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Chapter 7
“What the hell, Reiko?” Mayu was still in her pajamas when she opened the door to me the next morning. She was flaring for the sun had barely risen, but I was at my limit. I was simply unable to wait a minute more to clear this all up. At the same time, I was a big coward and I still couldn’t go where I really had to. “Wow, you look terrible,” she said after letting me in.
I probably did, because I hadn’t even brushed my hair. I’d thought there would be no need considering I hadn’t slept or even tried to go to bed, but now I remembered the countless times I messed it up and even plucked a few, so overstressed I felt.
“You still haven’t talked to Arinko?” She displayed a friendly smile, or started to because my ire must have transpired and she stopped in the middle of the way. “Or you have.” She shook her head and stretched an arm to the inside of the apartment, allowing me in. “Let’s have coffee, because I’ll need it.”
“You will,” I deadpanned, but went ignored. Mayu just walked to her kitchen and proceeded to prepare the coffee. Just the smell from the powder poured into the maker already made me feel better.
I sat by the kitchen table and dove my upper body on it, stretching lazily in a loud puff followed by a growl. “You never told me anything about Aasa, Mayu. Not a single word!” My voice may have been muffled by the table, just loud enough for her to hear it.
“No idea what you mean.”
“They’re doing it right now. At this very moment.” They were probably sleeping but my mind still pictured their naked bodies collapsing one against another as they laughed at my expression last night, when I saw Ari wearing Aasa’s clothes. I told Mayu what I had seen when I went there, but she still wouldn’t react. “What the hell!” I exclaimed again.
“Reiko, I have no idea what you’re going on about.”
"You do! You were the one who mentioned Aasa in the first place. I’d never realized it if it weren’t for you. So why did you never tell me the damn story? Why did you just let me be there, when everyone knew about every damned thing?” The tears rolling now were of exasperation, but they made my eyes sting because of the others I’d cried all night for a myriad of other emotions. I felt so drained.
“Hey, coffee is ready.” She removed the pot from the maker and poured the content into two cups, throwing one at me, as a mother did bitter medicine to her child.
I wasn’t an uncooperative child though, and drank it thankful for the boost just its smell already offered me. “You were supposed to say everything, but let me go in blind.”
“Saying so more calmly still won’t make me understand what you’re talking about. I’m super missing an episode of this drama. Why do you think the two are…? I can’t repeat that just now with a straight face.” Yet she guffawed, even though she didn’t repeat anything.
“NOT HELPING.”
“Don’t use my coffee against me.” She massaged her temples and sighed. “I’ll presume you did fall for Arinko, disregarding everything I told you.”
“Everything? You told me nothing!”
“I told you that brat was trouble.” Mayu got up, left the kitchen and came back with her cell phone, shaking the screen in front of me. “Whatever is going on, she’s not the one you want to fool around with, that’s what I wrote you.”
“That at the party was really just a joke, you know it.”
She ignored me. “I also told that brat to fucking get away from you.”
“Unwarranted” I said but thought again. “Actually… that’s the thing. You never justified it and just acted as you wanted. Why did you never tell me they had a thing?”
“Because they didn’t. I told you, Aasa enabled Arinko, and it seems like she’s doing it again. Are you sure she was at Aasa’s? That’s what all that mumbling just meant, right? I had no idea they were still close.”
“Her tiles, her shirt, and you’d said that thing about Aasa that night, too.”
“Tiles?” Mayu rolled her eyes. “I never know if you’re too observant or too oblivious. Because you’re partially right.”
I gulped, holding tighter the cup. Did I really want more confirmation? Still, how else could I talk to Ari? Not only because I’d promised Miki-san, but also Ari had gone to my house first. I was the one who threw her at Aasa in the end. I’d still had a chance. Even though… no, but if she and Aasa had had anything in the past, while still in the same troupe, there was precedent. It wasn’t entirely bad to find out more.
“So… they were together?” I asked cautiously.
