Come into my lair, said the spider to the fly, and read the third (and final?) part of It’s So Cowardly, known to me as Fugainaiya (inspired by the song—one is just a translation of the other).
Compared to the others, this one is LONG. Grab yourself a seat and a beer, because you might be here a while.
As always, thanks for reading!
Ryukyu is an old name for a string of islands off of Japan (and belonging to the Japanese government) including Okinawa and ending with Taiwan. (Which, of course, does not belong to Japan). Yumi is working on her History major at this point. Tokyo University is one of the leading research Universities in Japan (so entrance into the school is no mean feat) and has five campuses: Hongo, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane, and Nakano. Those familiar with Japan’s tollway system will, again, forgive whatever errors I make.
Good for you.
Endo had met Satou Sei only once before tonight, at a bar not far from here. She had been half-drunk at the time and well on her way to full-out. He had been alone then, and he’d put a fair amount of booze into his system by that point, though nowhere near enough to inebriate him, a fair wine cellar unto himself—just enough to give him that little bit of extra bravery that sober people somehow always seemed to confuse with stupidity and drunken arrogance. He had, in truth, been drinking off a nasty breakup, (the next day he would wind up drinking off a nasty hangover and a nasty breakup, though he didn’t know it at the time) and she had been hanging out with a group of women. They had been laughing with her in the way that good friends did, but she had been laughing with them in the way he did when he was going for the proverbial female jugular; he had recognized it immediately, but he had been “brave” enough to ignore it entirely. She had seemed to him at that point almost masculine in the way she treated the two girls with her, and he had “bravely” ignored that too. Sei’s departure from his table was the first time he had bothered to go back and carefully examine that fuzzy memory, and he would later rationalize it by saying that he had earlier that night watched a refreshing bout of bisexual porn, which had apparently gone to his head more than the booze.
That night, Endo had been isolated. Alone, the world had seemed a far scarier place to him, though that could have just as easily been the alcohol. The truth was, Endo was frequently isolated; it was simply a fact of his life. Endo worked quite a bit to support what he called his University Habit, and when he wasn’t at class or work, he was usually sleeping. He found perhaps one or two nights a week to have fun with his friends, and then they usually insisted he get drunk with them. He did not like alcohol nearly so much as it seemed, but he liked them, and he thought that in spite of the fact that they did not think of him as much more than a drinking buddy, (though one or two of the girls, he thought, might have the hots for him—but he often thought that about women) if he lost them, he would be quite poorly off. Solitude did funny things to a person’s brain; even solitude in the middle of a crowd of friends.
It was on this last bit that Endo devoted most of his thought. He had felt it before, of course, though not often—that funny little feeling when everybody around you is having fun, and they think you are too, when in reality you’re miserable. It could be due to something bad in your life that you hadn’t told anybody about—a dead cat, a failed grade, a fresh breakup—or simply because nobody was really paying any attention to you. But that kind of solitude, Endo thought, was nearly maddening. It created in you a deep, hollow insecurity: Are these people really my friends? How can they be? They’re not even seeing me at all. Doesn’t that mean that they’re lying to me? After a while, that little thought evolved into more complex machinations—how many of your “friends” are actually lying to you? Or even worse, in a way, how many have you simply misinterpreted? Oh, I’m sorry, they could be saying, did you think that I cared about you? I’m sorry if I sent off that signal, but in truth you’re really just a drinking buddy—a good guy, somebody to talk to if I need a perking up or a laugh, since you’ve got a nice sense of humor. I like you well enough, but please keep yourself to yourself, okay?
That sort of solitude did no ambiguous “funny things” to a person’s head, Endo thought. It simply drove you mad, honest and surely.
Ten seconds after Sei stood up and left, the waiter set her beer down at her spot. He set Endo’s wine down in his. He vanished.
Fifteen seconds after Sei stood up and left, Endo decided that his wine tasted like shit. He really did have lousy taste in wines.
Twenty seconds later, he had taken a deep drought from Sei’s beer, which tasted a little like horse piss (she had poor taste in beer, he thought). He felt a little braver. Maybe brave enough to do what he thought he maybe had to do. He took another drought to ensure that his voice could attain the necessary obnoxious power he would need, and then he stood up too. He could just barely see Sei’s head retreating towards the bar attached to the restaurant.
