for her. Without another word, the girls walked off, and I stood there wondering how I'd come to be involved in a nightclub power struggle.
"S-sorry," the boy stammered once the girls had left.
"Uh..."
I couldn't speak, not because of the shock of almost being beaten up by a gaggle of girls, but because this tough boy had reverted into a bumbling, soft mess.
"I've been wanting to say that to them for a long time," he said, this time sounding a bit more confident.
He gave a small, satisfied smile that warmed me up and gave me back my voice.
"Thanks for the help," I said with a slow nod of the head.
"I saw them getting in your face and I had to help you," he admitted.
He seemed to study me for the first time, and his face was overcome with a strange look that I couldn't identify. It's not like he was instantly in love with me, but he seemed to want to be protective over me.
"I appreciate it," I repeated.
"Umm..." he started.
The boy needed to grow a spine. He was turning into a fool and quickly losing cool points with me.
"I don't usually do that kind of thing, though. I just saw you and felt really... like... like I owed you something big. Like it was my duty to protect you."
Oh brother, I thought, suppressing a roll of the eyes. I get to Tokyo, and some boy who barely needs to shave suddenly installs himself into my life as my personal saviour.
But when I looked at him closely, there seemed to be something in him that went past all the cheesiness. He was sincere, no doubt, but also...
I couldn't quite place it. But whatever it was, it was genuine and it felt nice coming from him.
"But I'm not trying to pick you up or anything!" he quickly exclaimed, waving his hands.
This time I rolled my eyes, unable to hold back.
"Oh, man. Relax," I told him, and then not caring if he thought it was an abrupt question, I asked, "How old are you?"
"Twenty-two," he replied with a shrug.
Younger than me. Just as I thought.
"And your name?"
"Sekiguchi," he said, fumbling for a business card and sketching a brief bow as he handed it to me.
I pretended to study it, but I actually didn't read a single word of it.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Fujimoto," I said, holding my hands out to indicate that I had no business cards of my own, "and I'm practically jobless."
We stood there awkwardly, music playing in the background.
"Well, I'm with some friends, so I'd better go find them. Thanks again for your help. See you," I said quickly.
"Hey," he said quickly before I left. "My company's looking for a secretary. If you're jobless..."
He gave me a smile, gestured to the card to indicate that the company's contact information was written on it, and then said goodbye. A sweet boy, but me working as a secretary? Not my cup of tea.
I wandered off to find Kuniko and the group. The girls had stopped dancing, exhausted and dehydrated. They were re-energising themselves with mugs of beer, of all things. It looked like they were going to be spending the whole night out.
I told them I had gotten a call and that I had to go and meet my friend. They offered to walk with me, but I insisted that I would be all right and that I didn't have to walk far. Momoko told me in an airy voice to call her if my friend wanted to join the party, and I assured her that I'd call if we were in the area. I chose not to tell them about my encounter with Leader and her girls. That was best left a quiet interlude in my new life.
I got out into the crisp air, which had the effect of clearing my head and giving me back a bit of my sobriety. I walked to the train station, messaging Aya along the way, asking her if she was home.
Five minutes later while I was just boarding the last train to her station, I got a response.
"almost hoam. s'good Niite" was what she wrote.
Oh great, I thought. They got her plastered.
At first I felt annoyed because I barely felt tipsy anymore. But then I remembered that this was Aya, and that I'd never really seen her get beyond a little giggly. This could be interesting from a sober point of view. I wrote back that I'd be at her place in less than twenty minutes. A few minutes later, she sent me a one-word e-mail.
arrived.
As long as she wasn't falling all over her feet and throwing up all over the place, it would be a fun night. Sour moments of the evening completely forgotten, I smiled to myself and willed the train to go a bit faster so that I could get to her place soon.
-
Chapter 11 of 29
I slipped into the apartment quietly in case Aya had gone to sleep (which I hoped she hadn't).
"I'm back," I whispered carefully into the dark entrance that greeted me.
I slipped my shoes off silently and took a look beyond the entrance. I could see that a light was on in the living room, so I headed to it. There Aya sat on the floor, the TV on at an insanely low volume as she seemed to be watching it intently.
"Hi," I said to get her attention.
She rolled her head back slowly and saw me, a huge smile gracing her lips. A huge, silly smile.
"Hiiii," she drawled.
I smiled and walked over, standing beside her and trying to tell just by looking how far gone she was. She reached up and tugged my hand to pull me down beside her. I made it easy for her and sat down. She started to grope at my leg, trying to pull me closer (or on top of her. I wasn't sure which).
"How much did you drink?" I laughed, pushing her hands away easily.
She let go of me and started counting on her fingers. My eyes widened as she passed ten and then fifteen. At seventeen, she stopped and looked up at me with watery eyes.
"I don't remember," she mumbled.
More than seventeen? That was excessive and dangerous. Anxiety gripped my heart.
"You had more than seventeen alcoholic drinks?" I asked gravely, trying to get across to her that she'd better answer seriously.
She shook her head.
"I counted backwards from twenty-five. Or twenty-four...?" she trailed off happily.
I sighed in relief. Aya with seventeen drinks in her, I couldn't handle. I'd have to take her to the hospital. Aya with eight drinks in her might be a challenge, but not impossible. I put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed briefly.
"Good, good," I told her, and she smiled proudly.
"Where did you go tonight?" she slurred.
Now was definitely not the time to tell her about Leader and her insults.
"After dinner, some of us went out to a club in Shinjuku. We just listened to music and talked," I said slowly.
"I wanna go!" she said.
Too late, you dummy. Trains have stopped.
"What about you?" I asked. "What did you do?"
She grabbed the front of my shirt as if threatening me, and I remembered Leader's earlier actions.
"They made me stand around and drink lots of stuff for hours!! And then they did boring speeches, so Nemoto and I snuck off and drank together in the girls' washroom."
Oh dear.
"Who's Nemoto-san?" I asked, unsure where to start with my questions.
"You know! He has his own TV show on Thursday nights that I watch all the time. Duuuh, Miki!" she giggled.
Nemoto was a guy? And they drank in the girls' washroom?
"Er... How drunk were you guys? I mean, if he's a man, and you drank in the washroom together, that's a bit..." I trailed off, not really expecting Aya to listen to reason.
"Oh, he's totally gay!" she screeched with delight, clapping her hands.
That didn't really answer my question, but I saw how it might be more of a comfort to the women walking into the washroom and seeing a man.
"Good for him," I said with a wary smile, and then it hit me.
Nemoto. Nemoto Ryu. He had a television show on Thursday nights. It was some sort of jazz music corner, but apparently he was a riot. A very funny man. I hadn't watched the show myself. I only knew who he was because Aya was completely in love with him and wouldn't shut up about him around the time his show aired. If we hung out on a Thursday, all she did was wonder what that evening's episode was going to be like. If we hung out on a Friday, all she could do was recap everything that had happened in the previous night's episode. Frankly, it didn't even sound that interesting, but Aya worshipped the ground that man walked on.
Wait... He was gay?!
Oh, man. The things you never expected.
"So don't worry. I wasn't flirting with him or anything," she babbled, pulling me closer to her by the shirt (which she hadn't let go of in all this time).
"I wasn't worried," I sniffed.
I had been too surprised that they'd been talking in the washroom to get worried. But if I had clued in to who he was, I probably would've been a tiny bit jealous in a completely unreasonable, unjustifiable, and good-humoured way.
"No, I can tell when you get worried. Your forehead gets extra furrow-y. Hee hee hee," she said, poking the bridge of my nose annoyingly.
"It does?" I asked worriedly, brushing her hand away and feeling my forehead.
That kind of thing brought on permanent wrinkles quickly.
"Jooooke!" she giggled, and I growled.
"Don't do that!"
"Anyway, we drank there, and he got all silly, and we flushed my necklace down the toilet by accident."
I didn't ask for details. All I knew was that if for some reason I ever got it in my head to buy Aya a necklace, I'd pass. No point saving up to buy something that would get flushed down the drain in a foolish moment of inebriation.
"And then this woman came into the washroom, but she was happy, too, so we all laughed together."
Right now, happy equals drunk in Aya's mind, I thought amusedly.
I took a look at her grinning face and her sparkling eyes. Not even news of her family pet's death could have brought her down from the high she was on.
It was adorable!!
I hugged her and felt something akin to what I felt when I looked at pictures of mind-meltingly cute cats and dogs and felt like and eating them up or squeezing them to death.
"You are so cute!" I exclaimed as she laughed and hugged me back, completely oblivious to the crazy effect she was having on me. "Who would've thought?"
"I'm cuuuute, I'm cuuuuute," she sang, her voice going over my shoulder and probably right into her next door neighbour's ears. "I'm so cuuuute, Miki thinks I'm cuuuute!"
I squeezed her and laughed. The serious Aya that intimidated me, the mature Aya that made me feel like I was thirteen, the lascivious Aya that made me blush and move away shyly, the thoughtful Aya that made me feel like I was wild and unorganised when I really wasn't... All these images dissolved that night and let me see the true scope of the silly Aya. I'd seen it before, but never to this extent. It was what was missing from my view of her. I hadn't seen her throw down her dignity like that and let loose completely.
It was a key piece to the jigsaw puzzle.
It was what finally made me relax around her.
I held her tightly, listening to her nonsensical ramblings, smiling, my heart soaring until she grew drowsy and started to fall over. At that stage, I carefully helped her get to bed, not letting her hands distract me from my task, even when I had to help her undress and put on something more suitable for bed (oh, the way she giggled when I helped). I took my job seriously, though. I was responsible for her well-being. I was the friend that had to take care of her in her weakness and hold her head up over the toilet bowl (although thankfully she wasn't in that kind of state).
Right before going to bed, I made her take some painkillers. I always did that, and it helped me feel better the next morning. She protested at first, but then she liked the fact that I was physically feeding her the pills and holding the glass of water up to her lips, so she grinned and drank the entire glass agonizingly slowly. Then, it was time for bed. I got in first and let her have the side closest to the door just in case her stomach rejected so much alcohol. She hadn't shown any signs of feeling sick, but I didn't know her level of tolerance and didn't want to risk anything.
"Good night," I said in a singsong voice, turning the light off.
"Don't wanna sleep," she replied stubbornly, drowsily.
I allowed myself to snuggle up to her.
"But you have to," I said in a cute voice as though talking to a five year old. "We have to go see Shiba-chan tomorrow and you won't feel well if you don't sleep."
"But I'm having fun," she whined.
"What? Fun?" I asked in mock surprise. "Me having to dress you, feed you, and drag you around like a baby is fun? More like a pain in the neck."
"Rrrgmgmrrr," she muttered and I laughed silently.
"Go to sleep," I repeated.
"No," she insisted.
"Sleep."
She shook her head.
I raised my head so that it was in line with hers and I started to sing. One of those old children's songs that everyone knew by the time they were four. I sang quietly, just for her, until her eyes started to droop shut.
"I'm not going to sleep," she mumbled. "No matter how hard Miki tries, I won't..."
Her protests grew weaker, and within a minute after her last words, she was off in dreamland. I broke off my singing and closed my eyes, set on reviewing the entire evening. However, I didn't get far. When I closed my eyes, my own exhaustion took a hold of me, and all I could do was let myself fall into the inviting arms of sleep.
-
Chapter 12 of 29
The next morning, I woke up to Aya groaning. I opened my eyes to see her lying there holding her head, a look of pure pain etched on her face. I smirked knowingly, but didn't tease. I rolled up, jumped over her, and went to fetch a glass of water and some more painkillers. We'd slept a good eight hours, so the effects of the medicine from the previous night had worn off. When I got back to her room, she was sitting up, nursing her head in her hands. I tapped her on the shoulder and handed her the pills first, which she put in her mouth without a word, and then I handed her the glass of cold water. She drank the whole thing down and handed me back the glass, which I dutifully returned to the kitchen. We worked smoothly like a well-oiled machine. When I got back to her room again, she'd laid back down, her hands massaging her temples gingerly.
I walked over her carefully and slipped in beside her, latching on gently and snuggling my face into her neck. She groaned in protest.
"Kill me," she mumbled in a pathetic voice, and I snorted.
"No," I laughed out softly so that I wouldn't cause her head any more grief.
"Let go."
"No," I repeated, and without looking, I brought my hands up and took her hands away from her head, continuing her soothing massage myself.
"Thank you," she mumbled grudgingly, too lazy to bring her hands back down and leaving them up above her head.
I lifted my head to look at the situation and my heart quickened. It almost looked like I'd tied her hands up that way and she was lying there submissively, eyes closed, waiting for me to do what I wanted.
Damnit, I thought, cursing my mind for turning dirty on its own when Aya was not in any condition to humour me. Stop thinking like that, you pervert, I reprimanded myself.
I continued to massage her aching head for several minutes.
"It's ten o'clock," I told her gently after a while. "Think you'll be okay in a few hours?"
She didn't answer, so I looked up at her face. She hadn't replied because she had fallen right back asleep. I smiled a self-satisfied smile. I had some sort of magic touch. But her hands were still above her head, wrists crossed over each other. I carefully moved her arms to her sides so that she no longer looked like she was posing for a dirty magazine. Then I held onto her and lay there not thinking about much, waiting for her to wake up again.
She woke up in half and hour, this time without any exclamations of pain.
"How are you feeling?" I asked when she opened her eyes.
She looked groggy, but not like she was about to keel over.
"Eh..." she mumbled. "Better."
She sounded a lot stronger.
"Can you get up?"
She nodded her head.
"Do you want to eat something?"
She looked positively green at the mention of food.
"Ug..."
"You should eat," I suggested. "You need something in your stomach."
She looked at me with those sad, pathetic eyes that said "I'll leave it up to you" and shrugged. I took this as a sign that I should make her something easy to stomach.
"Why don't you take a shower while I make breakfast?" I said.
She looked at me reluctantly.
"Or do you need help with that, too?" I added with an idiotic smile.
She cracked her own first smile of the day, and something told me to go with it and continue.
"You really want me to help you? Because I don't mind, but that means you'll have to wait extra long for breakfast, and your stomach is going to start growling and-"
I continued to babble. Frankly, I got a little nervous and excited, but she gripped my arm with a tight hold, making me squeak and cut off my words.
"Just get me to the bathroom in one piece and I'll think about it," she mumbled, looking both amused and in pain.
I helped her get up, and once sure that she was steady on her feet, followed her like a little puppy dog to the bathroom.
"I can stand, you know," she laughed at me, her strength returning to her gradually.
"I know, but..." I trailed off. "Are you sure you're okay? You can make it on your own?"
She rolled her eyes and then winced as that caused her a bit of pain.
"Go make me food. You're right. I am hungry."
I nodded.
"Well, okay..." I said hesitantly, sticking around and waiting...
"What?" she asked me.
"Huh?" I asked back, giving her a confused look. "What?"
She looked at me slyly.
"Do you need something?"
I shook my head vigorously.
"No, not really. Nothing at all!"
But I didn't move off. She grabbed my hands.
"If you want to take a shower with me, just tell me. I didn't think you were serious," she said in a quiet and smiling tone, her hangover seeming to no longer exist.
Hiroshi, I lied. She totally did seduce me. Completely. I don't know how she managed to, but she did, and right now, I've just realised that I have to take advantage of every naughty bone in her body.
She was right. It was true. I wanted to. What had filled me with fear before filled me with desire now. In a show of bravery, I grabbed her wrists.
"I'm serious," I said, staring at her as if to bore holes through her skull.
She seemed to forget the pain she was in, and she shook my hand off one wrist, using it to open the door to the bathroom and then pulling me in. She closed the door behind us. We brushed our teeth and ran the water, getting undressed when the shower spray was sufficiently hot. Then under the warmth of the water, we took a long, forty-five minute shower together in the small cubby-hole of a space, details of which we would commit to memory only and not write down or tell a soul about.
Once dried, dressed and ready to go, we ate a few bites of plain rice each just to tide us over until we had lunch with Shibata. Aya seemed to feel even better after that.
My phone rang while we were walking to the door. Impeccable timing.
"Fujimoto-sama!" Fukuda cried out as if the apocalypse was upon us and he was alerting the empress.
"What is it?!" I asked in alarm.
"Hasegawa broke his ankle on the way to work and we can't find a replacement. Can you please come in?!"
He sounded like he was about to cry. And me? I was in an excellent mood. Nothing could worry me or make me feel bad.
I shot Aya a look and then said to Fukuda, "Sure, I'll be there as soon as possible."
He thanked me a million times, and I hung up to face Aya again.
"That was my manager," I said slowly, playing with the zipper of my jacket. "He needs me at the store 'cause Jerk got into some accident and unfortunately only broke his ankle."
Aya was also in such a good mood that she didn't mind. She'd gotten her forty-five minutes of fun, and that seemed to have cured her of her hangover. At least temporarily.
"You'll have to meet Shiba-chan some other time, then," she laughed.
"Yeah, she's becoming this mythical figure. It's like everything in the world is trying to prevent our meeting," I laughed along.
I got changed again, this time wearing something appropriate for work, and we left together, splitting up on the sidewalk.
"I'll tell my mythical friend that you say hello."
"You do that!"
I skipped over to work, giddy as ever. I had surprised Aya with my forthrightness. Inviting myself to take a shower with her and then actually carrying through with it. She'd liked it, and I could tell that things were only going to get more interesting between us. We had something deeper than I had thought before.
I worked with someone I'd never worked with before - a man named Shiroshita who hadn't been at the welcome party. He seemed nice. A little on the quiet side, but he didn't ignore me.
While I was wiping up a mess from a spill on the counter (honestly, sometimes customers can be so messy!), a girl walking in slipped and did a faceplant on the floor. I dropped my cloth and went to help her up. She was embarrassed as she sat there trying to re-arrange her skirt so that her legs weren't completely exposed. I looked up at the counter to see where Shiroshita was, and he was staring like a zombie at the girl's legs, the proverbial stream of drool coming from the corner of his mouth.
You perv, I thought, rolling my eyes and helping the girl get up.
She thanked me, bought a pack of gum quickly, and then left. I'm sure she'd come in to buy more, but was too humiliated to browse around for longer.
My shift ended at five that evening. Kuniko came to replace me, and we chatted for a few minutes, leaving the store to Shiroshita.
"There's a party going on next Wednesday at some other club that Koda-kun visits once in a while. Are you in?"
I sighed. Was Tokyo going to turn me into a party girl? Maybe. I didn't really want to go, but I liked Kuniko and Koda and their group of friends. Aya was also going to be monstrously busy in the next week, so I may as well distract myself.
"Yeah, give me the details and I'll be there," I said.
Kuniko cheered and started rambling on about the details, all of which I'd never remember if I didn't write down.
"Oh my god, stop," I cried out, waving my hands at her. "Send me an e-mail with everything you just said. You talk too fast."
"Don't worry. We'll just come pick you up at your place."
And see that I live in a trillion-yen condo? No way...
"It'd be better if you gave me the details," I said, thinking quickly. "I'm not sure what I'll be doing before, and I might be a bit late."
Vague and not entirely a lie.
"Okay. I'll e-mail you details during my break," she said, thinking nothing suspicious of my excuse, quickly adding, "since you're too dumb to keep up with my intelligent speech patterns."
I hit her hard on the arm.
"Shut up and get to work before I smack you even harder on the head."
She snorted at me, and I walked off laughing, leaving the store and going back home.
Aya was home when I walked in. She was sitting in the living room and writing something.
"Hi!" I called out from the entrance.
"Hi," she mumbled back, not looking up from her work.
I snuck up behind her, knelt down, and tickled her. She jerked up, brushed my hands away, and kept writing.
"Whatcha doing?" I asked, sitting beside her and sticking my head over her shoulder.
She pushed my head away and then slammed her book shut.
"I'm finished," she declared, finally looking at me.
"Yeah, but what is it?"
"It's my agenda book, you dummy," she said, turning the book over for me to see the word "SCHEDULE" written on it.
"Oh," I said uninterestedly.
I had thought she'd been writing in her diary or something private that I wasn't supposed to see. To test it out, I took the book into my hands and flipped it open. She didn't try to stop me as I turned to this coming week's page. It was full of neat red and black scribbles indicating what time and where she had to be for various events.
"Holy crap," I muttered. "Is this the amount of work they make you do? No wonder they pay you so nicely."
She took the book out of my hands and hit me on the head with it before I grabbed it back.
"It looks like a lot on paper, but it's really an average week," she brushed it off.
I opened the book and again read through everything she had to do, wondering if I would ever be able to handle the amount of work she did. Probably not. I'd get sick of having to listen to people telling me where to go and what to do twenty-nine hours a day. It was admirable of Aya to be able to do it all and not complain a single bit.
"Can't you take some time off?" I asked, closing the book.
"What do you think I was doing the past two months?"
Right. I had already forgotten she hadn't been working that entire time. I gave her a sheepish look and she raised a hand, making me wince in anticipation of sharp pain. Instead of hitting me, though, she stroked my hair.
"Although it would be nice to take some time off and go somewhere exciting with you," she said wistfully.
"Once I get a real job and make some real money, you're on," I winked.
"Hmmm," she sighed.
As she daydreamed, I opened her agenda book and looked through it some more, assuming she'd stop me if she didn't want me to know what was on her schedule. Next month was already filling up. I checked and saw that my birthday written in hastily with pencil. Under it, she had written in some sort of social event.
"What's this?" I asked, pointing to a name I wasn't sure how to pronounce.
"I have to go to another one of those dinners," she said, sticking her tongue out presumably at whoever had organised the event.
"Another one of those drunken washroom nights?" I teased.
"No," she sighed. "This one's a little more serious, which means far more boring. I'm going with some colleagues to represent our label. We have to be on our best behaviour because some important guy is hosting it."
"But you're going to miss my birthday..." I whined.
"Oh, that's your birthday? I didn't notice," she said breezily.
"Of course it is, you doofus. You've got it written in right here!" I said angrily, pointing at her handwriting and shoving the page in front of her face.
"Oh, so I do," she said in surprise.
I realised she was just messing around with me, so I dropped the book back on the table.
"Why do I get the feeling that the longer I stick around, the meaner you'll get?"
She began to laugh so hard that I was afraid she might flatline from lack of oxygen. I watched as she threw herself down onto the floor, clutching her stomach and letting out hoots that would have frightened ghosts.
She never answered my question, and she dragged me out for dinner after I insisted we could cook. She said she didn't want to buy groceries, and heaven forbid I argue with the master of the house.
"So what did you and Shiba-chan get up to today?" I asked before a bite of okonomiyaki.
"We went out for lunch. Just our usual thing," Aya replied after she took a sip of water. "She says 'hi', by the way, and wonders if you exist, too."
"When is she free next? I'm starting to become obsessed with the idea of meeting her."
"She'll call me and let me know. Looks like things'll be busy for her, too, this week."
I made a mental note to ask Fukuda to give me some extra shifts. I'd bore myself silly all alone.
"What am I going to do without you around?" I asked in a sad voice. "I may as well still live in Hokkaido for all I'll see you next week."
"Aren't you supposed to be looking for a real job?" Aya snickered, picking up a piece of cabbage with her chopsticks and sticking it in my mouth.
I obediently took the strip between my teeth and chewed.
"Oh yeah," I chuckled. "I guess I could always go to that guy's company and be an office lady..."
"What guy's company?" Aya asked curiously.
"Huh?" I asked.
I thought I'd told her, but then I remembered that we hadn't seen much of each other today. Shower time didn't count.
"Oh, last night I- well, it's a long story," I started, remembering Leader and her bunch, "but this boy gave me a card and told me they need a secretary at his office."
The card was still in my wallet, and I took it out to show Aya. She read what was written, and for some reason, began to smile in awe.
"He said his company needs a secretary?" she asked for confirmation.
"Yup."
She handed me back the card.
"That's perfect. You have to do it!"
"But Aya," I whined. "Can you see me as a secretary?"
She took a full look at me, and somewhere during this examination, I suddenly felt very naked. Her gaze seemed to strip me of not just my clothes but also that shield that most people put up to protect themselves when in public.
"Yes, I can," she said unfalteringly.
"But-"
"Do it. Call him. Or even better, just go to the company on Monday morning. This is your chance to get a real job."
"But... Office lady? I'm not that kind of girl."
Aya sighed.
"Do you realise what kind of company this is?" she asked.
I took the card out again and read it.
"No," I mumbled. "Paid escort service?"
She scowled at my sarcastic joke.
"It's a record label, for crying out loud!" she exclaimed. "So if you want to have any chance to break into the industry, I suggest you get your butt down to Ikebukuro bright and early on Monday morning and get yourself a job serving coffee to the people that can make your dreams come true."
A record label?
It was the first time since the previous night that I seriously considered taking Sekiguchi up on his offer.
We talked about it a bit more, Aya urging me on and on until I agreed to at least go and look at the office. We finished our dinner and decided to walk home instead of taking the train.
As we strolled down the dark, cold streets, I kept thinking about the girls from the club, and all I wanted to do was tell Aya about them. However, I didn't want to see her feelings get hurt. I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news. Finally, I took her arm and pressed my shoulder against hers.
"You know, last night I met this group of girls," I started tentatively. "They were saying some pretty rude things about you."
She slowed down a bit and looked at me questioningly.
"Who were they? And what kinds of things?" she asked.
I shrugged.
"Some rich, stuck up girls. Nobodies, really. And just... rude things that aren't true."
Her face showed no sign of emotional reaction, so I ploughed on.
"I kind of jumped in and tried to stop them, but they were tougher than they looked and were about to hurt me when Sekiguchi - the guy who gave me the card - jumped in and made them run. So the only reason why I met him and got this chance at a job is because some girls thought it would be satisfying to make fun of you."
I felt a load taken off my shoulders.
"You defended me?" she asked.
I could practically hear the hearts in her voice!
"Yes," I mumbled shyly. "And I lost miserably."
"No, you won. My heart!"
I groaned and pushed her away from me, speeding up my walking pace.
"Don't say things like that. That's unbearably cheesy and... just... ug!"
She quickened her own pace and was at my side in no time.
"Hey, what happened to the Miki I woke up with this morning? What'd you do with her?" she teased me, her hand finding mine.
"She's on a seventy-year coffee break," I muttered. "But seriously, I'm not into mushy crap like that. I like things cool, not cheesy."
"Oh, you liar!" Aya almost shouted. "You have a mushy streak longer than the Nile."
The rest of our walk home was full of her teasing me as I tried to defend myself. No more was said about Leader and her gang. Once we got to her apartment, she tried to prove to me that mushy was good, while I tried to prove to her that being grown up and cool was good, and while we were both obstinate and refused to see each other's points, it all ended in a good way.
-
Chapter 13 of 29
We both had Sunday free, so we spent the entire morning in bed sleeping, and then the afternoon cleaning up the apartment and making some room for my things. I'd be staying for at least a few more weeks, and it was becoming bothersome to live mainly out of a bag. We ended up having an impromptu fashion show as we tried on all of Aya's clothes and tried to see what looked best on each other.
The next morning I woke up at the same time as Aya, and we set about our usual routine. I made sure to look extra good (although Aya assured me that I could have worn a potato sack and looked stunning (I didn't believe her for one second because nobody would look good in a potato sack)), and we caught the train together.
"Are you nervous?" she asked as I sat there falling asleep.
"Eh?" I asked, straightening up. "No. Why would I be?"
Getting nervous about a job interview that didn't even exist? What a waste of energy that would be. I returned to my snoozing, and received a ferocious jab in the ribs when Ikebukuro station was announced. With a hasty "bye", I ran out the doors before they closed.
Following the map Aya had printed out from the internet for me that morning, I found the building easily. I looked in a reflective window and did a brief hair and makeup check before riding the elevator up.
The doors opened and I walked into a moderately-sized reception room, a desk just a few steps away. I walked to it and saw a head bent down over a book. It was a boy, and I had no doubt in my mind which boy it was.
"So what were you trying to do?" I asked. "Quit your job and give it to me?"
The head bounced up in surprise, and sure enough, it was Sekiguchi.
"Uhh..." he said stupidly, his eyes then lighting up in recognition. "Fujimoto-san! You actually came!"
"A friend convinced me to give this a go," I shrugged. "So, am I right? You're the company monkey boy and you want to pass the job on to me?"
He blushed and stood up so that we were on even ground.
"No. It's just that I can't work all the time because I've started taking a course at a local college. I need to find someone else to share the job with," he admitted. "But yeah, I'm just a secretary here."
At the club he'd sounded like he was a regular employee of some company when he was really the guy who made tea? Regardless, there was something nice about him that didn't seem stuck up.
"Hey you!" bellowed a voice. "Stop flirting with your girlfriend and get back to work!"
"Yes, sir!" Sekiguchi cried out, sitting in his chair and starting to type furiously on a computer.
I wouldn't date this baby here in a million years, I thought sourly. Maybe if he grew up a decade...
I turned around to see who had yelled at him, and I saw a huge man come striding towards the desk. He was tall and built like a refrigerator. Absolutely massive and muscular. He could beat Arnold Schwarzenegger to the ground. The man took one look at me and stopped dead in his tracks.
"Who are you?" he asked abruptly.
I was so surprised at this man's entrance that I'd lost my voice. Sekiguchi answered for me by standing up.
"She's here about the secretary job, boss. Stop scaring her."
"Scaring her?" the man repeated, and then addressing me, asked, "Am I scary? Do you find me scary? Am I a scary man?"
It was then that I realised this man wasn't angry and that Sekiguchi wasn't actually afraid of him. This man was a joker. Maybe a bit on the gruff side, but not an irate man by far.
"No, you're not scary," I said.
"I like her!" he cried out. "My god, you simply must work for us."
"But you haven't even asked her for her name yet," Sekiguchi whined.
I wondered whether he really wanted me to get the job. I supposed it was just part of the playfully argumentative relationship he had with his boss. The boss pierced Sekiguchi with a glare.
"Would you act your nineteen years of age? I didn't hire a fifth grade elementary school student."
Nineteen?!
"You're nineteen?!" I blurted out, glaring at Sekiguchi.
He grimaced, hanging his head down.
"Oh, did the boy play that old 'I'm twenty-eight' crap with you? He likes to pretend he's so old. It'll do him no good once he passes thirty. Right, Tsuyoshi-kun?"
Sekiguchi's head remained bowed. And as it should have been! He'd lied to me.
"Anyway, when can you start?" the boss asked, turning serious.
"Uh... Isn't Sekiguchi-kun here right? You don't even know my name..."
It was my turn to sabotage my own job opportunity. There must've been something in the air that day.
"I have a good feeling about you, little lady. I want to see you here smiling every day. I think you can help a lot around our humble U-Con headquarters."
I was at a loss for words.
"I can start tomorrow," I said simply.
"Great. Come by at the same time tomorrow. Tsuyoshi-kun'll show you the ropes."
And with that, the boss turned on his heels to leave.
"Wait!" I called out, and he turned back around. "My name is Fujimoto. Can I ask for your name?"
"Just call me 'Boss', and I'm sure our work relationship will be a fruitful one."
He gave me the most enigmatic of looks and then walked off.
Tokyo people... are so weird.
I turned to face Sekiguchi.
"You little runt. You lied to me on Friday. You're not twenty-two. What's up with that?" I asked, glaring at him.
To his credit, he rose to the challenge.
"Hey, you'd lie to a stranger if you were drinking and smoking underage in an exclusive club like that," he defended himself.
He had an excellent point.
"Since you saved me from getting my eyes scratched out, I'll forgive you this once."
"I knew I could count on you to see the light side!" he cried out happily.
I rolled my eyes, but spared him an approving smile.
And so started a very interesting relationship.
I left soon after finding out the boss' real name from Sekiguchi (or Tsuyoshi, as he boyishly insisted on being called). It was decided that for the next few weeks, we'd work together, Tsuyoshi passing on his wisdom to me while I got used to the routine.
In the afternoon, I had a shift at 7-Eleven, and I explained to Fukuda that I'd gotten a part-time secretary job, but that I still wanted to work for him. Being so friendly and helpful, he told me that he'd make sure to arrange my schedule so that there were no conflicts.
That night, I told Aya about what had happened at U-Con, and she was tickled by my tale of the boss. As we lay in bed later, she reassured me that this was the lucky break I needed. She told me some things about the label, and I had to admit that it seemed like a nice organisation to work for.
