Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Final Chapter
Chapter 8
I had a hard time to breathe properly as Miki-san allowed me inside her apartment. I’d actually been there before and spent a good part of the afternoon, but had left not even half an hour before. I’d been passing time in the café nearby until she sent me the message it was okay for me to return.
With the spring, numerous changes came and the humidity in the Kansai area was unbearable this year. Maybe I should have gone home and changed, because my face was already sweaty inside the mask. If this were the beginning of May, I’d die during the rainy season.
“I’m so happy that you’re here, Usshii!” Miki-san’s smile was so wide I blushed. We’d practically just seen each other; I wasn’t to believe the farce. Still, having her smile at me made me want to seek somewhere to hide and giggle like a school girl. She just had this thing that…
“Thank you for inviting me.”
“Don’t be so polite, it’s not like you.” She winked and let me inside. Just as I was walking by her, she put a hand in the way. It made me stop with her hand on my belly, then she gave a light peck on my cheek. “This is more like it, no?”
My eyes went to the floor and I could only nod as I recoiled to myself. Miki-san noticed this and held me by the arm, pulling me against her.
“Look who’s already here!” she said to me as if the text announcing that very person had arrived weren’t what all my wait in the café had been for.
I bowed to Rurika-san, unable to make eye contact after that scene just now. She wasn’t the only one here, though we’d originally planned to meet just the three of us. However, Mayu, Shimon-san, kumichou and Ari were also present. Everyone had agreed to gather somewhere on the way and come together, arriving soon after I’d left the apartment.
As I got closer to the group, I knew from their faces they’d watched that display front row. For some reason, as much I tried to avoid their curious gazes I couldn’t help but check how Ari was reacting to all of this. How masochistic of me.
“Reiko-chan!” Rurika-san joined her hands; her eyes shone, looking bigger than I remembered. “So good to see how much you and Miki-chan progressed after less than half a year.”
“You think so, Rurika-san?” Miki-san let out a smug chuckle.
“Definitely.”
“Hey, Usshii, can you help me get the tea?”
I nodded at Miki-san and followed her.
I almost gasped when I felt her hands on my back, supposedly to lead or rush me, but in reality, she kept doing circular movements, very slowly at times, very lightly at others. I was about to sigh in relief when we were alone in the kitchen, but Miki-san winked again at me and I let out again a ridiculous giggle.
“You’re overdoing it… Please,” I begged in a whisper while getting the water to heat.
“There’s still enough hot water here.” She poured some from the electric kettle into a cup. “I just thought of getting a moment alone, Arinko was looking seriously scary.”
“I’m not sure I can really look her in the face yet,” I confessed. Despite having failed to avoid it just now, I really shouldn’t try again.
“I don’t advise you to, trust me.”
I laughed knowingly.
“Now you seem more relaxed, ready to go?” She offered me her hand in some exaggerated pose, so I shook my head disapprovingly. But I was still laughing even as rejoined the group.
Miki-san, not as surreptitiously as supposed to, held my hand and took me to my seat. We were so close I was on my limit—it was almost unbearable to hold back a third giggle in the last five minutes.
By accident, I ended up catching Ari's glare toward us, and Miki-san had been right.
All of this must be hard for her, but she had to know so was it for me. We’d been already through a lot, which brought us here, to this moment. Ironically, in front of Rurika-san. But we were very different people from those two playing at a party without knowing anything. We really had had no idea whatsoever how it would bring us to this moment, to this (this time private) party.
Somehow, I was back to that day when I went to meet her in front of Aasa’s apartment. The day we had exchanged our first real kiss. The day my world had seemed to end. And yet I’d survived, and now I could just giggle, as much as I hated that stupid sound coming out of me. I was about to resent Miki-san for provoking this all, but remembered that it wasn’t easy for her either.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
More than a month before
Her taste lingered in my mouth, I could even trace her figure in the air so vivid the memory of her body in my arms, most of me hadn’t still updated that Ari was out of limits again.
I’d done something horrible.
I forced myself to look back at her through my blurred vision. But I had to, she deserved it after what I had just done. It was just that I had thought I could work it out. We’d be whatever she and Aasa had been back when they’d been both members of the Moon Troupe. Then that woman’s smell coming from my Ari made the world go black.
