1"What if I refuse to go?" I find myself screaming at the top of my lungs in my room, and mother stands by the door perplexed at my childishness, "Can't you see you are ambushing me? Can't you see you and father are doing exactly what I asked you not to? – Making decisions for me without my consent?"
"It's tradition, Yoshino," mother says softly, "We know the family well. Even if you decide not to follow through with it, saying no to the invitation would make us look terrible."
"So, you're using me to save face…"
"Please, Yoshino…" she tries to reason with me.
As if in an outer body experience, I watch myself stand up from the desk I'm sitting at, and I float across my room, squeezing between mother and the doorframe, then I bolt down the stairs – I want to scream, pull on my braids until the fall off. I feel like punching holes in walls. I refrain from trying, nonetheless.
Acid reflux makes my chest burn.
"Yosh—" Auntie starts when I open the Hasekura's kitchen door, though I cut her off quickly asking for Rei-chan.
"She's been upstairs since she got here this morning… I'm surprised you waited so long to come see her…"
I almost choke when she mentions her bewilderment – why did I have to be the one running to Rei-chan when she had been the one who decided to go to university all the way across the country?
"Thank you," I say, hoping to avoid any friction.
My head feels twice its actual size when I stomp to Rei-chan's room. Standing in front of her door, I take a deep breath and reach for the doorknob, though as I press my hand around it tightly and begin to twist it, I hear music.
Even after almost a year I'm still so terribly mad at her for thinking we could have the same relationship we once had when she is thousands of kilometers away. But I've kept my promises, – every single one I made – which means I know she has an intro to guitar on Monday and Wednesday mornings so she has to haul the case around campus until lunchtime. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if she knows I have joined the poetry club this year – she never asks questions anymore.
Rei-chan is an idiot.
Baka, baka, baka, baka. I repeat in my head when she starts playing scales.
Then she stops rashly. Her fingers, running across the strings, make a weird screeching noise, and not long after that I hear her hit a single string.
Doom, doom, doom, the low sound resonates, doom-room, doom-room, a second string joins the first.
She does something to muffle the sound that had carried from the two strings she played, only to strum down a sequence of chords. I can hear her humming quietly through the closed door, and my heart aches when I recognize she's playing my favorite song.
"Rei-chan," her name glides through my lips, quietly, so only my heart can hear.
I bite down, gridding my molars in an attempt not to cry standing here alone. Then I exhale and push the door open slowly, "Hey," I greet her, and it's so spineless of me not to say her name out loud, but if I do, then I'll find myself defenseless, trying to hold on to my heart in front of her.
"Y-Yoshino?!" she sounds as if I had never opened her bedroom door before. Has she really forgotten how we once were?
Her hair has grown out, and though I have seen it in pictures shared by mother, it still feels strange looking at it in person. In a way, I think it suits her much better than the short haircut she had throughout middle and high school.
Rei-chan has always been beautiful, though I am biased because I know she's so much more than a pretty face. In my heart Rei-chan has always been kindness in human form, patience incarnate. She is everything I am not. And I've always felt like Maria-sama had presented me with the most amazing gift when she gave me Rei-chan, with her pretty face and her prettier heart.
Though right now, even her pretty face can't stop the train wreck I am, "Did you know?" I ask her a bit exasperated, my eyes shoot daggers at her.
"Know what?" She asks, leaning her guitar against the wall to her side; only then she lifts her eyes my way.
She is sitting on the floor, and it feels so familiar seeing her there, with her back against her bed… I almost forgot she had been gone for months.
"Don't play stupid!" I bark at her, then crossing my arms in front of my chest I continue, "You know about tomorrow!"
"What? The Omiai?"
"…And you're clearly not worried…."
"Why would I be?"
I stare at her, perplexed at the response she gives me, trying to figure out how someone could be so dense! I'm in awe, my hands cover my face and I mouth obscenities to myself.
