RECORDING
Chapter Nine
Sinister Mio
When Mio came to, Ritsu's upside-down head filled her vision. Her best friend's brow was creased all the way up to her hairline. Then Ritsu's forehead smoothed and her face receded from Mio's sight.
Perplexed, the bassist sat up to find she had been laying unconscious with her head in Ritsu's lap. They were in the drummer's darkened living room on the couch. The house was utterly silent. Mio glanced out the window to see that the sun had set.
Mio blinked, her obsidian eyebrows slanting a bit. "How long was I...?" she started to whisper, but the clock in the cable box answered her. 18:57. "...Almost four hours...!" The bewildered bassist turned back to her friend, who had said nought yet. "How did I get here? Did someone drive us?"
Ritsu shook her head. Grinning at the reaction she was expecting from Mio, she responded, "I carried you."
The very idea of this was enough to blow Mio's mind a hundred times over. Her mouth fell open and she blinked rapidly, attempting to formulate a logical response. "You - me - all the way...WHAT?" she exclaimed, making Ritsu laugh. The drummer could hear the fuses in Mio's brain blowing.
"I didn't know what else to do," Ritsu snickered, shrugging blithely. They both still wore their uniforms. "We couldn't stay at school."
She's so little, though! How did she manage that? A tidal wave of gratitude struck Mio as she thought of her best friend carrying her all the way from school. The bassist inclined her head, murmuring, "Arigatou, Ritsu."
"N-no problem," the brunette stuttered, blushing. She averted her hazel eyes, which swam in the wan light. "I couldn't just...I mean..." She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. It did nothing to alleviate her of her sudden intense nervousness. Their intimacy struck the drummer, causing her to open her eyes and face her friend. Mio was close enough to touch. Yes, touch...It was no longer enough to just see Mio and talk to Mio. Ritsu needed to touch Mio. Anywhere. Her arm, her hair, her knee.
Why is she so embarrassed? the bassist wondered, studying her friend's flushed face. It was a little gauche, yet Mio felt oddly drawn in by Ritsu's dreamy stare. This bizarre conundrum made the raven-haired girl a little embarrassed as well. Her cheeks reddened to match Ritsu's. Why do I feel this way? Then a poignant thought struck Mio: Could she be feeling the same way as me?
Ritsu allowed a smile to spread across her face. Mio's been staring at me for a long time. The drummer had seen too many movies to not know what this meant. Trusting her gut, Ritsu leaned in a bit closer...parted her lips slightly...
DING-DONG!
The brunette halted, her mouth but a mere inch from Mio's. She sighed, checking the clock. 19:02.
"Doesn't Halloween end at seven o'clock?" the bassist whispered, giving voice to Ritsu's thoughts word for word.
"Yeah," the drummer replied, also whispering, "but you know how some people are. Probably college kids." Why are we whispering? she wondered.
DING-DONG!
"Coming..." Ritsu called, reluctantly dragging herself off the sofa and into the foyer. She grabbed the stainless steel bowl full of candy. A drop of sweat appeared on her head. Sometimes she wished her parents would let her shop for Halloween candy. Her mom had bought Baby Ruths. Ritsu didn't know anybody under fifty years old who ate Baby Ruths.
Two guys in hoodies and jeans faced Ritsu sullenly as she opened the door. She tossed two candy bars at them, and then closed the door when they asked for more.
She turned back toward the living room, but didn't enter. On the couch she saw Mio had also been leaning forward. The reality of what almost happened struck Ritsu. I almost kissed Mio! Teetering a little, she set the bowl down. Part of her was happy she hadn't actually gone through with it. Mio would flip her wig if I forced my feelings on her in such a way. Ten-plus years of friendship could be thrown away so easily.
Mio looked up. The light from the foyer revealed that her cheeks were still rosy. "Something wrong?"
Her voice caught Ritsu off-guard, snapping the drummer from her reverie. It occured to her that Mio could very well unmask her secret without aid. That was a little bit frightening to Ritsu, and she responded to the fear the only way she knew how.