This, he thought dimly, was one of those things that he would probably be embarrassed about later. He wasn’t drunk enough to forget it—he was only a little buzzed, in fact, since he could hold his liquor well enough (though not as well as he thought he could)—but that was alright.
“Sei!” he called, and the restaurant mostly lost its dim, humming voice. The girl turned around and faced him.
“What is it, Endo?” she said gently.
“Those two friends of yours, the first time I met you,” he said loudly, intending his voice to match her gentleness but failing unwittingly. “What happened to them?”
“They left,” she said. He could not interpret her voice, save for the hesitation before the answer. Maybe that was interpretation enough.
They left.
Endo Kunikuda sat down. Then he stood up again.
“Call me sometime, will you?” he shouted. “I won’t leave.”
She smiled at him, and for the first time all night, that Sei that he remembered—the shit-eating, wry, impish girl that he had drunkenly fallen in love with (and subsequently basically forgotten the next morning) one night long ago—appeared before him. “Don’t get too many stupid ideas, sailor,” she said. “You wind up paying for them.”
“Scurvy,” he agreed, mildly aware that he had no idea what the word meant.
She laughed, mildly aware that Endo had no idea what the word meant, and said, “Okay. I’ll call you sometime.”
Then she vanished. He sat back down.
Scurvy. That’s just scurvy.
Endo Kunikuda rather enjoyed being right. He thought that maybe Sei would be grateful to him for catching on, though he was disappointed to note that it would not get him any nearer the inside of her pants: Because he knew that he was right, he knew she played for the other team. Too bad. She was pretty hot. He started thinking up a few excuses to make to his guy friends about why he did a plain miss tonight, thinking that if he said it straight-out—She’s a lesbian, I had no chance—they’d probably just laugh at him, citing the same counter-argument that he had cited to himself earlier that night.
But he was right.
She did.
Because, she thought, that was exactly what Yumi was doing. Sitting in front of the counter, the girl nursed a small glass of something, and that was about all she did—Sei saw none of Yumi’s usual radiance tonight. The bar remained dim, lifeless, whereas Sei might have expected it to suddenly be as bright as a candle with that happy, expressive girl inside of it. Her hair was down, a state that Sei had only previously seen her in when she slept. She wore a jacket and jeans, and sneakers. She was not dressed to go out and have a good time—she looked like a girl who was dressed such that if she woke up the next morning naked and uncertain of where she was, her clothes would have been no great loss.
However, something about the way Endo had said what he said had perked her up; she had spent most of the evening miserable; not simply afraid as she had been telling herself. She had even been happy, a little, when he had caught onto her. Fear had been part of the equation, of course, but solitude did funny things to a person’s brain, she knew; the worst part of it was that solitude, especially solitude in the midst of a crowd, was devious—it didn’t let you say, hey, you’re lonely, because there were twenty-odd people around you that called themselves your friends. Sei was, after all, not a fearful person. She was, however, human, and solitude took its due toll on her as it did on everybody. She only briefly considered this before deciding that she did not give a flying batshit. She could deal with introspective horsepiss later. For now…
She gathered up her courage. She found that she felt herself needing it. She had not seen Yumi in over a year—not since the young girl had gone off to University. They had not parted on bad terms, but Sei had found that as Yumi aged, she became less and less tolerant of Sei’s teasing. Save for one odd time when the girl had responded, (and oh, how she had responded), by Yumi’s senior year at Lillian, Sei had more often than not found herself teasing a brick wall.
Sei wondered now how she should approach Yumi even as she did. Should she buy her a drink? Say something to make her smile? Say something traditional like, may I sit here? (The last one did not at all seem to fit her, but given the mood of her evening, it didn’t seem entirely inappropriate).
She considered this so hard that by the time she reached Yumi, who still had not noticed her, she hadn’t thought of a single thing. So, following the advice of thousands of dating sages the world over, she simply sat on the stool next to her, uninvited, and said, “Hi, Yumi.”
Yumi jerked in shock and turned her head so fast that Sei thought it might break clean off. “Y-you!” she sputtered. “You scared me!” Her face was pulled up in an expression of shock, and, oddly enough, of relief. Was it possible to be both at once? Apparently.