If I’d reacted that badly to something I’d already known, imagine when she found an actual boyfriend, like she had back then?
“I can’t… I can’t do it…” I was pinching myself not to shake. If I showed resolution, Ari wouldn’t argue. She’d probably be very angry I’d started all this just to back out, in her right, but I’d leave no room for argumentations. Which I could never win, because using logic was not conceivable in my state.
“Reiko-san…” When Ari said that, which was exactly what I predicted she would say exactly, but with the same dismay she’d been displaying since my freak out started the day before, she simply laughed. She was literally laughing aloud, too loudly for this time in the morning.
“What are you…?” I was the one in dismay now.
“You think I slept with Aasa-san, don’t you?” She laughed even longer now. Also louder.
I didn’t even know why, but my cheeks were burning from embarrassment. “I do,” I confirmed with caution.
“Well, I didn’t.”
Would she ever stop laughing? Exasperation started boiling in my stomach.
She dried tears, actual tears of laughter. “We didn’t sleep together, we never did.” Then she opened her coat to show the damned shirt of doom. “I borrowed it when I came yesterday because I know it’s one of your favorite things.”
Used to be, but my mouth was frozen.
“If there’s one person I can say I’ve never touched, that is Aasa-san. So now we can resume this?” She came closer, lips ready to find mine. She wasn’t supposed to seem so accustomed to kissing me after just once but it looked like she’d been doing this all her life.
“You should be mad I was this jealous, then?”
“It is cute. I’d never pegged you for the jealous type.”
“It is hideous. The reason we won’t work—I could hurt you when you get a boyfriend.”
A bemused look crossed her face. “I think you’d have all the right to be upset if I were two-timing you. I mean… I’d kill him, if you got a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. In fact, whatever gender, I’d kill the person.”
“But…”
“Wait. You were planning to misguide me and use me just for fun, then? After you said you love me?”
“No! I… You and Aasa, and platonic, and…” I had no idea how to summarize or even verbalize my train of thoughts coming here. Still, Ari looked like she could stand there all day just to watch me try.
“Will you seriously date me, Reiko-san? Exclusively, since it seems like it’s needed saying.”
“Yo…ererf…” the words got caught in my throat, because this was all too easy after all those hours freaking out. But I nodded as hard as I could and tried again. “Yes!”
“So I’m kissing you now.” She rehearsed repeating our kiss from earlier, pretending she’d jump on me, but instead, she stretched her arm and put her hand on the back of my neck, pulling me toward her. Finally, we kissed.
But not for as long as I’d wanted.
“Where the hell you two think you are?” We looked to find Aasa standing there with some paper in one hand and her cell phone in the other.
I attempted to jump away from Ari, but she hugged my arm very much like she had done back in that party and turned us two toward Aasa. “We’re together, Aasa! It worked out!”
I swallowed my complaint on that lack of any honorific and just confirmed shyly.
“Yes, quite obvious looking from here.” She wasn’t happy at all, either. She raised the hand with the phone and continued, “I’ll inform Mayupon Reiko is now accounted for and unharmed, she just called me freaking out that she didn’t find you on her bed?”
Was she misleading Ari on purpose? Because Ari’s grasp on my arm loosened a little and it did seem like she’d taken the bait.
“She wasn’t even home,” I told Ari. “She knew I’d been awake all night so she told me to sleep while she was out exercising.” Then turned to Aasa: “Do tell Mayu that, thank you.” I took a mental note that our problems hadn’t ended with that exclusive declaration. As I felt Ari hug again my arm, though, I knew the hassle was worth it. In fact, I couldn’t able to dealing with lovers’ quarrels with that girl, because you did need to be lovers for that.
“Also this note…” Aasa now lifted the paper she’d brought with her. It seemed Ari had written it before coming down to meet me as it read in her handwriting, “Reiko-san is here, help!”
“Ah.” Ari didn’t try to explain. “Seems we’re fine now, sorry for the drama.”
“Including waking me up at midnight to say Reiko hates you? Also you.” She pointed at me. “You’ll stop messaging me whenever you need to talk to Arinko from now on.”