Rei-chan used to fight with me about everything. It was a constant struggle, an ever-lasting push and pull where neither one of us wanted to lose. And though she'd win most of the time I was okay with it because at the end of the day she was always right.
Rei-chan is the voice of reason, forever sealed inside my head, eternally resonating in my chest.
Still, to be standing here today, listening to her half-assed attempt to humor me, proves that the Rei-chan I knew is gone, replaced by some sort of empty shell of whom she once was – her feelings stripped from her and replaced with mathematic equations, anatomy terms, music scales, quotes from existential German literary authors who thought love was the most difficult of tasks - though I'm afraid they might have been right.
"You've got to be kidding! What if he decides he wants to marry me?!"
Fight with me, Rei-chan! Fight for me!
I don't have to rack my brain to remember the last time we had spoken face-to-face. The memories of her rummaging through her backpack then handing me a paperback are as clear as all of the other memories I've shared with her. And she doesn't know but I can recite, by heart, each of the poems she so eagerly asked me to read– all twenty one of them, written in Spanish, their English translation following the original work.
"I remember you as you were last Autumn," I want to quote, but would she understand? Would she know what I want from her when I can't even conjure up my request with words of my own?
But Rei-chan should know. Better than anyone else, she should know that my heart only beats for her; she should know she is abjuring every promise she has ever made me by allowing even the thought of someone coming between us.
It makes me wonder how long it will take until she tells me she doesn't love me anymore.
"They'll have to get a response from you before your parents do anything, Yoshino."
"And you're not going to say anything?! Not a word? You're not going to do anything about this?"
"Again, Yoshino, ultimately, the decision is yours."
"…"
My blood boils at her composure. Not even a year ago we cried together in this room when she was getting ready to leave for university for we were both terrified the distance would tear us apart. Now I'm afraid I'm the only one scared Rei-chan has forgotten about the promises we've made.
I bite down again, my jaw locks up while I get ready to explode, but instead, my heart cracks, and I feel weak. Out of a sudden all of my anger turns into sorrow.
"Love is so short, forgetting is so long," the lines, they float inside my head, and I cling to them as if they could heal me. But they don't. They pierce through my heart instead –her heart, that is – and I feel my soul wither inside of me.
There's solace in my reticence when my mouth remains shut so the cacophony in my head subsides. And I finally start to realize that in the end, nothing I say matters. Nothing I say will change the way she feels, even though my heart is hers to have.
She stares at me.
Tell me, Rei-chan! Tell me you're giving my heart back. Or better yet, tell me you've lost it between the pages of a new poetry book you weren't planning on sharing with me. I'm like an old bookmark you won't miss. Tell me you lied when you said there was no room in your heart for anyone but me.
Her silence speaks volumes.
She's a coward, but so am I for not being able to confront her, for not being able to tell her I still love her – I never stopped – that I've missed her more than I thought I would; that I'm not as strong as I told her I was. I am not a warrior, I'm just a pile of bleeding flesh and bruised bones. And I need her. Terribly.
"You're right," I sound wasted, " I guess I don't have to marry this guy… who couldn't spend five minutes putting together a profile for me."
"See, you've already made up your mi—"
"But I will," I say with a finality that catches both of us by surprise, "I don't care who he is, where he works at, what he looks like, or how old he is. I will marry him," I finish before I can't keep my bottom lip from shaking.
I swallow the urge to sob.
She stares at me not really knowing how to proceed. It's sad, but her awkwardness makes me feel a little better.
See, Rei-chan, I guess I can be mean, too.
And I wonder if that was what she wanted to begin with: to have me so angry at her that I'd forget all of the late nights I spent in her arms on that bed that rests in front of me, empty. I dare to wonder if she meant to be home when this Omiai happened so she could sit there and tell me, with the stoicism only found on the first pages of an Ogasawara Sachiko Handler's Manual, she doesn't care whether I go or not.