“It was easy,” Sei said with a grin, finding her old mannerisms returning to her seamlessly, in sharp contrast to how she’d been with Kunikuda earlier in the evening. Even so, she still felt a strain somewhere near her core—she was still tired, still stressed, still afraid. She thought she had probably failed in her original mission unless she could call Kunikuda and ask him to spread around that they’d had sex or something equally stupid; that tugged one way at her. She thought that Yumi might simply ask her to leave, that the young, vibrant girl had simply become so tired of her face that she would send her away; that tugged at her another way. It was, all things considered, all Sei could do to keep her expression, but damned if she couldn’t at least do that. “How are you, Yumi?” Yumi’s expression clouded briefly but intensely, the look of somebody who was trying to cry and smile all at once, and Sei, who would think a millisecond later that she had overreacted and a minute and a half later that she hadn’t, said, “Hey,” her voice serious of a sudden, “are you okay?”
Thinking back on it, Sei realized that this was probably the worst thing she could have said to Yumi, even if she couldn’t have helped it, couldn’t have known.
Are you okay is a funny little expression. With few exceptions, the people who hear this phrase are largely the people who are, in fact, visibly not okay. There are varying degrees of visible—just as a lover of many years may pick out signs of being not okay more easily than a friend from work, some people might broadcast signs of being not okay more or more often than others. For example…
For example, if this were Sachiko, I wouldn’t even get a straight answer. As it was…
The other funny little thing about are you okay is this, and it is for the first time now that Sei realizes it: As soon as somebody asks a distraught person if they are okay, they are not. It is the open sesame of the proverbial floodgates, and all the person’s carefully constructed barriers come crashing down, all at once. It is a well-meaning reminder that the person is not well, and it is the utmost of sympathies, because asking this of a distraught person is an invitation to become a shoulder to cry on.
As it was, Yumi’s floodgates had been nearly broken anyway; it was almost a mercy to give them that last little kick. The first tears came slowly, discreetly, working their not-quite-parallel ways down Yumi’s cheeks like spies, trying desperately to blend in with her nearly invisible makeup. She stared at Sei for a moment through watery eyes, and Sei thought she saw something like a smile pass over the girl’s lips, and all at once she understood.
Yumi did not lock up because she found me annoying. Not at all. Sei did not know why she had become such a brick wall, but it didn’t matter. She could guess, anyway.
Then Yumi broke down. Tears flooded down her cheeks as her chest heaved powerfully, in and out, drawing breath just barely fast enough to keep her going. She hung her head, sobbing powerfully but quietly, (they were, after all, in public, and a Lady did not sob in public, Sei thought angrily) and after a moment, Sei put her hand on Yumi’s head, already moist with sweat from the exertion —crying full-force was a tiring event. She bent her head down close to Yumi’s, and whispered, “Come on, Yumi. Let’s get you somewhere less public and drunken, ‘kay?” The only place that really came to mind was the ladies’ room—that bastion of solitude and sisterhood that the likes of Kunikuda and the obviously perturbed bartender could only guess at. Even so, it was better than bawling in public.
And, of course, it was more private.
Sliding the lock shut, Sei plopped Yumi down on the toilet seat and squatted next to her. The girl was so short that even like this, Sei came easily up to her badly-shaking chest with both hands clutched against it like a grieving nun or a widow or
Gently, Sei took one of Yumi’s hands from her chest and pressed it between her own breasts, squeezing the tiny thing gently. After a second, Yumi’s fingers tightened around Sei’s, and for a second, the two of them stayed there like that, neither moving so much as a muscle. Even their breathing quieted, and for a moment, there was pure silence in the bathroom that Sei would later remember so fondly and bitterly.
Then Sei looked up and met Yumi’s eyes, finding the girl already staring down at her, as though expecting something. Sei wasn’t really certain what it was, so she gave to her the first thing that came to mind: A smile.
“Hi, Yumi,” she said for the second time that evening. “How are you?” Her voice was clean and confident, the Sei that Yumi was used to (and, though she didn’t know it, the Sei that Yumi needed to hear).