"Why're you blushing, ne?" she teased.
"Why are you?" Mio retorted.
Ritsu flinched. She gingerly touched her burning face. Good grief, I'm like an open book! But perhaps Mio was blushing for the same reason. That was a consoling, yet exciting thought. There's no reins on this, Ritsu realized. Maybe I should just tell her...
"Well, it..." The drummer forced her legs to move; her calves felt leaden. "It has to do with that...thing...that's had me so..." Ritsu didn't know how to finish the sentence. She plopped down next to Mio. The word sullen popped into her head just as she noticed Mio absently twirling a lock of her hair with her right hand. The motion looked neither clumsy nor awkward as most of Mio's rare right-handed actions were. "Chotto matte. Since when could you use your right hand so easily?"
Mio smirked. "I can't, but it's not like it's completely useless." Laughing humorlessly, she reminisced, "Remember penmanship classes with Abe-sensei?"
That old ghost of a name immediately struck Ritsu. She grinned. Old Mrs. Abe, a first grade teacher in primary school, was one of those unforgettable teachers. A teacher to tell your kids about.
"She was the religious fanatic, ne?" Ritsu held her tummy, shaking with mirth. Mrs. Abe was an ancient woman with a gravelly, deep voice and a faith strong enough to move mountains. Between learning about long division and grammar, she would bash the homosexuals and praise the Lord.
"Hai." Mio was genuinely laughing now. "She used so many big words that nobody understood." Sighing, the bassist dropped her smile. "She used to make me write right-handed."
The audacity of this was staggering, so much so that Ritsu forgot the answer to her own question: "Why?"
"Because everything having to do with the left side was..."
"Evil. Sinister. Awkward. I remember now," the drummer nodded. She giggled. "She used to call you something..."
"Sinistromanuel." Mio's voice was flat, irritated. Ritsu laughed and the bassist ranted, "Everyday she told me..." Mio dropped her voice deeper within her throat. "Akiyama-san, you are sinistromanuel, and that is not the way God made you. Who in the world says sinistromanuel? Why couldn't she just call me lefty like everybody else?"
"Probably because she wanted to feel like the high and mighty dextromanuel." It was amazing to Ritsu how discriminant Mrs. Abe had been to her only sinistrous student. Poor Mio had to be the sinistromanuel while everybody else got to be the righty...
It was mid-April, 1998. The excitement of first grade was still thick in the air for the boys and girls. They had desks - real desks with tops that lifted up to reveal real text books and other novel school supplies. They had lunch and outdoor recess. After a year of painting and singing the alphabet, they were learning real intense stuff. And that was thrilling to Akiyama Mio, age six. If I can make it in first grade, I can make it in the world! she thought giddily. She closed her math book and neatly set it in her well-organized desk. She pulled out her history book, for Mrs. Abe always moved on to history lessons after math.
Mrs. Abe pulled several sheets of lined paper from a rack on her desk and proceeded to set a leaf on each child's desk. Mio wasn't the only one who was confused. Everyone stirred with surprise.
One student spoke up. It was that rambunctious girl with the high forehead who always teased Mio at recess. She piped up, "Sensei, why aren't we-"
"You will raise your hand if your desire is to speak, Tainaka-san."
Sighing flambuoyantly, Ritsu sank back in her chair, her right hand raised. Mrs. Abe refused to call on the wee brunette until she had finished passing out the paper. Mio could see from across the classroom that this irritated Ritsu.
"Now, Tainaka-san," Mrs. Abe said, coming back to the front of the classroom, "what is your question?"
"Why aren't we doing history today?"
Murmurs of assent greeted her query. Irked by the noise, Mrs. Abe held up her hand. That was her signal for everyone to be quiet. After the noise died down she said brightly, "Today we begin a new course in the curriculum. Who knows what 'curriculum' means?"
Her smile strained as the silence stretched out.