“Aasa and Ari were uber close for like two years, I think?” She stood up and got some apples and two knives, pushing one for me. I accepted, welcoming having something to do with my hands. “I remember at one point Aasa was even sending her these cute letters, and Ari would cook for them but I was never invited to that. They were always in each other’s houses. I know I sound jealous and maybe I did feel excluded then, but I also knew Aasa was in love, it was clear as day, so I tried to cheer her on. One day, however, she found out that Ari was seeing some man, seriously seeing him. I was sure that would have been the end to their platonic relationship, but it wasn’t. As if nothing had changed, Ari was still cooking for Aasa, even giving her presents. It wasn’t all in Aasa’s head either; there was something, even Miki-san asked me about it once. The troupe basically treated the two as a couple, the two acted as one. They just weren’t.”
I wasn’t ready to hear this. Precedent? My case couldn’t be more different. Ari may have cooked for me a few times, but we definitely didn’t live in each other’s houses, exchanged love letters or were seen as a couple.
Mayu had stopped talking and laughed at me. My face probably showed all my disappointment, how naïve I was.
“One day,” she continued without commenting. A rare act of mercy. “Aasa decided to be honest with Ari, maybe she hadn’t noticed they were closer than she was to the random guy. You know… Aasa could describe this better if you asked her.”
“She’s the enemy, why the hell would I go to her?”
Mayu shook her head in disapproval. “Remember how I was right when I told you not to fool around with Ari?”
“We didn’t!”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, you were a fool by yourself.”
Ugh, I’d fallen right into that one. “Just go on.”
“This is boring… Aasa declared her feelings, or started to. Arinko didn’t even let het finish before asking her not to risk everything they had. That brat! It’s true we didn’t know then she had the fucking no-troupe-mates rule, but she did lead Aasa on. Like the brat she is. Especially because they were together and just never officialized it. I call them lovers without benefits.” Her face was so red out of anger I wouldn’t have wanted to be Ari back then when this lividness was fresher.
“So… Ari wasn’t into Aasa?”
“If that’ll help you sleep.”
I looked down to my hands. While peeling the apple, I had scraped my finger. The blood had even stopped, without my noticing anything.
“Aasa demanded an answer,” Mayu continued. “So Ari confessed she did have feelings but would never act on it. She’d been heartbroken about a girl she dated in Music School, shit happened and the girl ended dropping out. Honestly, I’m sure that after we went through hell to get in, not even that bastard would be reason for anyone to quit. Actually, I made it clear to her that when Aasa told me what had happened, but Ari wouldn’t listen. In fact, she was still sleeping with that dude, even after telling Aasa her feelings weren’t unrequited. That fucking brat!”
I felt dizzy after poking at my small cut and seeing it bleed again.
“You need to sleep, Reiko. Eat the apple and take my bed. I’ll go out for a run and then grocery shopping, you can have the house.”
“I need to talk to Ari…” I was crying again.
“After everything I told you, the most bizarre was that two weeks later, when I had to listen to Aasa moaning day and night to me, they were back to that disgusting flirting. In fact, that only stopped when Aasa met that girl from Ikeda she dated until last year. Even I feel tired from remembering all this.” She finished her coffee and left me alone in the kitchen. I heard sounds from the bathroom but maybe a minute, maybe an hour later she was out of the house.
While I was still looking at my cut. I just couldn’t believe that I hadn’t felt it at all. That even poking at it, it didn’t hurt. It just bled. It was like that finger wasn’t even mine.
I took my phone and opened my conversation with Ari; all my messages from yesterday were still unread. “I need to see you,” I typed but didn’t erase as I’d planned. I just sent it.
Being figuratively suicidal wasn’t the right stage of mind, but to hell with it. To hell with it all, I just really needed to see her.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
This was consuming me. I looked nuts, I felt nuts. I’d even tried to sleep a little after I sent the message to Ari, but of course I couldn’t. Ultimately, I went for one more cup of coffee and lots of cold water on my face. It was still too early for me to even assume Ari had read the message notification and continued to ignore me. She was probably asleep. That was actually the better alternative, all others being highly rated.
“I miss you.” I sent the second message, and it only made me want to send more. To say everything I hadn’t even known I’d been feeling yesterday.
“Me too.” My eyes couldn’t believe when suddenly everything I’d sent had the READ mark and that reply popped up.
“Let’s talk, please?” I sent when shaking fingers.
The three dots blinked many times over until a new reply came, “What time should I go?”
No way could I just go home and sit put waiting for her. My heart beat so fast I couldn't breathe or think. “Stay there, I’m coming.”