Then she has the courage to ask why I'm so mad, and I fall silent again.
She knows the answer to that question very well because she was the one whom I had given myself to, and it wasn't just my heart; every bone in my body has Hasekura Rei-chan carved in them.
"Because I love you. I am mad because I don't want to marry anyone else but you," should have been my answer, instead, like an unfit child, I scream, "I hate you!" slamming the door behind me, and sprinting down the hall.
I hear Rei-chan call my name, her lengthy legs allowing her to catch up with me with ease. She reaches for my elbow, her warm fingers burn my skin at contact, and I can't hold my tears any longer, "Let go of me!" I cry. And I push her away from me even though all I want is to crash into her, wrap my arms around her and tell her I can't believe she has given up on us.
I love her. I've always had. Rei-chan is the blood in my veins. If my heart beats today, it's because of her. Because more than me, she was the one who always said she wanted me to walk side-by-side with her.
But I hate her.
Stumbling backwards, my back hits her bike which had been sitting in the front yard since Friday morning – Uncle must have brought it from the garage knowing that Rei-chan would be coming home today.
I look at her for a long while, my hands pressing the handle of her bike, tears still rolling down my face. Then I pull the bike from the wall and drag it out of the gate.
"I hate you!"
I pedal away.
Not even when I run away I can stop thinking of her. Everything reminds me of her. Every crosswalk in this neighborhood carry memories of us walking to school– the first time we did it, she held on to my hand until we reached Lillian. She never let go. – There's a hollow feeling inside of me when I realize that she had been part of every first time I have ever had; she was there when I rode a bike for the first time, she was there when my face flushed and my body trembled for the first time –her face between my legs, I must add.
I pedal quickly and with feeling. Five minutes later, I find myself entering a new neighborhood. I go by a payphone in front of a convenience store, then I stop, turning around and walking the bike to the old thing. I make a call.
"Yumi-san, It's Yoshino. Please, don't hang up."
"Where are you?" Sachiko-sama sounds worried, and my brain complains when it's her voice I hear and not Yumi-san's. Did I call the right number?
"…"
"Yumi is on the landline with Rei-chan."
"Sachiko-sama… With all due respect, last time I checked I had called Yumi," I say matter-of-factly, making sure to omit Yumi-san's honorific so she knew I wasn't in the mood to mess around, "… and what are you doing answering her cellphone anyway?"
"Yoshino-san?!" I catch her off-guard.
"Su-sumimasen deshita," I bow even though she can't see me. I'm not mad at Sachiko-sama, so I shouldn't project. "I don't know what came over me..."
"Yoshino?" I hear Yumi-san say in the background.
"Yoshino?" She repeats herself into the phone. Yumi-san is clearly worried, so I let her blunder go unnoticed. I remember how red her face had gotten when her, Shimako, and I tried to drop the honorifics one afternoon in the Rose Mansion. Maybe we could try it again sometime soon, I quite like the way my name rolls off Yumi's tongue without the –san attached to it: raw, warm, human for once.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
"Yeah. I'm fine."
"Where are you? Onee-sama and I will pick you up."
I sure want to ask her why Sachiko is at her house, but I refrain. "You don't have to…" I say instead. "I just wanted to talk to someone."
"Rei-sa—?"
"No… Please don't mention her."
I speak with Yumi-san for a while. She's a good friend, and I am so lucky she is in my life. Sachiko-sama must feel the same way. But Sachiko-sama knows exactly what had fallen on her lap years ago, and she wasn't going to let go of that gift – it's clear, for anyone to see, that Ogasawara Sachiko adores Yumi. One could even say that she is in love with my best friend.
I am in love with Rei-chan.
Jealously is such an ugly feeling.
When the streetlights start to illuminate the roads I head back home. Even with the slow pace of my pedaling, the cold wind hurts my face, though out of all of the things that hurt on my body, my heart aches the most.