The next morning, we woke up bright and early, a little sleepy because we'd stayed up too late talking, and we repeated the same routine as the previous day. Aya jabbed me awake at my stop, and I ran out the closing doors of the train.
Tsuyoshi turned out to be a solid, bright fellow. He was nineteen and yearning to be a music producer, which was why he'd taken up a job at a record label. He had recently signed up for a course at college to study some sort of musical programming. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about when he explained it, so I nodded and smiled politely.
By noon, it felt like we were old buddies. We got along very well and could relax around each other.
During lunch break, we were sitting together at the front desk eating our respective lunches (his mother had gone all out and made him a proper boxed lunch, while I'd had to run out to the convenience store because I'd forgotten to bring my lunch) when I had my first taste of the people who worked at the label.
First to walk by was a woman coincidentally named Kuniko. I learned her name from Tsuyoshi, not from her, because she took one look at me, sneered, and walked out of the office.
"What's her problem?" I asked Tsuyoshi.
"I don't know," he said with a frown. "Her name's Kuniko and she's one of the performers on our label. She's usually not that much of a bitch. She gives most people at least one chance..."
From what it sounded like, Kuniko wasn't the nicest girl on the block, but she wasn't aggressively rude right off the bat. Maybe she was having a bad day.
Next came a man name Ohashi, and as if Kuniko giving me a dirty look wasn't enough, Ohashi glared at me.
I put aside my urge to glare back and figured being nice first would make him realise how childish he was being.
"Hi, nice to meet you," I said, standing up and on the verge of telling him my name.
He stopped and faced Tsuyoshi.
"Who's the chick?"
Tsuyoshi stammered for a minute before letting out some noncommittal answer that I was new here, and without any further comment, Ohashi turned his back on us and left the office in the same manner Kuniko had.
"The hell?" I growled. "Is everyone at this place like those two? I quit."
I stood up and started packing up my half-eaten lunch when Tsuyoshi grabbed my arm. I glared at him, and he let go with a thousand apologies about not meaning to touch me inappropriately.
"Really, I don't know what's up with those two, but not everyone's like that. Please trust me!" he appealed to me desperately.
I sat back down, but I refused to continue eating.
Tsuyoshi was proven right when the next employee walked by. I didn't notice her because I was studying an event schedule on the computer screen while muttering comments to Tsuyoshi, who was still working on his lunch.
"Oh, a new person," said a voice, and I looked up to see a beautiful foreigner with flawless ebony skin and hair tied neatly in a perfect bun standing there.
"Uh, can I help you with something?" I asked, wondering what this woman was doing here.
"No, not really," she laughed. "I'm Katherine and I'm working here for the next few months. I come from the United States."
Oh...
Well, her Japanese was perfect. I wouldn't have guessed she wasn't one of us without looking at her.
"Katherine-san is our temporary dance genius. Her company in Michigan-"
"Washington," she groaned, butting in.
"Washington," Tsuyoshi corrected with a pointed look that made me guess it was some geeky joke between the two, "sent her over to us because we were desperate for some good dance instructors."
Katherine nodded and looked at me.
"Except for the whole 'genius' thing, yeah, he's right. But I'll be leaving in May, so don't get too attached!"
She winked and I couldn't help but laugh.
"It's nice to meet you," I said. "I'm Fujimoto."
I stood up and bowed, and she bowed back.
"You're cute," she stated as if it was written on my forehead and she was reading it back to me. "Are you one of the new ducklings?"
"Ducklings?" I asked, confused and embarrassed.
"Er, one of the new kids signed up on the label?"
I shook my head emphatically.
"No no no. I'm just here to help this runt with his work. I'm no singer."
She eyed me carefully, giving my body the whole up-and-down and making me feel a little nervous.
"A little on the lanky side, but you're short, so it looks okay..." she muttered under her breath as if evaluating a cow at the slaughterhouse.
Great. Tokyo is just one big bucket of judgemental fun, I thought caustically.
"Come down to the training room sometime," she told me. "I wouldn't be surprised if you could dance as nicely as you look."
What was this woman on? She must have had too much coffee or chocolate because nobody before in my life had ever looked at me and said "hey, you look like you'd be an okay dancer!"
"Sure," I said casually. "But you'll probably be disappointed."
She clucked her tongue.
"You've obviously never seen Tsuyoshi-kun trying to shake his stuff," she chuckled, going right through the boy's protests. "He doesn't have any rhythm or sense of style. If only he did, he'd have all us girls lined up to marry him."
She gave him a teasing look, and he sat there with a pout, making him look even younger than he already did.
A phone started to ring, saving Tsuyoshi from further humiliation. Katherine reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone.
"Hello?" she asked,
A reply came, and she launched into a string of English words that was too fast and too colloquial for me to understand despite having taken several English courses in university. Katherine gave a quick wave and walked out the office talking non-stop.
"Wow," I said to Tsuyoshi.
"That pretty much sums her up," he agreed with a smile.
Working at U-Con was going to fun.
-
Chapter 14 of 29
After my first day on the job, I went home and told Aya all about it. I went on and on about Tsuyoshi and Katherine and their wonderfulness, and about Kuniko The Lesser and Ohashi the Ass and their horridness. Aya told me several times to shut up (in those exact words), but I paid no heed to her and kept talking, resulting in her falling asleep and me getting angry and shaking her awake in a way that could not be described as gentle.
Two weeks passed. I balanced my convenience store job and my secretary job skilfully. After the first week and a half, Tsuyoshi cut his work hours in half so that our work times would coincide only three times a week. On the other hand, Kuniko The Greater and I got to work together a lot, which was nice because she kept me sane. Sort of. She'd do and say childish things and I'd ignore her or badmouth her, and then we'd laugh. If one didn't know, one would think we really were sisters. She made working at a convenience store not as terrible as it could be.
Back at home, my parents complained about missing me. They called me and told me the house was quiet without me, and that even Baachan had been around complaining that her new hired help wasn't half as good as I had been. But they were happy to hear that I was finding my way, although I could hear the disappointment in my father's silence when I told him I was working as a secretary at a record label. "My daughter can do better than that," he probably thought.
My mother gave me an update about everyone I knew, including Hiroshi, who I surprisingly hadn't thought of in weeks. His birthday had passed, and I had, as he had requested, not phoned or e-mailed him. My mom told me he had come by to the house twice just to chat with my parents, and my mother's evaluation was that he missed me like crazy and wanted me to come back. I stood firmly on my decision, though, and told my mother that if he wanted to contact me, he could go ahead. I'd be glad to talk to him. But I wasn't going to go back to the way things had been before.
Several mornings after that phone conversation, I was called in on another emergency shift at the store. Aya had the morning off and only a meeting to attend at lunch, so we'd slept in a bit and then stayed under the warm blankets, neither one of us daring to brave the cold that had enveloped the apartment overnight. That was okay. We kept occupied. Until, of course, my phone rang. I grumbled as I rolled over the side of the bed to grab the little machine.
"Don't answer it," Aya whined, trying to pull me back.
But we both knew it could be important. Although how important it could get for a part-time secretary, part-time convenience store worker was a mystery to both of us.
I checked the display and there was Fukuda's name.
"Boss," I mumbled aloud, clearing my throat and answering. "Hello!"
"Fujimoto-sama-sama!!" he cried as if the world was ending.
I wonder what part of the body Jerk broke this time, I thought with a laugh.
Hasegawa had returned to work several days after breaking his wrist, although his duties had been limited. I wish he'd taken a longer break, but such was life.
"Yes, Fuku-chan?" I said cheekily.
I'd learned over the weeks that Fukuda didn't mind joking around, so when he praised him, we lowered his status. I'd never heard of a boss as easygoing as him, but I thanked my lucky stars. Fukuda was particularly fond of the double sama, especially when talking to me and Kuniko. I was pretty sure we were his favourites. We never made any mistakes.
"Hasegawa-san has caught Avian Influenza. Can you please come and do his eleven-thirty shift?"
I almost burst out laughing. Avian flu?! Since when did Jerk hang around sick poultry? How the hell had he managed to catch a chicken disease? Despite the threat to Jerk's life, I couldn't help but be amused.
"Sure thing. Let me get out of bed and I'll be right over," I said, stifling my laughter.
"Are you with your boyfriend?!" Fukuda demanded suddenly.
He was young, but he seemed more like my father than a jealous suitor. He was married, after all, and he was extremely loyal to his wife and his one year old daughter.
"No, I am not with my boyfriend," I said loudly and clearly into the phone, looking at Aya pointedly.
She smirked back at me.
"Good. You're too precious of a girl to go around getting knocked up by random strangers from this city," he huffed defensively. "Tokyo men are all pigs. You hear me? All of them. So be careful!"
"But aren't you from Tokyo?" I asked sweetly.
There was a stiff silence.
"With a few exceptions," he amended weakly.
I rolled my eyes and laughed.
"Whatever. I'll be over in an hour. Okay?"
"Much appreciated. The shift is until five-thirty. Thank you!"
We ended our conversation there, and I burst out laughing.
"Jerk got the bird flu and I have to go in to replace him!"
Aya stared at me.
"You're a horrible, horrible person to laugh at something like that," she stated.
"Oh, come on. This means he'll be away for a while and that I won't have to put up with his rude behaviour. It's great! Besides, Hasegawa's a beast. He'll threaten the virus to get out of him. He'll live."
Aya decided to agree silently with me. I could tell because she tugged me back under the covers.
"I have to be there in an hour," I reminded her.
"Come on. The day I have the most free time, you get called away. That's not fair."
"Sorry," I said in a cute voice, poking her nose. "But duty calls."
I slipped out of her hold and out of bed, far too happy for my own good. My relaxing morning with Aya may have been interrupted, but I'd gotten plenty of sleep and plenty of cuddling (which I still refused to admit that I liked) and was thus in an excellent mood. As Aya lay in bed occasionally calling out to me, I took a shower and got ready.
Only when I was completely ready to walk out the door did I jump onto the bed to hug her.
"You should get ready, too. Don't you have that meeting?" I reminded her as I squeezed her tightly.
"Blah," she replied.
"Don't be such a grump," I smiled. "It's unbecoming."
I let go and left before she could latch on and not let go.
"My shift ends at five-thirty. I'll be back soon after. Bye bye!"
I ran out the door before she could entice me to be later than I'd promised Fukuda.
I got to 7-Eleven right at a busy moment at twenty-five past eleven, said hello to a grovelling Fukuda, and then went out to take care of customers. Kuniko was also working that day, and she had given me a surprised look when I walked in. When I joined her at the counter, she smiled a hello as she rang up a customer's purchase.
We didn't get a chance to talk for another hour.
"So Fukuda called you, huh?" she asked conversationally as two customers stood at the magazine stands reading.
"Mmhm," I replied.
"I hope Jerk stays in the hospital for twelve years. I wouldn't mind never seeing him again."
"He's going to hate me even more when he finds out I'm the one covering for him again. He's not the type to feel like he owes anybody anything, right?" I snickered.
Another hour passed during which we were busy as ever. It was an unusually active day at our store.
Things quieted down for fifteen minutes, during which I took a quick break, and then everything was busy until three. After that, the shop became a ghost shop. No customers entered, and I wondered why they had to come in huge, unmanageable clumps.
Despite how busy we had been, I was perkier than usual. I stood there stacking containers of salad up in the fridge and almost humming aloud.
"Someone's happy today," Kuniko called out from the counter. "And I'm sure it has nothing to with lettuce."
I put the salad down and turned to face her.
"You know when you wake up in the morning and you're just in a good mood for no reason? Like... when you feel like you're on top of the world?"
Kuniko nodded.
"That's how I felt this morning," I told her.
I went back to my job.
"Are you sure nothing else happened? Like last night or anything?" she pressed on.
I shook my head.
"Life is generally good now. I have a place to stay and Aya-chan's really easy-going. She lets me do what I want. And you guys are all fun to work with - minus Jerk. And my other job is much better than expected."
"Hey, when am I going to meet this Aya-chan of yours? You know we love to party. There are lots of opportunities to bring her along."
I couldn't pretend not to have heard. I had to answer.
I didn't think Aya would want to hang out with a bunch of part-time convenience store workers. Her schedule was so full, and she had to think of so many more things. Consequences. Hanging out with a group of unknown people, taking pictures, talking openly... These things were all potential risks for her. One dishonest person and her secrets might be spilled and spread around the city. It was then when I wondered for the first time how many non entertainment industry friends Aya had made since moving to Tokyo. How many besides me?
"Ah, maybe sometime. She's really busy," I replied evasively.
"Okay. Fine. Where does she live? I'll drop by one day," Kuniko insisted.
"Eh?" I asked, surprised, then quickly going into annoyed older sister mode. "You can't do that without an invite, you rude girl."
"Fine," she said. "Invite me."
"No!" I exclaimed.
"Why not?" she whined.
"Because," I said, my tone telling her to stop.
"Come on, Fujimocchan," she whimpered like a puppy.
"Welcome!" I called out desperately as a customer walked in.
Kuniko turned around, putting on her professional air and rushing to the counter.
I finished with the salad as Kuniko took care of the customer. I moved to the back where the drinks were and did some pointless busywork there, arranging the bottles and cans neatly so that the labels all faced forward.
"So how about tomorrow?" Kuniko called out as she closed in on my position again, finished with the customer.
"No!" I barked.
She skipped up right behind me.
"Day after that?"
"No!"
"And after that?"
"For the last time: no!"
"Oh, come on. You're being so difficult. It's like this Aya-chan doesn't even exist."
"She exists!" I cried out defensively.
"Then why won't you let me meet her?"
"Because," I groaned. "She's busy."
"She's a mirage!" Kuniko sang off-key. "A mirage! A hallucination. An imaginary friend!"
"No she's not," I growled angrily.
"Then prove it. Show me a picture of her."
"I don't have any," I sighed.
"Come on. You guys live together and you haven't taken a picture together? What kind of friends are you? What's in your mobile?"
"No pictures of her!" I exploded.
"You're no fun," she deadpanned, walking back to the front.
I huffed out a sigh. I didn't want her to become genuinely angry or anything.
"Maybe next week," I said because I could stop myself.
I was too nice. Her face lit up brilliantly.
"Really? You mean it?"
"Maybe," I repeated with a glower. "She's busy."
"Ahhh, thank you! Thank you, thank you!" she squealed, running up to me and tackling me with a hug.
"Why do you want to meet her so much anyway?" I grumbled as I tried to shake her off.
"Because she seems really nice, and you seem to get along with her very well. I want to see what kind of person you look for in a best friend so that I have a shot," she giggled.
Of all the...
How could I be annoyed with her if she thought a sweet thing like that? The way she worshipped me like her idol was not invisible to me or the people around us, but wanting to be my best friend was just too cute. My exterior softened tenfold to this girl who I could honestly call my little sister.
"Okay, okay," I conceded. "You can come over next week and hang out with us."
What am I doing? I thought. I hope Aya's okay with that.
She probably would be. Kuniko was a friend of mine, and if I could trust her, then Aya should be able to trust her, too. Then again, I hadn't known Kuniko that long...
We heard the door open as a customer walked in, and Kuniko detached herself from me (she was still holding me in a very awkward bear hug that had seriously begun to annoy me), and I pushed her away towards the drinks as I made my way down the aisle to go and greet the customer and man the front.
"Welco-" I started and then pulled back in surprise, a huge smile gracing my lips. "Aya-chan..."
Aya smiled and walked further into the store as I walked up to face her.
"I wanted to see you in action," she laughed. "And I got hungry and needed a snack."
She began to walk to the display fridge where I'd recently been arranging salad, and I followed her, standing in front of the display area as she tried to look behind me.
"You're a liar. You just wanted to laugh at me wearing this stupid uniform."
She looked at what I was wearing and raised an amused eyebrow.
"Okay, you got me," she said with an exaggerated defeated air.
"You shouldn't make fun, though. I'm earning money here. Money that'll get me out of your hair by next month."
"Aw, but I don't want you to move out. I'm having too much fun with you around," she said cutely.
I hoped she was being serious because I didn't want to move out either. Besides moving all my things being a pain in the neck and wanting to avoid that, I had grown enormously fond of living with her even though she was very busy and rarely at home. I'd be lonely and depressed if I went to live in some shoebox apartment all by myself.
"Thanks," I grinned. "How was your meeting?"
"I almost fell asleep," she groaned, and I giggled at the mental image of Aya nodding off into a bowl of salad.
"Fujimocchan, friend of yours?" Kuniko asked, suddenly walking up from behind Aya.
"Kuniko," I muttered under my breath.
She had noticed us chatting and had come along being her nosey self. Aya smirked at the nickname and turned around, making Kuniko stop in her tracks.
"Er..."
She obviously recognised her.
"So you're this Kuniko I've been hearing about every day, non-stop through e-mails, phone calls, and face-to-face conversations," Aya said, smiling pleasantly.
I winced in my head.
Way to lay it on thick, Aya.
"You're Aya-chan?!" Kuniko blurted out in surprise.
Aya raised an eyebrow and looked at me. I shrugged.
"On the outside she seems like a quiet, cool girl, but Miki-chan really likes to talk about her friends, doesn't she?" Aya said to Kuniko.
"Oh my god, she doesn't shut up about you!" Kuniko laughed, suddenly seeming to be completely at ease with the megastar. "Aya-chan this, Aya-chan that."
"And about you, too!" Aya agreed, and they shared a laugh.
I was bewildered, angry, surprised, and delighted. They got along instantly, but they had bonded over teasing me. I groaned, hoping that they didn't exchange numbers or anything.
"I bet you have some great stories..." Kuniko hinted.
Oh, don't you dare, I thought, shooting daggers out of my eyes at Aya.
"Did you know Miki-chan simply adores sheep?"
I grabbed her wrist.
"Thanks. She's heard enough," I interrupted forcefully.
Aya brought a hand up and squeezed my cheeks, making my mouth pucker up like a fish's.
"Look how she gets all shy. Isn't she adorable?" she asked Kuniko.
I shook her hand off my face.
"Absolutely! But she's also got a huge mean streak," Kuniko agreed.
"Watch your mouth!" I snapped at the youngest girl.
"Aw, she gets so grumpy when she doesn't get her way," Aya said, beaming at me. "What a spoiled baby."
"You too. Quit it," I glared at her sharply.
Her eyes sparkled. She was enjoying this far too much. Revenge would be had.
"I thought she just got angry at me, but now that I see the way she glares at you..." Kuniko snickered.
"Yeah, you have to be nice to her once in a while or else-"
"-she'll never smile!"
They burst out laughing as if it was the funniest thing either had ever heard.
"Girl, where have you been my entire life?" Aya asked dramatically. "Your way of thinking is on par with mine."
"Hello!" I yelled at the two of them. "I'm right here!"
But they continued to chatter on. I walked off and they didn't notice. What a couple of nimrods!!
I went to the back room, picked up my phone, and dialled Aya's number. Three rings later (and I heard the music from her ringer coming from the store), she picked up.
"You are in so much trouble when we get home, Aya. I'm going to tie you up and make you scream. I'm going to drown you next time we take a bath together. I'll never let you kiss me they way you like to again," I threatened, letting loose before she could say a word.
There was a deathly silence on the line, and I wondered if she'd taken me seriously.
"Um, let me hand you over to her," said Kuniko's quiet voice, all traces of joking gone from it.
Crap, I thought, gripping my phone tightly.
I'd completely blown it. How come Kuniko had answered Aya's phone? They must have been trying to annoy me even more.
I bit my lip.
"No, that's okay," I mumbled, ending the call, my finger lingering over the power button and turning the phone off.
I gripped the table hard. Absolute silence. The shock created a vacuum in my head. A big, empty space that hurt my ears.
What in the world had just happened?
What was I going to say to Kuniko by way of explanation?
First I shocked her by living with a celebrity, and then I said things to that celebrity that one didn't say to regular friends. Even if we were just friends, what I'd just said and the way I'd said it would have been crossing some sort of line.
I couldn't stay in the back. I had to start some major damage control. I had to get Aya out of the store and I had to talk to Kuniko.
I walked out of the back room. Aya was putting away her phone and Kuniko was studying something on the shelf. Aya saw me and called out.
"Hey, our hero's back. You hung up on Kuni-chan here," she smirked.
Obviously, Kuniko hadn't told her what I'd said. I nodded warily and almost kissed the customer that walked in. Kuniko rushed off to help him as I took Aya aside.
"Listen, things are about to get really busy here. Maybe we should continue this later," I told her in a serious tone.
She had no clue what had happened. No clue that I'd essentially let Kuniko in on a lot more than she needed to know. Aya was going to kill me later unless I found some excuse to make Kuniko believe my words had been a complete joke.
"Are you mad?" she asked in horror, and I shook my head vigorously.
"No!" I reassured her emphatically. "But I want to talk to you later."
She looked worried, and I mentally slapped myself. What a frightening thing to hear.
"But no, no, no, I don't hate you. Love you, etcetera," I told her, and she smiled. "I'm not moving back to Hokkaido, I'm not pregnant, I'm not sleeping with my bosses, and so on."
She frowned at my words, and I winced again because I wasn't doing such a great job comforting her. I grabbed her hand.
"Just trust me. Go home. I'll catch up with you later."
She smiled in relief and I winked at her.
"You've gotten really weird the past little while. I love it," she said quietly.
"Go," I ordered her, and I let go of her hand.
I looked back briefly at the counter to see Kuniko looking at us, but she quickly turned her head away when she saw I had noticed.
Aya left, followed by the customer, and then it was just me and Kuniko all alone. I turned around to head over to her, but she dashed off to go and arrange bread. I lost my nerve and went to the oden stand, fumbling around with the tongs and counting each piece of food. Finally, after gathering my courage and with much hesitation, I approached her.
"Listen," I started awkwardly. "That was-"
"None of my business," Kuniko said curtly, cutting me off and continuing with her task without a single glance at me.
"No. I mean... it wasn't what it sounded like."
She stopped harassing the bread and looked over at me, slightly bewildered.
"It wasn't?" she asked in disbelief.
I shrugged weakly.
She returned her attention to the bread.
"I don't care what that was about. I'm just going to forget about it because it was obviously not meant for me to hear."
I wanted to protest and tell her to hear me out, but the problem was I had nothing to say. There was no point saying "Listen to this great argument!" and then staying silent. I drew my head up and went back to my task of fixing drinks. We barely spoke three words to each other over the next few hours. Things became busy again, and all we did was apologise twice for bumping into each other while scurrying around behind the counter looking for stamps and so on.
My shift ended at five-thirty, and whether she planned it or not, Kuniko was in the back refilling drinks in the fridge, so I didn't see her on my way out. My replacement had arrived and he had greeted me sleepily, probably having just woken up from a nap. I said goodbye to him and went home feeling irked.
Why couldn't Kuniko just not freak out? And why did Aya let her answer the phone? The more I thought about it, the more the image of those two began to aggravate my mind. They had gotten along so well by teasing me, and then before I knew it, everything had gone out of control and the entire world had swerved and hit a tree, leaving behind smouldering mess of misshapen metal and a driver in critical condition.
I dragged my feet all the way to Aya's, not wanting to have to face her and tell her about what had happened right in front of her without her knowledge.
Her place was dark when I walked in, and for a moment I feared that she was trying to surprise me somehow. However, when I turned on the lights, nobody jumped out at me or slinked up behind me, no music started playing, no changes came to the atmosphere of the room. I was alone. I was relieved but also curious.
It was after I put my things down and sat down on the couch with a huge sigh that I noticed a note on the table.
I've had to go to the studio because they messed up my recordings for tomorrow's release. I'll probably be there until very late, so please don't wait for me. I tried calling you on your phone, but you've been out of service all afternoon. Bye bye!
I took my phone out and groaned. I'd forgotten that I'd cut the power after that dreadful incident. I turned it back on and read the note again. It was a godsend because I didn't really want to talk about what had happened, but it was at the same time bad because I had to talk about it.
I fell into a morbid mood all evening, and I shuffled around morosely, fixing myself some dinner, taking a bath, and planting myself in front of the television to watch dramas. All I could think about was the look on Kuniko's face. I'd never seen her so serious in front of me. She'd looked at me as though we'd just met and she was keeping her distance. I'd managed to completely freak her out. I guess nobody was as understanding as Nakanoko-chan, who I started to miss dearly.
I got it in my mind to call my friend of eight years, so I spontaneously dialled her up. Her phone rang eight times until the voice mail picked up.
"Just calling to say hi. You don't have to call back or anything. Just drop me a message some time and tell me how things are going. See you."
I didn't want to worry her with my problems, although maybe by leaving that kind of message, she'd know something was wrong. I didn't usually leave messages like that.
Before going to bed, I wrote Aya a little note saying good night and that we'd talk in the morning. I placed it on the pillow beside me so that she'd see it. Then by ten-thirty, I was in my pyjamas and trying to fall asleep.
But all I could still see was Kuniko's serious face in my mind. I could imagine what she was whispering to her friends and our colleagues. I felt terribly helpless.
An hour later I still hadn't fallen asleep, but I was saved from my mental torture by my phone. It was ringing. I shot up and grabbed it, checking the display before answering, hoping it was Aya or Nakanoko. But it was neither. It was Kuniko. I answered it immediately.
"Hello?" I mumbled, my voice a bit foggy from not having been used for several hours.
"Hi, Fujimocchan," came the uncertain greeting from the other end.
"Hi."
I wondered what she was calling about. Maybe to ask questions. Maybe to tell me she didn't want to be my friend.
"I'm, uh, sorry for today," she said quietly.
She was sorry? For teasing me? For picking up Aya's phone? Or treating me like she didn't know me afterwards?
"Don't worry about it," I replied automatically.
"No, I kind of, um, freaked out, but I shouldn't have. You just... uh, you surprised me with what you said."
Well, that was nice. It was nice of her to call and apologise for treating me like a nobody. But where did we stand?
"I..." I trailed off, not sure what I was supposed to say. "I shouldn't have been saying those things while at work."
The hell?? That has nothing to do with it. But if it helps smooth things over...
"I just didn't think that, er, you were friends with a celebrity," she jumped in again strongly. "And I didn't think that she and you, uh, would have, like, that kind of, er, association..."
She ended weakly.
"Uh, you know... Kuni-chan. She and I are just, uh... we're really good friends. And we kind of took it to another level. Kind of by accident. I never even considered it before. Seriously. It's this weird thing between us."
I tried to explain, but I couldn't. It just didn't make any sense.
"No, that's okay. I mean... yeah, you don't have to explain," she said nervously.
"But I do," I insisted, thinking that by explaining, she wouldn't be so weirded out. "Like... Imagine your soulmate happens to be your best friend. That's what it's like."
I couldn't believe I had said something like that. It was so stupid. So unbelievable. Soulmates didn't even exist.
"Yeah, I get it," she said hastily.
I could tell she was uncomfortable talking about it.
"But really... Just think about it," I encouraged her.
"I will. Um, anyway, that's all I wanted to say. I'll let you get back to sleep, or, um, whatever," she finished hastily, and I almost felt like rolling my eyes at her.
"Don't worry. I'm alone right now and I was sleeping," I reassured her unnecessarily.
"Oh..."
Awkward pause. Awkward pause. What to say...
"Oh, and, uh, you won't, um..." I trailed off.
"I won't go spouting off about the latest gossip, if that's what you're about to ask," she said firmly, reading my mind.
"Thanks, Kuni-chan," I said gratefully.
"It's pretty cool, though. One of these days you'll have to tell me how you of all people met someone so famous. I wouldn't have guessed it in a million years."
Things were starting to sound normal again between us, for which I let out a grateful mental sigh.
"A story that's not at all interesting," I confided in her. "Not one bit."
"Well, one of these days. Anyway, take care. Good night."
"'Night. See you later."
We ended the call.
Somehow, when things in my life started to look down, they'd perk right back up. A few hours ago, I'd thought I'd lost a friend. It turned out that it was not so. Maybe there was something lucky about me deciding to come to Tokyo. Maybe it was my lucky year. Either way I looked at it, I was starting to believe more strongly in the power of New Year fortunes.
-
Chapter 15 of 29
I woke up because someone was entering the apartment. I rolled over and looked at the alarm clock. It was almost five in the morning. I rubbed my eyes sleepily and sat up, listening carefully. I heard light footsteps going about the living room, a person putting things down quietly on the table. The footsteps then headed towards the bedroom, and the door slid open to reveal a shadowy figure that could only be Aya. She paused when she saw me sitting up.
"Hi. Are you asleep?" she whispered.
"No," I croaked, clearing my throat afterwards. "I'm awake."
She walked in closer to look at my face.
"Are you sure?"
I smirked and hit her head gently.
"I'm sure."
She had thought I was sleep-talking.
"Sorry for waking you up," she apologised as she moved off to the chest of drawers to get herself some pyjamas.
She started to change and I lay back down.
"It's okay. Did you just finish recording?"
"Mmhmm," Aya said, pulling on an oversized pair of fluffy pink pyjama bottoms that made me laugh whenever I saw them. "I got a drive home from one of the sound engineers. He lives nearby."
I rolled over to face her.
"My Aya-chan in a car with an undoubtedly handsome and dashing sound engineer at such an hour," I grumbled. "Is it wrong to feel a little jealous?"
She stopped, giving me a cool look.
"Yes," she sniffed, and then continued what she was doing.
I rolled onto my back and laughed sleepily.
"Joking, joking."
She finished putting on her pyjamas, leaving her clothes scattered on the floor (I made a mental note to tease her about that later), and then slipped under the covers, sitting and looking down at me.
"Besides, he wasn't handsome or dashing. Kind of geeky."
I smirked and sat up again.
"I know it's not the best time of day to bring it up, and if you want to wait till later, that's fine, but you said you had to talk to me about something..." Aya said abruptly, trailing off, reminding me that I still had to tell her about what happened with Kuniko.
The curiosity must have been eating her alive all evening, I realised. I took a few deep breaths, returning her look, and then without any melodramatic airs, I told her the simple story of what had happened right under her nose at the convenience store.
"... and so after she apologised, she said she wouldn't say anything to anyone."
"That's why you asked me to leave..." Aya mumbled, still stuck on the first half of the story.
She sounded like she could be angry. I nodded carefully and watched her intently, wondering what her final verdict would be.
"Why didn't you tell me any of this before?"
So she had decided to be angry at me.
"I'm really sorry," I said calmly. "I was a bit surprised, too, and I thought it was better if you left and I tried to talk to Kuniko by myself..."
I looked down at my hands and wished that time would speed up so we could whip through this talk. I felt as bad as I had when I'd first arrived and had to tell Aya about what had happened with Hiroshi. Everything was my fault again.
"I'm not mad at you," she said matter of factly.
I looked back up at her, and she smiled briefly.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I was just wondering why, but it seems like a good enough reason."
She patted my hand.
"I'll give Kuniko the benefit of the doubt. If you trust her, then I'll trust her. Besides, I like her."
"Really?" I asked hopefully, and into the stillness of the early morning, Aya's soft laughter was like a beautiful sonata.
"Really," she confirmed. "I wasn't just pretending to get along with her. Besides, if I team up with her, we can really get under your skin, and you know how I love to do that."
I frowned. Maybe this happy ending wasn't so happy. Maybe it was for Aya and Kuniko, but not for me. Not if I had to tolerate those two and their relentless teasing.
"Tell you what," I muttered. "You and Kuniko go off, become best friends, and live happily ever after. I'll go and live with monks on a Tibetan mountain peak."
She ignored my biting statement and laid herself down, pulling the blankets up to her chin.
"I think we should have her over."
I mimicked her actions and lay down.
"Who? Kuni-chan?"
"No, the Crown Princess," Aya said, rolling her eyes. "Of course Kuniko."
"Just before you walked in at the store, she was bugging me about wanting to come over. I don't know if she still wants to, but if she does, then we should let her," I babbled.
There was a silence on Aya's end, and I looked at her to see if she'd fallen asleep. Her eyes were still open, and she was looking up at the ceiling pensively. She looked even more tired than I felt, so I squeezed her hand. This caused her to turn her head to look at me.
"We'll make plans later. Let's sleep now."
She smiled and nodded, closing her eyes as if she'd been waiting for my permission to enter Slumber Land. I loosened my hold on her hand and closed my eyes, too.
"I'm sorry, Miki," she mumbled, forcing me to open my eyes.
"Why?" I asked in surprise.
"Because..." she muttered in a half-asleep tone. "I went to bother you at work."