So I just ran before any of us changed our minds. I had to see her, I had to. Because maybe Mayu was wrong. Maybe Aasa had gotten something out of that “bizarre” situation, as she’d called it. She’d gotten to have Ari for more than two years. I’d take that for now. It would be painful to control myself when I found out she had a boyfriend or a girlfriend, but look at me now—I hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours and was running around town to knock on the door belonging to the lover of the one I loved. I’d deal with the problems that came. I just had tosee Ari.
No, it didn’t make sense. I stopped in the middle of the run. First, I had to take a cab because it was far and I was sleep-deprived. Then, what was I thinking? It’s okay to lead me on, go ahead?
YES!, answered a voice in my head that just wanted it all solved.
“Miss, are you feeling well?” The taxi driver asked when I entered. On the bright side, I still looked like a “miss”…
“Yes, don’t worry.” Then I taught him Aasa’s address, feeling acid rising to my mouth. “Please, go fast.”
This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy…
I should have taken more time to think. Preferably without alcohol. Or coffee. My hands were trembling and so were my legs. The poor guy probably thought I was high or at the very least coming home from a very good party. I read our exchange on my phone again because it wasn’t like anything else could distract me.
“I’m almost there,” I wrote her, picturing having to talk to Aasa after everything I’d imagined since last night. My message was read but no three dots appeared. I swallowed, knowing I was really just a minute away.
Reaching the front of Aasa’s building, I paid the driver and left the car. My hands balled up in a fist, because they were just useless now. Also very sweaty.
I went through the script I’d prepared for myself during the ride. “Could I talk to Ari?” I’d ask Aasa after the most normal greeting I could muster. “It’ll be quick, don’t worry,” I’d lie. Or not. I had no idea how said talk would go. I should have prepared a script for it as well.
“Reiko-san…”
I’d just reached the building’s door when I heard someone call for me from the outside. I turned and found Ari there. I’d failed to notice her and we’d almost missed each other.
“Oh…” My mouth froze. She was just so pretty, so lovely. Had I any energy left, I could probably cry. And I would probably have stopped myself from what I did next. I was just too exhausted. So my body reacted on its own and jumped to hug her tied. “You’re here…” I whispered so husky I didn’t recognize my own voice. “You’re really here.” She felt small but so warm, so right.
To my bewilderment, her arms returned the hug involving and pushing me even closer, though very shyly. This fed the urge in me to look at her face, to gaze her in the eyes, so I pushed her just far enough. “It feels like years…” I said, but noticed she had tears in her eyes. “Ari…”
“You’re… not angry anymore?”
“Angry?” I tried the word. “No, I was never…” Had I been? It didn’t matter either way. “I’m just so confused, Ari…”
“Why? What really happened with Miki-san?”
I chuckled. That was so literally yesterday. So I hugged her again because as we’d talked, she had drifted too far apart.
“Reiko-san?”
“I’m so sorry, Ari. I have no idea what we’re going to do.” I saw her nod in expectation. “I’m in love with you, that’s my problem.”
A gasp jumped out of her mouth and her eyes widened as if they could become missiles. Her head moved rapidly from side to side and she attempted to speak, “I…” but never finished. She just threw herself at me, her lips shocking against mine.
Was I dreaming? Her hands caressed my face, her thumbs made circles on my cheeks, her fingers messing my hair. It just felt so good I could only be dreaming. I didn’t give a care if it was morning and someone was prone to pass by that street. It wasn’t a main one but it had been large enough for the taxi to enter. Still, Ari was in my arms, her tongue inside my mouth for real this time. We were both wearing coats so I could only feel her body weight and tiny impression of warmth. Her sweet smell…
Her smell.
I took a couple of steps back, interrupting our kiss session. That smell wasn’t Ari’s. And everything rushed back to me so quickly I had to cover my mouth with my hands and turn away from her. She’d probably gotten ready as fast as she could and left Aasa’s apartment so I wouldn’t have to go all the way up. But she’d forgotten to button up her coat, and I could still see the 95ki old shirt we’d been wearing during the video call last night. Not that it mattered, because that smell was definitely not hers. It was the smell of the person she’d spent the whole night having sex with.
“I thought I could do this…” I pressed my hands against my mouth, but this time it was so they wouldn’t shake as I said goodbye. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m so sorry, Ari… I really thought I could.”
To be continued…
Anita, 27/09/2020
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