Yumi managed a brave smile—those who can only manage a brave smile are usually holding on by the skin of their teeth and bravery as it is, and Yumi was no exception. “Hi, Sei,” she said, and Sei took a moment to marvel at the girl’s voice; even trembling as it was, she could hear how it had grown in the span of only a year, and for a moment, Sei felt an unforgiving wave of nostalgia wash over her. “I’ve done better.” Her voice cracked, and Sei saw tears stinging at the edges of her eyes.
Sei stood up, and pulled Yumi up with her. For a moment, neither was sure what was going on, until Sei pulled the girl into her arms; a strong,
loving
comforting grip
for both of us
and gave her the shoulder she so desperately needed.
The funny thing about shoulders, though, is that by the time we have them, we rarely need them anymore. Usually, just having one is enough.
Yumi stayed there for a minute anyway; they were warm together, and for just that one little minute, they were both happy. Sei no longer had problems at school; was no longer concerned about failing her upper-level mathematics class, was no longer afraid of the women she lived with, of their small minds and long reaches. Was no longer afraid of Endo Kunikuda, (in a small, then-insignificant part of her mind, she resolved to call him back within a week or two).
And as for Yumi:
“She’s gone,” Yumi murmured, and Sei had an idea or two what she was talking about. “She’s been gone for a year. This is our one-year she’s-gone anniversary.”As she said this, the strangest little rhyme appeared in Sei’s head, one that she’d learned as a child
(all-gone all-gone cattail fish is all-gone, ne’er seen again / where to where to into the sea its so blue; now we start again)
and then vanished just as easily, a stubborn cattail that her mind could not entirely wrap around.
“Where did she go?” Sei asked.
“Kyoto,” she said. “Away from here. It might as well have been Ryukyu.” The point is that she left, not where she went.
“Why?” Sei asked.
“I don’t know,” Yumi said. “I think she was running away from me.”
“I doubt that,” Sei said, patting Yumi’s head. “I don’t think she would ever do that, Yumi.” It was probably her family. It was probably Suguru. I’ll have that motherfucking bastard’s head on a stick.
“Then why…” Yumi’s voice caught. “Why the hell did she have to leave?”
Sei couldn’t think of anything to say to that, which was probably bad, because Yumi kept going, which was definitely bad. Already, she was starting to fumble words, something Sei hadn’t heard her do in years. “All I wanted w-was to go to school with her…so that we wouldn’t have to be apart. I was going to tell her, Sei, did you know that? I was going to tell her.”
“Tell her what?” Sei asked gently, dreading the answer. She hated herself for it, but her stomach sank; she thought well of herself, though, for not allowing any stray thoughts
i can be there for you
she wont
to pass through her head. Refusing to let that small little animal in the pit of her stomach pass to her brain, to niggle at her, to tell her now’s your chance. All these years, waiting and teasing and now’s your shot.
Yumi’s voice was little more than a whisper now; perhaps that was the loudest she could bear to say it. Sei thought it dreadfully sad that this was the first time she could say it, and it was not to the one she meant it for. She thought she was okay with that, and yet each word still drilled a hole in her gut:
I was going to tell her I’m in love with her.
each
fucking
word
Sei grimaced and forced her head clear. Refusing to give in; forcing herself to let go.
“I just wanted to be near her. Even if she would have refused me, I wanted to be near her. It’s the—” Yumi’s breath caught, and Sei stroked her hair, waiting for the girl to regain herself. “It’s the winter now. I wanted to just sit with her near a heater and look out at the snow. We did that once, you know.”
“I know,” Sei said.
“So then…” Yumi let a slow, long, shaky breath out. “Why was that too much to ask? Was I too selfish even wanting that? Was I being selfish? Was I being—” Sei cut her off, pressing her harder into her breast. At some point, it didn’t help to repeat oneself.
“Shh,” she whispered. “You weren’t, Yumi. Sometimes, just…” All you have to say is “sometimes, some things just aren’t meant to be, and we have to take what’s in front of us.”
Sei opened her mouth to say this. Sometimes, we just have to let ourselves accept what we can’t ha
look who the fuck is talking.
This hurt worse than Yumi’s confession, because it stung deeper than her heart: It stung her pride.
“Sometimes,” she murmured. “We lose things we want for a while. Sometimes they just come back a little later on.” What the fuck are you doing? This isn’t how
shut up.
