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Chapter 6
I kept deferring the moment to call Mayu for help. Even though that was all I thought about, even though I knew I couldn’t deal with everything that had happened alone… She was scary. And she’d been scarily on point.
As I bathed until I felt sick from the heat. As I ate until I felt sick from all the food—Miki-san’s basket could have filled the stomachs of us three and I could still share a part with my manager the next time I slept in and made her wait anxious about the arrival schedule at the theater. As I lay down trying to sleep until I felt sick from… Maybe I just felt sick in general. But the whole time, I thought of how I really couldn’t find a way out but waiting for this to pass.
I’d been so well until I found Ari inside my apartment… Or a little well? But only because she’d stopped talking to me, which was a miser little problem compared to what she’d caused when she decided to talk to me again. And it was also Miki-san’s fault for asking me about it. The three of us could have eaten together, played the whole day and then gone to see the sakura. No questions asked and my heart would have been okay. Not the mess it had become now. Now I knew the name for this sickness.
It was already past eight in the night when I recovered my phone from the bedside table where Ari had probably found it. Actually, it had taken me some ten minutes more from staring and thinking who had last touched it. My whole room, now I’d gotten back to it, smelled of one of my perfumes. I hadn’t had time to put on any that day, which meant it was Ari. She’d used one for the date we never went to.
I could have kissed her, if we had.
No, no. Don’t go that road. The best thing I’d done was not even considering physical involvement. We did sleep in the same bed but I’d been too drunk to remember anything but waking up, so it hadn’t counted. This thing had only been platonic and now it was a had-been. It was over. I wouldn’t feed it ever again.
But maybe I could have kissed her last night. We’d been really out of it.
So I got my phone to check the photographic evidence in my gallery. There had been so many in her phone, so there should be more in mine. I’d at least be able to reminisce the time I’d been blindly in love, so blind I hadn’t even known. Twenty-four hours ago I’d been the happiest girl alive, and here was the confirmation.
However, the last photo in my gallery had been the sakura trees downloaded from Line. I looked everywhere, even in the videos, even in my trash, but I didn’t have a single image of Ari in my room.
“Why?” I hung my head in frustration and shame. Why did I want these embarrassing photos this much?
“Getting warmer every day!” the notification for Kocchan’s message in our douki group came with a new picture, a random street this time. So many messages had arrived there since I’d last checked… And I couldn’t care less.
“Maybe I should go for a run too,” I tried sending, because I knew Kocchan sent those pictures whenever she was out running around town. While the others had ignored her so far, my message quickly received a flood of stamps of people laughing hard. “Challenge accepted,” read the stamp I sent in reply.
In half an hour, I was in full gear—I had to remove a tag in one of the exercising clothes, which I had no recollection of buying, so no wonder it was brand new.
“You're really going, Reiko?” Mayu’s message came when I’d just closed the door. Soon, there was a new flood.
Mayu sent an old Harry Potter stamp picturing Sirius Black with the saying “I’m Sirius!”. That terrible pun did it, so I put the phone aside in my pocket.
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In the end, I ran for around five minutes (rounded up) and changed my mind. It was a better evening for just walking around. And just so my effort wouldn’t be in vain, I asked Kocchan about where she’d seen those trees from yesterday. Why not fill my photo gallery with ones I’d taken myself? Unlike what Kocchan had said, the place wasn’t in walking distance from me at all, and I really couldn’t feel any of that getting warmer she’d told the group about. I was dying when I finally reached the damned trees.
Ugh, lucky me I’d considered I’d want to buy something on the way and had brought my wallet with me. No doubt I’d be going home by cab.
The place was a very small park that ended abruptly on a wall to the train tracks. A highway stood just two streets from it and the one by the park was busy enough the place became the worst idea for watching flowers. I got the chuuhai I’d just bought from the convenience store on my way and opened it to get a long gulp.
