Chapter 8 – Over a Bowl of Ramen
It took until the end of the day for Reina finally to really have some time to herself after the rush to work this morning, the busy rehearsals, and the lunch break hardly worthy of being called such. She twirled a finger in her hair as she thought about that, too. Eri certainly is a strange girl…
As she was dressing and showering before heading out to dinner, she tried to avoid the other girls as much as possible, which wasn’t too hard as most of them kept pretty much to themselves since they still didn’t seem to have fully come to grips with what happened to Miki and their lives came back to them after the focus and distraction of rehearsals. Even Eri stared off into space as she tidied up. Reina guessed she’d gotten her “fill” at lunch for now. Plus, there was what was to come after dinner of course… Reina felt herself flush for some reason at that thought. Definitely a strange girl.
The one girl she did try to get a hold of after they were let out was Ai, however she seemed to sneak out right away, so Reina’s efforts didn’t yield anything to speak of. She’d thought about what happened last night all through rehearsal, and none of it made sense.
First, there was the dance club. Why did Ai get so competitive with her on the floor? Of course, Reina was quite competitive herself, but she didn’t figure that mattered because she obviously didn’t have any ulterior motives. Ai on the other hand could only be more blatantly suspicious if she had “I’m up to something!” written in marker on her forehead. She was amazed none of the other girls saw it. Remembering Sayu and Eri, her amazement died out considerably, but that still didn’t explain any of the others like Our Great Leader or… or Risa. Other events from last night popped into her head suddenly at that thought, along with Risa’s attitude throughout the day today. Risa is Ai-chan’s best friend, isn’t she? They were together at the beginning of last night, weren’t they? She decided she had a good place to start now.
Pulling on her turtleneck muffled her thoughts for a moment and rattled her brain enough for her to realize what she was doing. What the hell? I’m no detective. Leave it to the cops to figure out what’s going on. The one that notoriously spoke to her at the memorial seemed intelligent enough. She slammed her locker and gave a glance around while picking up her bag. There were only a few girls left, one of which was Eri, who was occupied stuffing way too much stuff in her very undersized bag. She decided she’d have to get the girl a bigger one for Christmas. A nicer one, too. Considering their relationship now, she supposed she was obligated to give her something more than what she normally gave the other girls. This was getting complicated…
Taking the opportunity of Eri’s distraction to sneak out despite an odd glance from Yossi, who didn’t speak up because she usually didn’t try to pry into the affairs of her kouhai unless they came to her first, she realized that not only were there few girls left in the locker room, but the reason was because there were so few girls left in Morning Musume. It was down to seven now. For some reason that number seemed so lonely. She paused for a moment outside the locker room to dwell on it. They might as well start calling us Berryz Koubou… Coughing out a hastily cut off laugh at that thought, she remembered why she was being so “sneaky” and quickly scurried the rest of the way down the hall.
As she rode the empty elevator, thinking of cops and investigations, she recalled that detective again. Shuyen-san told him to stay away from the girls, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t go to him, did it? He was investigating Miki’s accident anyway. That has nothing to do with Ai. The elevator dinged and she stepped out into the lobby before screeching to a sudden halt just like her train of thought as recent conversations and memories began booming loudly in her head, beginning with the call Yossi gave her what seemed like so long ago when she was out on her photoshoot.
“Since this is a photo week, most of the girls are scattered all over Japan, like you. Only Ai-chan and Koharu were in town too, and… oh Reina, the accident… Miki’s dead.”
Later on when they were all gathering together here, Ai arrived late and seemed nervous. Why was she late when she was one of only three living girls who had been in Tokyo already? And then there was Ai at the memorial…
“If you need anything, or if you get into any trouble, let me know, ok?”
That offer had seemed to come out of nowhere, unless Ai had suddenly taken it upon herself to be Reina’s surrogate mother or loving older sister or something. Immediately, at that thought, shivers ran down her spine and twisted her mouth in disgust. Of course that was ridiculous…
“I wonder, Reina, how you ever get anyone to like you when you give them looks like that.”
The words pulled Reina out of her reverie and she stared a moment at Risa, who had apparently walked up to her unnoticed and was giving her a strange look. Whatever the case, it didn’t reveal whether her words were meant to be insulting or just playfully sarcastic.
“Would you like to go to dinner?” Reina asked suddenly.
Risa hesitated for a moment, surprised at the invitation, before narrowing her eyes in a suspicious look.