"Curriculum..." She turned around and wrote the word on the board. "...means our course of study. We're learning something new." Turning around with a flourish, she proclaimed, "Penmanship!"
The silence stretched out further.
"I can see you're...all so excited," Mrs. Abe smiled. And without further ado, she dove into their first penmanship lesson.
"Go," she spoke, writing the character on the board. Mio marvelled at Mrs. Abe's neat scripture. It didn't compare to the raven-haired girl's scrawl. "What word commences with the letter go?"
After a brief hesitant silence some suggestions came up. Nodding, Mrs. Abe wrote the words goju and gomenasai on the board. She continued through the alphabet, compiling a sizeable list of words. Her instructions succeeding that were to write the words yourself on your lined paper. While everybody worked Mrs. Abe walked around, alienating individuals for their messy handwriting.
"You expect people to be able to read this, Tainaka-san?" The teacher held the paper at arm's length. Ritsu could've handed Mrs. Abe a glistening turd and she would have reacted with less disgust. "Unacceptable! I would expect better of a right-hander!"
Mio felt her back go stiff as Mrs. Abe approached. The sensei had never once raised her voice at the noir-haired girl, but her combustible temper had gone down in legend. Gripping her pencil firmly, Mio tried to write inu as neatly as possible.
Without looking up Mio became aware of Mrs. Abe's presence. The sensei's head shadowed her paper. She said nought for a moment. Then, her voice tinged with excitement: "Come with me."
Mio obeyed without question, yet she worried why she had to go with Mrs. Abe. Is my handwriting really that bad? She was suddenly afraid that the teacher would punish her. Maybe I have the worst handwriting in the class! Maybe Abe-sensei's going to chop my hand off! Mio clutched her left wrist and glared tearfully at Mrs. Abe.
Her fear increased exponentially as the teacher brought her to Ritsu's desk. Placing both hands on Mio's small shoulders, Mrs. Abe barked, "Tainaka-san."
Ritsu looked up. Her round hazel eyes glinted when she saw Mio.
"Do you know this young lady?" Mrs. Abe inquired.
"Mio-chan!" Ritsu cheered. "How was that worm in your hair?"
Mio shuddered, remembering how the gross thing slid through her coaly locks. "Horrible!" she squeaked. Of course Ritsu giggled at this. Ritsu always found Mio's trepidation funny. Mio's left hand balled into a fist. One day I'll slug her. Then she'll never make fun of me again!
"Tainaka-san..." Mrs. Abe's voice carried more authority than before. "Akiyama-san is a sinistromanuel and she writes better than you! Explain yourself!"
"Sister mantel?" Ritsu's brow folded in confusion. "Is that a disease?" She was looking at Mio as though she were diseased.
"Yes, it is a disease!" Mrs. Abe's hands fluttered lunatically. "Poor Akiyama-san is cursed by the Devil, and now she is forced to use the hand that can't write!" The sensei grabbed Mio's left hand and thrust it in Ritsu's face. "But she overcame this...this execration, and her handwriting is flawless! Absolutely utopian! What's your excuse, eh? You're not a sinistromanuel!"
Whilst Mrs. Abe ranted, Ritsu and Mio's eyes met. All of six years old they both were, yet at such a green age they could think, This bitch is off her rocker.
"...Anyways," the sensei finished with a sigh, "I hope you learned something from this, Tainaka-san."
"I did," Ritsu muttered unconvincingly.
Mrs. Abe released Mio's left hand. The raven-haired girl started to slink off, traumatized, when the teacher barked, "Get back here, Akiyama-san! I have not yet terminated the business which I have with you!"
Squeaking frightfully, Mio stiffly turned back around. Seeing those wide blue eyes bright with tears made Ritsu's heart go out for the newly branded girl. At the same time the brunette felt angry. Who was Mrs. Abe to scare Mio like this? Didn't she know that Mio's fear belonged to Ritsu?
Quaking with dread, Mio followed Mrs. Abe to the back of the classroom. Along the way the teacher snapped up another sinistromanuel named Yamoto Chiharu. She towered above the two cowering girls, her arms crossed. Mio's blue eyes met Chiharu's green ones. And in that instant they knew each other.