I chuckled.
"That just means I get to return the favour one day."
She smiled, her eyes closed.
"You can visit me any time."
And that was the last sentence spoken between us before we fell asleep.
-
Chapter 16 of 29
I woke up an hour and a half later to my alarm clock. I raised my head feeling like I had been dead and was being revived slowly, the knife being pulled out of my gut rather than being pushed in. Aya didn't stir as I hit the snooze button and let my head fall back onto my pillow. Ten minutes later, my clock rang again, and I got up, muttering rude things about the alarm and its maker.
Aya remained dead, rolled on her side and facing away from me. My hands hovered over her ribs for a few seconds as I considered shocking her awake, but I remembered that she hadn't even slept two hours yet. I backed away slowly, grabbed the clothes and things I would need, and left the room, closing the door gently. I got ready quietly in the living room, and then as a second though, I wrote a note saying good morning and reminding her innocently to pick up her clothes from the floor because I certainly wasn't going to do it for her.
I had to go into U-Con early. At lunch break I would come back here to eat quickly and then go to 7-Eleven to do a long afternoon and evening shift. Aya had something to do in the evening, and I might possibly not see her until the next day.
I opened the door to the bedroom quietly and crept in. Aya was still facing away. I studied her carefully. She was absolutely still. Too still. Her torso wasn't moving at all like it should have been if she'd been alive. I was suddenly gripped with an icy fear. Was she even alive? What if something had happened overnight and she'd stopped breathing while in her sleep? Did I have enough time to save her?
Nervously, I put a hand on her back, and my legs weakened in relief when I felt a slow, steady beat.
"Don't scare me like that," I scolded her softly.
She made no effort to reply. Of course not. She was asleep.
I sat there for a few minutes, my hand on her back, watching her still body, waiting for it to move the slightest bit. It didn't, and I shook my head in wonder. Was this what I acted like when I was asleep? Everyone told me I slept like a log. Or at least I was stone still when I wasn't flailing about and having conversations with myself or fighting battles against particles in the air.
I checked my watch and saw that it was time to go. Before that, I reset the alarm clock for nine. That would leave Aya an hour and a half to get ready for her meeting. For a few weeks in a row now we'd sat down on Sunday evening and talked about our schedules just so that we'd know when the other was going to be around. It was a good idea. This way we didn't have to keep asking each other questions like "What time do you have to wake up?" or "Will you be home tonight?"
Placing the alarm clock just out of arm's reach so that she'd be forced to get up to turn it off, I took a last look at the pink pyjama-clad girl and left after I'd committed the scene to memory.
I overslept on the train, waking up just as the doors were closing at my stop. I had to double back, which meant once I got back to the proper station, I had to run all the way to the building so that I would be on time. I rode the elevator up to my floor and walked out calmly to see Tsuyoshi with his head down on his desk. He wasn't moving. Was it Day of the Dead? First Aya. Now Tsuyoshi.
"Guchi!" I snapped at him, approaching the desk.
I heard him emit a low sound of acknowledgement.
"What's the matter with you?" I demanded.
He lifted his head up and looked at me with bloodshot eyes, making me take a step back.
"What in the..."
"I'm dead," he groaned
I peered into his eyes carefully. They were completely red and they swam in his sockets, not focusing on one thing. I looked at his cheeks, and they, too, were the colour of a tomato. His hair looked windblown, and his clothes were dishevelled. I began to form a picture in my mind of what had happened.
"Let me guess," I started, taking off my jacket and sitting in the chair beside him. "You went out partying last night, missed your train home, maybe did some late night karaoke with the rest of your chums, and then spent the last few hours before trains re-opened at a love hotel with some girl whose name you don't know."
He shook his head, swallowed hard, and then gripped my wrist weakly.
"There was no love hotel," he wheezed out.
"Oh," I laughed. "So you guys just did it in a parking lot?"
He tightened his hold on my wrist.
"There was no girl."
I gave him a sceptical look just to annoy him, but I had no reason not to believe him.
"We stayed up drinking until I caught a train home in the morning to change and then rush over here."
"So you're still drunk?" I asked amusedly.
He nodded.
"But I feel sick..."
I removed his hand from my wrist and moved away from him.
"Just warn me if you're about to purge your entire system of all that alcohol. I'll get out of your way."
He went stark white, and I wondered if he felt sick because he was imagining the future I'd predicted for him or because that future had come.
The latter.
He bolted out of his chair and raced to the washroom as I winced. I'd go and check on him in a few minutes. There was nothing I could do for him at the moment.
I settled into my space and then took a trip out to the vending machines in the hallway. I bought a couple of bottles of water and brought them back with me, opening one and drinking a quarter of it. Ten minutes had passed and Tsuyoshi had still not emerged from the washroom. I grabbed one of the bottles and headed over to the men's washroom, knocking loudly.
"Guchi!" I called out. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," came the delayed, weak response. "Dandy."
I rolled my eyes.
"I'm coming in," I announced, waiting for a count of three and then pushing the door open.
Tsuyoshi was sitting and leaning against a wall, his knees pulled up to his chest. He looked up at me when I walked in and tried to get up.
"Don't stand up. Here," I said, handing him the bottle.
He took it with a grateful look and took a sip, almost gagging as he swallowed.
I wanted to lecture him about the idiocy of drinking until five in the morning on a work day, but I was sure it was the last thing he wanted to hear. He could tell he'd made a big mistake.
"What did you drink?" I asked.
"Beer, shochu, wine," he mumbled pathetically.
I clucked my tongue at him, but said nothing about his mistake of mixing his alcohols.
"Will you be okay?"
He nodded.
"I think I got rid of most of it," he said with a grimace.
"Good. Now wash up and come back to the desk. I'm missing out on my Guchi time."
I started to walk out.
"Hey, Miki-chan," he called out.
It had taken a lot of work to get him to start calling me that, but I'd finally prevailed recently.
"Thank you for helping me."
He gave me a happy look that made me groan.
"Don't you start falling in love with me or something," I threatened him, and he grinned shyly.
"Ew, with you? No way."
"What do you mean 'ew'?!" I demanded angrily. "Ew?! Do I inspire 'ew' in people?"
Little boyish (and still slightly drunk) Tsuyoshi giggled.
"No. I was just kidding."
"Good. But I wasn't. Don't you dare get some stupid crush on me."
With that, I turned on my heels and stalked out of the men's washroom while smiling secretly to myself.
Katherine happened to be walking by when I stepped out, and she stopped, looking up at the "men's toilet" sign and then at me, raising an eyebrow and pulling one of her oh-so-Western expressions.
"Umm..." I said.
"I won't ask," she said.
"Tsuyoshi-kun's in there," I told her, which made her other eyebrow go up to join the first one.
"Okay, now I have to ask," she said with a naughty grin.
"Oh, but, no!" I said quickly to destroy any incorrect assumptions in her mind. "He's not feeling well."
"Whatever. A woman following a boy into the men's washroom whether he's sick or not is a sign of something."
"No. I mean, he's really sick. I was just making sure he was alive."
Damnit, Katherine.
"Be careful, sweetie. He's six years younger than you. Just remember that when you're ready for marriage and he's still out partying until all hours of the morning."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" I cried out. "The guy is like the family puppy. I wouldn't look at him like that in a million years!"
Katherine smirked.
"I know, but I like seeing you get all incensed. It's fun. I'll catch up with you later."
With a jaunty wave, she continued going wherever she was headed.
Aya, Kuniko, Tsuyoshi, Katherine... My "friends" all had at least one thing in common - they all liked to piss me off on purpose. Did I attract that kind of person around me? Or was it just that Tokyo only had either friendly people who liked to bug me or complete jerks like Hasegawa and Ohashi? I went back to my desk pondering this question.
Tsuyoshi joined me a few minutes later, and I kept him distracted with chitchat, asking him nosey questions about his life and his family. At ten-thirty, I received a message on my phone. I thought it was Aya at first, but it turned out to be Katherine.
If you have time, can you come down here for a few minutes?
I made sure Tsuyoshi would be all right by himself, and I skipped down to the dance studio.
"What's up?" I asked, walking into the large practice room Katherine was sitting in.
She was fiddling with a stereo, searching through tracks on a CD. When she saw me, she stopped and picked up a pile of clothes beside her, tossing it to me. I caught it reflexively, confused.
"Change into that and give me twenty minutes of your time."
It was an order. Not a request. I looked around for a change room of some sort, but I saw none.
"Miki, it's just me in here," she pointed out. "Get changed quickly."
I shrugged coolly and got changed in the middle of the room while Katherine continued to search through her CD. She finally settled on a track and a vaguely familiar song started playing as I walked up to her.
"Over there," she said, pointing to the centre of the room.
I followed her instructions. I guess this was my test. Would I fare better than Tsuyoshi? Katherine turned the volume up and I frowned. Why the hell was she playing a Morning Musume song? Out of all the music out there, she had to choose that? She couldn't have known I'd wanted to audition to join the silly group that was now defunct. She also couldn't have known that I knew Aya, someone very much connected to that group.
"Dance," she commanded me.
I stood there awkwardly.
"Um..." I mumbled. "I don't know this dance. Or this song, really."
"You don't?" she asked.
"No," I laughed, gaining confidence. "I might have seen the promo video once five or six years ago."
"For some reason I thought you'd be able to pick up on this one," she said, turning the volume down. "What do you know?"
I shrugged.
"I don't know. Nobody's ever taught me a dance before."
She looked at me in an exasperated way.
"Don't you even know one of those stupid and catchy boyband dances? And please don't tell anyone I called them stupid."
I shrugged again.
"No."
Why was she assuming I had been trained before or that I memorised dances?
She sighed and changed the track to something I couldn't recognise, standing up and coming to stand in front of me.
"Then we've got to get you familiar with something. Follow me."
And so for the next thirty minutes, Katherine taught me a dance. We repeated everything over and over again, and I was grateful that I was wearing different clothes. I began to sweat like a horse. When half an hour was up, Katherine went to sit down, which I assumed meant it was break time. I followed her, but she turned around and pointed to the centre of the room.
"No. You're going to do it on your own now."
I sulked for a second, but turned around obediently and went to the centre of the room while Katherine sat down and started the music. She counted me in, and I did what I had learned to the best of my ability. I messed up a few times, but overall, I got all the steps. I finished the short little excerpt and gave Katherine a look as she stopped the music.
"So?" I asked her, waiting for her evaluation.
"Not bad," she said honestly, standing up. "Your rhythm went a little off in some parts. You tend to rush. Mmm. But in general, you're smooth."
"Better than Tsuyoshi-kun?" I asked.
She laughed.
"Much better than the family puppy."
I smiled in relief. I had passed.
"What would-" I started, but I was interrupted by a holler from the door.
"Fujimoto!" barked my boss. "What are you doing down here?! Tsuyoshi-kun is dying up there alone answering phones."
"I'm on my way, sir!" I cried out, rushing past him and back upstairs, completely forgetting to change my clothes.
Five minutes later, Katherine came upstairs, putting my clothes down on the desk in front of me as I was on the phone. I mouthed an embarrassed "thank you" and changed as soon as the phone call was done.
Tsuyoshi and I kept busy all morning. He went through phases where he felt perfect and then phrases where he felt crummy. When I noticed him getting a little green, I'd distract him with conversation. Lunch time rolled around. Tsuyoshi was on a full day shift, so I said goodbye and told him to call me if he felt sick.
"I'll be working, too, but I'll keep you distracted with my brilliant conversation on the phone."
"Miki-chan," he whined. "Can't you give me, like, one of your friends' numbers? Don't you know anybody you can introduce me to?"
"What, I'm not good enough?" I glared at him.
"I want to date a real girl," he retorted.
My jaw dropped in horror, and I was about to hit him when I realised that doing so would not be very girlish and thus back up his statement. I stuck my nose up in the air.
"See you later, runt."
I walked out, blocking out his protests. Either I had to get a new set of friends or I had to move back to Hokkaido.
The afternoon was a little more low-key. Nothing memorable happened except that I got an e-mail from Aya saying hi and thanks for setting the alarm that morning.
I worked with Shiroshita until four-thirty, and then with Asato, our store's baby at sixteen years old. Her school had allowed her to get a part time job in order to supplement her family's low income. She was a sweet and bright girl who inspired protective feelings in most of us at that store. Working with her was pleasant because she didn't talk back, and she didn't like seeing me get riled up. We didn't have a whole lot in common, but our conversations weren't riddled with awkward pauses.
Asato and I were supposed to finish our shifts at nine-thirty that evening. At a quarter past nine, the first of our replacements arrived. A minute after him, the second of our replacements arrived. It was Kuniko. When she saw me, she waved and then quickly went to get changed in the back. She came back out and walked over to me. I was fixing up some products on a messy shelf.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi. Late night shift, huh?" I asked, wondering if our conversation was really going to be as awkward as it was shaping up to be.
"Only until one-thirty. Koda-kun's coming to replace me."
"I see."
With business taken care of, there was nothing to do but either talk about something else or say goodbye. Kuniko made no sign of moving off, so I took a deep breath.
"Can we just forget yesterday ever happened?" I asked.
"Why should we? I mean, it was just an accident. And hey, now I know. You're spared the work of having to tell me."
It was perhaps the most mature thing she'd ever said to me. I looked up at the ceiling and let out a few quiet laughs.
"Do you still want to come over?"
"Sure. As long as you two aren't all icky and stuff. I can't stand people like that."
I let out a jubilant cheer.
"Finally! Something we agree on!"
Asato looked over at us, wondering what we were talking about. Kuniko opened her big mouth to quell the young girl's curiosity.
"She's just excited because she totally scored last night with this cool foreign guy who-"
I grabbed Kuniko and covered her mouth my hand.
"And she's just a big liar!" I called out to Asato, who gave us a worried look and quickly bent her head down to study the counter.
I let go of Kuniko.
"You're such a brat," I sneered at her.
"Anyway, when can I come over?" she asked, ignoring my insults.
I sighed.
Kuniko will always be Kuniko. There's nothing about me that could make her not act this way around me.
"I'll let you know when Aya-chan's free. Now do you understand why I kept saying she's really busy?"
Kuniko nodded heartily.
"Yeah, sorry about that before. I thought you were exaggerating. But I know that idols have it rough. I had a friend whose sister's cousin went out with a guy who knew Koda Kumi's sister."
As if that had anything to do with understanding an idol's life!
"Kuni-chan, that has nothing to do with-"
"And then I looked the word 'gullible' up in the dictionary and I saw a picture of you beside it."
I pushed her away from me and started to walk to the back room. Aya was going to be home late and I was hungry. I would cook something and then save her the leftovers. If she'd had a bad day, at least that would cheer her up.
"Since you're here, take over for me. I'm leaving a few minutes early," I announced.
"Oh, why? Your precious Aya-chan's waiting for you?" Kuniko teased me.
"As a matter of fact, she's not," I huffed out.
"Then I'm sure you're going to go and cook a wonderful meal for her when she gets home all exhausted."
My shoulders stiffened and I refused to look back.
"No," I lied. "I'm not."
"Whatever you say. Have a nice night."
I could hear her voice dripping with suggestion. I wanted to yell at her some more, but Asato was around, and I didn't want to give her the impression that I was a scary person. I went to the back, changed out of my shirt, and grabbed my things. Asato looked at me and then at her watch when she saw me leaving.
"Kuni-chan here offered to give me five minutes of time absolutely free," I said, winking at Kuniko.
"I didn't. And don't you dare follow Fujimocchan's example. She's a delinquent. You're a good kid, Asato-chan," Kuniko butted in.
"Bye-bye, girls!" I said, not paying attention to her words and waving.
Asato returned the wave shakily, wondering who to side with. Kuniko harrumphed and crossed her arms, but there was a certain softness in her eyes that assured me that she was enjoying herself. I didn't know how she'd managed to transform her behaviour from shocked silence to brazen teasing over the course of twenty-four hours. I walked out of the store telling myself that it was only a matter of time until Asato started treating me the way all my friends did.
I went to Aya's, cooked, ate, bathed, and tried to stay up as long as possible. It was midnight and she hadn't come back yet, so I gave up waiting and went to bed, falling asleep quite quickly.
I woke up in the pitch black of the night and felt warm. Something besides a blanket was wrapped around me. Arms. I turned my head and saw Aya sleeping right up against me. I looked over at the clock. Three in the morning. I smiled and didn't wake her up to ask her if she'd eaten the dinner I'd made. I let her rest.
Even if we couldn't see each other during the day, it was good enough to have those one or two hours when we could be together even in sleep. We worked hard to earn moments like that. I felt like she was working hard for me. A part of me, too, was working hard for her. Even when apart, we were still together in our minds.
Kuniko would kill me if she could hear my mushy thoughts. I shook my mind free of such things, snuggled my head into the pillow, and closed my eyes with a satisfied sigh, feeling warm, feeling protected, feeling happy.
-
Chapter 17 of 29
The next morning I woke up alone to an empty home. It was six-fifty-nine, one minute before my cell phone alarm would go off. I stopped it before it could start. I sighed and got up, walking around the apartment and seeing that Aya was already gone for the day. I half-heartedly got ready for work.
I missed her. I was growing far too attached. Since when did I miss someone so much? I didn't need to be around people every minute of the day. Yet with Aya, it felt necessary to talk at least just a little every day. Every morning. Every evening.
And it was with such thoughts that I began my day.
That day and the next few until the weekend were straightforward, although fun. Aya and I got a few chances to spend time together in the evening, and I went out a couple of times with some friends.
Kuniko and Koda took me to a place in Roppongi where they shoved me in front of the group and forced me to speak English to foreigners they wanted to talk to, using me as a third-rate translation device. Some help I was. It took me four minutes of confused conversation and hand gestures to figure out that the group of girls Koda wanted to chat with were from Germany and did not speak English. We had all been drinking, but still, there was no excuse for the amount of time it took for the revelation to hit. That story made Aya chuckle when I told her the next morning.
The weekend came, and we both had Saturday and Sunday off, a rare treat on both sides. On Saturday morning, the alarm clock started ringing, and instead of slapping my hand down on it, I slapped Aya's shoulder.
"You set the alarm, you dummy. Why?" I grumbled.
She replied by crawling half over me, stopping the alarm, and collapsing on top of me to sleep, our bodies forming a crooked T shape. I ignored the strange position, finding it quite warm, actually, and fell asleep. Ten minutes later, the alarm rang again, waking me up.
"Turn it off," I demanded grumpily.
Aya pulled herself up and turned the confounded machine off. Before she could settle back down in the same position, I rolled onto my side, pushing her aside and curling my legs up. Aya proceeded to resettle and flip around, leaning her back against my legs as if they were a backrest.
"Get offa me," I mumbled sleepily.
"Get up!" she sang out in a voice far too cheerful for the morning.
"Offa me. It's Saturday morning."
She didn't budge.
"You'd better get up. I made plans for us. Kind of a surprise until now."
"What plans?" I asked, growing a little interested.
"It's still a surprise," she said sneakily.
I growled and rolled onto my back, pushing Aya off of my legs and making her decide to lie back down.
"Don't be like that. Tell me. Otherwise I won't get up."
She sighed dramatically.
"Fine. We're going over to Shiba-chan's for lunch. I thought I'd better not jinx it. But oh well. What are the chances of you getting called in for yet another emergency shift?"
I opened my mouth to express my happiness about finally getting to meet Shibata when my phone rang.
Aya just had to open her big mouth!
I rolled over her menacingly.
"I'm going to kill you for saying that. You've gone and ruined your own plans," I growled, and I glared at her, my nose a centimetre away from hers.
The phone continued to ring, and she grabbed my shirt.
"You don't have to answer it, you know," she said coyly, but I rubbed my nose against hers and changed my glare to a smile.
"I know. But if I don't, I'll have to call back later."
I rolled away easily, her hold on my shirt a superficial one, and I grabbed my phone. The number confirmed my fear. It was 7-Eleven.
"Hello?" I mumbled, not bothering to mask that I'd just woken up.
"Good morning, Fujimocchan!" came the energetic greeting, and I sighed in partial relief that it wasn't Fukuda.
"Kuni-chan. Why are you calling me?"
"Oh, did I wake you up?" she asked innocently.
"What do you think?" I snorted.
"Aw, sorry. I just wanted to- hey, is Aya-chan there with you?"
Ugg.
My eyebrows twitched.
"Do you want to talk to her or me?" I asked, avoiding the question.
"Oh, so she is?"
"Kuni-chan, what do you want?"
"Ooohh, she is," she sang.
If she had been in front of me, I would have strangled her.
"Tell her I'm sorry if I woke her up, too. Or maybe you guys were already awake. Maybe I'm interrupting a moment or-"
"Ogasawara!" I yelled, calling her by her family name, a rare move for anyone addressing Kuniko.
"Yessir!" she cried out exaggeratedly.
I looked over at Aya apologetically, and she was looking at me in mild surprise. She'd sat up, leaning against the side wall, her arms crossed.
"What are you calling about?" I asked quietly and politely.
"Oh, well, I have a few minutes before my shift starts. I was wondering if you were free next Tuesday. Koda's got another place lined up for us."
I thanked my lucky stars that she wasn't calling me to ask to cover her shift for her. Aya had gotten curious, and she came to kneel beside me, putting her ear to my cell phone. I pushed her away and gave her a silly look.
"Uh, next Tuesday?" I asked, momentarily distracted.
"Yes, next Tuesday."
"With Koda-kun?"
Aya scrunched her nose up when I said his name, and I laughed silently, sticking my face in hers to dare her to protest.
"With Koda-kun."
"And where is this super sexy club?" I asked, and Aya pushed me down onto the bed, making me yelp out a laugh.
"Are you okay?" Kuniko asked.
I stifled my laughter as an errant Aya crawled up to sit on me.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Where's the club?"
"Hey Koda-kun!" Kuniko yelled off the phone, and I deduced from this move that she and Koda were working the shift together.
While Kuniko confirmed the location, I looked up at Aya, who had a malicious smile on her face.
"Stop it," I mouthed at her, but she pretended not to notice as she began to play with the bottom of my shirt.
This is too much, I thought.
"What?" Kuniko asked, back on the line.
Oops. Had I said that aloud?
"Nothing," I laughed nervously. "So where's the place?"
"Shinjuku. Near the place we went to as part of your welcome party."
I remembered that place well. I hadn't forgotten about Leader and her girls, and I swore that one day I'd find them and-
"Hey! Your hands are cold!"
Aya had stuck her hands under my shirt.
"Umm..." Kuniko drawled. "How about I leave you two alone now?"
"No, it's fine," I growled, using my free hand to grab Aya's wrists and push her hands away from me. "She's asleep and doesn't know what she's doing."
"I am not asleep," Aya piped up loudly, grabbing the phone from me. "Hi, Kuni-chan. It's me," she said sweetly, settling down beside me on her stomach as if preparing for a long session of girl talk.
I heard Kuniko's voice come from the phone, mirroring Aya's pleasant tone. I crossed my arms and let out an irritated huff. Without looking, Aya put her hand on mine.
"Yeah, she's getting all grumpy now that we're talking."
I flicked the palm of her hand with my finger, making her wince and pull her hand away. I smiled smugly as she listened to Kuniko.
"Got it. Oh, and if you want to come over some time next week, I have lots of open evenings. Let me know when you're free. Do you have my number and e-mail address?"
I felt dread as I could decipher Kuniko's answer on the phone. "No," I heard her say.
"When we're done here, I'll e-mail you my information. Miki-chan's too jealous to willingly give it out."
"No I'm not," I protested, but she shot me a look that said "Be quiet! I'm on the phone!"
I shrunk back and shut my mouth. Why was she allowed to bother me while I was on the phone, but I wasn't allowed to bother her?
Aya wrapped up her conversation with Kuniko, and they finally hung up. I held my hand out to collect my phone, but Aya turned onto her side facing away from me. I propped myself up to reach over and grab it back when I realised she was e-mailing Kuniko. I grudgingly let her send her information with my e-mail address while I traced the word "brat" onto her shoulder, circling it with a heart, and then rubbing my hand over the skin as if to erase it. When she had sent the message, she shoved the phone in front of my nose, and I took it from her, closing it and reaching behind me to put it on the table.
"Now, shall we go and meet Shiba-chan?" she asked.
I looked down at her. She looked perfectly awake and harmless. Only I knew the truth about what a conniving little devil she was. I smiled toothily. It was all very sexy. Looking so cute but being so bad. Who would have thought the Matsuura Aya of Japan was like that? Not I.
"Does Shiba-chan like to tease people?" I asked.
"Don't be silly," she scoffed. "Shiba-chan is far too mature for that kind of thing."
I bit back a remark about her own childish behaviour when she was around Kuniko. I recognised the potential to get into another one of our long, playful spats, which were fun, but time-consuming. We didn't have that kind of time.
"Then let's get ready," I said, and we got out of bed.
Aya e-mailed Shibata when we were approaching her apartment, and as far as I could tell, Shibata's response was positive. The plans were still on. I'd been half expecting to have the plans cancelled again.
Shibata's apartment building was just as nice as Aya's. She might not have had the same monthly paycheque, but from what I'd heard, she was frugal at the right times and was thus able to live as she pleased.
Aya led me up the elevator. Despite my trying to convince myself it was irrational, I became a bit nervous. I didn't let Aya know, though, and I acted cool and collected.
"Miki," Aya said in a quiet voice as we got out of the elevator.
"Yeah?" I asked a little too quickly.
"Breathe."
I was going to protest that I wasn't nervous, but I changed my mind. She could read my body language a little better than I'd thought. I gave her a small smile.
"Have you told her anything yet? Like, uh..."
Aya shook her head, her eyes twinkling.
"Shiba-chan's not the type that needs to be told things. If she hasn't figured it out already, she'll be able to tell after spending lunch with us."
My eyes widened.
"Is she that smart?"
"Well, we'll see if history repeats itself," she mumbled.
I didn't get it, but I smiled again before we arrived at the door. Aya reached out and rang the doorbell. A few moments later, the door opened, and I was brought face to face with the other best friend.
Shibata was already smiling, knowing who she'd find behind the door. She and Aya shared a familiar look, and then she looked over at me.
Everything seemed to stop around us as she held my gaze. Her face dipped into the strangest expression I'd ever seen on someone being introduced to me, and while I'm sure time did not slow down or come to a complete stop, I felt that one second stretch out uncomfortably long.
She hated me. I could tell right away. Nobody would look at their best friend's friend with that expression. She was undoubtedly thinking "How can Aya like this insipid-looking character?"
It was the worst thing that could happen.
"Hi," she said to me, still staring.
"Hi," I replied coolly, putting on my face of indifference.
If she didn't like me, I wasn't going to make a big deal of it.
She seemed to recover her senses, and she smiled a smile a person could never smile at someone he or she hated. Had I been wrong about her first impression of me?
"Come in. Make yourselves at home."
She drew the door open wider and stepped back, letting us come in. Aya and I removed our shoes.
"Shiba-chan, Miki-chan. Miki-chan, Shiba-chan," Aya said as a casual introduction.
"It's nice to finally meet you," Shibata said to me, all traces of earlier discomfort gone.
"Nice to meet you, too. Thanks for having me over," I replied, turning the charm on just a little.
There was no use holding a grudge. It might have all been in my imagination.
We launched into small talk, Shibata asking me what I did and what I had studied. I, in turn, found out a little more about her and her plans to go to university to study anthropology.
Lunch time approached and Shibata addressed us.
"I thought we could go to that nice French café just down the street for lunch since I haven't gone grocery shopping yet."
We said it sounded like a nice idea, but for a second, I wondered if this "nice" café would be more Aya's style of place. Tasty, but monumentally expensive. I would have to suck it up and go with it.
"Next time I'll get Miki-chan to cook for you. This girl is quite skilled in the kitchen," Aya said suddenly, presenting me with a gesture of the hand.
I frowned and looked up.
"Not really that skilled," I said. "I do simple stuff only."
"No, I've heard from Aya-chan that you're quite a talented chef," Shibata jumped in. "I'd be honoured to try your dishes one day."
"Well, maybe if we all work together we can make something good," I mumbled, remembering cooking with Baachan and Aya.
I excused myself to use the washroom before we left. When I was going to enter the living room again, I saw Aya and Shibata standing in a corner and speaking in hushed voices. I hesitated for a moment, unintentionally listening in on them. I couldn't hear everything they were saying. Only snippets of conversation.
"Hokkaido... Italy..." I heard Aya say.
"This is insane," Shibata muttered
"I know, but... found... in a restaurant of all..."
"... and she seems so... met?"
I wondered what they were talking about. Me, no doubt.
I walked into the living room, and they didn't stop but transitioned smoothly into some conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with what they had been talking about. It was a valiant effort, and it would have worked had I not heard what I had. I decided to play the fool, however, to save them embarrassment. I didn't want to cause a scene.
My chance came when Shibata went to her room to fetch her purse. I went up to Aya and stood close to her.
"What were you guys talking about?" I asked softly.
She did such a good job of playing dumb that it almost fooled me. She looked at me as if to say "Huh? When?" I didn't fall into the trap.
"You can tell me anything, you know," I reminded her.
She smiled.
"Don't worry, Miki. Just Shiba-chan's private issues."
I had to wonder.
Shibata came back, and we pulled apart so we could go and put our shoes on.
We had a pleasant time at the French café. It was reasonably priced, and I wished Aya had a taste for slightly cheaper places like it.
Shibata was as perfect as Aya advertised her to be. I really liked her and felt like I'd known her for years. But the memory of the initial moment when we met lingered in my mind like a bad aftertaste. Also, the secret conversation they'd been having didn't sound like it had to do with Shiba-chan's private issues. It sounded like it had been about me. I cared what Aya was saying about me to her friends. It was very important.
Pfft. As if I need her approval or anything, I thought.
But no. Maybe I did need her approval.
Aya and I got home around three o'clock after parting with Shibata. We sat around for ten minutes in silence, wondering what to do in our spare time.
"It's been so long since we've both had an afternoon off together," Aya said, breaking the silence. "Have we lost our creativity? What should we do?"
Part of my brain was focused on trying to think up something to do, but the other part was working on how to approach Aya with my questions. Questions about what she and Shibata had been talking about. It had to do with me. I needed to know.
"I have a question," I started.
"What is it?"
"It's about Shiba-chan."
She nodded for me to go on. Looking at her face that was so willing to answer anything, no clue what I was going to ask her, I lost my nerve.
"What did she say was her favourite food?"
Of all the things I could have asked about Shibata, I had to ask something trivial like that.
"Oh, for when we have her over?" Aya asked with a smile.
I nodded enthusiastically. My question wasn't so random after all. Aya turned thoughtful and launched into a rant about Shibata's likes and dislikes as I listened with feigned interest. My brain was still working on how to approach my question.
We spent the rest of the day watching some movies together, and I forgot about my question because I had to keep Aya from bawling her eyes out at the end of the first movie after the main character died and his wife was left alone to raise her son. She sniffled a bit, and so I tried to brighten the atmosphere with silly conversation. It worked, and full out hysterics were avoided. I made sure we watched a comedy next.
After dinner, bath, and more television, we went to bed. Hiroshi had always told me I had very bad timing. I got talkative at the most inopportune times, and it frustrated him, especially when we were doing things that didn't require much talking. Things that, in fact, required no talking at all. Shibata and Aya's conversation started playing in my mind again, and I mumbled something aloud.
"Huh?" Aya asked, pulling back from me.
"Shiba-chan," I repeated.
She frowned.
"You realise that I'm Aya, right?"
I shook my head.
"I know that. I just want to ask you something."
"Er, okay..." Aya said with a confused look. "What is it about Shiba-chan that you want to know?"
She seemed a bit put off by this interruption. I couldn't really blame her, but once I had something on my mind, I needed to deal with it.
"Your conversation today," I said weakly.
Aya sighed and rolled onto her back, looking at the ceiling. In the faint light, I could see her eyes glimmering as usual, her smooth skin looking even smoother, if such a thing was possible.
"What about our conversation?" she asked.
"I got the feeling that she didn't like me much. When I first met her, she looked a little... I don't know how to put it. Unhappy? Uncomfortable? So I was wondering what you were talking about while I was in the washroom."
I spoke tentatively. I didn't want to force Aya into things. I simply wanted her to see the reason in telling me.
"No, not at all," Aya said firmly. "She doesn't dislike you. She likes you for sure."
"Really?"
"Really."
I waited for her to go on, but she had nothing more to say. I lay there, unmoving, thinking it through until she made the first move and rolled onto her side to look down at me.
"Are you worried that if Shiba-chan doesn't like you, you and I won't be able to hang out anymore?"
It sounded so infantile when she put it that way. Like we were back in elementary school. I flushed under the safe cover of darkness. Part of it was true. While I didn't think Shibata disliking me would lead to me and Aya being separated, I did think that it could make waters unnecessarily stormy.
"I want to get along with her so that we can do things together. I want all your friends to like me," I admitted.
She rubbed my tummy and tickled me.
"She likes you. Don't worry. I know you two will get along famously once you have the chance to hang out some more."
Her words comforted me and soothed the worry in my mind.
"Thanks, Aya-chan."
She smiled and didn't reply. Instead, she continued what I'd interrupted.
At the back of mind, however, lingered a thought. Just for ten seconds until I was distracted from such worldly troubles. But ten seconds was long enough for my thought to file away its complaint for later review.
She never answered my question about their conversation.
-
Chapter 18 of 29
I had always loved Sunday mornings as a child. Sunday mornings were my sleep in days. My only sleep in days. With school and club activities on all other days, I got a daily average of four to five hours of sleep. But on Sundays, I made up for it.
This Sunday was no different. I'd gotten used to the crappy curtains, and the light no longer bothered me (if it ever did, I just buried my face in my pillow (or sometimes Aya's neck, which was fun)), so I was able to enjoy a nice and long morning snooze. This Sunday, I woke up a few times because Aya was tossing restlessly in her sleep. When that happened, I put an arm over her like a metal bar and stopped her from moving around too much, drifting back into sleep easily. At eleven o'clock, I coughed myself awake. Something tickled the back of my throat, and I was jolted into the land of the conscious. I opened my eyes, a few tears having gathered around them during my convulsions, and I stretched my arms above my head, only to be greeted by a soft "good morning" from beside me.
Aya was on her side, her elbow on her pillow and her head propped up on her hand. She looked wide awake. She must have been waiting patiently for me to wake up. How kind!
"Morning," I replied cheerfully.
"Someone's unusually happy," Aya laughed.
I cocked my head to the side in thought. Was I being unusually happy? I guess Sunday morning sleep ins made me feel good. Life in Tokyo was going so well. I had a whole slew of friends, and I seemed to meet more every day. Also, waking up beside a devil in disguise wasn't too bad either. I grinned and said nothing in reply.
We lazed around for a good ten minutes, mostly keeping quiet but occasionally spouting out ideas about what to do in the afternoon.
"Aya," I whined.
"Hmm?"
"All our ideas sound like stupid date ideas. I don't want to go on a date with you."
"Um, okay. Sorry?" Aya said, sounding offended.
"Well, no, I didn't mean it in a bad way. Just... aren't we cooler?"
"What do you want to do, then?" she challenged.
I tried to think of something good. Something unique. Something like what we did in Hokkaido with the snow and the hills. I could think of nothing in Tokyo.
"I want to go play on a snowy mountain," I mumbled.
I thought I'd get teased, but instead, I got hugged.
"Do you miss your home?" she asked into my ear.
The truth was that I didn't miss Takikawa that much. I loved the abundant nature there, but in Tokyo there were far more things to do and ways to keep busy. I just missed the special kind of bond you could build when it was just you and another person all alone out in the middle of nowhere. You couldn't get that in the capital city. There was no "alone" outside of the house.
"No," I told her. "But I miss the sheep!"
"More than your parents?"
"My what?"
Aya laughed, and stopped quizzing me.
"Can we go somewhere today? Somewhere not so busy?" I asked, wondering if Aya knew of a place nearby.
She thought for a moment.
"I don't really hang out in the outskirts... but we could pick a train at random, ride it, and get off at the smallest station," she suggested.
I liked that idea!
And so we decided to do that. We got ready and walked over to the train station. The sky was grey, soft rain clouds starting to form over the city. I shivered a bit.
"Are you okay?" Aya asked.
I nodded, sticking my chin further into my jacket.
"I just get all these uncontrollable shivers when I'm around you," I replied jokingly, and she groaned.
Yes, it was a lame thing to say, but I was a lame person around Aya.
We took the train to Shinjuku station and then chose a number at random. The platform that shared the chosen number was the platform we'd wait on for the next train.
We ended up going to Saitama. I had been hoping we'd go anywhere but there, but as long as we were together, it didn't much matter where we went. Aya pulled us off at one of the less crowded stations, and we wandered up to the surface.
It was a nondescript city. It looked the same as all the others. And it was still cold. No rain fell, but the sky looked a shade darker than it had when we'd first left.
We wandered around, had coffee and a snack at a small café, and tried to find out what the local thing of interest was. Everyone we asked said there was nothing interesting in this town. They all looked tired and worn out, even the younger ones. They all wanted to leave their boring, ultimately unimportant town. I knew the feeling and sympathised with them.
The most interesting part of the day came when it started to snow. Not rain. Snow. And it snowed a lot. It started so subtly that it didn't even register in our minds that the white fluff falling from the sky was precipitation.
I smiled happily as we walked to the station to go back home. Even if we only got a thin layer that would melt the next day, it was enough to see everything covered in whiteness for an evening.
We hopped on the train and fell asleep on the ride home, arriving at the station in the late afternoon. When we stepped out of the train, we received a surprise. It hadn't stopped snowing. It had continued as we had slept, and there was definitely more than a thin layer of the powder on the ground. I shivered as the snow went down my neck, reminding myself to bring a scarf if we went out later that night.
We got back to her apartment and had to shake the snow off our jackets and clothes.
"I can't believe it. It hasn't snowed like this here in years," Aya mumbled as she hung her jacket up.
"I don't mind!" I laughed. "I wonder how long it'll keep up, though."
We turned on the heater, made tea, and then sat at the table. Half an hour of meaningless chatter later, Aya stretched her arms and then rubbed her stomach.
"I'm hungry," she declared.
"What should we prepare?" I asked.
She seemed to think a little too hard about the question, and I wanted to tell her to not worry too much. She went over to the kitchen and looked through the refrigerator and cupboards.
"Hey, Miki-chan," she said in a sweet voice, calling me over.
"Mmhmm?"
I went to join her in the kitchen.
"Would you mind doing me a big favour?"
I looked at her suspiciously, but I couldn't deny Aya a favour.
"What?"
"Could you go and pick some things up at the grocery store?"
Boring. Why couldn't we go together?
Regardless, I nodded.
"I need to review a script for tomorrow," she explained apologetically, "and I don't want to bore you and do it while you're around. That way we can both have something to do for the next while and we can spend the rest of the evening together."
I didn't care if she went off and had to memorise a script while I sat around doing something else, but I guess if she wanted to save on time, it would help her out a lot if I did the shopping.
"Okay!" I said with a perky smile.
She made a list of things she needed, and I put my shoes on, taking care to put on my scarf to prevent from being snowed out of my jacket. She saw me to the door, and then I was off to go shopping.
Some of the things on her list seemed so arbitrarily placed that I wondered if she'd actually meant to write them down. I ran around the store, however, and got everything she needed, plus some additional things I thought we could use. I paid, bagged my things, and scurried out in record time.
The snow was coming down hard and fast. The flakes were giant, and as I walked, I kicked up piles of the stuff up in front of me. It got into my shoes, and I cursed myself for not bringing warmer shoes to Tokyo. I didn't think it would snow this much down here.
I made it back home safely, and I walked in quietly as to not disturb Aya. I put the bag of groceries down on the kitchen floor and looked for the missing girl so that we could put the groceries away together. She wasn't in the living room, so I went to her bedroom. The door was open halfway, and I was about to call out to her and slide the door the rest of the way open when I heard something that made my heart stop.
"No, I sent her out to buy a long list of groceries. I had to talk to you. Your line's been busy till now."
She sent me out? Like a mother would a child? A master a servant? Who was she talking to? Why did she feel such an urge to talk to him or her without me around? Was it what it sounded like?
I did something I wasn't proud of, but that was necessary. I refrained from calling out to her and stood by the door listening. She obviously hadn't heard me come in, so here were her real thoughts.
"It's just... it's weird what happened yesterday. But you're not crazy. I'm not crazy."
Silence.
I got the impression that she was talking to Shibata. There was nobody else we had seen the previous day.
"Ah, yeah. I thought you'd figure it out."
Pause.
"Is that- is that okay? What do you think? I mean, it's kind of..."
Shibata must have figured things out just as Aya had predicted.
Aya breathed out a sigh of relief.
"I really do. She's... I don't know. Something else. Special. To me, at least. I can't even explain all the years of history..."
For one brief moment, I felt like laughing. Just like Aya to overdramatically jazz things up. More like months of history. Not years.
"Listen, just don't mention that, okay? I don't think I have a good way of telling her yet."
My ears picked that up nice and clearly.
Tell me what? Did Aya have some sort of deep, dark secret that I wasn't supposed to know? Something that she thought might make me hate her? But there was nothing that I thought could make me feel that way about her...
"She won't understand."
Understand what?
"No, I can't."
Can't what?
"You have one now? Okay. I'll call you later. Tomorrow. From work."
And before I knew it, the conversation was over and Aya was walking to the door. I panicked and turned around to run, but then thought it would look suspicious and turned right back around. Right smack into Aya.
She looked at me with a startled expression, and I tried my best to make it look like I'd just walked in.
"Hi!" I said in a voice that was a decibel too loud. "I'm back."
I could read the fright in her eyes. She was scared that I'd overheard her and that I'd be curious.
And you know what? I wasn't going to pretend. I was curious. I was more than curious. I was a little upset. Aya was finding excuses to send me out of the apartment while she had secret phone conversations about me. If she didn't want me around, she should have told me and I would have moved out. If living with me was too much to handle, I could understand that. But being so secretive and telling other people about it rather than me hurt.
"Hi," she greeted me nervously.
I dropped the fake cheerful look and replaced it with a serious one.
"Sorry, Aya-chan, but what's going on? I kind of heard some of that. If there's something you need to tell me, or if you want me out of your house, I'll leave. But I have to hear it from you."
Her faced darkened slightly. Was she angry at me for having listened to her conversation? Not my most shining moment, I'd admit.
"Miki, honestly, there's nothing you have to worry about. I definitely don't want you to move out."
I crossed my arms, refusing to take that excuse. She was avoiding the question again.
"That was Shiba-chan, wasn't it?"
She made no sound to indicate I was wrong.
"What is it with you two? What did you tell her about me? What's this thing you have to say to me?"
My questions sounded like machine gun fire. She let me ask them and then took me by the arm, leading me to the couch. She pointed to it.
"Sit," she commanded.
For some reason, I felt compelled to follow her instructions. I felt like I was about to get some sort of answer out of her. I sat down and waited. She stood a few metres away and in front of me.
And then she began to speak. At first I thought she was reminiscing about how we met, which threw me off guard and made me feel warm inside, but her words took another path, and I listened in disbelief as she told me things I could never have imagined.
"Something strange happened a few months ago."
She paused. What an enigmatic statement. I wondered what sort of story she was going to tell me. She looked serious, so I, too, kept a serious expression on my face.
"At the end of October, as you know, I was supposed to fly out to Italy and start some special training, but I bailed out of the project. I told you the reason I did that was because I couldn't stand the thought of being away for three months and that I wanted more control and a bit of a rest. That's all true, but I didn't tell you the main reason."
The main reason? I thought curiously.
"The main reason I didn't go was because of you."
I was confused. Now there was a paradox.
"But Aya, you didn't even know me yet," I laughed lightly.
She didn't laugh along.
"But I did. Up until the morning of the twenty-sixth of October, a girl named Fujimoto Miki existed in my life. Years ago, she came to Tokyo as the result of earning a soloist spot in Hello! Project after being denied entry into the group she originally auditioned for. She - you - and I became best friends, and then some time later, even more. Just like how we are now."
Her sentences came one after another, and I didn't know whether to giggle insanely at the joke or to tease her first and ask her if she was feeling all right. Something, however, made me stay silent and let her continue without showing any reaction.
She talked a bit about my time as a soloist, about meeting her, about being put into Morning Musume, about graduating and then leaving the Project and then about becoming the star of the U-Con record label.
"While you were still in Momusu, You came to visit me at a concert. It was my nineteenth birthday. You came bearing gifts and confessions. And from that moment on, we were inseparable. Until, of course, the day I was supposed to leave for Italy."
I shook my head the slightest bit as I listened.
What the hell was she going on about??
"Huh?" I asked, begging for her to continue.
"That morning, I woke up beside you as usual. We technically didn't live together, but we were usually together most days of the week."
I nodded once helplessly to acknowledge that I'd heard her.
"I fell back asleep, and when I woke up again, you were gone."
I scratched my ear nervously.
"Washroom?" I asked in a joking tone, although I didn't feel like laughing at all, for she looked far too serious.
"You completely disappeared from the world. Everybody who had known you no longer knew who you were. They'd never heard your name before. All my pictures of you were replaced by different pictures. In your place there were other friends of mine. Even in the public eye, Shiba-chan became my best friend, not you. My past even changed without my knowing it. I had done work with people when I'd really done that work with you. Performances and films. That sort of thing. So that's why I didn't go to Italy. Because in the space of about an hour, my world was not just turned upside down, but torn into pieces."
I stared at her. She was serious. Dead serious. I felt a dull throbbing at the back of my head that I hadn't noticed before.
"I couldn't stand the thought of you having disappeared, so I tried every way to contact you, and when all those failed, I took a plane up to Hokkaido and found you. It was by chance that I went to that restaurant, but it happened. Even though you didn't really know who I was, I wanted to get to know you. That's why I stayed up there for two months. I tried to leave you because I knew that you had your own life and I was just intruding, but when you latched on to me and made me let you stay with me that night, I realised I could never leave you. I was too selfish. So I let you come down here with me, knowing that somehow you'd do well."
She stopped talking, and the first thing I thought was: I wonder if she rehearsed saying all that beforehand.
The second thing I thought was: How hard did she bang her head before I came back?
"Aya-chan..." I started, thinking over my words carefully through my growing headache. "What the hell are you talking about? Why are you making up weird stories? I just wanted to know what you and Shiba-chan were talking about."
She seemed to wake up at the sound of my questions.
"The only person I've told this to is Shiba-chan. She thought I was crazy at first, but once I went up to Hokkaido and found you, she didn't know what to believe. What's more, when I took you to her place, the reason why she may have acted strangely at first was because she recognised you. While you were in the washroom, she told me that she'd been overcome with a frightening feeling of familiarity when she saw your face. She was trying to figure out why this was."
I drew in a shaky breath. This was starting to get weird. It wasn't just Aya now. It was Shibata, too. Were they trying to play some joke on me? If I called Shibata, would she confirm this crazy story just so they could get their kicks?
No. They wouldn't do that. They would never go that far to tease me. There was a boundary line between respect and disrespect that they would not cross
"And it's not just Shiba-chan. You've been noticing it, haven't you, Miki?"
She pierced me with an all-knowing gaze, and I frowned. Noticing what??
"People haven't been acting quite normal around you. People stare at you in the streets. Yes, you're beautiful, but it goes a bit deeper than that. It's because they recognise you but can't quite place you. It's like the memory has been buried so far back in their minds that they can't dig it out, only tug at a small corner of it. People like Ohashi and Kuniko from U-Con hated you on sight because back in that other world, you were rivals. They must have felt that when they met you. Tsuyoshi felt the need to protect you at the club not because you were some defenceless girl about to get beaten up but because the kid worked for you as your secretary. Even those boys staring at you when we went to the hot springs at the beginning of the year. They were staring because they somehow knew you were as famous as I was, but couldn't quite remember how."
Too much information. Too much information. What did this all mean?
Yes, I had felt strange vibes coming from many of the people I'd been meeting, but I had thought it was a Tokyo thing, not because of some ridiculous science fiction concept of multiples of the same people existing and dimension hopping and-
"Are you out of your mind?" I asked Aya calmly.
"I know it's hard to believe it, but please. If you don't believe me, call up Shiba-chan and ask her. Call up the number of people I phoned the day after you disappeared, asking them if they knew who Fujimoto Miki was. Some of them are bound to remember me saying the name."
I sat, still as a stone statue.
Aya was talking crazy, but I believed her somehow. She had no reason to lie to me. No reason to make up ridiculous stories like this. And the more I thought about it, the more I was remembering incidents where people had mistaken me for someone else or stared at me unabashedly on the streets.
"What, um..." I swallowed and tried to wet my throat. "What's this other Miki like?"
Aya came a few steps forward and then manoeuvred herself to sit beside me.
"You and the other Miki are essentially the same person. A few different habits and strengths since you were partially brought up in different environments. She's just like you. She looks exactly like you. Talks just like you. Sings like you."
I began to grow wary of this whole situation. If Aya was telling the truth and she knew a superstar Miki, did that mean when she'd lost that superstar, she'd come up to find me to replace her? Was I a replacement? Was that why I was here with her now? To provide her comfort by being someone that looked exactly like that someone in her memory?
She tried to put a hand on my leg, but I twitched away, pulling back from her.
"I know that you're probably weirded out-"
"Weirded out isn't even close to what I'm feeling right now," I said in a low voice, reigning my anger in and trying to stay calm.
"And I'm sorry that I didn't tell you the whole truth before, but you would have thought I was cra-"
"You are crazy," I stated, and she looked at me in surprise.
"I thought you trusted me," she said in a dejected voice. "I thought it made sense to you."
"I don't mean about this 'other Miki' thing. I don't even want to talk about that. But... no matter who it was, how could you do this to me? How could you use me like this?"
"Use you?"
Her face was twisted in a genuine expression of confusion, and I laughed darkly at it.
"To replace that other person," I clarified.
Her jaw dropped.
"I didn't replace anybody. I just thought that you could come here and-"
"And what? Take her place? In most circles, that's commonly referred to as replacing," I bit back.
"But I thought you had the potential."
I let that word run through my head before replying.
Potential.
Potential.
"So let me get this straight. The only reason you like me now is because in your other reality - or whatever - I was also a famous celebrity? You brought me down here to mould me into that girl? If I'd just been some regular girl off the street, you wouldn't have cared?"
This is not happening. This is not happening. This can't be happening...
"No, that's not it!" she cried out defensively.
"Whatever!" I yelled at her, sick of her excuses. "Just shut up and leave me alone."
I stalked off to the bedroom and started to pack up my things.
"Where are you going?" she asked in an alarmed tone.
I didn't bother to organise anything properly, simply shoving it into the bag folded or unfolded.
"I'm getting the hell away from you."
She walked up to me and tried to touch me, but I shoved her hand away violently.
"All you've done is use me. To make yourself feel good or powerful or... who the hell knows? You're some sort of insane, perverted freak with serious issues," I spat at her.
I slung my bag over my shoulder, pushed past her, and went to put my shoes on.
"You can't leave, Miki. It's dark already and there's a snowstorm," she insisted in a last, desperate attempt.
"I don't care about the dark or the snow. Weren't you paying attention to me and our activities in Hokkaido? Or were you too busy plotting how to get me in your bed and make me famous to notice we were hiking up mountains in fucking blizzards?!"
I yelled this out to her, yanked the door open, and pushed my way out. Before the door closed, I reached into my pocket, grabbed the spare key that was there, and threw it on the floor of the entrance. Without another word, I let go of the door and walked off to the stairs. The door swung shut automatically, making a loud slamming sound as nobody tried to slow it down.
I raced down the stairs, too angry even to see straight. I'd been living through some sort of lie for the past four months. Aya had been lying to me since the first day she met me. Now I had no place to stay. I'd been close to saving enough money to start renting my own apartment, but I'd been so tempted to keep living with her that I'd been hoping she'd offer again.
Plans had changed so suddenly.
I had to call someone, but I didn't know who. The one person I was supposed to be able to trust implicitly had ended up being a liar. I ran all the way down the stairs, not stopping for a breath until I was at the bottom. After catching my breath, I forged my way out.
The wind almost blew me over, snow hitting my face as I walked through the storm towards the train station. I was so cold. I hadn't had time to bundle up properly, so I had no hat and no gloves, and my jacket wasn't even zipped up. After ten minutes, I got to the station, my face wet with snow that had melted after hitting it. I brushed as many snowflakes off of me as possible and then took out my phone, looking through my address book.
I didn't have that many people I could call in Tokyo. Aya was out of the question since she was the person I was escaping from. There was Kuniko, who was probably the person I could trust most at that moment, but she'd ask too many questions and I didn't want to talk about it. There was the Koda group from 7-Eleven, but I wasn't particularly close to any of them. Then there were my two bosses. No freaking way. And then Tsuyoshi. I wanted to call him.
What am I thinking? I reprimanded myself. He's a nineteen year old boy and he lives with his parents. We have nothing in common.
Just a few hours ago, I'd been rejoicing over the amount of friends I'd made since moving to this new city. Out in the cold darkness, I felt completely alone. I had nobody I could turn to. In the end, all I had was myself. I could only rely on me.
But the amount of confidence in my own judgement that I'd just lost was staggering. I had completely misjudged Aya and let myself be caught in her web of sweet words and mushy feelings, no clue as to what her true motives had been. But even though now that I had a clearer picture of why she'd been so nice to me, I still couldn't get over her. I felt like I'd been betrayed. I was upset because I still liked her. Quite a lot, in fact, and that was just wrong. Nobody should like someone who had been revealed to be so twisted. The spell should have been broken, but I still found myself wanting to close my eyes and forget everything she'd said in the last thirty minutes.
I wandered around the station for a few minutes, not going inside. Where would I go? There was nowhere in the city I knew better than here. There were still a few hours until the station closed. I had some time to think about my plan of action. Afraid that Aya might come out searching for me, I walked fifteen minutes in the opposite direction of her apartment and found a family diner that was open until one in the morning. I sat down in it and ordered the all-you-can-drink special, wishing it was alcohol, not tea and carbonated drinks.
It felt vaguely familiar to sit in a booth with my cold oolong tea. The last time I'd sat alone at a family restaurant, I'd been in Takikawa, sulking over my break up with Hiroshi and my mistake of sleepwalking right into his bed. Nakanoko-chan had happened upon me, though, and I'd felt better to at least have someone around who cared. This time, there was nobody who would walk by to help me. Nobody could understand the situation. Nobody would believe it. Not even I could believe it.
I shivered, wishing they'd turn up the heating a little, and I sat in silence, the people around me seeming to keep their voices hushed in deference to me and my suffering. Growing frustrated with my own thoughts, I rummaged through my bag and brought out a book that I'd packed. It was a paperback detective thriller that I'd bought with the money my mother had sent me for my birthday. I'd read it once already, but it would do no harm to read it again. To distract myself, I started from the first page and read my way through steadily.
The next time I looked up from it, it was ten minutes to one, and a waitress was hovering near my table as if urging me telepathically to leave so that she could clean up and leave on time from her shift. Startled at the time, I made a quick trip to the washroom and then went to pay my bill. I rushed over to the train station and was downcast to see that the trains had stopped. Not that I had thought of a plan, but with the closing of the station, my options were severely limited, and I didn't like that feeling. I sat outside the station, a few other unfortunate souls nearby. They eventually got up and left.
It was freezing cold and still snowing. My body didn't feel the cold anymore, though. I was numb. I had grown so used to it that I was actually sweating a little, my jacket still undone. I hadn't even bothered to put on my hat and gloves even though they were sitting in my bag.
I sat on the cold, wet ground and thought for a long time. I reviewed the past four months in detail. I tried to analyse every moment I'd spent with that wretched girl. The girl that had tricked me unfairly and displaced me from my home, making me think that I had a place where I belonged down here in this city. The girl that had come between me and my potential fiancé. The girl that had just... done everything to me. Everything bad. And everything good.
When I looked at my watch, it was two. I took my phone out and flipped it open. Aya had called me once and left no message. She'd also e-mailed me asking where I was. I ignored the message and put my phone away. I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall. It wasn't the safest place to be at night, but I had nowhere else to go. I was homeless until the trains started up at some time around five.
I should go back home. Back to Takikawa, I thought over and over again.
As I grew sleepy, it struck me as odd that I would have to repeat that to myself. As if I had to convince myself it's what I wanted. Try as I might, though, I couldn't shake the feeling of dread that I got from the thought of returning to that town. I shivered, but I didn't know whether it was from fear of returning to my hometown or from the snow creeping down my neck.
I fell asleep.
-
Chapter 19 of 29
Fire. I was engulfed in fire. Flames blistering my skin, melting my bones, burning hideous memories into my mind.
And then ice. Freezing the parts of my body that still existed. Stopping my heart and my lungs and my kidneys and my liver. Forcing my blood's temperature to sub-zero levels. My veins and arteries bursting from the popsicles forming in them.
And fire again. Raging fire was all I could see...
With a start, I woke up. Or I did somewhat. I opened my eyes enough to be blinded by sun shining off a thick layer of snow that rested on everything. I was leaning against the wall, my bag beside me, it, too, covered in snow. I tried to move but I was paralysed. I grit my teeth at the pain that shot through my entire body as I forced myself to sit up straight. My head was pounding with a headache that made black spots dance in front of my eyes. I was breathing shallowly and I felt like I was going to pass out because it was so damned hot.
Someone turn off the heating, I thought.
Despite the heat, I shivered. I opened my dry mouth and out slipped a moan of pain.
Where am I? my mind asked.
I blinked a few times, trying to focus on something other than the white of the snow and the black spots that still ran around before me. I saw a street and some stores and some parked bicycles...
Station. I'm at the station. But how did I get here?
I managed to move a hand and brought it up to my face. It was numb. I rubbed my temples, trying to banish the headache from my skull, but it didn't work. I almost started to cry, it hurt so much.
I felt a buzzing. The buzzing made me feel sick. My ears started to ring.
No, not my ears. My phone.
My hand fumbled to pull it out of my bag and I hit "talk".
"Hello?" I rasped out.
No, that's a generous description of what I did. I barely made a sound.
"Miki? Is that you?"
Someone asked me. Someone I knew. Someone whose name I couldn't quite remember.
"Yes," I said, trying to push my voice out a little more.
"What's the matter? Where are you?"
What was the matter with me? I didn't know. Was there something the matter? There must have been. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe properly, couldn't feel anything but pain...
I knew where I was, though.
"Station," I croaked. "Snowy station."
And then I thought that hanging up seemed like a good idea, so I did so. No reason. Just because.
I slumped back against the wall and closed my eyes. I felt the world spin, and I asked it to stop. It didn't.
An unknown amount of time passed. I heard a faint ringing accompanied by a buzzing sound, but I ignored it. I fell into a black hole, sucked through a tube of nothingness.
The next thing I felt were hands grasping me by the armpits and hefting me up. I opened my eyes a bit, but I was leaning over someone's shoulder. I could see the white of the snow behind us. I felt myself being put into something. A car. I knew it was a car because I felt an engine turning as it drove off.
Who is this? I wondered.
I kept my eyes closed. The world spun less if I did. My head hurt less if I did. I travelled further down the black hole.
And then hands were pulling at me again, dragging me out of the car. I went inside. It was so dark. So very dark. No white snow.
"Are you okay?"
The distant voice sounded warped. It came from so far away.
"Hnnn," I replied, trying to tell this person I had heard the question but that I couldn't form words.
I had to try harder. I was alive.
"O...kay..." I managed to get out.
There were no more questions. I felt grateful about that. It hurt my head to think of answers.
My next memory was of being undressed. I wanted to protest, but I couldn't form words.
After being undressed, I was being sprayed by water. It burned my skin and I wanted to scream, but I still couldn't make a sound. I opened my eyes and I could see someone in the shower with me, but everything was too hazy. I felt hands on me. But kind ones. Cleaning me with soap and a cloth. Washing my hair. Rinsing all the soap off of me.
I fell over and arms caught me, pulling me back up and holding me in place.
And then I was being dried and dressed in warm clothes and put into a bed. Once in bed, I felt so chilly that I thought I was going to freeze to death right there. I shivered and opened my eyes. A blob of flesh was looking down at me, speaking to me, saying something. I couldn't understand it.
I felt a hand touch my forehead.
It must have been a doctor. That was a doctor-ish thing to do.
I closed my eyes, falling back into a painful dream of fire and ice.
-
A Brief Interlude:
Requiem for Three
I wake up choking.
"We're losing her," mutters a distant voice above me.
It's low. A man's voice.
"Stop being so dramatic. She's just coughing," says another voice.
A woman's voice.
I cough and hack and clear my throat, massive amounts of phlegm piling up in my mouth. I flip onto my side and spit.
"She's spitting on the floor. Get her a bucket," the man orders.
I continue to cough and spit as a yellow basin is placed under me. I spit into that. When I'm done, I lie on my back, close my eyes, and fall asleep.
And that's the last mistake I will ever make. Some time later - who knows how long - my windpipe becomes clogged up with phlegm. I cough in my sleep, but I don't wake up to clear my throat. The phlegm sits there, blocking air from coming to my lungs. It's all very painless because I'm asleep. One minute I'm living and breathing, the next I'm dead.
Dead.
I have died.
I know this because once I've passed through that black tunnel and stepped into the white light, I'm hovering above my body, looking down at it. I feel great. Ethereal, but not sick. I have perfectly clear vision. I can see myself lying on the bed, a thin line of drool running down from the corner of my mouth. My eyes are closed. I look peaceful.
I float up and look at the room. It's Aya's room. I make my way to the door. I'm half flying, half hovering, half bouncing. It's weird. I float out of the door and see two people sitting in the living room. One is Aya. The other is Hiroshi. I move in close to them. I know that they can't hear me. I'm dead.
The strange thing about being dead is that once you're in that state, you know it and you accept it. It's not like that movie Ghost that my cousin has forced me to watch three times. There's no crazy "oh dear, what's going on?" moment. You simply know that you're dead. I am one hundred percent dead.
"I hope she's okay," Aya says.
She's sitting on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest.
"She'll be fine," Hiroshi says, perhaps a little gruffly.
He's got to be pretty mad at Aya for stealing his girlfriend away from him. What is he doing in her apartment?
"I'm going to go check on her," Aya says nervously, starting to get up.
Hiroshi reaches out and puts a firm hand on Aya's shoulder to stop her. Then feeling awkward, he takes it away. Aya sits back down.
"She's fine. Let her rest."
Oh, Aya. Don't go into that room. You're going to get such a shock... I think.
I start to cry a little. Ghosts can cry.
I'm going to miss her.
Hiroshi crosses his arms and clears his throat.
I'm going to miss him, too. I'm going to miss them both. Two people that I love.
I hope neither of them ever go into that room.
They sit in silence, and I hover and watch.
Finally, Aya gets up again.
"I'm going to go and check up on her."
Hiroshi doesn't try to stop her this time. I float in front of her.
"Don't go," I whisper. "Don't go into that room, Aya. Please don't."
But of course she can't hear me. She can't feel me. I can't move pennies to inform her of my presence. Whoopi Goldberg's not going to come and help me out.
Aya walks into the room. I can hardly stand to follow, biting my lip the whole time.
She doesn't notice anything strange at first. The lighting in the room is dim. She looks down at my body's face, even snickers at the drool, and wipes it away with my own pyjama shirt.
Ew. Is that what she's always done? Wiped my drool away with my own clothes? She could at least find a cloth...
Then she notices something.
"Miki?" she asks.
My body, of course, does not reply.
"Miki??"
She puts her hand on my chest. She puts her ear to my mouth.
"Hiroshi!!" she screams.
Hiroshi races into the room as Aya starts shaking my body.
"She's not breathing!"
Hiroshi pushes Aya aside and checks for my pulse and my breath. He looks terrified when he can't find either.
"Call the paramedics!" he yells.
He starts to yell in my body's ear as Aya, frozen with fear, stares.
"Call an ambulance!!" he yells angrily, making Aya snap to attention.
She runs to the phone and makes the call. I watch Hiroshi work on my body. He's checking my mouth, clearing it out, giving me artificial respiration...
It's not going to work, I think sadly. I'm already out.
He doesn't stop, and I go to kneel by him, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you for trying, though. I'll always love you for that."
He doesn't feel or hear me.
He continues to work, trying every possible trick he's learned to revive me.
Aya comes back into the room. She's in hysterics.