“I’ll treat you,” Reina offered at the girl’s seeming reluctance. “At least, as long as we don’t go to a place much fancier than a ramen shop. It’s not like I’m rich,” she finished with a slight smirk that Risa didn’t quite seem to catch, and her suspicion hadn’t vanished at all. Reina tried again. “I just want to… apologize for last night, okay?” Risa’s eyes widened at that. Maybe she didn’t think Reina remembered it. Giving Risa an appraisal that took in her sleep-deprived vacant expression and red eyes, she mentally added, Though, I wasn’t the one who got drunk…
The girl finally seemed to mellow out, or maybe she just gave up, since Reina thought she heard her give a sigh of defeat. “All right. Why not. You decide where to go. Keep me away from anything too spicy tonight, though,” she said, a disgusted twist coming to her own lips.
“Of course!” Reina responded cheerfully. She took the girl’s hand and started dragging her to the exit, looking behind her to make sure that nobody else had come down the elevator yet. Along the way, Reina realized that she almost literally was dragging the girl, as it seemed that Risa could barely walk. How on Earth did she last through rehearsals today? She shrugged. Well, they all had to deal with that at times with the lives they led.
…
It was a quiet walk several blocks to a ramen shop Reina knew. They had both pulled on hoodies before leaving the studio building to give some disguise to avoid too much recognition, which usually worked, and not talking much was also part of their disguise, though it usually didn’t go this far.
They entered the shop and ordered after being seated, keeping their hoods drawn for the moment, and Reina watched Risa seemingly stare at nothing while pulling out and playing with her chopsticks. She was just about to poke her napkin with them for the tenth time when Reina finally broke the silence.
“So… how are you today, Gaki-san?” she asked, trying to be somewhat cheerful, even though she didn’t feel it.
Risa looked up at her as if she’d never seen her before until her eyes focused and she carefully laid down her chopsticks before responding, “Um, I’m ok,” and then beginning to play with the string of her hood. Reina now looked at the girl with overwhelming suspicion. Risa was never this un-energetic, even at other times when Reina saw that she was very worn out.
Reina’s phone abruptly began buzzing, and Risa looked in that direction as Reina reached to silence it and ignore the message. “You’re not gonna get that?” Risa asked.
Reina shook her head slowly, to which the other girl shrugged, and took the advantage of having at least some of her attention to bring up what she was interested in. “So… Risa. What have you been up to lately? Anything different or exciting going on?” The girl gave her a What are you? Baka? look. Reina coughed and reoriented herself, not realizing that she was fiddling with her own chopsticks. “I mean, aside from the obvious.” Reina looked carefully up at the other girl with her head lowered to gauge her reaction to that. The look didn’t change much, but it did seem to get more suspicious.
“No,” she said decisively. “There’s nothing special going on.” The suspicion seemed to deepen. “Why? Do you think something is?”
Reina waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, no, of course not. I was just curious. I mean, you look like hell today, and I know you hang out with Ai a lot, who has obviously –“
“I didn’t get much sleep last night, all right?!” Risa interrupted almost angrily, surprising Reina with the force of her voice. “I swear, can’t a girl have insomnia once in awhile without…”
“I’m sorry,” Reina said quickly. “I didn’t mean to imply –“
“How about you?” The flame of suspicion was bright in her face now. “You’re the one that almost got into a fight with Ai-chan in the club and brushed me off like I was nothing when I tried to help!”
“I’m sorry about that,” Reina said quietly and quickly again. “My adrenaline was running way too high right then. I’m just glad I didn’t get in a fight with…” She trailed off as the server arrived with their bowls of ramen and laid them on the table. Each of the girls pouted quietly with their arms folded until she was done. When she left, they dug into their food and neither continued their talk.
When they were about halfway through, Reina felt herself soften a little and decided to try a different tactic, one that had seemingly worked before, if not for herself. “I know we may not be that close Nii-chan…” Risa raised her eyes slowly at that address, probably since Reina had never called her that before. “But I do care about you. I care about all the girls. If anything were to happen to one of them… I’d want to do what I could to make it better.”
She paused for a moment to see how her words were being taken. Risa slurped a noodle, still just giving her a level gaze. Her features seemed to soften up a bit though, so Reina decided to go for it. “If you know about something that might have happened, you can tell me, you know? I know I may not be the first one you think of, but… If you need any help or anything, you can tell me, okay?” Reina tried to force as much honesty as she could into her words, which was surprisingly easy. Maybe Eri really was softening her up.