"You both are aware of why you're here, ne?" Mrs. Abe inquired.
Mio was so scared she felt like crying. Chiharu was similarly disquieted, though she worked up the nerve to respond. "We're sister mantels...?"
"Sinistromanuels," Mrs. Abe corrected. She gestured at a chipped round table. "Sit there a moment. I'll be with you soon." She departed to monitor the other students' work.
Mio immediately complied with the sensei's orders. After a few seconds' hesitation, Chiharu also reluctantly sat. She was a small girl with shoulder-length straight brown hair, shelf bangs, and glasses. Her hooded green eyes darted about the back of the classroom. Mio presumed she was plotting escape routes.
"What's a sinistromanuel?" she inquired.
"I dunno," Chiharu muttered, laying her head down on the table, "but I hate it. It makes me feel ugly."
Aside from the rickety round table, this end of the classroom was sparsely furnished. Mio imagined Mrs. Abe grilling sinistromanuels until they snapped, and then repainting the walls to cover the bloodstains. She looked at Ritsu, who had been glancing back there every once in a while. Ricchan's a little scary, but Abe-sensei could be dangerous.
Chiharu abruptly got up and fetched a dictionary. Leafing through it, she murmured, "If Abe-sensei's gonna call me by this weird name, I'd like to know what it means." She halted once she got to the S's and looked at Mio. "How do you spell 'sinistromanuel'?"
Mio shrugged.
Sighing, Chiharu cluelessly flipped the pages until she stumbled upon that accursed word. "Here it is!...'Sinistromanuel: Having more dexterity in or using the left hand more easily than the right...Awkward or maladroit.'" Shaking her head, Chiharu protested the definition, waving her tiny fist. "My left hand is not awkward! This isn't right!"
"No, it is not right." Mrs. Abe came strolling back, bearing more lined paper. She divided them into two piles, each of which she thrust at the two lefties. "You are not right, but left. Sinister. Izquierda. Gauche. Lihft, as the Anglo-Saxons put it. Do you know what 'lihft' meant to the Anglo-Saxons?"
Who are the Anglo-Saxons? Mio wondered. The expression on Chiharu's face suggested the same thought. Maybe they were Mrs. Abe's Martian relations. Being that they spoke a language that was as good as dead to Mio, they sounded as crazy as the sensei.
"Well, 'lihft' means left, obviously," Mrs. Abe shrugged. "But to the Anglo-Saxons it also meant weak and worthless. And I believe that's quite true. I mean, look at how I write with my sinister hand." Precariously, Mrs. Abe picked up a ballpoint pen from the table with her left hand. She wrote on the lined paper: Sinistromanuelism is a sin. Meticulous she was while she wrote, but the Kanji was still jagged and sloppy. "See? It's useless."
It's not useless to me. Mio had been using her left hand for as long as she could remember. Neither of her parents called attention to it. She colored shapes left-handed in kindergarten and her then teacher didn't mind or even notice. It was dawning on Mio that maybe it was just Mrs. Abe who noticed left-handedness. It also dawned on Mio - and Chiharu as well - that they were different from the rest of the class. Not only different, but inadequate. Mio held up her left hand, feeling like it had made her a failure.
She looked resentfully at the twenty-nine right-handed students sitting in the front. She and Chiharu were sinistromanuel, and so they belonged in the back. Mio looked at the quiet brown-haired girl, feeling oddly connected to her. We're both freaks, by sensei's standards. I'm just glad I'm not alone.
"You both are writing with a useless hand," Mrs. Abe continued. "And I will see to it that you use your right - and more useful - hands at all times."
A pit of dread formed in Mio's stomach.
The sensei set the two girls on the 'path of RIGHTeousness' immediately. Their first assignment was simply to write their names - an ordinary task which Mio found daunting when performed right-handed. Just holding the pencil correctly was an all-out tribulation. It was so difficult that Mio had to manually place her fingers around the pencil with her left hand.