"What's happening? Why isn't she breathing? How did this happen? We only left her for a minute. I knew I should've checked on her befo-"
"Shut up," Hiroshi mutters.
I get up and go over to Aya, hugging her.
"Just go and sit in the living room. Don't watch this. I don't want you to see it."
She doesn't feel or hear me.
She continues to watch, tears starting to form in her eyes.
Stop watching. I love you too much to let you see this.
An eternity passes and a knock comes at the door. Aya rushes to it, and the paramedics run in. They force Hiroshi and Aya out of the room and start to do the exact same thing Hiroshi just did.
To no avail.
Hiroshi and Aya stand at the doorway trying to peer in, but they're shut out.
"Please, have a seat," says one paramedic.
Offering Aya a seat in her own home. Now that's funny.
Time passes. I don't watch the resuscitation attempts. I watch Hiroshi and Aya. I reminisce over the memories we have together. I hope that they can reconcile whatever differences they may have between them. I wonder how Hiroshi got into contact with Aya, although I guess there are lots of ways to come across people. He must've come to Tokyo to search for me. Well, he found me.
I watch them as one of the paramedics comes and tells them I didn't make it. I start to cry as they both cry. I watch my body being wheeled away. Aya tries to follow me, but Hiroshi holds her back, and she turns and sobs into his chest.
Hey, watch it there, buddy.
He'd better not be trying to make a move on her.
I sigh and laugh it off. Death has given me quite the attitude. I can laugh at my death and make light of the reactions of my friends. Cold, but what else can I do? I can't go back to life. I have to make death easier for myself with humour and jokes.
They spend the day together. They don't say a word. They just sit there. I sit in between them on the couch. There's just enough room for the three of us. I look from one to the other and I wonder for the billionth time how I can love two people who are so different.
Hiroshi finally gets up to leave.
"Where are you going?" Aya asks desperately.
"I have to go," he mumbles blankly. "I need to go back home and tell everyone."
Where is he going to get a plane ticket at this hour? Silly boy. He should spend the night and go back tomorrow. But he's not thinking straight, and that's understandable.
"Don't go," Aya begs him, but he's made up his mind.
"I have to."
"But I don't want to be alone," Aya whispers in a terrified voice.
He gives her a look. A kind of "well, that's life" look. Maybe he's thinking that she doesn't deserve his help. After all, she took me away from him and left him all alone. Although that's a little different. There was no death involved in that.
"Thank you. Goodbye," Hiroshi says, and he walks out.
At least he's polite. Saying thank you for the stay.
Aya sits back down and hugs a pillow, crying softly.
I know what's going to happen before the idea even starts to form in her mind.
"No, don't," I mutter, but it's too late.
She gets up and rummages around her closet. She finds painkillers and alcohol.
"Don't be an idiot, Aya. Don't be an idiot. Don't don't don't don't..."
She tips a bottle of painkillers into her mouth and chases it down with whiskey.
I don't know why Aya has whiskey in her apartment. She doesn't even like it. Maybe it was a gift.
She rummages around for more pills while looking like she's going to be sick. She finds other sorts of medicines and takes all of them. She grimaces as they go down, and soon enough, she's consumed the entire fifth of whiskey.
"You idiot. This isn't going to solve anything. Don't do this."
I start to cry a little. I can't help her. If she dies, all I can do is watch.
She starts to sway around.
"Miki... if I... you can't be alive... then in death... we're together... yeah..."
She falls over, hitting her head on the corner of a table. She's out cold. I kneel down beside her and cry.
"Why'd you do this, Aya? Why?"
In death, we are also given knowledge. Knowledge about the workings of death. My knowledge is this: Aya and I won't meet in death. Because she has willingly taken her own life, she - or her ghost, if you prefer - will exist in a different plane. In short, we'll wander the same places, but we'll be invisible to each other. No psychics. No pennies. No communication.
I sit and wait. I listen for Aya's breathing. I can't hear any.
I sigh and touch her forehead.
"Stupid," I say gently. "But at least you loved with all your heart."
I sit on the floor and wait. In death, I've turned into a patient person. I wait a day and a half before someone notices that Aya's incapacitated.
Fittingly, it's Shibata that makes the discovery. She comes to the door one day and eventually gets in. I guess that means she has the other spare key.
She sees Aya lying on the floor and freaks out. She can tell, though, right away that Aya's not alive. She calls the police, and the same process is repeated. They come in, poke and prod at her body, and then announce to Shibata that there's nothing they can do. There are lots of questions, and I feel sorry for Shibata to have gotten involved in all this. I decide to follow her out.
Shibata has a good, smart head screwed onto her shoulders. She doesn't off herself. A truck takes care of that for her. As she's walking home from the police station in a daze, she doesn't pay attention to the streets, and she walks right through a red light and right into a speeding truck.
I gasp and yell out her name, but of course she doesn't hear me.
The rules of death dictate that victims of car accidents will not meet those that die in the throes of sickness. I will never speak to Shibata again.
Chaos ensues, and the next day, the three of us make headline news.
Three girls dead in series of tragic accidents.
Aya's death is not labelled a suicide. Someone must've paid a lot of money to get information like that concealed. I'm glad, though. Nobody would understand that she did it because she loved me so much. Also because she was stupid and crazy. But mostly for love.
And so I'm left alone in Tokyo. The rest of my death I shall spend all alone.
That is why we dead need a sense of humour. For if you don't have one, you go insane.
Why?
Because death lasts slightly longer than your average life.
Death lasts for eternity.
===
This chapter has absolutely no weight in this story. Please forget it happened. I repeat, it is not part of my story.
-
Chapter 20 of 29
At some point while being roasted and frozen simultaneously, I woke up. I opened my eyes, my vision clearer than it had been before. I was only looking at a white ceiling, but there were no black spots on it. My head pounded with the same intense headache, however, and my body felt useless. It burned with pain.
I blinked a few times and turned my head slightly. I felt something. Someone was watching me. I came eye to eye with a familiar face that often greeted me like this in the morning.
"Aya," I mumbled, my voice weak.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
She was sitting on the bed looking down at me, hands folded in her lap patiently.
"What happened?" I asked, ignoring her question because I didn't want to tell her that I still felt like I was going to die any minute.
She explained to me slowly that Kuniko had called me early in the morning and had gotten scared by my answer. She'd called Aya to find out what was going on after I didn't pick up any subsequent calls. Aya had rushed down to the station, met with Kuniko (who had run from 7-Eleven), and found me. They'd lugged me into a taxi cab, and had taken me back to Aya's place.
"Where'd Kuni-chan go?" I mumbled, looking around the room.
"She left right when we got here. She had to work. I told her I'd take care of you and call her with an update."
I tried to remember all this happening, but I couldn't. I remembered a phone call and hanging up on someone. I remembered someone dragging me into a car. I remembered a shower.
"I had to almost physically kick her out of here. She insisted that she wouldn't leave your side until you woke up. That is one obsessively loyal girl."
"She's a Scorpio," I said offhandedly.
Aya mouthed an "oh".
So Kuniko had been that worried about me. Worried enough to run over from work, where she had no doubt called from, and be willing to skip work to stay by my side. But how genuine was it? I didn't get to ask.
"Where did you sleep last night?" she asked.
"Where you found me."
I was too tired to make up stories or excuses. She looked at me with a disapproving frown, but then it quickly melted into one of concern.
"You scared me."
I was still waking up and trying to figure out what this apprehensive feeling at the back of my mind was. I had forgotten what had happened and needed to remember.
I had woken up by the station covered in snow this morning, and then I'd ended up here in this apartment. Before that was last night. What had I done last night? Last night I'd gone to a family restaurant and had tea. And before that... I had argued with Aya. I had argued with her because...
Because she had used me. Used me to replace some other person that was not me.
But it all seemed so trivial now. All I wanted to do was lie down. I wanted to give up. I just wanted to not feel the way I did. Trampled on and dragged through the mud. I wanted to sleep until we grew two years older and no longer cared for each other so that we could part amiably and maybe keep in casual touch by going for coffee twice a year.
It suddenly hit me that it was Monday. We both had to work.
"Why aren't you at work?" I asked weakly.
"I cancelled everything after I brought you here. You're in no condition to be alone."
I tried to thank her. Even if she had treated me badly in other respects, she had still somewhat saved my life, and I was a polite person. However, I couldn't manage to get the word past my lips. I felt weak from sickness and from relief. Relief that I wasn't going to freeze to death outside. Relief that Aya wasn't mad at me for storming out after calling her a crazy, perverted freak.
I lay there with just enough energy to keep my eyes open to look at her. Then, with no warning and no control over my actions, tears started to form and spill out of my eyes. My face didn't change its expression much. I cried like that because I was too tired to do anything else.
I was grateful that she had at least cared enough to come after me and bring me to her apartment. I was upset because of what she'd done to me all these months. I felt helpless because I didn't know what to do. I couldn't move my body enough to take care of myself. I couldn't figure out what exactly Aya had been thinking since she met me.
I blinked a few times, causing more tears to pour out. Aya brushed some of my tears away with her fingers and then went out to fetch a tissue, gently wiping my cheeks and my ears with it. I lay there without resisting, crying in front of her for the second time since I had met her.
My eyes stopped watering gradually, and I stared up almost blankly, my head spinning, my whole body feeling like my blood had been replaced by liquid lead.
"Aya-" I mumbled powerlessly.
I wanted her to take care of me. My mother wasn't here to do it. I had nobody. Nobody but Aya. I wanted to ask her to stay with me for a while until I got better. Then I could storm off again.
She bent her head down, putting her ear to my mouth to listen to what I had to say, but I had no more energy to even think of how to phrase my request. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.
I alternated between sleep and semi-consciousness. A few times when I was partially awake, I could hear Aya speaking. Sometimes I heard and saw no sign of her. Other times I could sense her sitting in the room and watching over me. Sometimes I awoke shivering and others I awoke sweating. I couldn't remember everything that happened when I was awake, though. I had the feeling that I spoke a little, but maybe I didn't.
When I finally fully woke up, I felt sick to my stomach, and so I stood up, Aya nowhere in sight, walking to the washroom on wobbly legs that didn't feel like my own. When I got there, I knelt down by the toilet and waited.
"Miki?" asked a voice from the darkness.
I looked up and out of the washroom to see Aya walking from the kitchen with a glass of some drink.
"What's the matter?"
I gave her one look of desperation and she understood. She hurriedly put her glass down and came to stand by me.
"Don't worry," she comforted me.
In the end, nothing happened that time. No violent regurgitation of the latest meal I'd eaten. The nauseous feeling left me, replaced by the pain of my pounding headache. Aya led me back to the bed and covered me with warm blankets until I thought my body would either roast to death in the heat or collapse from the weight.
"Do you need anything?" she asked, her voice sounding like it was in another section of the city.
I shook my head once and fell asleep.
I slept for seven hours and woke up the next morning. I felt like I'd been run over with a truck, beaten with a stick, and chewed up by a giant dog. However, I didn't feel nauseous, and my pounding headache had been reduced to an occasional dull throb.
I turned my head slightly and saw the top of Aya's head. She was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the bed, her legs stretched straight in front of her, arms crossed.
"Hey," I croaked.
I was parched.
She didn't hear me, and I moved a hand and tapped her. Her head jerked up and she looked over her shoulder, her eyes bleary. She must have fallen asleep some time ago.
"You're awake," she said in surprise. "What's wrong?"
I shook my head once to tell her nothing was wrong. She let out a small breath of relief.
"Do you want something to drink?"
I nodded once, and she got up quickly, getting me a glass of water. I sat up in bed and drank the whole thing, holding it out for more. She got me a refill, and I gulped all of that down, too.
"Thank you," I said, able to speak properly once again.
Aya felt my forehead. I remembered that action from the day before.
"You still have a fever," she observed.
I felt my own cheeks. They were hot.
"What happened?" I asked again, hoping for a more detailed update.
"You've been delirious for twenty-four hours," she explained. "You kept mumbling in your sleep and crying on and off a lot."
I'd cried many times? I only remembered crying once.
"I think some sort of virus was already in you, and sleeping out in the cold made you vulnerable. I called your bosses and let them know you were sick."
I hoped they'd understand.
"What about your work?" I asked.
She had said the day before that she'd called in, but what about today? She was supposed to go in again, was she not?
She waved it off.
"They were pretty lenient about it. In addition to the two metres of snow out there, they felt bad about losing my recordings the other day. I explained that you had nobody else to take care of you. And, I, um, exaggerated your illness."
"Sorry."
"No, not at all."
We fell into a silence. We were both thinking about the argument we'd had before I'd stormed out. We had to broach the subject eventually.
"Two metres of snow?" I asked, forestalling the inevitable conversation.
"Well, not quite," came the admission.
She walked over to the window and drew open the curtain. I got up and crawled on the bed over to the window. Sure enough, the buildings and streets were covered in white. Apparently it had snowed right through Monday. It was nowhere near two metres, but it was beautiful. And it looked cold. Had I actually slept out there? No wonder I'd felt like I was going to die. Aya pulled the curtains shut again.
"It's chaos out there. Lots of train lines have shut down and all flights are grounded. I went to a store last night and only one person had made it for his shift."
I lay back down under the covers and issued the appropriate sounds to indicate I was listening.
"But you don't have to worry. You're warm here. We've got heating-"
I sighed and interrupted her.
"Why are you being so nice to me?" I asked.
"Why wouldn't I be?" she demanded back quickly as if she had been expecting that question from me.
"Well... because yesterday - no - the day before yesterday... I yelled at you, and... I'm supposed to be mad at you. And I don't want you to treat me nicely just because you're thinking of someone else."
Her face turned serious.
"I meant what I said before. You're not a replacement. Not even close."
I closed my eyes, too weak to jump up and yell at her.
"You and that other person aren't separate people. You're the same person, okay? I figured it out. It's not the person that's different. It's just the circumstances. The environment. I let go of any expectations, though, that I had left of you by my last night up there. I wouldn't have allowed myself to do anything to you until I was absolutely sure that you were the only person that I... I don't know. That I really wanted," she said, her voice wavering. "I may be crazy, but I'm not a liar."
I opened my eyes and tried to see the truth in her eyes. They looked sincere. Then again, they'd looked sincere the first night we'd met and I'd introduced myself to her. She must have been lying then. She'd already known my name, she claimed. All those times she'd reacted to the things I told her, she hadn't really been surprised or learning something new about me. She had been confirming things she already knew.
But there had been some genuine moments. Like when I told her I'd missed my university entrance exam twice and how I was studying bookkeeping and economics. She hadn't known about those things before.
"No matter who you are," she continued, "and no matter how much money you make and what kind of job you have, you'll always be Miki. The one I know and love."
There was that genuine look in her eyes. But was it really real? Could I rely on it? I just couldn't tell.
I started to feel dizzy again, and I brought a hand up to cover my eyes to try and make it stop. I was at a loss over what to say.
"You believe me, don't you?" she asked softly. "That I don't care whether you're rich and famous or not?"
I took my hand away from my eyes, my dizziness momentarily stopped. I kind of nodded without meaning to.
Had I overreacted the other night? I had every right to be angry - and I certainly still was - but maybe I hadn't been entirely correct in my assumptions. Maybe she really did feel something for me, not that other me.
The other me.
It wasn't fair. If what Aya was saying about there being another version of me, then the things she'd done - her accomplishments and her fame - would precede me wherever I went. People would continue to make judgements about me before knowing me. The other Miki's enemies would automatically become my enemies, while her friends - her Aya - would be drawn to the things about their friend that they saw in me.
I didn't want that. Maybe Aya could convince me that she loved me and not someone else who looked like me. She'd taken the time to get to know me. But people like Tsuyoshi and Katherine, with whom Aya said the other Miki had gotten along... Would they have liked me as much if they'd met me without having that mysterious sense of familiarity? Would I have had a chance to be on good terms with Ohashi and Kuniko the Lesser if there'd been no other Miki?
"You said you didn't expect anything from me," I said quietly. "But when I got here, you expected me to do all these things. You encouraged me to take that job at U-Con so that I'd get discovered by my boss..."
I wanted to believe her so badly when she said she didn't expect me to be like the other Miki, but there was too much. Too much...
Aya tilted her head to the side in thought.
"I won't lie and say that the thought of you being discovered never entered my mind. But I was just trying to help you with your dream. Besides, I knew that it would be a good place to work. Tsuyoshi-kun and Katherine-san are good people. I knew you'd like them."
Could I trust her when she said this? I looked into her big eyes and saw not a hint of dishonesty or uncertainty.
I might not be able to forgive her completely. Not yet.
But maybe I could take this as truth. This little bit.
I smiled ever so faintly, but the echo of cheerfulness left me right away.
"So now what? What do I do? Will people keep thinking they know me? Will I be pre-judged everywhere I go?"
Did she understand how unfair that was? How utterly miserable I would be if I could have no opportunities to makes friends because of who I was? Make no career advances based on my own merit? I didn't want to live my life with one foot in the shoe of someone who shared my name, my face, and a few character traits, but who wasn't ultimately me.
"This is the life you're living now. You can overcome those things if you try. Make the most of it."
So those were Aya's words to me? Just suck it up and deal with it? Play your crappy hand because it's the only one you'll be dealt?
"But it's not fair," I insisted, growing stronger with my desperate anger at the world. "Why do I have to deal with this problem? God, it's not even a legitimate thing I can tell other people."
She stayed silent as I grew infuriated.
"It's not fair how if I tell my parents or Nakanoko-chan or even Hiroshi, they'll lock me in an insane asylum. It's not fair, Aya! It's not-"
"How do you think I feel about it?" Aya snapped sharply. "I went through the same thing, but even worse. I lost the person most important to me."
She didn't slap me, but she may as well have. I shut up. Of course. Aya's world had changed, too.
"I didn't choose for it to happen to me either, and I sure as hell don't think it's fair, but I made do and tried to fix it, okay? I put my job - my entire career – on the line to travel across the country to find you. Stop being so selfish and spoiled. You're not the only one with problems."
Shaken, I lay there staring at the ceiling, reflecting on my hasty complaints. Aya had suffered a lot more. At least I had had a choice whether to give Hiroshi up or not. I had had choices in everything I'd gained or lost. She had had no choice. Her entire life had changed.
"Sorry," she said quickly, perhaps rattled by my silence. "I've- it's been rough, okay? Those two months. Seeing you all the time while not being to tell you anything. It was torture."
She'd done an amazing job of keeping it covered it up.
"No, I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I didn't think about your feelings."
It must have killed her when she learned about Hiroshi and when she wished me bon voyage when I went to spend Christmas with him.
"So we've both been affected," Aya said, walking over to the window again and drawing the curtain, standing and looking out at the snowy landscape. "Why can't we go through it together? Don't you think that's what we're supposed to do?"
I looked at her looking out the window. She had her arms crossed and the light from outside lit her whole front side up. She looked like a bright angel. I could see no weakness in her. She was dealing with her problems like she said I should, and she was holding it together.
Everyone in her life had changed. Even one of her best friends, Shibata, had changed. Her family, too, would all be different. Could I keep going if the change had been like that for me? If I'd lost Hiroshi like that, what would I have done? Would I have taken off to find him? Would I have only told Nakanoko-chan while praying she didn't lock me up in the loony bin? Would I have been able to be simply his friend if I'd found him in some far off city with another girl?
Probably not. Aya was...
"Amazing," I murmured.
She turned her head to look at me.
"Pardon?" she asked.
I shook my head.
"Nothing."
I stared at her. She stared back.
She was so strong. How she managed to survive until this point, I didn't know. I owed it to her to try. She had given up the only thing left in her life that she loved - her career - to come and find me. That was too much for me to deal with. A love that strong...
"This is too much," I muttered, trying to get through everything.
I was still so confused.
"Are you scared?" she asked.
I laughed a little crazily at the question.
"Of course I'm scared!"
I was scared of not being strong enough to deal with everything now that I knew the truth. I was scared of not finding my own, unique place in this world. I was scared of doing something to break Aya, who had withstood so much until that point. I didn't want to hurt her. Even though she'd kept secrets from me, she'd never purposely tried to hurt me. She deserved more.
Damnit, Aya. Why do you have to be so perfect? I thought, a little angry that I couldn't be angry. Why do you have to be so convincing? So right?
I closed my eyes and took deep, calming breaths.
The truth was that if Aya wasn't there with me, I would have lost it after hearing all that. I would have been terrified. But her presence in particular automatically relaxed me. She was right. We were supposed to do this together.
"Hey, Aya," I said after a long pause.
"Hm?"
"I think you're right."
I heard her walk over beside me. She patted my hand, although I didn't open my eyes.
"Me too."
We didn't know what the future held for us. All I could do at that point was focus on getting better. Once I was back to my healthy self, I could pursue this strange phenomenon with more vigour. I could try and figure out what Aya and I meant to each other. Her and me, not her and some look-alike. The real me.
"I'm a bit tired," I informed her, and I felt her sit down beside me, keeping her hand on mine as I fell asleep again, weakened by all the excitement.
I thought I heard her say something to me. Something about buying gloves for me. Or maybe loving me. It didn't matter. She said a lot more by just being there to take care of me.
-
Chapter 21 of 29
I was in bed for two more days. My fever got worse before it got better, and for a moment while I lay there agonising over the injustices of life, it crossed my mind that my sickness was all some sort of karmic revenge for having laughed at Hasegawa's infection with the bird flu. Maybe I had it, too.
Aya took care of me those two days. She had to go to work on the second day, but she made sure she returned home as early as possible. She sat on the floor by my side, brought me light food and water, read to me (nothing deep), patted my back when I felt sick, and even talked or sang me to sleep in a voice softer than I had imagined her capable of.
There was no more talk of the situation between us or the tension I felt at the back of my mind when I thought about it. Thoughts pertaining to this were swept away by silent looks between us whenever we saw each other and by the incredibly ill feeling that had taken up most of my attention.
I woke up after those two days, my head feeling clear and my body wanting to stand up. There was no dull throb of pain from the constant headache that had haunted me, and I felt genuinely hungry for the first time in days.
I could see that it was dark outside, but I wasn't sure if it was late night or early morning. I was alone in the room, although judging from the sounds I could hear coming from the living room, it couldn't be too early in the morning or too late in the evening. There were voices speaking. I assumed one was Aya's.
I rolled up from bed slowly, careful not to get a head rush, and I slid the door open quietly. Sitting at the kotatsu were Aya and Shibata, each with a cup of tea, both looking very warm and comfortable with their heater.
When Aya saw me, she looked alarmed and started to stand up, asking what was wrong, but I shook my head.
"Don't worry. Don't get up," I said quickly.
I had a feeling I had interrupted Shibata in mid-sentence. She was eying me carefully. I gave her a tiny nod as a greeting, and I made my way over to the table, inviting myself to slip my legs under the blanket. Delicious warmth spread up my body immediately and I felt happier than I'd been in days. My fever had kept me an uncomfortable kind of warm, but this heat that came from outside of me made me feel as though I was one hundred percent better.
"How are you feeling?" Aya asked.
"A lot better," I told her. "No more sick feeling."
"Aya-chan told me you've been down with some sort of flu for a while. I was worried," Shibata said.
Shibata. A girl I'd met once and that I hardly knew other than through stories from Aya. Why was it, then, that when she said this, she sounded genuine? She didn't sound like she was merely being polite.
"Sorry to have worried you," I apologised. "And thank you."
I looked to my left at the DVD player to check the time. Half past nine.
I felt very disoriented, unsure of what day it was. I didn't ask, however, because that knowledge would be of no use to me at the moment. Whether it was Thursday or Saturday made no difference to me.
The three of us sat in an awkward silence. There was a lot that had to be said, but nobody was taking the first step.
"Do you want something to eat? Drink?" Aya asked quickly, almost seeming oblivious to the tension in the air.
She was a good actor.
"Actually, I could use both," I said sheepishly, feeling my hunger and thirst grow tenfold at her suggestion of food and drink.
Before I could say a thing, she'd sprung up and gone to the kitchen to get me something. I was about to follow and help, but Shibata spoke to me and kept me seated.
"I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable last weekend. I didn't mean to react that way to you. I think Aya-chan explained why I did that..."
I felt like I was in a science fiction movie. The topic we were about to get into - the topic I had decided from there on to push us deeper into - was the perfect subject for such a movie.
"I think I kind of get it," I said with a forgiving look.
Shibata took a sip of tea, pausing with her lips just grazing the rim of the cup. I looked down at the surface of the table. Aya started to heat something up in the microwave.
I pictured a photographer coming in silently and taking a photo of the scene. Critics would call it his next great work. They'd say things like "the way he's photographed it, you can see the tension - the awkwardness - in the air!"
No, it wasn't so much awkwardness as it was an uncertainty as to how to proceed. Since there was no precedent, the three of us didn't know what was going on. We didn't know how to talk about it. Our brains required different methods to process the information. If anything, Aya had the best chance of the three of us. She'd been painfully aware of at least the first situation - the disappearance of her proper Miki - for months. At least she was prepared to think in a different way. The second situation was the fact that people in this city - people like Shibata - felt a strange familiarity when they saw me. This one none of us had a grasp on.
"What about me do you find familiar?"
To say I was mildly interested would be an understatement. I was wildly curious. Shibata, on the other hand, couldn't keep a flash of discomfort from passing through her eyes.
"Why?" she asked me.
Why? Wasn't it obvious? I wanted to know just how similar we were. Who was this other girl that shared my face and half of my history?
I was about to get this point across to her in fewer and more abrupt words when Aya came back with a bowl of food and tea for me. Shibata and I hushed up as she set them both down in front of me, and I looked at her gratefully.
"Thanks, Aya-chaaaan," I said cutely, forgetting Shibata was there.
It wasn't a meal for kings. It was rice and green beans. Simple, but good for someone who hadn't eaten a proper meal in days. I started to eat as slowly as possible, taking my time so that I wouldn't get that sick feeling one gets when one eats too quickly on an empty stomach.
"Well, now that she's awake, I should be going," Shibata said, standing up.
I paused with chopsticks in my mouth and Aya looked up in surprise.
"No, don't go," she said. "You don't have to."
Shibata looked down at me quickly, and I nodded in agreement with Aya. I still wanted an answer to my question.
"I should, though. It's getting late."
Shibata would not accept the invitation to stay longer. Aya got up to see her to the door as I sat and watched from the able.
"Once you recover fully, give me a call. I'm sure we could find time to talk," Shibata said to me.
She then followed Aya to the door. With a wave, she was gone.
Aya came back to the table and sat across from me.
"Are you sure you're feeling better?" she asked worriedly.
"Aya-chan, I'd be doing cartwheels around the living room right now if I wasn't afraid of crashing into your furniture," I reassured her. "I'm fine."
She looked relieved.
"You had me worried. One more day and I would've dragged you to the hospital."
I smiled at her while chewing.
"I'm fine," I repeated through a mouthful of rice.
Aya took the remote control and turned the television set on, setting it to some talk show for background noise. I looked at the screen, and when I saw the newscaster, I was reminded of Nakanoko-chan. The woman on the screen bore an uncanny resemblance to my friend, which reminded me that I'd called her a while ago and had heard no reply from her. I'd become too busy with my life to follow up on my failed call to her, and I suddenly wondered if she was okay.
"But I need to make a phone call," I said quickly, getting up and trying to find my phone.
"Kuni-chan?" Aya asked. "She called a couple of times to see how you were. She'll be happy to hear from you."
"Oh, that troublemaker? I'd forgotten about her," I joked. "No, that's not who I'm calling. A friend from back home."
I found my phone and settled back at the table.
"Are you finished with that?" Aya asked, pointing to my bowl.
I nodded. She took it with the rest of the things from the table and went to do the dishes, giving me some privacy. I found the correct number and pressed dial, waiting impatiently for a response.
Six rings later when I thought I'd be directed to the voicemail box, a tired voice answered.
"Hello?"
"Nakanoko-chan!" I exclaimed, although positive that something was wrong.
"Micchan, hi," she said, sounding relieved that it was me.
Who else could it be? It's not like anyone else could be calling from this number.
"Are you all right?" I asked.
"Actually, I'm at the hospital right now," she said in a quiet voice.
My heart froze.
"What happened?" I demanded.
"I'm okay," she said quickly. "I didn't tell you before, but my uncle was diagnosed with cancer. It wasn't too serious, but his condition got worse two weeks ago. I've been practically living here because he has nobody else. The doctor says he doesn't have much longer."
I'd heard of this uncle. He was a terror. Nakanoko-chan had always told me horror stories about him back when we were younger, but over the years as she grew up and got to know him, he became less scary and more interesting. Now he was on his deathbed...
"I'm sorry," I said.
"Don't be. He's had a full life. People might not like him much, but he's pretty satisfied with what he's accomplished. Listen, I'm sorry for not returning your call before. You sounded like you needed a friend."
"Hah," I said, remembering that terrible day. "I'm fine now. Just had a rough day."
I heard a noise on her end.
"Hang on a sec," she said quickly, and I heard her speak to someone before coming back on the line. "Micchan, I'll contact you later. There's been a change in his condition."
My heart went out to her. It sounded like a change for the worse. I said goodbye, and I wondered when the next time I'd talk to her would be.
"Everything okay?" Aya asked, coming back to sit with me.
I explained briefly the situation, and she stayed respectfully silent, and I compared my life in Hokkaido to my life in Kanto. There was one thing that didn't make sense to me, and I changed our topic of conversation to reflect my curiosity.
"Why is it that none of this weirdness started until I came here to this city?" I asked. "I lived the vast majority of my life without being mistaken for some non-existent celeb. Then I met you, came here, and suddenly the entire city is bowing at my feet."
Aya looked just as puzzled about the question as I did.
"I don't know," she sighed. "I don't understand any of it. I haven't found any answers. Trust me, I would have told you."
That was a mood dampener. We sat silently watching the talk show.
Maybe we weren't supposed to meet, I thought suddenly. Maybe things got messed up because of her coming to my hometown.
I shook my head. What a ridiculous thought!
"What?" she asked.
I shook my head again.
"Nothing. Are you tired? Go to bed. You've been working long shifts playing famous star and doctor."
"I'm not ti-" she started, but she interrupted herself with a yawn, followed by a sheepish look. "I'm exhausted and I have to leave here at five-thirty tomorrow. Do you mind if I go ahead?"
I pointed to her bedroom commandingly.
"Go sleep."
She saluted me and went off to get ready for bed.
I sat in the living room, not one bit tired, wondering what was going to happen from that moment on. I turned to the television and watched talk shows well into the early morning, falling asleep under the kotatsu and having pleasant dreams that I couldn't remember the next morning.
-
Chapter 22 of 29
I woke up later in the morning around ten. I was lying on the floor, boiling hot. A pillow had been placed under my head, probably by Aya when she'd woken up to get ready for work.
I got up, testing my legs carefully. Still weak but working. I took a long bath so that my skin was squeaky clean when I got out. Then I called my first boss.
Fukuda was exhilarated to speak with me. He told me to come in next on Monday morning if I was certain I was all right. I told him I could go in earlier than that, but he insisted I take the weekend to finish recovering. He added in that on Monday morning Kuniko would be working a shift.
"She's been bothering me all week about wanting to work with you. I told her it was out of my control, but she seems to think I'm a miracle doctor."
I got embarrassed by this and mumbled something half-hearted. Fukuda sensed my mood, and without pushing that any further, he said he'd send an e-mail as soon as possible with a revised schedule for next week. A schedule that included me.
We said goodbye, and I decided to wait before calling into my other job. Once I knew one schedule, it would be easier to figure out the other one.
I didn't have to wait long. Fifteen minutes later while I was rummaging for breakfast, Fukuda e-mailed me the revised schedule.
Fujimoto-sama-sama
Nice to have you back!
he wrote at the end of it. I wondered briefly if in the other Miki's world, Fukuda had been someone in an inferior position to her and thus acted so nice to me without meaning to.
Or it could simply be that he was a really nice guy.
I had no idea.
I forgot about breakfast for a moment and wrote the schedule directly on my calendar, calling up U-Con immediately after finishing. Tsuyoshi picked up the phone, and he shrieked when he heard my voice.
"You're alive!"
He sounded like a girl, that dork. He quizzed me about my week, asking how I felt and so on. I give him curt answers because I wanted to ask him questions instead.
"Sekiguchi!" I yelled over his monologue about good cold medicine. "What's been going on there?"
I craved the gossip. How disgustingly nosey of me.
"Oh, well, so much had happened while you've been gone."
He sounded like a hairdresser that used to work at the salon I went to get my hair done at.
"Kuniko started trouble with Katherine and got into a huge row with her. Ohashi came by and joined Kuniko against Katherine. They were coming down hard on her until Boss came out of his office and demanded to know what the commotion was. Well, Kuniko and Ohashi sprinted away almost literally, saying Katherine had problems she needed to take up with him. Of course she didn't, but she was left to explain the mess. So she couldn't, except that I had heard the entire thing from down the hall 'cause I had been cleaning up Hiromi's desk. Katherine was really angry, and she said to Boss..."
Wake me up when it's over, I thought, rolling my eyes, suddenly wondering why I'd asked.
"That's great, but how is everything now?"
There was a giant pause. An embarrassed one.
"It's all okay. They all apologised to each other. Even Kuniko."
So then why did you bother telling me anything happened if nothing's changed?! I thought in my head, although not really angry.
"I think you're really bored, Tsuyoshi-kun. Really bored."
He laughed nervously.
"Is it that obvious?"
"You need a life," I laughed.
He got offended, we argued playfully, and then we got down to business discussing schedules. Tsuyoshi said he had things covered until the new week started, so I wouldn't have to go in until Monday afternoon if that was possible. I told him the same thing I told Fukuda - I could go in sooner. He insisted that I start Monday, so instead of looking a gift horse in the mouth, I accepted the free weekend, and we hung up satisfied to have been able to talk with one another after so long.
The rest of the day I spent watching television, unwilling to leave the warmth and comfort of such a luxurious apartment. When Aya came home that evening, I was dozing on the couch and had been doing so for the past two hours. I woke up to a savage jab in the temple.
"You lazy girl. You're not even dressed," she scolded me.
I looked at her uninterestedly and then indicated my fully clothed self.
"What's this?" I asked her.
Her glare deepened when she saw the track pants I was wearing.
"You look like a yanki."
I continued to stare at her with a look of indifference, and she eventually moved off to put her things away.
"So where's my dinner?" she asked.
Dinner?!
I had completely forgotten about dinner. How could I have missed the opportunity to cook?
I sprung up and hurried to the kitchen to look through the cupboards. Aya followed me as I started to get the rice out.
"I was joking," she laughed.
I frowned.
"No, I should've made something."
I continued to prepare the rice, scooping some into a bowl and filling it with water.
"Have you ever thought of pursuing cooking?" she asked.
I stopped cleaning the rice, my hand submerged in the water.
"Huh?" I asked, not comprehending.
"I mean professionally."
"Why would you suggest that?" I asked, swishing the rice round and round in the bowl.
She came to stand right beside me and watch me clean.
"Because I think you would've gotten angry if I'd scolded you about anything else. But I asked you to cook, and you seem to love it enough to feel obligated to prepare a meal."
I stopped cleaning and thought for a moment.
Me? Become a chef? Study the culinary arts? That would be different from what I'd always dreamed of doing. But spending all day cooking sounded nice.
"You could take a class and see if you like it..."
For a brief moment I thought this was Aya's way of overcompensating for her earlier high expectations. However, when I looked at her, she seemed genuine. The more I thought about it, the more it appealed to me. I didn't say anything aloud, but my thoughts were probably etched clearly on my face. I was making no attempt to hide them.
"I'll ask some people I know. See if they can recommend a good class. You can work it into your schedule," she offered.
I smiled. It was nifty knowing someone with connections.
"Thanks," I said simply, returning to washing. "Sounds fun."
She went off to do something else while I pondered my future as well as what to eat that night. Cooking sounded much more interesting than bookkeeping. Studying herbs and spices would be much more fascinating than analysing world economies.
Later on during dinner, we talked about a few winter festivals happening on the weekend. We were wondering whether to go to one on Sunday when Aya seemed to receive a communiqué via a telepathic line. She looked up abruptly from her soup, her eyes sharp and open widely.
"Are you free tomorrow?"
I nodded. Of course!
"I'd like to take you somewhere to meet someone."
And that was it. No further description.
"Okay. Where? Who?"
Aya gave me a mysteriously happy look.
"A very interesting woman who owns a café not too far away from here."
"Let me guess," I spoke with rising suspicions. "A café that you and the other me went to often."
I didn't mean to speak darkly, but it just happened. I couldn't control my discomfort.
She caught onto my mood quickly and tried to placate me.
"Just trust me about this one. She's a unique woman. I think she'll like you for you. She's really aware of, um, things. I'm not sure how to explain it."
"Like Shiba-chan?" I asked.
"Hm. Probably the best comparison I can think of. They're somewhat similar. But Ochiai-san is waaaaay way out there."
I raised sceptical eyebrows.
"In a good way!" Aya quickly amended.
My sceptical eyebrows went down.
"How'd you meet her?"
Aya looked surprised by the question, and then she put down her glass of water to think. Finally, she spoke.
"I can't say. I don't remember," she laughed.
Is she being an airhead or was it just so long ago that she really can't remember?
Whichever it was, it didn't really matter. I'd find out the next day who this woman was.
We spent our evening in. We were very quiet. I stayed up late again watching television because I wasn't one bit tired due to all the napping I'd done all day. Aya went to bed at an early and uncool hour for a Friday night. Once again, I fell asleep wedged under the kotatsu.
Very early in the morning, probably just before sunrise, I felt something touch me. I jerked awake. I hadn't been asleep for long. My eyes snapped open and there was a figure standing over me. I started to scramble up as the figure spoke.
"Get out from under there," Aya whispered. "You're going to get sick again if you don't sleep properly."
She dragged me up and took me to her bedroom, where she pushed me on the bed. I curled up against the wall and closed my eyes. Aya left the room and then came back a few seconds later. I turned around and saw her holding a glass of water and drinking. She put the glass down on the bookcase and then got into bed.
"Goodnight," she whispered, pulling the blankets up to her chin and closing her eyes.
And so without any pomp and circumstance, I mumbled "Goodnight," and then promptly fell back asleep.
Aya woke me up again at ten. She looked quite happy.
"Get up and get ready!"
She left, assuming I'd get up on my own. She was horribly wrong. I went right back to sleep and didn't move a muscle until she woke me up half an hour later.
"I've been waiting for you all this time!" she screeched, grabbing the sleeve of my pyjamas and hauling me out of bed, making me fall onto the floor with a loud thump. "I thought you were getting ready!"
"I'm tired," I groaned
I felt a sting where my hip had taken the hit. I was definitely going to get a bruise.
"Get dressed and hurry," she ordered me in a sharp tone, throwing a pair of socks at me.
I grabbed at the footwear and gave her a cold glare. She left the room, and despite the need I felt to be rebellious and not listen to a single word she said, I remembered her scary personality and quickly got changed out of my night clothes.
"Breakfast?" I asked, walking out of the bedroom.
"None for you," she snickered from the sink as she washed some dishes.
While I thought she was joking, she proved that she wasn't. She managed to keep me away from the kitchen with threats, and then eventually with physical violence. The bruise on my hip became the least of my worries. At least I forgot that I'd been sick for a week and that I was in a world that was, in short, messed up.
We left the apartment an hour later, my stomach growling. We were heading to the café.
"Come to think of it, I haven't seen Occhiai-san in a long time. Not since last year around August," Aya thought aloud.
"Was the other Miki with you?" I asked.
"The way I remember it, yeah," Aya replied with a frown. "But who knows what version everyone in this world remembers. Maybe I went alone, maybe with Shiba-chan, maybe with someone else..."
I guess I could always ask this Ochiai woman who Aya had come with. A strange question to a stranger, but what had to be done had to be done.
We hopped on a train and found ourselves at the café in a matter of minutes.
When we were about to step through the front door, however, I felt a wave of apprehension pass through me.
"What is it?" Aya asked, pausing with her hand on the door.
What if things got weird in there? What if I heard something I didn't want to? What if I was expected to say or do something and I said or did neither? Was Ochiai going to have any expectations? Was I going to mess everything up?
"Nothing," I said with a warm smile, sweeping my worries under the carpet. "Let's go in. I'm cold."
A wind chime rang out as Aya pushed the door open. The inside of the coffee shop was peaceful and immediately calming. It felt like home, which was what I thought the owner was probably going for. It was designed to look like a clean, neat, upper-middle class European home, but not in an overwhelming way.
We were met by a server who gave Aya a surprised look but said nothing other than her greetings. It was a look that said "long time no see!" but that had to be kept behind a professional mask.
We sat at a table by the window and had menus placed before us. Before the server left, Aya made a quick "stay" hand gesture.
"Is your manager around?"
I didn't think it would happen, but the girl smiled.
"Am I in trouble again?" she asked.
"Big trouble," Aya said with a straight face, which made the server laugh quietly.
Some inside joke I obviously didn't get.
"Yes, let me go get her."
The girl went off and disappeared into the kitchen.
"Friend?" I asked.
"No," Aya replied, lifting the stone expression from her face and smiling. "I just know her from here."
I still didn't get the joke, but oh well.
I had no time to ask about it. From the kitchen emerged a woman who looked like she was in her thirties. She was one of those women that didn't try to hide her age, but managed to not look older because of it. She was wearing casual business clothes, her outfit topped off with a dark blue apron. She spotted us, and with a face that displayed some sort of emotion that I couldn't read, she walked over to us quickly.
"Oh, thank god," said the woman when she reached us, heaving out a breath of relief and looking right at me. "You exist."
Aya and I exchanged wide-eyed, puzzled looks.
My life was turning out to be very strange.
-
Chapter 23 of 29
I don't know exactly what happened in the thirty seconds that followed Ochiai's statement. Aya and I looked at each other, looked at Ochiai, and then back at each other in an involuntary imitation of a silly cartoon scene.
Aya was the first to react verbally.
"Excuse me?" she asked politely.
The manager of the café - who, with her simple statement, had just freaked me out in a way worse than Aya and Shibata had combined - invited herself to the third chair at our table and sat very straight, her hands folded on the table in front of her in an attempt to demonstrate the calm she had regained. She looked directly at me, and I found myself squirming under her gaze. She began to narrate her story.
"About four months ago, I realised everything had changed. I don't know exactly when it happened, but when you two didn't come here as usual, I began to pry. I checked up some sources and discovered that your histories had changed. Well, yours had," she said, looking at Aya and then looking at me, "but yours didn't even exist."
"Wait," I interrupted. "You actually know me?"
The woman nodded.
"And it's not just that you kind of recognise me or think you know me?" I asked, perhaps feeling a bit desperate.
I wanted her to just recognise me, not know me. That way nothing would be different from the current norm. We were already aware of people recognising me, and we were trying to deal with it. If this woman actually knew who I was, then we'd have to figure yet another thing out.
Ochiai frowned, and I lost hope.
"Yes, I know you."
"Ochiai-san," Aya said quietly. "The same thing happened to me."
Ochiai looked at her.
"I woke up in a changed world where Miki-chan didn't appear to exist."
"Hey, I exist," I butted in, getting a little annoyed at my existence being brushed aside.
"Sorry," Aya apologised. "I mean the one that I knew didn't exist."
"So who is this?" Ochiai asked, looking at me again with a slight frown.
"Who do you think I am? Didn't you just say you knew me?" I retorted in an exasperated way.
Ochiai and Aya both paused and looked at me. They must have known how painful it was to sit there and be talked about like that. They must have realised they were being rude and confusing. Or something.
"I mean," Ochiai continued slowly, "you're obviously different from the Fujimoto-san that I knew four months ago, but you're also obviously the same person. I want to know how you got here. How you met her."
She gestured towards Aya.
"That's Aya's story to tell," I mumbled, hoping that some light would be shed after everything was explained.
Aya looked at me as if getting permission to speak, and I gave her the go ahead: a blank look and a small nod.
"I woke up one day and she had disappeared. Nobody here - none of our friends or co-workers - knew who she was. Only I seemed to have a memory of her. When I realised she had been erased from the world, I went up to Hokaido to see if I could find her," she explained. "When I found her, she didn't know who I was. Not a single memory."
"And yet you still managed to convince her to come here?" Ochiai asked.
Aya appeared flustered at the question, and I, too, wanted to tell this lady to stop being so nosey. Not that I cared. But wait. I did.
"Yeah, but that's not the point," I interrupted, and Ochiai let it be.
"All right. So what's happened since coming here?"
Aya took another deep breath.
"She got here at the beginning of January, and at first it was okay, but-"
"It was never okay," I continued for her, wanting to tell my side of the story. "From the moment I stepped off the train to go to Aya's place, people started to react strangely to me. I've had people coming up to me and then apologising because they thought I was someone else. I've had people staring at me with strange looks on their faces. I've also had inexplicable encounters with people who had already judged me and have certain expectations of me. I've made enemies with people I've never met before in my life. I've probably received special treatment, too, because of who this other Miki is."
Aya jumped in and quickly explained the situation with Shibata, and by the end of it, I thought Ochiai would think we were crazy and leave.
She didn't, however. She stayed and continued to talk.
"I'd like to confirm some things if that's okay with you. Just bear with me."
Aya nodded.
"You've been patronising this shop for many years now."
Aya nodded again.
"At least once a week, sometimes more. At the end of October, you stopped coming here, and I had a bad feeling about it. It took me a month to turn to the gossip magazines and see what was happening with you. What I saw were the usual ridiculous rumours, but what caught my eye was an odd reference. You and your friend Shibata-san having done a tour together. I don't consider myself an expert on your life, but I knew that had never happened. Am I right?"
"Right. It never happened!"
Aya sounded thankful.
"Well, at least what we know seems to match up."
"It does," Aya mumbled, the relief clearly showing on her face.
Silence for a beat.
"Why do you think this happened?" Aya asked.
Ochiai didn't appear to notice she was being addressed. She sat in silence for a long time staring at the table, her face expressionless. I was about to repeat Aya's question when she spoke up.
"I don't know," she started. "I have no experience with supernatural phenomena. Excuse me."
With surprising speed, Ochiai got up and walked over to the kitchen where a distressed man in an apron was waving her over. Maybe there was a cookie emergency. She went through the door, and Aya and I were left alone again in the empty café.
"I can't believe she knows who you are," Aya said to me in awe.
I shifted uncomfortably.
"I think it's creepy. Who is she?"
Aya eyed me with a smile.
"See? I told you she was an interesting character. Do you believe me now?"
I nodded grudgingly. Creepy or not, she had my attention.
"So what should we do now? What if there are more people who know the other Miki?"
"I somehow doubt there's anyone else."
She sounded positive. I chose to believe her. The alternative was frightening. Or at least a fraction more frightening than reality.
"I-" she started to continue, but Ochiai popped out of the kitchen and came back to our table.
"Apologies. Cake emergency."
Well, I'd been close enough in my guess.
"Frankly, at first when you didn't come here for a few weeks," Ochiai continued as though there had been no interruption, "I thought things had broken down between you two. Nothing was quite the same since that debacle a few years ago."
Of course I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was extremely curious as to what this "debacle" had been, and I was also a bit put off by the fact that Ochiai knew a little more about me and Aya than most people did.
I looked over at Aya questioningly, but she was looking at Ochiai with a pleasant but clueless face.
"What debacle?" she asked.
Ochiai looked at me and then back at Aya.
"The magazine article..." she said slowly, trying to jog Aya's memory.
Aya now looked confused.
"What magazine article?"
Ochiai looked at her, and then for the first time I saw a look of discomfort appear on her face.
"About Fujimoto-san's indiscretion."
My indiscretion? Or more like the other Miki's indiscretion? What had the other Miki done?
Aya's look turned slightly towards the negative side.
"What are you talking about?" she demanded.
What was going on? Had Aya forgotten about something the other Miki had done? Or did she not want to talk about it and was trying to convey that to Ochiai?
Ochiai looked at me again and then spoke.
"Tell me you don't remember about three or four years ago when Fujimoto-san appeared in Friday magazine and was revealed to be dating Shouji-san, the comedian, for quite a few months."
"Huh?!?"
Aya's outburst surprised me. She yelled so loudly that the chef who had called Ochiai over earlier poked his head out of the kitchen door to make sure a robbery wasn't in progress.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Indeed, I thought.
What had happened? A comedian? A betrayal? A scandal?
Ochiai frowned deeply and then related to us an interesting tale. Apparently the other Miki had been caught up in a dating scandal and had been fired because of it. It all sounded ridiculous to me. Why fire a girl for having a boyfriend? I began to wonder why I had ever wanted to be an idol so badly in my youth.
"After that happened, you two met here and fought like vultures. You both eventually stormed off. I thought that was it. I thought it was over for you two. But about a month after Fujimoto-san had been fired, she came to me for help and advice. Somehow you two started talking again and you repaired whatever had been broken."
Aya stared at Ochiai. I wanted to reach over and shut her mouth for her. It was hanging open like she was waiting to catch insects for lunch.
"You don't remember any of that?"
Aya managed a nod.
"Shouji-san?" Ochiai tried.
Aya shook her head.
"Doesn't ring a bell," she rasped out.
It didn't ring a bell in my mind either, but that was to be expected.
"Then I think our problem is a bit bigger than I originally thought," Ochiai muttered.
She sounded almost perversely happy about that. I wished she wouldn't derive excitement from this situation. This was my life being screwed up. It wasn't a game or a TV programme.
A hundred questions ran through my head, most of them starting with "what the" and then descending into foul language. Aya just sat there looking stunned.
"That never happened. Miki never did that to me. She never would. Never. Right?"
She looked at me as though I was supposed to know the answer. I shrugged, which I think did no good to ease her mind.
"Forgive me for sounding strange," Ochiai said quietly, "but I think the three of us are from very different places."
By that she meant different worlds? Dimensions? Because that was a whacked out theory, but nothing explained it better. Aya was from a world where we were happy together until she had to go on a three month business trip and Miki disappeared. Ochiai was from a world where Miki cheated, Aya forgave, and things were put back together until Miki disappeared. I was from a world where I'd met neither of these people - nor any comedian.
"How could this have happened?" I asked, taking charge.
Aya looked like she was going through some huge inner turmoil. She wasn't looking at either of us.
"I can't even begin to guess," was Ochiai's unhelpful answer.
"Ochiai-san, how did we meet?" Aya asked suddenly, interrupting us.
"Here in the café. You've been a regular for quite a few years now."
"And did we talk much?"
Ochiai tilted her head to the side in thought.
"Not until after the scandal. Up until then, we chatted about the weather."
Aya nodded, pensiveness etched into every crease in the skin of her face.
"I just thought of something, Ochiai-san."
We both looked at her, but she kept her eyes trained on Ochiai only, not sparing me a single glance. It made my stomach sink just a bit as an impending sense of doom came over me.
"How did I know your name?"
"Huh?" I couldn't help but say.
"You never learned it?" Ochiai asked curiously.
Aya nodded.
"I've chatted with you occasionally - enough to get a sense of your personality - but I never learned your name. So how did I know your name?"
Aya and Ochiai stared at each other and I watched.
If Aya had no memory of learning Ochiai's name, then how had she been able to use it the night before to describe to me who we were going to meet? It was knowledge that she didn't know she had. Knowledge placed in her mind.
I had a thought.
"Could it be that, like, um..." I trailed off stupidly, unable to express myself coherently.
Ochiai eyed me with the same curious look that had been on her face the past minute. Aya eyed me with a neutral expression. I wanted to sink into the ground.
"Could it be like how everyone's been recognising me? Somehow, somewhere, wires have been crossed and people like Shibata have had this information put into their brains without knowing it?"
What had seemed like a good theory in my mind sounded so stupid spoken aloud that I couldn't believe I've been the one to say it. However, Ochiai seemed to like the idea.
"That's one way to think of it," she said thoughtfully. "But the question of how it came to be still stands, as well as why the three of us seem to be a little different."
Nobody knew. Nobody knew because it was a messed up, impossible situation that only belonged on television and in dreams.
"Hey Aya-chan," I said softly.
She looked at me.
"What do you think?" I asked her, seeking her opinion.
I had come to rely on it. On what she thought. Now we needed her thoughts more than ever.
"I think..." she mumbled. "I think I want to go home."
I blinked.
"Okay," I said.
Ochiai took out a pen and wrote her name, phone number, and e-mail address on a pad of paper that she took out of nowhere. She slid it over to us.
"I think we'll need to talk some more later."
Aya nodded blankly, took the paper, and put it in her purse.
"Let's go," I said, standing up.
She stood up quietly and we said goodbye to Ochiai. I told her we'd come back soon. She saw us off to the door.
The train ride home was deathly silent. Aya looked concentrated, and I didn't want to say anything out of fear. We got back to Aya's apartment, and I sat on the couch while Aya went off to her room to do something. When she came back, she saw me just sitting here and then went to the kitchen.
"You hungry?" she asked.
Surprised that she was talking to me, I turned around.
"Yes."
She asked nothing else and went about preparing lunch. I didn't dare offer to help. I could tell she was in a foul mood. I didn't criticise her cooking technique when she handed me a plate of lopsided onigiri. I smiled, took a bite, and said it tasted good.
She remained seated on the floor and gave me no reply.
What the hell? What did I do? Why was she angry with me? I suspected she was angry at me about what she'd found out from Ochiai, but that wasn't fair. That wasn't me in the magazine. That wasn't me.
"Hey, Aya," I said with a bit of an edge in my voice. "Why the silent treatment?"
She put her food down and looked up at me.
"I'm just thinking, okay?"
She spoke so defensively that it was obvious something was wrong.
"You know, the stuff that Ochiai-san told us about was about someone else. Not me," I reminded her.
I detected a bit of a twitch in one of her eyebrows.
"That other Miki - or other other Miki from Ochiai-san's world - is not me. Okay? She's another person."
I spoke maybe a tad too angrily, but I'd had enough of being associated with other people whether consciously or unconsciously.
Aya sighed and picked up a half-eaten onigiri and studied it for thirty seconds.
"Do you think you could give me some time alone?"
She may as well have started chanting in Yiddish. I might have been less surprised.
Time alone? That meant "get out" in a polite way.
I had done nothing wrong. Absolutely nothing wrong. And I was being kicked out of the only place I had to stay. Out into the cold of the streets.
I considered my possibilities. I could start arguing with her, but then where would that leave us? I probably wouldn't want to stick around afterwards if we argued viciously. I could beg for forgiveness, but I couldn't bring myself to do that when I'd done absolutely nothing wrong. I could try and talk to her in a level-headed way... but if the person I was talking to was being unreasonable, I'd turn unreasonable, too. I could do as she asked and just walk out. Find somewhere to stay.
I chose the last option. Without finishing my lunch, I stood up, grabbed a few things of mine, and walked to the door.
"I can't believe you," I said quietly.
I slipped on my shoes and jacket and walked out. I hadn't seen or heard her move from her seat. Obviously I'd interpreted her words correctly.
Stupid idiot Aya! I screamed in my mind.
Why was she such a child? Why would she blame something like that on me? Why did she have to keep thinking I was that other girl? She'd promised me that that's not what she'd been doing, but she was. She was doing it now as I walked down the hallway, my anger showering me like buckets of water poured from a balcony.
Once I got out of the building, I pulled my phone out. It was past one o'clock. It was cold. I was miserable and pissed off.
I dialled up Kuniko.
She answered the phone screaming my name.
"Fujimocchan!!!"
I held the device a metre away from my head until the screaming died down.
"Are you busy now?" I asked before she could start with any pleasantries.
"You're so rude!" she scolded me. "You could at least ask how I've been the past week."
"Are you busy now?" I repeated.
"No," she huffed.
"Where are you?"
"I'm shopping in Shibuya," she replied.
She was out in public and answering her phone like that? How embarrassing.
"Are you alone?"
There was an excited pause for breath.
"Actually, I met this guy on Wednesday at a club and he promised he'd prove that he could go on a shopping date with a girl without falling asleep, so he-"
"Oh," I said, trying to keep the dismay out of my voice.
So much for hanging out with her.
She didn't carry on, however. She stopped her ramble.
"Are you okay?" she asked quietly, turning serious.
I laughed bitterly in my mind.
"I've been better," I replied truthfully.
"Wait," she said, and I heard her speak to someone before coming back on the line. "Come and meet me. I just sent him home."
Now there was friendship.
"Thanks, Kuni-chan," I said gratefully.
"How long will you be?"
I looked at my watch. I had to get to the station first.
"Twenty minutes."
"Good. Meet me at the south exit."
I made a sound of consent, hung up, and picked up my pace, walking further away from the source of all my troubles and towards a person that at least didn't purposely blame me for someone else's idiotic mistakes.
The whole short trip to Shibuya I went through bouts of anger, sadness, and even guilt. I couldn't believe I actually felt bad about something I'd never done. I would never do something like that on purpose. Maybe the other Miki had been sleepdating. Maybe she hadn't been aware that she was going out with that guy...
I shook my brain free of such thoughts. Why was I justifying some non-existent girl's unfaithful actions with such silly suggestions? And why was she so important anyway? It seemed the whole universe revolved around her. Or around me. Us. Each world was defined in terms of what its Fujimoto Miki had done. That sent shivers down my back.
Kuniko was standing right by the exit of the station when I got there. She was holding three or four shopping bags and her cell phone and looking cold. She was easy to spot because of it, and I smiled in relief as I walked over to her. She watched me the whole time, studying my face and not reacting in any way until I stopped in front of her. She gave me a knowing nod.
"Ice cream," she said as though a doctor prescribing medicine.
I nodded back with definite gusto. Four degrees centigrade weather be damned.
"Ice cream."
And so we went for the time-honoured medicine for matters of the heart: chocolate ice cream.
-
Chapter 24 of 29
The ice cream was rich and creamy. We sat and ate for a few minutes without talking and simply enjoying the heavenly taste of chocolate rolling off our tongues. At almost eight hundred yen, there was no choice but to enjoy every bite uninterrupted by conversation of any sort, pleasant or otherwise.
I ate about half of my ice cream without a single negative thought, but when I put my spoon down, I began to worry about what to tell Kuniko. There was no doubt that she was going to question me. I couldn't very well tell her that her world was being invaded by extra-dimensional people who remembered history differently. I needed a good story, but not a lie.
Kuniko finished three quarters of her ice cream and then joined me in putting her spoon down. She put her hands flat on the table and looked at me. I knew what was coming.
"Let's start from the beginning. What happened last week?"
I sighed. It was going to be an interesting journey.
"And no cutting corners. Last time I saw you, I was helping Aya-chan drag your delirious butt from in front of a train station where you'd slept in a snowstorm. Now I know you're not the brightest girl in the world," she said, and I glared at her, "but that's a really stupid thing to do."
"I was confused and sick," I mumbled in my defence.
"Sick in the head?"
"No!" I snapped. "I was upset and didn't want to go home, but I missed the last train that would get me out of there. I wanted to wait till the morning, but I kind of... fell asleep..."
She was right. It had been very stupid of me to do that.
"So why were you out there? What kind of fight did you get into?"
Here we go...
"I got upset because, uh, Aya-chan had these expectations of me. She was trying to... I don't know. Project her expectations on me by leading me around and making me do things she thought would give me her ideal final result.
"What kind of expectations?"
"Um," I started, taking another breath, "what to do with my life. Where to go. What to become."
Kuniko nodded and urged me to go on.
"She thought I'd move here and become some famous celebrity like her. Or something like that..."
Kuniko let out a dry chuckle.
"Anyway, I got a little angry because I overheard her talking about me to a friend on the phone."
"What kind of stuff did she say?" she asked, now completely engrossed in my story.
I pushed a piece of hair away from my eyes and checked the backs of my hands for no particular reason. The overheard phone conversation with Shibata had been strange. It had scared me, but not as much as it had scared me when I had been told the full story.
"Just, um, about the way I could've turned out if things had gone differently in my life. Not important. The point is that she pissed me off, I stormed off, I slept outside, and I got sick."
"But you guys settled everything, right?" Kuniko asked, looking a bit confused.
Who could blame her for being puzzled? Dispute after dispute. One settled, another started. That one settled, and then on to the next one. It was becoming clear that there was something special and highly dysfunctional between me and Aya.
"Yeah, she explained everything, and I listened for once. We sorted it out. But I was sick in bed until a couple of days ago."
Kuniko made a sound of surprise.
"And you're already eating rich chocolate ice cream?"
I looked down at my ice cream and then at her with a blank expression.
"Yeah. So?"
What did it matter?
"Never mind," she brushed it off. "Now tell me what happened today before you called me."
This would be the tricky one.
"It's hard to explain," I said hesitantly.
"Try me," Kuniko smiled.
"No, really. You won't get it."
"No, really. Try me."
"Kuni-chan, I can't explain it to you," I said firmly.
"And if you don't try, I'll leave right now and make you pick up the bill," she informed me in an equally hard voice.
"Fine," I said in a clipped, polite tone. "You see, Aya-chan is from a different dimension where I'm a celebrity. This morning we went to an acquaintance of hers, who also happens to be from an alternate dimension, but different from the one Aya-chan's from. In this acquaintance's dimension, the Miki there was a very bad girl who cheated on Aya-chan. It was even on the news, although that was because in her line of work, she wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend. So when this world's Aya-chan found out about the other Miki betraying the other Aya-chan, she got upset with me, and she asked me to give her some time alone, which meant to get out of her face."
Kuniko looked at me with a concentrated expression, ate a spoonful of ice cream, and then pushed her bowl away so that she could lean forward.
"So that other dimension's Fujimoto is a metaphor for... Aya-chan's expectations? And this acquaintance of hers is someone who planted the ideas in Aya-chan's head?"
Not quite, Kuni-chan. Not quite.
"Kind of."
"And so now Aya-chan - with all these ideas in her head - doubts just how good a girl you are?"
That part was fairly accurate.
"Uh huh."
She thought it through.
"You know, you could've explained it to me without the fancy sci-fi metaphor. What are you? Some kind of geek?"
"You're the one who plays that Pokemon game on her DS for three hours a day," I bit back, and she reached out and stabbed her nails into my forearm.
"Sh!" she hissed with an alarmed expression on her face. "Everybody doesn't need to know that!"
I winced in pain and then smirked.
"So Koda-kun was telling the truth."
Kuniko's jaw dropped.
"What? That bastard! That was mean, Fujimoto. Really, really mean."
"Hey, he seems to know a lot about you. Have you guys ever thought of-"
"Yes," Kuniko interrupted quickly. "And we tried, but we're totally not made for each other like that. He's totally like my brother."
I nodded, glad about the change of subject.
"Wait," I said slowly, a smile spreading across my lips. "Could it be that Koda-kun is one of the guys that you've-"
"Yes!" Kuniko cried out forcefully to shut me up. "And never ever mention that again. I've tried to repress that memory. Siblings shouldn't do that kind of thing together, and I learned that he and I shouldn't either."
My worries forgotten, I sat there with a sly smirk on my face. Now this was good gossip.
"And don't you dare tell anyone. So help me if you do," she threatened.
Since she had a lot she could hold against me, I decided not to push her too much. Who knew when she could snap and go nuts from the amount of teasing I did.
"But what about that guy you were with up until now? You met him at a club, you said."
Kuniko's attitude changed quickly from frighteningly menacing to stupidly cheerful.
"I think I've found a good one," she gushed. "We fell into this comfortable zone all morning. No awkwardness at all."
"Then why'd you say you weren't busy when I called?" I asked with a puzzled frown and a laugh.
"Well, I always have time for you!"
Oh please, I groaned in my head.
"That's because you haven't been able to harass me for a whole week, right?"
She shrugged.
"Pretty much."
I rolled my eyes.
"So what's he like?"
"Tall, handsome, cool," she replied with a sparkle in her eye.
"I bet he's a real geek who's into trains, or something," I snickered.
Kuniko turned her nose up at me.
"Believe what you want."
I smiled warmly and made amends.
"He must be pretty cool if you don't even need to defend him."
"But weren't we talking about you?" Kuniko interrupted our line of conversation, giving me a pointed look.
Oh, yes. We had been. But I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I was having a good time trying to forget that Aya now hated me for something I hadn't done and had never thought of doing. The distraction was exactly what I needed.
"How long are you supposed to stay out of her hair?"
I snorted.
"Who knows. An hour? A week? Forever?"
"It's not fair," Kuniko huffed angrily. "You haven't done anything wrong."
She could say it a million times over, and all I would be able to do was agree a million times over.
I nodded.
"... have you?" she tagged on timidly.