Risa kept her eyes on Reina’s while chewing slowly, but when she swallowed, Reina thought she saw them become slightly moist. She stayed quiet with just an air of expectancy as Risa looked like she was struggling with something. “I…” Risa started before getting choked up. The girl really was crying now, squeezing her chopsticks together tightly. This wasn’t exactly what Reina was expecting…
Risa shook her head slowly as the tears ran down her cheeks. “No, you wouldn’t have been the first one I thought of, Reina,” she said in barely more than a whimper. “But…” She sniffed, and her voice seemed to become slightly stronger. “But right now, there really is no one I could think of.” Reina narrowed her eyes questioningly at that. Risa sniffed again. “Ever since K- Konkon and Mako-chan left, there’s only been Ai-chan really. It was great to see Konkon for a while last week, but she’s already gone back to University, and…” She lowered her head and stirred her noodles with her chopsticks. “Ai-chan’s the only one left, you know? All the senpai are gone. I was never able, or even willing, to get close to you… you guys.” Her gaze rose back to Reina, looking at her now earnestly. Reina sat there patiently, deciding it was just time to listen now.
“And Ai-chan…” Reina’s ears grew just a little more attentive… “Ai-chan has always been great and all, but in the past several months I can tell she’s been distracted by something. Maybe she took Konkon and Mako-chan’s grads harder than I thought. I dunno. But either way, it’s been harder for me to just go to her about anything… like…” Her sobbing seemed to worsen once again, and Reina offered her a napkin, which she ignored and began just staring past her at nothing, or perhaps into her own personal world. “Like last night…” she said hollowly and almost without emotion. Her eyes focused back on Reina again, and she seemed to struggle with something before saying desperately, leaning closer to her, “Oh Reina… I didn’t wake up in my room this morning.”
Reina’s eyes widened, though she didn’t speak, having no clue what to say or what the girl might be talking about. After a moment of Risa staring at her though, she was about to ask for clarification before Risa’s own eyes opened even wider and she drew back, as if she just realized something terrifying. She looked around almost frantically before turning back to Reina and saying quickly, “I’m sorry Reina. I have to go.” Reina tried to open her mouth but no words came out. “Thank you for the ramen. I just… I don’t have much appetite.” She stood up from the chair and drew her jacket and hood tighter around her, as if trying to ward off something. Or maybe she was just cold… “I’m sorry…” she said once more, and set off quickly out the door before Reina could react.
She stared after the girl for a moment, totally flabbergasted, and slightly concerned for some reason, until the server came up to her table. “Excuse me, miss. Is there anything wrong?” She looked up at the girl for a moment and stared, noticing that she couldn’t have been much older than herself. She was fairly cute, too. She might not have made a bad idol if her life had gone differently. Instead, she was a server in a ramen shop. Reina wondered which of them was luckier.
“Miss?” the girl asked once again, now looking slightly uncomfortable.
“Sorry,” Reina said quickly, breaking off her stare. “No. Everything’s fine. We’re all fine here, now.” She looked at the vacant spot across from and quivered slightly before looking back to the girl. “Yeah. I’m fine. How are you?”
The girl looked at her oddly and perhaps a little scared and worriedly before responding, “I’m… fine, thank you. Well, let one of us know if you need anything…” She scurried off, leaving Reina staring back into her bowl of noodles.
Well, if it wasn’t obvious that something was going on before, it sure was now. Except… Risa didn’t seem to know anything about Ai except that there was something… which left her exactly where she was before. Of course, there’s the other thing that was clearly disturbing Risa, but Reina wondered if it had to do with anything she was worried about, and then wondered if she even wanted to know in any case. Well, she did say that she’d be there for the girl if she needed anything… At least in this case, she didn’t want to make a liar out of herself, even if she meant something totally different when she said it.
She finished her ramen and paid before hurriedly exiting the shop, whose staff was beginning to look very nervous with what happened at her table, since she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself than necessary.
She walked quickly down the street, looking for a taxi since she didn’t feel like walking right now. The wind was beginning to pick up and become colder, too. She should have brought a scarf. Her phone buzzed again and she ignored it. All the rest of the day’s events aside, she realized what she had to do now. She had to find Ai. Or Detective Kitamura.