Chiharu, Mio bitterly noticed, had no trouble holding a pencil, or writing for that matter. She picked up the pencil as easily with her right hand as she had with her left hand. In no time at all she had written her full name. The handwriting was sloppy (as all children's tends to be), but it pleased Mrs. Abe.
"You are ambidexterous," she declared to the six-year-old. "Do you know what that means?"
Chiharu shook her head.
"It means you are tempted by the Devil's sinistrous curse, but you can resist it. It is a rare gift, Yamoto-san. Treasure it as you treasure your right hand." She handed Chiharu her paper. "You may return to your seat."
Chiharu accepted the paper, bowed, and scurried off to her seat, shaken.
Traitor, Mio spat inwardly. She glared at her paper. In the time it took Chiharu to write her full name Mio had only completed the a character in Akiyama. She longed for a shorter last name.
"I see you are not so gifted," Mrs. Abe observed.
"No, I'm not," Mio growled.
"You're doing fine. The beginning's always tough."
Unless you're ambidexterous. She threw another glare in Chiharu's direction.
"One of the hardest things to do," the sensei continued, "is to unlearn something. The longer you do something repeatedly, the more difficult it is to break that habit." She patted Mio's shoulder. "Once you unlearn writing sinistrously, using your right hand will come more easily to you."
It never did come easily to wee Mio.
Mrs. Abe didn't keep her in the back; only during penmanship lessons was the poor girl confined to the rearmost end of the classroom. But it wasn't just then that Mio was unlearning left-handedness. Mrs. Abe kept an eye on her from the moment she walked in the classroom at 8:30 to the moment she left at 15:10.
"Right hand, Akiyama-san!" Mrs. Abe reminded her during a math lesson. Shamefaced, Mio switched her pencil to her other hand. "That's good. Keep on using that right hand, Akiyama-san," Mrs. Abe impetuously cheered during a spelling test. The class giggled. On days that Mio was absent from school she imagined Mrs. Abe addressing her classmates with: "Akiyama-san is not here today, but if she were she would be writing with her right hand now."
It was better at home, where Mio's sinistromanuel ways fell upon the eyes of equally sinistromanuel parents. But at school Mio was haunted by an irrational fear that everyone was lying in wait for her to use her left hand so they could pounce.
One day during recess Mio exited the bathroom to see Ritsu loping up the hallway. Her normally cheery face was screwed up in pain, and she held a towel to her left elbow. Under regular circumstances Ritsu would've teased Mio as she passed by, but the brunette obviously had more important things at hand.
"Anoo..." Mio tentatively called after her. Her heart rate increased as Ritsu turned her tear-streaked face toward her. "What's wrong?"
"I scraped my elbow jumping off the swing," Ritsu sniffled. She pulled the towel away and Mio cried out in horror. The brunette's elbow was oozing blood. Copious crimson stains splattered and smeared the towel. Ritsu laughed at Mio's reaction, then inquired, "Where's the nurse's office?"
Mio frowned, for she knew the answer but she didn't know how to give it. Two weeks' worth of writing with an unfavored hand left the raven-haired girl disoriented. At times - such as now - she completely lost her sense of direction. She looked at her two hands for reference. She knew one of them was left. And she knew that if one had to be left the other had to be right.
"Well..." she began uncertainly. "You just make a right at the headmaster's office." She extended a hand in what she believed was the right direction.
Ritsu's brow puckered. "Uh, Mio-chan..."
"Mm?"
"You're pointing left."
Her face the very picture of open surprise and wonder, Mio considered her left hand extended outward. I always use that hand without even thinking. Maybe she always would.
"Can you tell right from left?" Ritsu's voice brightened with amusement. "Is this a sign of sister mantel?"
Mio's face fell. All week whenever someone had given her directions she had been unable to follow them. She was a sinistromanuel - with all the negative qualities, plus stupidity - no matter which hand she wrote with. Ashamed and no longer able to contain her anguish, Mio began to sob. She crouched on the floor and balled her fists over her eyes.