Most of the lights are on at home when I find myself in front of Rei-chan's bedroom.
I run over a rock and instead of kicking it to the curb, I bend down and pick it up.
Rei-chan is an idiot.
I pedal closer to the sidewalk.
I can't picture life without her. I can't think of a life where she is not by my side, teaching me everything she knows, protecting me from the world, telling me she loves me. Reassuring me I am enough.
Is she not able to see she's hurting me?
I want her to hurt, too. I want her to feel how terrible it is to be broken like me.
The rock leaves my hand, travels through the air and smashes against Rei-chan's window. Immediately, I pedal away.
I pedal hard, quickly, and before I realize, I am in front of Nana's house.
"If anybody asks, I've been here all day," I tell her in her room before she turns off the light.
"Yes, Onee-sama," she answers, then she wishes me a goodnight.
I don't sleep. I toss and turn on Nana's bed while she's sound asleep on the tatami mat by me. She doesn't need to know her Onee-sama is a lunatic – I'll hide the crazy from her for as long as I can. – Nana doesn't deserve to be disappointed like that.
Regret floods my chest, and I pray that Maria-sama has protected Rei-chan from that rock.
I'm worried I've hurt her.
But Rei-chan is an idiot.
Early the next morning I wiggle the gate open and prop the bike up against the wall before walking to the kitchen.
I pour myself a cup of coffee and sit at the kitchen table.
"I went to Nana's" I give mother a half-truth when she asks where I was last night. Then she tells me about the rock that was thrown at Rei-chan's window. "Thank goodness she wasn't in her room when the thing hit the glass!" she explains and my heart decompresses a tad bit.
In the afternoon, mother helps me with my hair and Kimono. Then I excuse myself for a long while so I can slap some eyeliner and lipstick on my face. I think I look like a whore, but mother begs to differ. I humor her.
The limo stops in front of our house and only then I look up at Rei-chan's window, a cardboard box blocking the sun from going in. Somehow I feel like her room, deprived of light and warmth.
Though I'm not surprised, something in me expected Rei-chan to show up and help me with the Kimono. This is my first time going to an Omiai and she isn't around. Times are really changing, quickly, and without mercy. I guess I should start getting used to these firsts without her.
Nevertheless, I need her. Right now I need her more than when my feeble heart forced her to be close to me because she was terrified I'd collapse on my way from my classroom to the Rose Mansion. I need her more than what I had ever imagine because Rei-chan has been able to vanish into the yellow of the Foetida roses inside Lillian's green house, in the corners of the Kendo club, between the lines of my novels, in the sheets of my bed. Everywhere I go, she is there, but she is not.
Onee-sama, I'm broken.
The half-an-hour drive feels so much longer when she is the only thing on my mind. And it's such a shame thinking about erasing her from my life when every breath I take belongs to her.
Father walks me in with mother following close behind. We introduce ourselves to the host and he takes us to a private dining room.
I survey my surroundings. Without Rei-chan around I go through the motions as if time is not of essence; things move in the speed of my beating heart, a glacial pace I don't mind. At last I realize that these are the last seconds of my life as it is, though it's too late to panic and run away because the host is sliding the door open, "Ma'am," he says to me before he motions for us to enter.
I take a deep breath as I walk in. I wish it were my last.
As soon as my feet touch the soft mat inside the room my heart flat-lines. I wonder if I have died for a moment because sitting at the table, holding on to a teacup is Rei-chan.
She stands up as soon as she sees me, then she walks toward me, stopping in front of father and bowing, "Thank you for accepting my request, Uncle," she takes a step to the side and greets mother with a kiss on the cheek, "Aunty."
Finally, she waltz to me, bringing her fingers up to her hair to tuck a stubborn gold strand behind her ear before smiling at me. Only then my heart starts beating again.
It's really her.
"I hope you're keeping the promise you made last night."
"Rei-chan," her name escapes from my lips.
A/N: Thank you for reading!