"Of course not!" I exclaimed immediately, offended. "I've done absolutely nothing even close to wrong. It's all in her head. She's a crazy lady."
"I'll say," Kuniko nodded. "Do you want me to call her and reason with her?"
I shook my head vigorously as she pulled her cell phone out.
"It won't do any good."
And then her cell phone rang. It made Kuniko almost jump up from her chair. It made me blink, but hardly anything could rattle me anymore. Not with my mind being inundated with stories of alternate universes and celebrity Mikis that slept around.
Kuniko looked at the display screen and then looked at me nervously.
"Um, it's her."
Aya was calling Kuniko. Just great. She knew how to trace me anywhere. I was too predictable.
"I won't answer if you don't want me to," Kuniko offered.
"Nah, you'd better pick up."
It would accomplish nothing for Kuniko to ignore her.
"It might not be about me anyway," I added quickly.
Of course it was going to be about me. The timing was right. She was probably going to ask Kuniko if she knew where I was. Then she probably would want to know if I'd told her anything, and then maybe try to glean some information about me. About how I acted when I went out with my friends. About anything suspicious I did. Stupid questions.
"Hello?" Kuniko spoke into the phone.
She waited a few beats.
"Have I talked to Miki-chan?" she repeated the question back to Aya while looking at me for guidance.
I shook my head and mouthed the word "no".
"No, I have not," Kuniko said as though reading a script in an obvious and exaggerated way.
I shot her a glare and she tried to fix it.
"Is she out and about? I'm so glad to hear she's better! I was so worried!"
You're overdoing it, I groaned in my head.
She stopped talking and listened
"So why didn't you just call her directly?"
She adjusted her reaction so that she sounded authentically puzzled. She listened some more.
"Oh."
She listened some more.
"I'm sure if you just call her-"
But she got cut off. Aya spoke some more.
"Ah, that is true. This is hot-headed Miki we're talking about," she laughed.
The traitor! I slapped her on the arm and she let out a sound of pain that she quickly muffled, but not before it had been heard.
"Oh, no," she laughed nervously into the phone. "Just bumped into a blunt object. I'm okay."
I continued to stare at her with an expression that told her I was not amused.
"Yeah... No, I'm sure you can... Good idea to wait, but not too long.... Yup... Bye bye."
She hung up and I waited for her report impatiently.
"She wants to talk to you."
"And?" I asked in exasperation when she didn't say anything more.
"Why am I caught in the middle of this? Ah!" Kuniko cried.
"Stop being foolish. What'd she say?"
"She just told me that you two got into an argument and that she wants to talk to you. Since you're so irascible, she figured she'd wait for you to cool down a bit."
"Oh wonderful," I ranted. "She's the one who acted all unreasonably angry, and then I'm not allowed to be pissed off. It's an unfair double standard, I tell you. Don't you think? When she calls I'm going to give her a piece of my mind."
I looked to Kuniko for support, but she had sat back in her chair and was holding her ice cream, eating the last bits slowly.
"Well? Don't you think?"
Kuniko looked up at me.
"I think you just proven her right."
Gah! I wanted to grab a plastic hammer and rap her and Aya on their respective heads with it.
"Why are you taking her side? You're my friend!"
Kuniko started to hum a tune.
"I don't know you. La la la la."
"Kuniko," I groaned.
"Never met this person before in my life," she said, speaking to a waiter who was walking by us.
He was too professional to look at us oddly, but I'm sure he was wondering how much whiskey we'd had before coming over to his shop for ice cream.
"Come on," I whined, dropping my anger and turning desperate.
"Fujimocchan, when she calls, just give her a chance, okay?"
She spoke so seriously that I stopped playing around and nodded, mirroring her seriousness. While I nodded, though, I wondered why I was receiving the "be nice" lecture. Was my temper really that bad? I supposed storming off into heavy snowfall and sleeping outdoors in the cold was rash and demonstrated a kind of pride that could be dangerous to my health. But I hadn't done anything violent. I hadn't hit anybody. I hadn't wished death upon anything. Although I was feeling at the moment that I wouldn't mind if Aya got hit on the head repeatedly with that imaginary plastic hammer.
I ate the remains of my ice cream in the silence we'd created and wondered when Aya would call, what I'd say to her, and, most importantly, what she'd say to me.
"What do you want to do after this?" Kuniko asked. "Retail therapy? It solves all problems!"
I shook my head. I'd taken up enough of her day. It was time for me to do some more thinking, not shopping.
"No. Why don't you call your date back? I think I'll take off on my own."
"You're not going to sleep in a malaria-infested ditch tonight, are you?"
She gave me a scathing look that told me I should know better. But stupid Kuniko. Everybody knew that we didn't have malaria in Japan.
"If you don't have a place to stay, I've got room at mine."
"No, I don't plan on staying outdoors again. Thanks for the offer," I replied warmly. "I'll let you know later."
I had learned my lesson. Feeling that burning coldness again was not something I wanted to do.
We paid for our ice cream and left the restaurant, shivering as the chilly wind nipped at our ears and cheeks.
"Mail me if anything interesting happens," I said with a wink as I saw Kuniko writing an e-mail to her date.
She laughed.
"Same with you."
I thanked her again for taking time out of her schedule to see me, and we said goodbye and parted. She headed in the direction of the station while I wandered down a busy street heading away from the hub of Shibuya. On the way down the street, a tall woman standing in front of a ramen shop eyed me curiously. She seemed to be waiting for someone. I shuffled by quickly. I wondered if the other Miki had known her.
I reached a crossroad after ten minutes and took the emptiest looking of the streets. I walked down it and turned on to an even emptier street. I found myself in an unfamiliar residential area, but I kept walking. If I stopped, I'd get cold. I continued for forty minutes through rows of streets I'd never been to before. It was after I walked by a police box when my phone rang. It was Aya sending me a message.
Is it all right to call you now?
Oh, how much I wanted to ignore her. But I couldn't do that. If anything, I needed a place to stay that night. I could get that with this phone call. Then again, she could have been calling to kick me out completely. In that case, there was nothing I could do anyway and may as well answer to find out if that was true.
I sighed and sent back a thumbs up emoticon. My phone rang soon after that.
"Mmhm?" I asked when I picked up.
"I'm sorry," she said.
I kept walking, my pace slowing down as the silence between us grew longer.
"That's it?" I asked eventually.
Oops. A little too rude. Oh well. She deserved it.
"I shouldn't have thought those things."
"Yeah, it was a little..." I trailed off.
"A lot. A lot stupid and unreasonable," she finished for me.
I said nothing, meaning I agreed.
"Come home?" she asked.
I stopped walking, turned around in the direction of the place I imagined her to be in, and waited a beat before answering.
"Okay."
Another few beats went by during which we hung up without another word passed between us. I began to walk back to the police box to check the map and find the nearest train station.
When I got back to the apartment, I rang the doorbell instead of opening it with the key I still had. Aya let me in and hugged me, apologising for treating me like I'd done something wrong. She said that it had been a shock, and learning that Ochiai was from a different world, too, had exacerbated her confusion. She had needed some time to come to the terms with everything.
Of course I forgave her. Maybe because I wasn't able to stay angry at her for long. She cast a magic spell on me that weakened me in front of her. Maybe because I was just plain stupid and didn't mind being hurt over and over again. I took care to reassure her that I was smarter than the Miki of Ochiai's world and that I would never do something so careless and insensitive (if I was awake, but I didn't remind Aya about that).
One could not say that I wasn't relieved that I'd been cleared of all crimes. But I wasn't completely at ease. Would this happen again? How many more times? And with whom? I wasn't just concerned about Aya, but also about everyone around me. I would be so miserable if I got fired for something someone else did. If I lost my friends for no good reason.
Down in my stomach, at the bottom of my heart, and at the back of my mind, I just didn't know how much more of it I could take. This world. This situation. It was becoming too much for me, and my strength was starting to break. I tried to remind myself about how I felt when Aya had told me about all her troubles, discovering her Miki didn't exist and putting her career on the line to go searching. I tried to steel myself against all the strangeness and do like Aya had done by plunging forward into the unknown. But I couldn't. Not when she was being so unreliable. Not when I'd given up life with my family to move to a city of strangers. Even my closest friends couldn't help me because they didn't know my problems. It sometimes felt like I had nobody I could trust implicitly.
I had no choice at the moment, however, but to keep on going and try to make sense of my life. So with that in mind, I told Aya it was all okay and that I wouldn't hold this against her. We tried to return to our normal lives, but something remained askew in my mind. I wanted to fix it, but try as I might, I couldn't think of a way. I would have to think a little harder.
-
Chapter 25 of 29
I went back to work with joy. Anything to keep me busy and distracted was deemed okay by me. For those few hours I could chat with whoever shared my shift at the convenience store, I forgot that the world was screwed up. Even working at U-Con had become easier. Ohashi and Kuniko the Lesser had taken to avoiding me, something I did not mind at all. Katherine had also been coming by my desk to chat more often, and she started dragging me down to the studio for twenty or thirty minutes when we both had spare time, giving me dancing lessons and offering me encouraging words.
I went out with Kuniko and some other friends twice, but both times I was recognised by people in the club and was a bit put off because of it. One man insisted that he'd met me somewhere before. When he couldn't place it, he'd sat down in confusion and tried to figure it out. I had almost wanted to comfort him and tell him the whole story, but of course that would have been a preposterous thing to do.
Kuniko started dating the guy she'd met at the club. She was tight-lipped about details, though, although we had not had much time to talk. That was fine by me. I'd crack her soon enough. Besides, she promised she'd bring him along to the next gathering, so I waited patiently for that day.
Aya pulled through for me with the cooking course, and through a friend of hers, she got me enrolled free of charge in a cooking class that was held on Tuesday nights. I had never taken a lesson in cooking, and found it to be very strict. I had a feeling that I did everything wrong and angered everyone. However, after class, our teacher, a middle-aged man by the name of Arai, came and praised me for doing an excellent job on my first day when the class had started a month ago. I heard afterwards that he rarely paid any compliments to anyone, so part of me felt smug and proud. The other part felt like a compliment hadn't been necessary and I would have stayed in the class regardless.
I hadn't gone back to see Ochiai since our first meeting. I honestly felt a little too nervous going back to see that woman. She was nice and helpful, but her power scared me. She seemed to know too much about everything. Aya went to the café several times, but I made up excuses so that I wouldn't have to go.
And as for Aya... She tread softly around me for those two weeks, being quite a bit nicer than she usually was, especially on my birthday. I didn't get teased as much as before. I didn't have to do her many pointless favours that usually annoyed me (like getting the salt for her when she was sitting more closely to it). She smiled a lot, let me do what I wanted, and didn't complain.
I almost would have loved this new change in character, but there was something off about it. First, I couldn't help but think about why she was acting so nicely. It was obviously because she had offended me and was trying to make amends. Second, I didn't like being treated like I was a precious doll. I liked when I got teased or in trouble. It bothered me to hell and back, but I loved to get attention from her. Now I got a different kind of attention, and it seemed a little hollower than the kind I'd enjoyed before. I also couldn't help but feel inside that I'd disappointed her a little. I was following her own suggestion by taking a cooking course, but she must have wanted me to do something else. Something more glamorous. No matter how many times she reassured me that she just wanted me to be me and to be happy, a slight bitter taste lingered in my mouth from our previous confrontations. As a result, I spent a lot of time out.
And then one day I woke up and decided that I had to do something about it all. I was doing nothing but going about my life trying to avoid my problems and repress my worries, and they were starting to fester in my mind. I was second guessing everything I was doing and doubting all my decisions. Doubting everybody's words, whether of praise or not, to me.
I had nobody I could turn to, though. I couldn't talk to Aya about it because she was part of the problem. I couldn't talk to Kuniko about it because that would require me to explain that the "sci-fi metaphor" I'd used before was in fact reality. I couldn't talk to Shibata about it because she was first and foremost Aya's friend, not mine. That left only one person that I could go and see. One person I didn't really want to see.
"I have to go to this meeting at eleven, but why don't you join me and Shiba-chan for lunch afterwards? She just got back from Thailand," Aya called out from her bedroom, surprising me.
I was sitting at the computer and wasting time. It was Tuesday and I had no work because I'd worked all through weekend. I thought quickly.
"Oh, I can't," I replied as she walked out of the bedroom holding a pair of pyjamas to throw into the laundry basket. "I've got to meet someone at lunch."
She didn't ask who and didn't suspect that the person I intended to meet didn't know I was going to meet her. She went on to chat, telling me that she'd see me later, and then going on to talk about nail polish. I waited for her to leave the apartment before getting dressed.
At one-thirty, I left the apartment and wandered around outside. I was slowly gathering the courage to go to the café, but it was taking a lot of effort. An hour passed until I finally got up the nerve to get onto a train and head over. I walked slowly and reached the front door, taking a deep gulp of air and pushing it open.
Apart from two men sitting at the far end of the room, there were no other customers. The waitress greeted me and let me choose a place to sit. I ordered a hot coffee and waited. As I suspected, it didn't take long for Ochiai to become aware of my presence. She came out from the kitchen as though she had some sort of sixth sense that let her know a Miki was nearby. She walked over and sat across from me.
"Alone?" she asked.
I nodded.
"I see."
Doctor Ochiai had found her first piece of evidence that something was up.
"Aya-chan's busy," I filled her in.
"And you came here to enjoy our expensive coffee?"
I smiled at her particular sense of humour. She spoke with a completely serious tone, but she was far too smart to actually believe that I was there for the coffee.
"And to talk," I said before she could say it herself.
"What can I do for you?"
She'd just become my personal counsellor. My free psychiatrist.
"What should I do, Ochiai-san? Things are getting worse," I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth all of a sudden contrary to all the short, clipped sentences I'd practiced in my mind earlier. "Isn't there some way to reverse all of this? Go back in time and stop the world from getting so messed up?"
Ochiai kept her expression neutral.
"You realise that if you erased the past four and a half months, it would mean you would never have met Matsuura-san, don't you?"
The thought had occurred to me.
"I know," I rasped out, scared that by saying those words I'd somehow forsaken Aya. "But it's just not right. I'm not happy with the way my life is unfolding. I can't live with the pressure. It's like I have to continually be on alert for something that's going jump out at me from behind a piece of furniture."
Ochiai stayed quiet.
"And then there's Aya-chan. I mean, I'm not angry at her because I know she's a really good person, but I get into these situations where I feel so uncomfortable being myself because I don't want to disappoint her. And even though she says she's not disappointed, I think she is sometimes. There's nothing I'd like more than to just have a normal life with her in it, but it doesn't seem possible."
I quieted down, and we sat and looked at each other.
"I can't help you change things back to how they're supposed to be," Ochiai said.
That was it? That was all her advice?
"But what do I do? How do I get through this? I think I'm going crazy."
She shook her head.
"I have no clue."
If Ochiai had no clue, how was I supposed to have one?
"The thing is that you're absolutely right, Fujimoto-san. It shouldn't be like this. Maybe whatever set it off will get fixed. Maybe it won't. We can only sit and wait."
"Yeah," I said in an unconvinced voice.
I sipped my coffee with her sitting there and thinking.
If things were fixed, then would people stop recognising me? Would Aya stop comparing me to the other Miki? Would our histories all become one again? I just didn't see how that was possible. If things were fixed, I'd never see her again.
Maybe taking off in the middle of the night would be a good idea. Leave Tokyo. Leave everything I knew and try to find the source of all my problems. That would surely hurt less than the pain causes by what could potentially come.
I drained the last drops of my coffee and stood up.
"I have to go now," I said without any explanation.
Ochiai stood up quickly before I could rush off.
"If you just leave, she'll be upset, you know. Don't disappear on her. Don't just go back to your hometown or some other place. Give the world some time. A big place like this needs time."
I couldn't believe she'd read my mind like that.
"I won't leave. I'll give it time," I promised.
But I didn't know how much more time I could take.
I paid and left. I didn't want to go back to the apartment in case Aya was there, so I went to the convenience store. Kuniko and Koda were on duty. Before I walked in, I could see them through the glass door chattering away at the front and laughing.
I wondered what it must have been like those few weeks after they'd tried hooking up. It must have been awkward. But I looked more closely at them and re-thought my position. They got along so well that maybe there had been no awkwardness. Maybe just a lot of temporary disgust and then a heartfelt agreement never to look at each other like that again. I wanted to know if I was right. But as strong as that desire was, I respected Kuniko's wish to not speak of her experience.
I pushed the door open and they straightened up when they heard the little chime announced my arrival. Seeing it was me, they loosened up and greeted me.
"What are you doing here when you don't have to work?!" Kuniko cried out.
Koda nodded his head at me and then moved off to give us girls room to talk.
"I was bored and all my friends are busy," I declared in mock annoyance.
"Fine, then you can sit here and read out loud to me. I have to finish reading a three-hundred page book by tomorrow so I can start working on my paper."
I scrunched my nose up.
"When I dropped out of school, I swore not to read another dry book again. You're on your own."
Koda manoeuvred his way back to his previous position and into our conversation. The three of us started talking about the trials and tribulations of school. Customers came and went. After a very busy period, I took my leave. It was almost time to go to my cooking lesson.
I was the first to arrive at the kitchen that was our classroom. I put my apron on, took my notebook out, and washed my hands, wondering what we were going to work on.
Inevitably, my thoughts turned to Aya, Ochiai, and then the other two versions of me. One was a good girl. The other had done something stupid but had been forgiven. What was I compared to them? Did I fall on the good or the bad side of the Miki evaluation system?
Maybe good. I hadn't done anything too wrong besides my brief sleepwalking encounter. But I also didn't amount to that much. Maybe I could be a famous chef. Since I estimated I had about a one percent chance of achieving that, though, I went with the train of thought that assumed I wouldn't make it big in the culinary arts. That left me where? University dropout who worked in a convenience store and an office and who lived in someone else's apartment, ate someone else's food, and took free cooking lessons that normally would have cost any student a fortune. Nothing had changed from my life with my parents. I was still a moocher, only now I was mooching off of Aya and her contacts, not my parents. At least she was more fun to live with.
The first of the students started to filter in. The mediocre ones always came first. They were the ones obsessed with the need to improve their skills because they were right at the threshold where mediocre crossed into good, and they could taste the other side. They thought that coming in earlier than everyone else would somehow help them cook better. I wished someone would tell them that it didn't matter if you came two hours or two minutes before class. As long as your power of concentration in the kitchen was solid, you would be able to do well.
I greeted them and watched them get ready. They were like runners before a race, but instead of stretching and slapping their muscles to get the blood flowing, these folks were reviewing last week's lecture notes and trying to memorise obscure spice names with concentrated expressions.
Our teacher Arai walked in one minute before class started. He looked exhausted, and I knew by the expression on his face that it was going to be a tough lesson.
"Today we're going to learn about pasta," he announced.
Some students looked pleased. Some looked horrified. I didn't care either way. I liked pasta as much as I liked any other dish. Anything would have satisfied me.
Arai began explaining the intricacies of boiling the perfect fettuccini, making the perfect sauce, and, as usual, lecturing us for fifteen minutes about presentation alone.
"It's a bit of a backward method, but cook as if you're making plastic models for a store front," he told us.
That was backwards. They were supposed to copy us, the chefs. Not the other way around. We weren't trying to recreate plastic models.
We had to form groups, each group having a different kind of pasta and sauce. My group of four was saddled with a spicy eggplant tomato sauce. To start, our group leader (a girl who should not have been leader because she could barely speak above a shy whisper) assigned us tasks. I was in charge of the eggplant. Chopping, dicing, slicing, and frying.
We discussed our method and then began. I found my little space and started chopping, letting my mind wander as usual.
A few months ago, I'd been doing this in my hometown with Aya and Baachan. We'd cooked in very close quarters and then enjoyed our meal together. We usually talked when we cooked, but when I had to chop something, I disappeared from the world and let my mind drift.
What had I been thinking about those two months when I'd been at the cutting board? I continued to chop as I went back in time in my mind.
School. I'd been a bit worried about school. I never complained about school, but it could sometimes be tough. I understood the material, but there was so much to get through that sometimes I didn't think I could make it.
I'd also been thinking about Hiroshi. Back in the middle of November, he'd pulled this disappearing act on me. Not that I cared too much. I trusted him to be a good boy, but I had needed to talk to him about something that week, and he'd simply not been home.
I'd also been thinking about how nice it was to have Aya around. Ever since Nakanoko had moved to Asahikawa at the beginning of last spring, things had been quiet in my life in my little town. I had other friends, but none I liked to hang out with as much as I did with Nakanoko. Aya filled that void in my life quite nicely. I'd been able to show her around town and I'd realised that we could be best friends, too. We had the ability to create conversation from nothing. And if we had nothing to say to each other, it was okay. Our silence was not uncomfortable.
I picked up an uncut eggplant.
But what now? We lived together and everything went haywire. Now silence made me squirm. I felt that if I didn't fill that silence with something, everything would go wrong. It almost had several times.
I shouldn't think like that, I thought to myself logically. We're each doing the best we can under the circumstances. There are bound to be some points of misunderstanding and miscommunication, but we can get through those.
But the other side of me didn't want to.
It's too difficult, that side whined. I can't have my own life. Not one that isn't in the shadow of someone who had such fame.
Funny. Most people would have been worried about the Aya-type person in his or her life. About living in her shadow, she being a superstar. But no. I didn't care about that. I was concerned about living in the shadow of someone who never existed to me.
"Is there something distressing about that eggplant?" I heard Arai's voice drift into my ears.
I snapped out of my thoughts and realised I was standing at the counter still holding the uncut eggplant in my hand. I didn't know how long I'd been frozen like that, but probably longer than was normal. My group mates were staring at me, even Shy Girl the leader.
"No," I said quickly, putting the eggplant on the cutting board and starting to slice it up.
"Fujimoto-san, is there something bothering you?"
I put down my knife and stared down at the eggplant. His voice was tight and controlled. He was angry.
"No, Arai-sensei. Nothing," I said.
I'd sooner spend an entire afternoon trying to teach Shy Girl how to yell than tell Arai my problems.
"Then please concentrate on your task. A cooking group is only as good as its weakest member."
I kept my eyes down on the cutting board, and when he left, I was overwhelmed with humiliation. To be called the weakest link in the chain wasn't exactly heart-warming. I took my knife again and continued to chop, praying that everyone would stop staring at me.
They did, of course, and we managed to finish our eggplant and tomato sauce fettuccini dish within the given time.
Arai tried each of our dishes, but he wouldn't tell us which of the five groups' was the best. I was learning that he liked to keep us on our toes like that. We'd be so teeming with curiosity that we'd try harder and harder in hopes that we'd make something so delicious that Arai would simply have to comment on it to the entire class.
After finishing the tasting, we sat down for an hour lecture on our errors (and the few things we'd done correctly). I zoned out again, and was interrupted by Arai yelling at me. He had been asking a question about our eggplant technique. Trying not to flush red, I asked him to repeat the question. He did so irritably, and I pulled out an appropriate answer. I tried to pay attention for the last portion of the class.
When everyone was leaving, Arai called me back to him.
"Are you uninterested in being here?" he asked me bluntly.
"No, sir, that's not it," I said quickly, shaking my head.
"Then please leave your distracting personal problems at the door when you come to my class."
I nodded.
"I know what it's like to be your age and just starting."
His tone had changed from cross to nostalgic.
"My age?" I asked curiously.
"Well, it's not a secret," he sighed, "but I don't usually go around advertising that I majored in physics and didn't start taking cooking lessons until I was twenty-five. Some would say that's a bit late and too big of a jump of interests, but I think it's acceptable."
So he'd started late. But he must've cooked since a young age. I didn't want to ask, however, because I'd done enough to anger him. Prying into his personal life might offend him.
"I've cooked since I was five," he said, providing me with the information I had been too reluctant to ask him for. "With my family. So when I first started classes, I thought they were a load of - well, you know."
I nodded and smiled at his words.
"My teachers were always so dispassionate. No emotions allowed in the kitchen. I complied and never brought my personal problems into the kitchen."
So that was where it was leading to. Now he was going to lecture me about how he discovered it was a good idea to keep that detached attitude when cooking. It was a contradiction to me because that's what cooking was for me - a way to connect emotionally with friends and family. If I didn't have that, then what was the point?
"I learned amazing discipline at that school, but when I left to go into the real world of cooking, I realised I couldn't make it without feeling anything."
That was something I could agree with.
"What I'd learned in that class was that in order to gain that good discipline, I had to be logical. Reasonable. But to actually perfect the art side of it, I had to be passionate. Angry, happy, sad, and everything in between."
I nodded. I understood his story and his reasoning, but I wasn't sure what it had to do with me. I'd brought my worries to class and he'd scolded me.
"So my special advice to you," he said with a smile, "is to listen to me and to realise what you are doing, but not to repress it."
I looked at him, incomprehension showing in my eyes, I hoped.
"You are the top student in this class. I can tell after only three lessons. You're mature enough to be passionate in the kitchen and get good results. However, you must also learn how to manage your thoughts and worries so that they don't hinder you but help you. Learn to channel it in the right way so that you don't stand there with an eggplant for two minutes looking like a fool."
I flushed, but nodded my head in understanding.
"I understand, Arai-sensei. Thank you. Next time I'll make sure to keep a better check on my problems."
He smiled warmly at me.
"Good. Now get home. It's late and you need rest."
I thanked him again and ran off to the apartment focusing on his face and words. I could draw a lot of inspiration from this man.
When I got home, Aya had company over. It was Shibata, and they were playing some sort of video game on the TV. I frowned because it didn't fit the image I had of them. Aya spared me a brief glance when she heard me walk in and then looked right back at the screen.
"Hi! Good game," she said with alarming exactness as though she had allotted a certain amount of time and energy to greet me in order to return immediately to the important task of her game.
"Evening. How are you?" Shibata chimed in as a mere perfunctory courtesy.
She didn't really want an answer.
"Dandy," I murmured half-heartedly.
I stood there waiting for them to say something else - ask me how my day was or explain the game - but they focused all of their attention on the game. I went to Aya's room, dropped some of my things off, and then ventured back out into the living room. The two were still engrossed and didn't seem to notice me. Amused, I sat on the couch behind them and watched.
They each operated one character. One looked like a Super Mario mushroom, and the other looked like a triangular chunk of green cheese with arms, legs, and big eyes. They were going around shooting assorted animate and inanimate objects on the screen that would explode into multi-coloured stardust. That they had to collect this stardust. It looked fun to play. Too bad there was no third controller. Maybe if I expressed interest...
"It looks cool," I said.
Neither Aya nor Shibata made an attempt to respond. All that could be heard in the room was the silly background music of the game punctuated by "oh!"s, "ah!"s, and "get him get him get him!"s from the two players.
"Hey, Aya-chan. Are you the mushroom thingy or the deformed Sponge Bob?" I asked.
"It's a tree!" she snapped back, offended.
I pulled back in alarm and decided not to say anything more.
"It's a green piece of cheese," Shibata tossed out in a breathless voice.
They were far too into it. I rested back, crossed my arms, and watched. My last conscious thought was: That's not a tree. It's a mushroom. Definitely a mushroom.
I was pulled out of a dream by a voice calling my name. At first, the giant mushroom chasing me started to speak in a low tone.
"Miki... Miki..."
Then the green Sponge Bob accompanying him spoke in a much more highly pitched voice.
"Miki! Miki!"
Sponge Bob grabbed me by the legs and lifted me up.
The two voices melded into one very familiar one, and I opened my eyes, sucking in a deep breath of air. Aya's face filled my vision, and I choked on my air in surprise. I tried to jump up, and that's when I realised she was sitting on me. As a result, I couldn't move.
"Have a nice nap?" Aya snickered at me, not moving.
I turned my head to look at the TV. It was dark. I looked for Shibata. She wasn't in the room.
"Shiba-chan just went home," Aya informed me, reading the searching - perhaps nervous - look in my eyes.
"Oh," I said, my voice raspy with sleep.
I relaxed a bit.
"Did we bore you?"
I shook my head. It didn't hurt to be polite sometimes.
"Liar. I bet we did," she laughed. "Sorry, but Shiba-chan just bought the game in Thailand and we got hooked this afternoon."
"Were you playing all afternoon?" I asked.
"Since we got back from lunch," she confirmed sheepishly.
"Aya," I groaned. "You have no life."
"Yeah, but that's because you've been so distant the past few weeks," Aya said, starting off strongly defensive and ending quietly.
I sighed in exhaustion, fear, disappointment. She was right.
"Yeah, well," I mumbled. "It hasn't been easy for me."
The look on her face suggested she regretted having brought it up, and I tried to give her a reassuring look. I pushed her off me and stretched out on the couch, patting the space beside me so that she'd join me. She did.
"Sometimes I just feel lonely," I admitted, scared of what she'd think, what she'd say, and what she would only think and not say.
"Lonely?" she asked with a frown. "You're not alone. You've got me."
But that was exactly what the problem was.
"But still," I said, shifting uncomfortably. "When stuff like before happens, I've got nobody."
Aya knew I was talking about what happened after our meeting with Ochiai.
"Yeah, okay," she conceded. "But even when I'm acting like a superbitch from hell, you've got your other friends."
"That's still not enough. I can't tell them the truth. I've only really got you," I insisted.
First came the sympathetic look. Then the worried look. Then the guilty look.
"I haven't been very nice to you, have I."
"No no no!" I cried in horror. "You have. I mean, there've been times when I've wanted to smack you, but the rest of the time you've been so good to me."
Silence dominated. She closed her eyes.
"I'm just worried. You're obviously not completely happy," she said.
How could I sit there and agree? When I was in someone else's house, on someone else's couch. I'd sound ungrateful. Like I was incapable of looking on the bright side or showing a bit of respect.
"That's not true."
She opened an eye.
"It's not?" came her disbelieving reply.
I didn't try to lie again, and she closed her eye.
"Remember how much easier it was when we met?" I chuckled.
"Are you kidding me?" she muttered.
That's right. It was tougher for her. But still, it seemed that on the whole, it would have been easier to stay in Hokkaido.
"But if you want to go back, I won't stop you."
Frankly, to hear those words made me woozy. My ears rang, or so I thought they did. She'd let me go back. She either no longer believed in me and wouldn't mind getting rid of me, or she loved me so much that the only important thing to her was my happiness and she was willing to let me go so I could find it. It would have made everything easier if it had been the first one. It was the second one, though, and as long as that remained true, there was no way I could leave without regret.
I shook my head, and then realising that her eyes were closed and that she couldn't see, I spoke.
"I won't."
She opened her eyes.
"So what do you want?" she asked.
She didn't sound testy or rude, impatient or expectant. But she wanted to send me a message. A message to tell me to figure out the answer, because I was the only person who could answer it.
She closed her eyes again, and I mulled over the question. Five minutes passed. Her breathing became slow. She'd fallen asleep, probably mentally exhausted from playing that stupid game all afternoon.
"Aya?" I asked
No reply.
"Aya?" I asked a little more loudly.
Still no reply.
I sighed and closed my eyes.
"I don't know what I want," I said.
But, I'd sacrifice my own happiness for her, and she would do the same for me. I'd stay here for her and she'd willingly let me go if I wasn't happy in this place.
We had passed the final test.
I let myself fall asleep.
-
Chapter 26 of 29
Everything has returned to normal. We've all gone back to our proper dimensions.
I don't know how I learn about the accident, but it's shocking. I just look up at the ceiling and suddenly know that Aya has died in some kind of accident. A tragic, painful way to go. I sit up and start to cry. I haven't received a phone call. I haven't read the newspaper. I just know that she's gone.
And when I've cried enough to soak sleeves of my shirt, I stand up and get my phone. I call Shibata.
"Shiba-chan," I say in a strangely calm voice.
"Miki-chan," she replies in a quiet one.
"Aya-chan," say I.
"I know," says she.
How she knows, I do not know. I still do not know how I know.
"By the way, turn on the TV to channel twelve. NHK news."
I do as Shibata asks, and there is footage of the remains of a riot. I hang up the phone without saying goodbye.
"...the head of the government has been usurped by disgruntled social activists who claim all rich people should be shot. Once considered one of the richest and safest countries in the world, Switzerland has fallen victim to a radical group that has operated underground for, some say, the past ten years. Amidst gunfire an hour ago, it was unknown whether all the members of the federal council were still alive or not. More on this story later. Now, we turn back to the latest address from the new fascist government of the Kingdom of Shikoku, where sovereignty was declared two and half hours ago. It is in keeping with tradition that..."