"Aw, gosh...Look, I'm sorry, 'kay? Don't cry." Still clutching her towel, Ritsu kneeled in front of Mio and placed a hand on her knee. "I was just jokin'. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
"I'm such an idiot!"
"Oh, no you're not. Sometimes I get left and right mixed up, too."
"No! I am!" Mio looked up at the girl who normally bullied her. Her ink-blue eyes glittered with tears. "I can't write left-handed and I never feel right writing right-handed!"
Ritsu shrugged. "So write left-handed."
Mio shook her head, frustrated and miserable, and buried her red face in her hands. "I can't! Abe-sensei won't let me!"
Ritsu jumped up and excitedly paced circles about her friend. "I knew she was bugging you! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" She halted and waved her free hand expressively. "Why do you do anything that psycho tells you? I never do!"
"And you're the one she always sends to the headmaster's office."
The brunette rolled her eyes. "Whateverrrr! Abe-sensei's crazy to make you write right-handed! Don't you know how awesome it is to be left-handed?"
"...'Awesome'...?" Mio echoed quietly. She looked up from her hands.
"Yeah!" Ritsu flashed her teeth in a brilliant smile. "I'll bet some of the awesomest people in history were left-handed! Like...like...Goku! Yeah...or...Astro Boy! Or Pikachu!" She fell silent when she saw Mio's small frame quivering. The raven-haired girl moved her hand away from her mouth; she was smiling, laughing. "See? You know that lefties are awesome," Ritsu sighed, relieved she had consoled Mio. She extended her hand. "C'mon, let's go play!"
Still giggling, Mio took Ritsu's hand and the brunette helped her up. After Mio crudely bound Ritsu's elbow with the towel they stepped back outside into the spring. The raven-haired girl smiled, thinking of what Ritsu told her. Ricchan's not so bad after all.
"Hey, Mio-chan, check out my new pet."
Mio turned to find Ritsu's hands cupped around a daddy longlegs spider. She stumbled backwards with a horrified screech.
"His name is Fluffy," Ritsu grinned, forcing the arachnid closer to Mio's pale face. The ebony-haired girl's eyes widened as 'Fluffy-chan,' as Ritsu kept calling it, extended a thin spindly leg and skittered silently along the brunette's arm.
"Fluffy-chan says he likes you!" Ritsu giggled. "Wanna pet him?" She extended her arm.
"G-get that thing away from me...!"
Waterfall tears streamed down seventeen-year-old Mio's face. "You were such an awful...wonderful...disordely person!" she laughed. "If it wasn't for you I would've had to write right-handed and go psycho!"
"Hm. And here I thought you went psycho anyways."
POW! BOP!
"Owww..." Ritsu moaned. "You hit me twice..."
Mio crossed her arms. "One for calling me psycho, and one for that stupid spider." She sighed, grumbled, "I should've decked you a long time ago for that one."
Heavy but quick footsteps descended down the staircase and Satoshi, Ritsu's little brother, appeared in the foyer behind the two girls. He did a double-take, for he had nearly ran heedlessly out the front door.
"Mio-san looks pissed and nee-chan's got a lump." Laughing, he donned his jacket. "Business as usual, I guess."
"I guess," Ritsu squeaked, imitating how Satoshi's voice had cracked on guess.
Her brother scowled. "Oh, shut up. I love my cracky voice." His voice cracked a few times. Even Mio was giggling. His cheeks pinkened. "I'm going out with the guys to see Paranormal Activity."
Now Mio whimpered.
"Have fun," Ritsu smiled.
After Satoshi left the two girls sat in silence. Mr. and Mrs. Tainaka were at a parent-teacher conference with Tokudaiji. Ritsu and Mio were alone. The brunette realized with a flash that this was the perfect time to tell her.
Ritsu was terrified.
"Uh, Mio, look...I gotta, uh...talk to you..."