Exactly when I was thinking tonight it would be just the two of us, the can and I, I felt someone’s stare on me. A guy sat on one of the two benches the park offered and was turned in my direction, not faking how intently he looked here. I felt myself get small. I’d just called the street busy but not a single car passed, no one else was around. I drank a little more and looked again. He was still staring. Or she? Was it a woman wearing pants?
“Miki-san?” I called out loud relieved. And then not so much. That was really Miki-san, the one I’d sent running from my house just this morning after she’d brought me a big, beautiful breakfast basked. A random creep would have been better in this case.
But she nodded and motioned for me sit by her side. “I was just wondering if I was seeing things,” she began when I got closer. “You running in this cold, then stopping for a beer?” She motioned again for the bench.
After a moment’s hesitation, the alcohol and tiredness took over me and I sat down. “I asked Kocchan where this park was. I just didn’t think it was a random tree on some street. Should have guessed, though.”
“I was also disappointed when I got here. Then the lights were on and it was kinda beautiful.”
The lights? She saw them being turned on? It was closer to ten than to nine in the night. For how long had she been here? “Hm… do you want?” I offered my can of chuuhai.
She chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’ve eaten and drunk enough.” She let her back slump against the bench, looking upward to the flowers. “How are you feeling? Today was incredibly hectic.”
“I’m so sorry…”
“For what?” Miki-san shut her eyes and waited for my answer, but anything I came up with was just too much to be spoken. “You really had no idea? Of how you felt about Ari?”
I shook my head, but her eyes remained closed. “I was so worried that I couldn’t speak to her, so I thought…”
“Did you two talk?”
I was about to shake my head.
“So no,” she guessed correctly. “You just went on that date?”
“I asked her to go home before anything.”
Miki-san sat upright and looked my way. Which made me feel really stupid, even if I had no idea what I’d done wrong.
“I needed time. A-and distance. From my best friend, she became the one I’m in love with w-within twelve hours.” I felt tired just thinking again about it.
“You should tell her that, or she’ll never know.”
I felt a little resentment boil up in my stomach. “She doesn’t date troupe mates. You know that.” Then I felt bad, because things were also sour with Miki-san and I was here acting up. I drank the rest of the can in homage to that. “We’re not going into our love lives anymore, it’s settled. Look at the mess it caused.”
“And did you ever?”
“She told me a lot of stuff about her apps, Kazuki Sora…” Poor Sora-chan, I just couldn’t get over her.
“We never did.”
“What do you mean?”
“We never talked. You usually just say there’s nothing to talk about yours, so it just makes it harder for us to tell you anything.” She shook her head. “You think I’m in love with you, and you’re tiptoeing around me ever since you concluded it. But, you know, we never talked about it.”
I blushed. Despite my cheeks being already hot from the cold, the walk, the alcohol, I was sure they grew redder. How could she put it so plainly? “I’m so sorry I just assumed…” My cheeks were scintillating at this point. “Not love love, but just… maybe… some confusion of feelings toward me and…”
Miki-chan laughed soundly. “I do like you, but you never asked anything.”
So why did she… why was she…?
“Ruri and I dated for almost a year. We ended things last October, though. It was so lonely not even being able to call her. Then we happened and it became okay again.”
Miki-san and Rurika-san had been a couple? For real? Because that sounded a lot like fanfiction.
“Thank you for helping me get over her.” Miki-san turned her whole body to me and reached my face, caressing me for a moment. “So don’t worry about me. I was just using you, I’d say.”
Didn’t sound like it, I thought as she removed her hand.
“We never talked about anything that was serious, because ‘there isn’t anything’, as you’d put it. So I’ll take a guess that you and Ari didn’t either.”
“You’re saying just as if she also liked me.”
“She was incredibly territorial.”
“She was just being a brat.” I smiled remembering her prank with the robe and the skirt. “She knew it was you and—”
“She was acting jealous since that night you fought. But I could be wrong. Only you have the right to go and ask her.”
“She still doesn’t date troupe mates… She told me about that girl, remember? Things went bad between them and she was a little traumatized.”