“Why did she leave, Sei?” Yumi said, pulling away from her finally. When Sei got a look at her, she smiled. She looked awful, as was to be expected of a girl who had expertly made up her face, only to cry most of what she’d applied out onto another girl’s blouse. (Which, incidentally, Sei didn’t give a damn about.)
“Ask her yourself,” Sei said. “She has a phone. She has a place of residence.”
“I can’t…”
Sei smiled at her, and it clicked as fast for her as the truth about Yumi had.
“Sachiko did not leave town to get away from you, Yumi.”
Yumi looked up at her then, and her eyes were almost pleading. “How do you know?” she sounded almost agitated. Mm. She looks agitated as well. Excellent observation, Ryuzaki.
Sei said, “Why did you stop responding to me at the end of your last year in school?”
“That’s…” Yumi looked away. “It wasn’t that…”
“That you didn’t like me. You just had something else you needed to do first, right?”
Yumi nodded mutely.
“Sachiko has something she needs to do first. If she’s got a little tunnel vision, you have to respect that, don’t you think?”
“But…she just…left.”
“So just go find her. You’re not in school every day. Even Universities have breaks.”
Yumi nodded then—the nod of a person who is done hearing advice, whether she has accepted it or not. She pressed her face back into Sei’s blouse, and Sei smiled gently, bringing her own face down to rest on the top of the girl’s head.
She really does look pretty with her hair down.
They stayed like that for a long time. People entered the restroom, did their business, and left. The toilet flushed and people sat and stood, pulled panties up and down, clattered around in heels and sneakers. Hands were washed, makeup applied, bad dates avoided.
All of this happened purely around the entity that was Sei and Yumi, embracing tightly, each needing the other more than they would ever admit. Each feeling their own little insecurities and fears, each moving past them in their own way, and yet in the same way: By embracing the warmth that the other presented. Yumi knew nothing of Sei’s problems, and yet Sei thought she knew more of them than she let on.
She’s moved on. She’s grown up.
She’s still here.
“It’s very lonely,” Sei whispered finally. “Isn’t it.”
“It is,” Yumi whispered. “It’s hard. It’s painful, and it’s…cowardly.”
“It’s so cowardly,” Sei agreed. She knew how the girl felt; knew all the urges, all the impulses, just to be cowardly and stupid and let the pain sag and wash over her all at once; to shelter herself in it. Knew how often she let herself wash away. Knew how often Yumi did too.
Knew how hard Yumi’s heart beat against her stomach.
Knew how hard Yumi sometimes was to understand.
It was so cowardly.
Fuck it.
If it’s cowardly, I think it’s the kind of cowardly we can both live with.
Sei moved away from Yumi, at once regretting the loss of the girl’s warmth. “Yumi,” she said, looking straight into the girl’s eyes, whatever the urge to look away, to blush, to ignore the jackhammer of her own pulse, the feeling in Yumi’s hands of a similar heartbeat. “Do you think yourself a coward?”
“Sometimes,” Yumi admitted. “I don’t think it can be helped, though.”
“Me too,” Sei said, and then pulled her close and kissed her. Yumi hesitated only for a moment, and then kissed her back, using one hand to pull Sei’s head close. Yumi was clumsy with her mouth—this was not her first kiss, but it was certainly among them—but Sei, experienced in ways she would probably never admit to anybody, did not mind. They kissed like that for a small while that seemed to Sei to span an indefinite period of time; tongueless, almost sisterly if not for the passion radiating from both them and the intimacy of the kiss.
They broke off, and Sei looked at Yumi, determined to be as straightforward with her as she could.
“Yumi,” she said. “I...” Sei never had trouble speaking. “I really, really like you.”
“I know you do,” Yumi said with a gentle, tender smile. “I really like you too, but…”
“I know,” Sei said, feeling her poor, abused stomach take yet another hit. “If you don’t…you know. I can give you a ride home. I’m sober.”
Yumi considered for a moment that seemed like a year in hell to Sei, and then nodded. “Please, take me home.”
Sei refused to let her gaze drop. However much she
wanted
liked
loved
Yumi, this was not about sex. This was about getting Yumi what Yumi needed; not about getting what Sei wanted.