Ari smiled upon hearing that, to my further mortification.
“Yes… Sorry. I really didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know what?” Aasa asked with a quizzical look.
No, this ended now because I had a lot to talk with Ari. “That I was bothering,” I lied. It was best if Aasa wasn’t updated with everything. This story we’d begun today belonged only to the two of us.
“One would have to be really stupid not to know, Reiko.” She rolled her eyes, but turned back to the entrance of her building. “I’ll try to sleep a little more, so get your stuff now and disappear. Just stop making out on the street, we’re in the middle of a quarantine, dammit!”
“Sorry,” the two of us said together. Then looked at one another and smiled.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
More than a month later
The small party in Miki-san’s house hadn’t gone exactly as we had planned. Or Ari had planned, actually.
Her plan to cause jealousy in Rurika-san had sounded too silly and I thought I had dissuaded her when she’d told me about it, but she’d only gone straight to Miki-san with the “most fabulous idea”.
“I knew it wouldn’t work with you, I bet Rurika-san saw right through it,” Ari was saying as she separated all the cans from the flammable trash after everyone had already left.
I’d just collected the dishes and was about to take them to the kitchen when I felt her finger on my forehead.
“But you enjoyed this a lot.”
I couldn’t lie. “I’m sorry, but Miki-san was acting really well! Every time she had a new trick to surprise me, it was impossible not to react.”
“Yes, she’s a superb actress.” I would have agreed if it weren’t for her sarcasm. Ari sighed. “If it had been me, I guarantee you Miki-san would be getting some now and not out on a walk, crying alone.”
“She’s not crying. She told me herself she was over Rurika-san more than a month ago.”
Ari’s eyes burned, so I gulped. I regretted again trying to appease her by mentioning my talk with Miki-san in that park. I should just stop talking and go wash the dishes. After this failed attempt sponsored my beloved, I wanted the house to be clean and super cozy for when Miki-san came back.
“And I was worried about being too jealous.” I stretched over the dishes in my hands and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Been yearning to do this since we came this morning to set it all up, and I hated to leave you here to go alone to that café.”
Ari was lightly flushed, so she turned her head back to the bags and sent me away with a hand gesture.
“Do you think…” I started saying through the loudness of the water from the tap. I turned it off and tried again, “Do you think they could still get together?”
“You just said Miki-san was over, right?” Ari came to the kitchen and put away the bags where we’d been asked to.
“But she also ignored me when I said it was a bad idea and did all this.”
I felt her come from behind me and put an arm through each side of my body and then turn on the water to wash her hands. Her touching mine made me itchy and I suddenly couldn’t wait to take her home. And she knew this, because she just suddenly pulled away whistling some happy tune and went back to the living room.
“You could help me finish this sooner,” I complained.
“I’m going to wait outside though.” And I heard the door open and close quickly. I knew that meant she’d teased herself as much as me, to the point she needed distance to cool down. This hadn’t been the first time. I smiled, half worried about when rehearsals resumed—what would we do with our hands?
In other words, happy days.
“Oh wow!” I heard the door open and close again, Ari was back and running to the kitchen. “Oh wow, wow!”
I looked inquiringly at her and raised my eyebrows when she just smiled without a word of explanation.
“Despite how much of a fluke you were,” she began, “it actually worked!”
“You know, I don’t think Miki-san and I were a fluke if even my girlfriend seemed about to attack us.”
“If that’s what’ll make you sleep at night…” She showed me the tongue. “And who cares, it worked!”
“Miki-san sent you anything?” I couldn’t remember where my phone was, and that made me feel guilty because if Miki-san had contacted Ari, she’d probably tried me first and I hadn’t been there for her. It had luckily been good news judging from Ari’s face, but I still felt bad.
Ari guffawed loudly. “Her hands and mouth were too busy for phones!”
Despite knowing I shouldn’t spy, I just ran outside. And almost to the wrong direction until Ari pulled me by the hand toward a corner I’d never noticed before.
It was hard to know who the two figures kissing were, but their clothes were recognizable enough.