I watch the seven o'clock news on television in shock. How could all this have happened? I could have sworn that Switzerland had been peaceful just a few minutes ago and that Shikoku still belonged to Japan.
A more pressing matter comes to my attention, and that is the incessant pounding at the door. It sounds desperate, so without thinking, I get up to go and open the door.
When I do, a tall man pushes his way in, puts a gun up to my chest, and pulls the trigger.
I woke up just as the bullet pierced my sternum.
I was breathing hard and sweating. I'd somehow turned around and was facing the back rest of the couch. I whipped my head around to look behind me. Aya was still there, still sleeping, still alive. I let out the breath I'd been holding and turned around again, trying not to move the couch too much.
Was that what would happen if we all returned to our worlds? Utter chaos and our deaths?
Ludicrous.
There was no reason for the world to descend into such pandemonium. We weren't that important in the grand scheme of things.
But something about the thought bothered me. Maybe my dream meant something more than what it seemed to on the surface. I would bet that in most worlds, Switzerland would remain peaceful, happy, and out of NHK news flashes. But maybe there was a world out there where a revolt like the one I'd seen on the news in my dream would occur. If so, coupled with the fact that I was seeing it in my dream, then something... strange was happening...
... and I started to laugh. What a stupid idea! I laughed so hard that Aya woke up.
"What are you doing...?" she murmured, rubbing her eyes.
"I'm sorry. I just had a really funny dream," I giggled.
I felt like I was losing it. Slowly losing it in a comical way.
"Well, at least one of us did. I dreamt about some country in Europe being overrun by crazy revolutionaries, and then I was somehow killed in a crash just before I woke up."
I stopped laughing and froze.
"Switzerland?" I asked in a frightened tone.
She shook her head.
"No. The UK, I think. Why did you think Switzerland?"
Could it just have been a coincidence that we'd both dreamt about countries falling? That we'd both been killed?
It had to have been. I didn't believe in things like shared dreams, prophetic dreams, and those sorts of mystical phenomena. They were plot devices in badly written novels. They were scary stories made up by people who wanted attention on TV. They were not things of this world. I didn't care if people went dimension travelling. People simply could not share dreams.
"No reason. Just that my dream was about Switzerland," I said nonchalantly.
She looked mildly curious, but I didn't share.
"Miki," she said after a while of lying there contemplating our own dreams.
"Mhmm?"
"I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks."
She spoke in a sad tone. One that asked me for many things. She inched closer and I looked at the ceiling resolutely, trying to control my breathing so that I wouldn't give off a sigh that sounded frustrated. She held onto my arm and put her chin on my shoulder.
"I've been busy," I said carefully. "So have you."
I turned my face to look at her and give her a small smile. She didn't smile back. Just stared and tightened her grip on me.
"I'm here now," I tried.
That just seemed to make her appear antsy, and I looked back at the ceiling, feeling tired and just wanting to go back to sleep but without the unpleasant dreams.
"But I'm sleepy."
I closed my eyes.
"Then go back to sleep," she said lightly.
This surprised me and made me open my eyes. I thought for sure that she'd get angry at me for wanting to sleep when we finally had a moment of time longer than one hour to ourselves.
"But I'll be waiting for you right here when you wake up," she tagged on saucily.
Oh, you crazy lady. Always knowing what you want, I thought to myself amusedly, considering not taking a nap.
Then the strangest sensation came over me. It was like somebody had injected a sedative directly into my bloodstream, because I became inexplicably exhausted. So much so that I couldn't keep my eyes open for a second longer. I needed to fall into a deep sleep that moment or I would die of weariness.
I saw Aya's eyes looking droopy, too, and her hold loosened completely.
Maybe... she's sleepy... too...
Sleep came a little too instantly.
-
Chapter 27 of 29
I was back in the same dream I'd been in moments before. I was sitting on the floor watching the TV. On the screen was footage of war. Peruvian citizens being ambushed by Norwegian soldiers, then a quick cut to Egyptian air forces bombing Beijing.
"What's going on?" I demanded out loud.
I posed the question to the TV, to the world, and to anyone who cared to try and answer.
"Miki?" a voice asked from behind me.
I turned around and saw Aya sitting on the couch. She looked like the one I knew, but who knew what she would do. In dreams - or at least mine - people rarely acted like their true selves.
This Aya, however, reacted in a very Aya way. She stood up looking concerned.
"What's going on here?" she asked. "Why did all these world problems start?"
I stood up as well.
"You mean you don't know?"
"Huh? How would I know?" she asked with a frown. "You're the dream. You should know."
Me? I was the dream? No I wasn't. She was the dream. Unless...
I reached a hand over and touched her arm. It felt very real. I pinched it a few times, making Aya brush my hand away with a frown.
This Aya wasn't some dream. She was real. Very real, and I could feel her arm as clearly as the sun shone in the sky on a fair day.
"Wait. Aya? You're real?" I asked.
"Yeah. So are you...?" she trailed off, looking confused. "Are we in a dream together?"
"No!" I scoffed. "That's stupid!"
She looked at me in awe.
"Oh my god. We are."
"But I just said-"
"But why?" she cut in, not letting me continue protesting. "How?"
As if in response to her questions, the room melted away. I had never seen a room melt away, never thought it possible, but that's exactly what it did. Like paint washed away by rain, the features of the room ran down, down, down and left us in a black void of emptiness. As the colours of our previous setting faded, so did the light. It grew darker and darker, and a claustrophobic kind of fear gripped my heart when we were plunged into total darkness. I couldn't see a single thing. I felt like I'd been buried in dirt and would disintegrate from existence.
"Aya," I rasped out, frightened.
She couldn't reply. All she did was let out a squeak of terror that was probably supposed to be my name. I reached out with my arms and groped around blindly in the dark until I found her hands. I held onto them tightly and shut my eyes.
It's all in my head, I told myself. It's all in my head.
"It's just a dream," I reassured her in a trembling voice that could hardly be said to be comforting. "We'll wake up eventually. Just a dream. You're okay. Okay? You're all right."
I could hear her trying to keep a check on her breath and I could feel her shaking. Or maybe that was me shaking.
Who knows how long we stood there. It felt like forever and a half.
And then we saw it. One of Aya's hands tightened on mine and she brought her other hand up to turn my head in the direction in which she must have been looking. In what appeared to be "the distance" was a faint light. It was moving towards us. I turned my body so that I could keep an eye on the approaching light source. It grew bright enough to be able to see my immediate surroundings, and I saw Aya looking paler than usual. I tried to smile at her, but it must have come out as a grimace of fear because her hand squeezed mine in such a painful way that I wanted to cry.
The light grew brighter and brighter as we watched. There was nothing else we could do. Whether what came with the light was helpful or malicious, we had nowhere to go and no way to move. We were in the middle of nothing.
I noticed something after a few seconds. There was something in front of the light. A silhouette. It drew closer as though it were walking. Walking on air? I couldn't tell. It came closer and closer as it got brighter and brighter.
This person... This person will know what's going on. He has to. Maybe we'll even know him. Maybe he'll be... Tsuyoshi-kun. Now that would be funny!
I began to giggle to myself and Aya looked over, all fear erased from her face and replaced by disbelief.
"What are you laughing about?" she asked in a strong voice.
I cleared my throat and settled down.
"I was thinking about Tsuyoshi-kun," I said, still grinning stupidly.
"You're thinking about some nineteen year old kid at a time like this?"
"Eh..."
My face fell as I tried to explain.
"I just thought it would be funny if-"
The approaching person interrupted me. No, not the approaching person. He had finished approaching and now stood before us. No, not he. She.
"There has been a mistake," the woman said. "This was never supposed to happen."
She spoke in a soft voice, but one that commanded attention. Her face, like her voice, was lovely and gentle-looking, yet its perfectly symmetrical beauty couldn't call attention away from the incredible hardness in her eyes. They were eyes that belonged to one much older than the twenty-five years she looked.
She was tall, or at least she appeared to be. Maybe it was an illusion. It was hard to judge height when we all seemed to be floating in nothingness. She had dark black hair that fell as far as the middle of her back. Perhaps, however, the strangest thing about her was the absolute lack of whacky clothing. I had imagined someone wearing a cloak and holding a staff, but this woman was dressed in a fashionable skirt suit that looked like it had just been ironed and put on. She looked like a model for an office lady recruitment poster. The only thing that was off about her professional attire was a set of four ear piercings, two in each earlobe. Nothing extreme.
For an insane moment where I lost all sense of perspective and purpose, I focused on the meaning behind keeping those earrings in. Why hadn't she removed them? She would have looked like the perfect OL if she had. Instead, she kept them in. Maybe to make those around her question her moves. Maybe she was making a statement. A rebellious statement.
And as I stared at this woman's ears, Aya poked me.
"Say something," she hissed.
"Wha...?" I asked, startled out of my contemplation.
"She's not talking. You're not talking. It got awkwardly quiet for a minute."
I looked at the newly arrived woman's face. She was watching us with an air of interest, but she was making no move to explain herself or her statement.
"What's going on?" I asked abruptly.
The woman blinked once calmly.
"I'm here to explain. Things are not supposed to be like this. Time has gone wrong."
Great. We were stuck in a nightmare-ish dream with a woman who wanted to get her enigmatic game on and confuse the hell out of us. Nothing could have sparked more irritation in me than that at the moment.
"Who are you? Father Time?" I asked sarcastically.
The woman did not look amused. She pierced me with a glare that made me shudder and re-evaluate my first impression of her. Not so kind.
"I'm here doing you a favour," she said icily. "I've brought you to this dream world to try and fix what's gone wrong."
Ashamed to have snapped at someone claiming to help us, I broke eye contact and looked at Aya, who was still squeezing my hand. We shared a look. We both didn't know what was happening. We both didn't understand this woman or this situation. Was she real like us? Or part of the dream? Maybe if we could touch her we would be able to tell. We could try touching her ears.
Stop it with the ears, I scolded myself.
Fear brought out the most irrational fixations.
"What's gone wrong?" Aya asked, sounding a lot calmer than expected.
Now that we had light and we could see who we were dealing with, she must have gotten over her initial fear enough to start searching for answers.
"The fabric between the worlds has been chafed, worn down. Holes have appeared and caused incredible flow between all realities. One incident set it off."
She didn't seem willing to share any more information with us. Any warmth that I had seen in her face before was gone. She was all business now.
"Well?" I asked impatiently. "What was it?"
Aya put a hand on my arm to calm me down. It worked somewhat, but the woman standing in front of us was starting to rub me the wrong way. Where had she come from? What was she going to do? Was she going to separate me and Aya?
"In your terms of measuring time, it would have been about four and a half months ago."
Four and a half months ago... Four and a half months ago... Four and a half months ago was...
"When we met?" I asked her and pointing between me and Aya.
The woman nodded sternly.
"We weren't supposed to meet?" Aya asked in a frightened tone.
The woman said nothing.
"What was it?" I pressed again.
"I don't wish to cause any more harm to this stream of time," she said resolutely.
That meant "no".
"I'd say it's messed up just as badly whether you tell us or not," I muttered.
She looked surprised and then thoughtful. For a moment I felt enormous pride for having made a useful point. Also, for a moment I thought she was going to tell us. Alas, she still refused.
"All I can tell you is that something terrible and inexcusable happened in the main dimension four and a half months ago."
"The main dimension?" Aya asked.
The woman nodded and took a breath and pointed to Aya.
"You are from the main dimension."
That certainly didn't explain anything.
"But what do you mean by main dimension?" Aya asked as I stayed silent and listened, trying to form a theory of my own.
"A term I use to help me define dimensions. You don't have to understand completely. All you need to know is that there is one dimension that is considered the most likely and ideal. It takes the most-likely-to-happen possibilities and moves forward in that way."
"Huh? Like a paradise?" I asked.
If Aya was from some paradise-like dimension, I wondered if humankind's literary interpretation of paradise had been a little skewed. It didn't sound like everything was dandy in her world. There was still war and hunger and poverty...
"Oh, no," the woman chuckled (was that a condescending chuckle or was she amused by something else?). "Perhaps for you, 'ideal' means 'joyous', but in greater terms, 'ideal' comes to mean something more inclusive of other feelings and outcomes. There may be death and misery, but it is ideal for the dimension to experience those things as opposed to some other courses of action that may lead to the destruction of that world. Do you follow me?"
"In Japanese, please," a nonplussed Aya said.
This dream was turning into a university seminar.
"She's saying that perfect doesn't necessarily equal happy," I summarised for her, and she nodded in understanding.
"If she's from the main dimension, what am I from?" I asked, feeling a little offended that my world wasn't considered one hundred percent "correct" by... whoever this cold lady with the ears was.
"You're from one of the infinite branches. The main dimension takes the main road, and at each junction - that is to say at every single moment of time - the infinite number of decisions that can be made are made. They occur uninhibited along paths that branch off from the main road. They may run parallel to the main road at some points or they may twist away wildly and become completely different. You are from one that runs fairly parallel to the main one."
Geez, seriously. Next time I dream about this lady, remind me to bring a gun with me. First to shoot her and then myself..
"Then what happened? Why did we meet?" Aya asked, pointing to me.
Why did we meet?
Her question echoed in my head.
Why did we meet?
So it all came down to this most important question: Why in the world would we have met? Because we weren't supposed to have met. So why did we?
I had secretly wanted to believe all of Aya's silly "it's destiny!" statements, but now I knew that I had been right in brushing them off. Unfortunately. Our meeting was not fated, but a big mistake.
A mistake.
So that meant that I'd never had a chance. Not since we met. All the decisions I had made from the moment I met Aya had all been based on a mistake. None of it was supposed to have happened. It was all a waste.
"Something happened four and a half months ago in the main dimension because of the eroded walls. It caused you," the woman nodded at Aya, "to be thrown into the present Fujimoto's world just before the event occurred again for the first time - and don't bother trying to figure that sentence out. That action was that world's natural defence mechanism against the situation from worsening. Unfortunately, the situation proved very difficult to find, so up until now, the passageway between worlds has been widening."
"But if this is my world then why are my people reacting to me like freaks?" I demanded.
Even if this woman was telling the truth, it made no sense.
"The present Matsuura was not the only person to be moved or affected," the woman said matter of factly, making me feel stupid. "I'm aware that you have met with another dimension's Ochiai. As for the people of your world, they were affected by the flow of ideas between worlds. It's not simply a physical problem. Ideas and beliefs have been circulating through realities by way of these holes. People have suddenly been coming to know things that they have not in fact learned.
"So that's why," I mumbled, feeling enlightened and depressed simultaneously.
"Yes. There was a large spill of knowledge, which, I have come understand, has caused you great distress, no?"
I didn't answer her question because all present knew what the answer was. I had a feeling she was just trying to irritate me further. Make me blow up so that she could take the moral high ground and treat me like a rambunctious child, putting me in my place with condescension. I wouldn't let her.
"What was it that happened in my world?" Aya asked, probably hoping to stop a round of abuse from me to the self-proclaimed guardian of time.
The woman fixed Aya with a stoic look that scared me.
"You don't need to know that."
The nerve of this horrid woman. Scaring us half to death in the darkness and then coming with her lifesaving light, telling us bits and pieces while making us scramble around for the rest.
What could have happened that would have gotten Aya thrown out as part of a natural defence mechanism? It must have been something terrible.
I suddenly had a bad feeling that I knew what it might be.
"She was going to die, wasn't she," I stated. "Aya-chan was going to die."
The woman didn't acknowledge my words.
"Why would you say that?" Aya asked, sounding hurt, sounding scared.
"I don't know," I said quietly. "I just get this feeling. And those dreams we had before coming here. Mine also, um, had you dying in it."
There was silence.
"But didn't you say you had a funny dream?" Aya asked in a dangerous tone.
I gulped.
"Uh, yeah, but not that part. No, that part was not funny," I said quickly.
She glared at me.
Way to inject humour into the situation, I thought. There we were being told that the entire universe was out of balance and she was scolding me for laughing at her death (which was a misunderstanding seeing as how I'd never laugh at the idea of her dying).
"But am I right?" I asked my nemesis.
She didn't answer my question.
"I'm in charge of fixing things. Restoring everything and everybody, repairing the holes, and making sure none of this ever happens again," she stated.
That wasn't what I had asked. That did not answer my-
Wait, I thought, timidly working through my idea in my mind. If lady with the ears here is in charge of fixing everything, that means she'll return everyone and everything - like ideas - to their proper worlds. If she does, then she'll probably restore everything back to the time just before everything went wrong. That would place us in... hmmm, late October. That would mean that winter would not have started yet and that I would not have met...
"Wait!" I yelled.
The woman had raised a hand. Aya looked at me, startled.
"Miki, what is it?" she asked in an alarmed voice.
"You can't!" I yelled at the lady, who was tracing something I couldn't see in the air.
"Can't what? Fix it?" Aya asked.
I grabbed her shoulders, turning her to face me squarely.
"She's taking you away," I said through grit teeth. "I'm not gonna meet you."
I dug my fingers into her flesh, holding on in fear that she'd suddenly disappear.
"But she has to restore everything back to normal," Aya said calmly.
Of course. She had her own world and her own Miki. Her perfect, ideal world where she had the best of everything. She had another me, another set of friends, a dream job... She wouldn't miss anything.
But me? I would miss out on everything. I had no Aya of my own. At least not one that I knew. I'd be back where I started in my crummy town where I was forced to live my parents' life and become the wife of a farmer.
"How can you stand there and say that?!" I screamed at her, shaking her.
I looked up desperately at the lady. Some sort of green light had started to trail behind her finger's movements. She was tracing words, but not words in any language I knew.
"At least you have something that you're going back to. I've got nothing!"
Angry tears dripped down my cheeks one by one. Aya's face turned sympathetic.
But I didn't want her sympathy. I just wanted her to stay. Or say she would miss me. Or help me stop the nasty woman who was going to tear us apart.
"You won't remember me," she said confidentially.
No! I could never forget her. Never ever ever. Not in a million years.
"Don't say that," I bit back. "That's a lie."
"Miki, let go. You're hurting me."
But I didn't pay attention. I hugged her tightly so that she couldn't get away.
"So this is how it ends?" I asked. "Role reversal? I'm the one that needs you more? And you don't care? Aren't you going to miss me?"
I felt her squirm at my bombardment of questions, but then she miraculously stopped and hugged me back. Tightly.
"Of course I'm going to miss you," she said, her voice finally cracking. "But I'm trying to be strong for both of us. We have to let go."
I pulled away and looked at the woman. Her earrings had started to glow a light violet. A strong wind started up. I looked back at Aya and noticed a thin, wet trail going down her cheeks. Tears.
"I don't wanna leave you," I stammered. "I can't. I can't go back to living that way. Don't let her take you away."
I looked at the woman who was now writing furiously in the air, green characters appearing and disappearing and appearing again.
"Stop it! Stop what you're doing!" I screamed.
I lunged for her, but Aya caught me and held me back. I struggled to get to the woman, screaming profanities at her while at the same time begging for her to stop and let us wake up. I was thinking of all the things in the past four and half months that I'd experienced. The good and the bad. The moments I'd shared with Aya, with Kuniko, with Tsuyoshi, with Katherine. The things Aya and I had overcome and the times when we'd been at our happiest. All of that would be stolen away from me by this woman. It would be like dying. Worse than dying.
"You don't know what you're doing!" I sobbed, clutching Aya's shirt in my hands, burying my face in it, gritting my teeth. "You're going to ruin everything. My life..."
The wind picked up. I looked up and saw Aya looking down at me, tears in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Miki. I really am."
I could barely hear her voice. It was so soft, so apologetic.
"You know that thing they say about it b-being better to have loved and lost than to-to never have loved at all?" I stammered, the noise from the wind almost swallowing my words.
She nodded and I almost couldn't go on because I found it hard to breathe through my crying. I opened my mouth to tell her what I thought about that phrase when suddenly there was an impossibly bright flash of white light that made me close my eyes.
I lost consciousness.
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Chapter 28 of 29
My eyes crack open a fraction of a centimetre. I let out a cranky groan and open them all the way. I roll up to sit and stretch my arms above my head. My back cracks in a few places and makes me wince. I stand up and go to my window, pulling the curtain aside just a tad.
"First frost," I mumble sleepily but happily.
The ground and plants outside are covered in a barely visible layer of white frost.
I get dressed quickly and go downstairs.
"Good morning," my mom greets me.
"Morning," I reply.
I pour myself a cup of tea and go to sit in front of the TV in the living room.
"... though there are still two months to go before Christmas, some people have already started ordering their cakes from this famous bakery..."
The news doesn't interest me at all. I finish my tea and decide to skip breakfast. I'm not feeling hungry. I go upstairs, brush my teeth, and put the finishing touches on my face. I head out, saying goodbye to my mother on the way out the door.
I walk down the street. At the back of my mind, I think I hear someone call out my name. It sounds like Nakanoko-chan. I turn around but see a group of children playing off in the distance. Maybe I just heard them yelling something that sounded like my name. I shrug and keeping walking.
I reach the outskirts of the town and keep going, walking up a hill, descending, and then walking up the next. I reach a point where I can see my whole town.
I feel rejuvenated. It must be the fresh air. I'm bored in this town, but I know that there's a lot more out there in the world. I'm filled with hope. Maybe I'll suggest to Hiroshi that we move in together in Sapporo when we finish school. There's more to do there in the big city. There are far more opportunities than in this crumbling town. I'll bring up the subject with him soon.
I look up at the cloudy sky. The first snowfall will be coming soon. I can tell. One of these days I'll wake up and the ground will be covered in a beautiful blanket of white fluff.
Bring it on, I think with a smile.
I picture Hiroshi's face grinning back at me, and I'm filled with that amazing tingly feeling that one usually feels during the first stages of a relationship. I get that often with Hiroshi even though we've been going out for two years. That's how I know that everything's still okay.
I spend a long time looking up at the sky. It makes me feel small but free.
Life is grand.
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Chapter 29 of 29
My eyes crack open a fraction of a centimetre. I let out a cranky groan and open them all the way. I roll up to sit and stretch my arms above my head. My back cracks in a few places and makes me wince. I touch my jaw. It hurts. What the...
Oh. Right. I look beside me. I'm alone.
What? Where's Miki?
I stand up and shuffle out of my bedroom. I look in the living room and the kitchen, but there's no sign of Miki. I frown. Where has she gone?
I hear running water, and I smile, walking over to the washroom. I poke my head in and see Miki washing her face.
"Morning."
"Morning."
I join her at the sink and clean my own face.
"So," I say conversationally. "Today I leave."
Miki nods stoically.
"Will you miss me?"
She says nothing. She cups her hands under the water and suddenly splashes it in my face. I gasp in surprise.
"Yes," she says in a sweet and innocent voice. "You'd better bring me back some cool souvenir."
I wipe my face with an annoyed look.
"I will," I deadpan.
The nerve of the girl!
"Hey, I forgot to tell you yesterday, but Shige-san e-mailed and asked me to pass on a heartfelt good luck. She's in Saipan now, but she's thinking of you."
"Thanks," I smile.
My heart warmed, I go off to get dressed. Miki joins me a second later. Her attitude has changed entirely, and she drapes herself onto my back.
"Do you have to go?" she whines.
But under the bratty act that she's putting on, there's a genuine plea for me to stay.
"I think it'll be good for me, Miki-chan," I tell her, trying to retain my calm.
If she tempts and pushes me too much, I'll end up quitting my job. I'm this close to doing it.
She knows it because she smiles, gives me a kiss on the nose, and speaks of it no more. She would never want to come in the way of what I love to do, even if I have to go somewhere far away.
We say goodbye that evening. It's a tearless farewell like we earlier agreed to do. Three months isn't too long. At least Italy is still on the same planet as Japan.
I go downstairs. As I'm riding the elevator down, there's a moment where I think I can't do it. I want to stop the elevator and go back up, lock myself in my apartment and not let my boss get me.
The moment passes, and soon enough I'm loading my things into the taxi. Just before we go, I look up at my apartment window and see Miki standing there and watching. I wave cheerfully, and then we drive off.
See you in three months, I think as we head to the airport.
A the airport, I meet up with my manager and a helper. We go through all the motions of taking an international flight.
As we're walking to the gate, a girl drops her passport holder and doesn't notice.
"Excuse me!" I call out, rushing forward to pick the valuable item up.
The girl doesn't notice my voice in the din of the busy airport. She keeps walking. I look at the holder and see her given name written on it.
"Naomi-san!" I call out.
She turns around, and I wave the passport at her. She smiles brilliantly and walks to me, taking her passport back.
"Thank you so much!" she says with a grateful bow and the smile.
"You're welcome," I say, returning the smile.
We part, but a few minutes later, I notice that she's also taking the same flight as me. We smile knowingly at each other when I walk by her sitting at our departure gate.
As I sit and wait for boarding to start, I write Miki a last message. I'm not sure what to say. I've never really been tongue tied around this girl until now. At least not when we're on good terms. I don't know what's appropriate, so I stick to light.
Just wanted to say thank you for helping me pack all my things. My plane takes off soon. This is the last chance to contact you before I get to Milan. Behave yourself. I promise to call you tomorrow.
I insert the meanest little face I can find into the message.
And water my plants!! Goodnight, Miki. Talk to you tomorrow.
I finish it with a red heart and press send, closing my eyes and leaning back.
A reply comes soon. I read it and try to imagine Miki's voice speaking the words.
I'll be good if you send me cool souvenirs. Take care. I look forward to your call tomorrow. Call at four am if you want to. No matter how grumpy I get, you know I still kind of like you. Later.
Big red heart.
What a joker. I giggle to myself and turn off my phone just as the first boarding announcement is made.
We board the plane and we take off. I watch two movies and then fall asleep when I can no longer resist.
Bad turbulence wakes me up. The seatbelt sign is turned on, and I double check to make sure that I'm wearing mine. I look out the window. It's cloudy and I can't see a thing. No, wait. I can. Poking out from the clouds below us, I see peaks. Mountain peaks. They are all capped with ice. It's a breathtakingly beautiful sight.
The plan gives a few terrifying jerks, and the co-pilot comes on the air with an announcement, reassuring us that we're going through a patch of stormy weather but that it will pass. The turbulence, however, gets worse, and my knuckles are now white from gripping my blanket in my hand. My manager looks rather pale-faced, too.
Then as soon as it started, it's over. The rest of the flight is smooth. We land without incident. I step only Italian soil for the first time in my life.
I take a deep breath in. I'll be here for three months. I'd better get used to everything quickly.
I go through customs, pick up my luggage, and am whisked away to my hotel before I can have a moment to take in this new, foreign land.
A million things happen at the hotel, but it ends with me being escorted to my (very large!) room and shown how to place international calls. Once everyone leaves my room, the first thing I do is pick up the phone and dial. It takes me three tries to get it right, but once the phone starts ringing, I feel so excited that I can barely contain myself.
Five rings later, a sleepy voice answers.
"...'lo?"
"Miki?" I ask.
"Hey!" she exclaims, perking up. "Took you long enough."
I laugh.
"Sorry for waking you up," I apologise.
She brushes it off quickly. For once, I'm deemed more important than her favourite pastime - sleeping.
"Everything okay over there?" she asks.
"Mmhmm," I say with a nod she can't see. "The people seem pleasant, but I haven't had much time to talk to anyone. Everything okay over there?"
"Hmmm," she hums cheerily. "Work is work. Busy, but it's all good."
"That's good," I say with a smile.
There's a knock at my door. That's my manager coming to pick me up.
"I have to go, Miki. My reception..."
She snickers through a yawn. I say goodnight, and she mumbles back quickly that she misses me, hanging up before I can reply. I smirk at her shyness.
I go and open the door. There's my manager as predicted. She's looking just as sleepy as I feel. I can't help but laugh at her.
"Ready to go and pretend you're awake and aware?" she asks me.
"Yeah, sure," I drawl.
Then together we head to the elevator in the hotel in a city in a foreign country that is thousands of kilometres away from my home.
But despite the distance, I've never felt so close to Miki. Maybe something has been awakened in me, but I feel like I have to treasure every second that I know her. I guess distance really does make you appreciate the things you have.
I can't help but let a big smile take its place on my face. I ignore Keiko's inquisitive look while I lean back and realise how good my life is.
The end of story 12 and of the entire series.
Questions, comments, criticisms, and corrections are always welcome.
Congratulations (and apologies) if you managed to read all of this. A million thank yous to everyone.
~OTN
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I register just to comment here! GJ writing this story! I enjoyed it very much. Took me a week to finish it all but so worth it. :muffin:
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Thanks! Hahaha, it feels so long since I finished this story. It's hard to believe that people are still reading it! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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Dang, I was wondering what bumped up the most epic fanfic here. :lol:
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:dizzy: it took me a long time to finish reading this story............................ it's amazing! but i did a bit confused a little but the thing is.................WOW! really!
but you know......dont you have a plan continuing the story???? how about the other miki who havent given the chance to meet aya,,,,the one with hiroshi???? the one who is begging not to reverse all that happened??? dont you think its a bit unfair???? a world of miki without aya but........??? :badluck: :OMG: :depressed: :fainted: :err: :frustrated: :pleeease: :scared: :tantrum: that would descibed how i felt right now.....poor miki -the other one without aya-
the bottom line is that.......YOU ARE AMAZING ONE! haha :luvluv1:
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Out of all of the fan fics I've read, yours is seriously my favorite. It brought out all of the emotions that I could possibly feel and with that, I think that is truly amazing. I remember reading the first stories on 4th station~ I was like this is too good not to be continued and then I found the rest here on JPHiP. I was so happy when I did but I remember saying I wish I didn't because of all the crying XD
I should stop reading because I don't like crying and when I imagine Aya and Miki dead~ :mon cry:
I don't even know how many times I've read the whole thing ..... I like it that much~ :heart:
Anyways I just wanted to show my love for you ......... I LOVE YOU :wub:
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After a bit of a crappy evening, this was a very nice thing to read. Thank you very much.
Sorry to say (actually, I'm happy to say!) that this story won't continue, ayase909. I could write from every dimension's person's POV, but it would never end. Have to walk away while I can. Leave some things to the readers' imaginations or pens.
Ai.love, my repeated reading of these stories has actually made me dislike it so much! Haha. Other than a few key lines that I thought turned out nicely, I feel this story is on a much lower level than the low level I'd initially put it on. OK, slight exaggeration. Maybe I'm trying to live up to the humble image bestowed upon me by my friend Rokun. :lol:
And in a completely fitting move, my shuffled music landed on the final scene of Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake". Very dramatic, very epic.
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:fainted: not continuing the story?????? hmmmm okay! i can understand that.............but i just can't help it......too much sadness, haha............can you write another fic then? miki and aya with miya and risako.....haha :luvluv2:
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Tchaikovski... nice :)
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I can't thank you enough for writing and actually finishing this... I often get my heart crushed by unfinished fics. :(
You made me cry. I remember repeatedly telling myself "Quit reading! You've got class for 9 hours tomorrow. SLEEP!" but I always end up going on it until 4am. Then, when I finally get myself under the covers, I keep tossing and turning because of thinking about this fic too much. :sweatdrop: Sweet torture! :P
I also distinctly remember stopping mid-story NUMEROUS times because I don't wanna cry anymore.. LOL Then off I go to do homework and then stop in the middle of it to come back here and read and get my heart ripped out. I guess I'm a masochist. :lol:
The last part had me dreading you-know-what... but then I guess you got tired of killing me over and over again! Thank you! :heart:
This is my favorite fanfic! Again, I can't thank you enough. Wherever you are now and whatever it is you've moved on into doing, I'm really glad you decided to make this series at one point in your life (mushy i know but right now that's what i feel). Made me forget my problems... You led me into such an awesome emotional roller coaster ride. Such a high! :heart: :heart:
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i register just for the sake on commenting..
otn congratulation on the story you created here. i read hundred of fic but never ever i experience like what i read here.
this fic is so much heartbroken and yet beautifully told.
you killed aya so fast that i no longer had any energy left to read. i kno it stupid bcause it just a fic and not even real but i cant handle it.
honestly i dunno when can i continue love x 2 =infinity (story 5). i doubt it happen anytime soon..overall i like this story~
btw i like your style of writing..i wonder if u r the real writer?