“Yes, the girl in the Music School, a millennium ago.” I hated the smug smile she was showing me now. And wasn’t she belittling something very serious for Ari? “Don’t be angry,” Miki-san said before I protested. “I’m also a bit sour here, but it is the truth. Talk to her, do it for us three.”
I turned to the sakura trees and a vision started forming. Of a reality in which I’d been honest with Ari instead of sending her out, so we ended up in this park, not even taking notice of how small and graceless it was. “I don’t think I can…” I said out of breath.
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Out of guilt, I wound up promising myself to talk to Ari. Only she wasn’t at home, even though I’d paid a few bucks for the taxi to bring me there past eleven. Miki-san and I ended up buying more booze—actual beer this time—and talked for a long time about our lost loves. She’d admonished me twice for calling mine like that, and I thought she knew Ari better than I did.
I got home at almost midnight with another can of beer in hand (or half of it). I couldn’t message what I needed to tell Ari, but I also hadn’t been able to find her, not even after I asked directly where she was. She’d ignored me. There wasn’t even the READ mark. She could be dead for all I knew.
No, let’s not be dramatic. Ari would have killed me before hurting herself. Also, I was the one suffering.
But she said she was lonely and I’d ignored it. Just checked the item on my list: She’s just here not to be alone.
Enough. I was calling her. No, videocalling her. And doing it now, while there was still a quarter of my beer.
One ring. Two rings. Was I really doing it? Three rings. What if she actually accepted? How many rings was it now?
Suddenly, her face was on the screen and I lost hold of my phone. It fell with a loud noise on my floor after performing a few cartwheels from my hands.
“Reiko-san?” I heard her say, assuredly nonplussed to be talking to ceiling. “Reiko-san? Did you… misdial?” I couldn’t see her very well as I did my best to kneel down and recover my phone but I felt she was about to hang up.
“No! Wait! No, I mean, yes, no.” What had been the question?
“Okay…” I waited to hear her snicker as I knew she would; how I loved that tittering sound… But she didn’t. She was waiting for me in silence. Everything had already changed.
“Sorry,” I said as I sat on the floor with my phone back in my hands. “It fell when you picked up, sorry.” I could finally see her. She’d been here just this morning but it already felt like a lifetime. Her face was clean of makeup; she was probably ready to go to bed. “How… are you?” I regretted the silly question, but I couldn’t come up with anything better either.
“Sleepy? It’s midnight. Why are you out of breath?”
She’d been sleeping then? Her hair was a bit messed up, but she certainly wasn’t in her bedroom. I strained my eyes to study her background, and that wasn’t her apartment at all.
“What do you want, Reiko-san?”
I knew those tiles. Ari had done a great job finding somewhere hard to identify but I also knew the shirt she was wearing. It wouldn’t have attracted my attention if all those things weren’t put together. Nonetheless, once you saw the connection…
Ari frowned at my gaze. Even through the camera, she knew I knew. “Reiko-san?” she called me tentatively.
I don’t do troupe mates.
“I just wanted to know if you were fine,” I lied, feeling sick just from seeing the shirt she was wearing. But it could still be… I got up and hurried to my room.
“I’m going to sleep now, but I’m fine.”
I opened all the doors in my closet, because I had to believe in the high possibility of not finding it where I thought I’d kept it.
“Reiko-san, are you panting? What are you doing?”
But what if she changed troupes?
“Looking for something, go on.”
“I don’t have…”
I wasn’t paying attention but the side of my eye caught her looking at herself. No. Just as though I were in a race, I took all stay-home shirts out of my drawer. If I could go through all of them before Ari realized, everything would be fine. But I didn’t take more than ten seconds to fetch what I didn’t want to be here with me. What I wished hard to be what she was wearing on the other side of the videocall.
“I have to go,” Ari said, cutting off as I was lifting my own 95-ki shirt, the same pattern my douki had and that I’d always loved. The shirt Ari wore that wasn’t mine, in a house that wasn’t hers.
… if the person is transferred out of the Moon Troupe, would she be game?
I guess so.
To be continued…
Anita, 26/09/2020
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