“See?” Ari whispered in my ears, holding my hand tighter. “You know… They have to still like each other if Rurika-san was that blind about today’s amateur theater.”
I guided her away not to disturb them. “I have no idea what you’re trying to prove insisting on that, but I don’t really care.” I let go of her hand and put my arm on hers instead. “Let’s just go home and take care of our business?”
She kissed my neck after verifying no one was around and displayed a smile before nodding. “I love taking care of your business.”
“Great, because it can be very complicated.” I pulled her against me by the arm. “And I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day.”
“I love that you’re now telling me things.”
“You do know it was you who kept a lot from me.”
“You never asked why I changed my mind, though. Were you afraid I never noticed we’re in the same troupe?”
I thought for a moment. For a while I had indeed been frightened to find out, but now I was simply thankful for what I had. “So what did make you change and say, ‘Okay, now I’m doing troupe mates too, dude!’?”
“I didn’t.”
I caught my breath because that really wasn’t what I had expected. “You just said you did,” I retorted, speaking one word over the other.
She giggled and stopped walking to stare back at me. “Maybe I’m teasing you with a word play. But if we were to break up, I still wouldn’t do troupe mates, dude. You’re simply too important to me to be included there.”
“It wasn’t the same with Aaaa?”
“It could have become, if we both hadn’t moved on.”
Then she cupped my face in her hands. I even closed my eyes, ready for one of her faux-stolen kisses I’d grown used to. However, she stopped a hair away from my lips. “But I love you, Reiko. And you did tell me you felt the same.”
And I did love her. So much I couldn’t even respond even when we’d been exchanging love declarations for more than a month. So I let myself be attacked by her quick kiss, only to kiss her back and make us even.
From Tsukishiro Kanato’s LINE Messenger
Aasa: Tell Arinko to stop trying to set me up
Aasa: She even asked Chinatsu-san
Aasa: She decided Shou-san and I are soulmates now
Mayu: Still not into Arinko’s idea
Mayu: But it was worth leaving the quarantine to see her face
Mayu: I’m sending the best candid shots
Miki: Ruri and I just talked
Miki: She knew we were trying something
Miki: But she had no idea it was to make her jealous
Miki: And said that Arinko seemed about to die
Miki: So I confessed the plan
Miki: We’ll try again
Miki: Let Arinko know so I can sleep at night
Miki: I’m afraid her stare will give me nightmares
Miki: I’ll assume you two are fine
Aasa: Oh no
Aasa: Mayu just told me the plan for Miki-san worked
Aasa: I’m glad for everyone but she’ll be unbearable now
Aasa: And I’m the one who enabled her???
Me: Kocchan! Can you get me the contact for Karin-chan? I really needed to speak to her
Kocchan: Of course, she’ll be super excited!
Add new contact Kiwami Shin?
Are you sure you want to erase this conversation?
Aasa: Why is Kiwami Shin inviting me on a date
Aasa: She said you asked?
Aasa: REIKO!
Aasa: STOP ENABLING ARI!
Me: Oh no, I’m so sorry! I swear I was just taking a bath, it was a long day
Aasa: Don’t just say Oh no
Aasa: Stop that girl! Guard your phone better!
Me: She just explained it and I like the idea
Aasa: I’m not after Ari anymore, I swear
Aasa: Just stop this crazy show!
Aasa: Oh no she got the contact from your phone
Aasa: She’s messaging Kiwami-chan now
Aasa: Stop it!
Me: Hey, you’re both from Kanagawa!
The end!
Anita, 28/09/2020
Notes:
This fanfic started as one I really want to write about these two because they can only love each other, but how could there be any conflict? Look, they’re IN LOVE!
Then I had this old Daimon/Mayu fic on my head because I loved writing it and thought I’d imitate the style of having the social networks included in the story, kind of like those talks in the end. So I noticed how much my headcanon for Reiko/Ari was similar to how I had portrayed the other two then. Little by little the conflict was so much this own author felt conflicted.
I’m not sure I’ll be able to come up with some other fic different enough for these two but I’d love to. They’re so lovely!
I hope you guys enjoyed your time here.
Please, don’t forget to comment.
See you next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment