That little cheat Miki getting our sympathies. How does she do it?! Hahaha.
About Hiroshi: If Miki don't wants him, I do
He's quite the catch, huh? I'm glad he came across as sounding like a nice man. Nothing but the best for Miki, right?
Did you all forget about this story? I didn't! But it was on hold while I finished those ridiculous chapters of fluff. So now that I wrote 20 chapters of fluff in a 10 chapter slot, get ready for angsty payback here.
Chapter 6The 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.