Still.
It seemed nearly impossible.
“Hey there, Sei,” he said as coherently as he could manage. “Did you find what you were lookin’ for?”
“I did. I just wanted to say thank you,” Sei said. She put her hand on his shoulder, and then, thinking herself extraordinarily affable, patted it in a manner that Endo would have expected from a guy-friend consoling him about this very evening. It made him grimace, an expression Sei thought to mean that he was about to vomit. She had no idea what a gaffe she’d made, though it didn’t particularly matter, since he wouldn’t remember it come the next day anyway. “So…thank you.” She patted him again, and then turned and walked back to Yumi.
“What was that about?” Yumi asked when she returned, a little bewildered. She was obviously not used to seeing Sei speaking with men pleasantly.
“He’s a friend. Call him a buddy, I guess.” Sei found herself unable to be too disappointed—Yumi was perking up too, and when Yumi was perky, Sei was perky. It was simply unavoidable.
Their walk back to the car was silent, but it seemed that as soon as they shut the door, Yumi began to talk. She talked about airy, oblivious things: The classes she was taking at the University; how Yuuki was doing, her roommate’s annoying habit of showing up at three in the morning, half-naked and all-drunk. Useless things that made Sei smile nonetheless. She avoided the subject at hand, and Sei avoided it with her, and it was cowardly but relieving.
Yumi continued in that fashion until Sei asked her where she lived, about a block from the tollway.
“Oh…” Yumi frowned a little sheepishly. “I live over on the Tokyo University campus…the one in Nakano.”
Sei’s eyes widened. “Woah. Tokyo U? Christ, Yumi. You did well for yourself.”
“Took the lord’s name in vain…” Yumi murmured a little more sheepishly.
Sei grinned in spite of herself. “Sorry.”
Sei got back on the tollway, dropping the small deposit in the little change basin without much thought. They were silent for a minute, and Sei realized all too late that this meant that Yumi was thinking, which meant that their time speaking airily was through, a passing which Sei lamented more than she cared to admit. “I’ll just get onto route 4; that should drop us right—”
“Did you ever consider sleeping with Shimako?”
Sei shut her mouth, and then sighed, needing no time to consider “No.”
“Why?”
“I loved Shimako, but differently. I’d sleep with her, but only if she wanted to, or needed to, and it wouldn’t be for love. Shimako is a strong girl; if she wanted something like that, she’d have come to me for it.”
“You’ve always taken that attitude towards her. Did you ever worry…” Yumi’s breath caught a little. “Did you ever worry that maybe you judged her wrong? That she was just shy?” Or worse, cowardly.
“Nope,” Sei smiled. “I didn’t judge her wrong. Besides, I think she’s straight.”
“I’m serious.”
“Me too. The two of us were close, but we weren’t near, Yumi. If you asked me, I couldn’t name you her favorite color.”
“Could you name mine?” Yumi asked this hesitantly.
This time it was Sei’s turn to be sheepish. “Probably not; it was a bad example.” Then, after a moment, “If I had to guess, though, I’d put you as a pink girl. Or white.”
Such a strange thing, having white as one’s favorite color. White is none of the colors at all—it refracts every single one of them. Is that the ultimate in indecisiveness?
“Something like that,” Yumi smiled.
“The point is that Shimako and I weren’t…like that.”
“Were we?” It sounded like a rebuke, and Sei thought it might have been.
“I’m sorry,” Sei whispered.
“Don’t be,” Yumi smiled. “I’m not. I think I’m making a point.”
Making a point. Did she ever make a point like this when I knew her last?
“Please, then,” Sei said wryly. “Don’t hold yourself back on my account.”
Yumi paused, and then laughed, and Sei was glad to hear it: “You know, I don’t know entirely what it is. I guess if I made it, you got it better than I did.”
Sei considered for a moment, and then decided she had.
“Why did you tease me and not Shimako?”
Sei smiled easily at this. “You were more fun to tease, Yumi.” And then, before Yumi could open her mouth to chastise her for spitting bullshit, she continued: “Besides, I think you wanted to be teased. Shimako didn’t. Shimako wanted me to support her from somewhere behind her; I was her stunt net, but she never fell while I was there.”
Sei pulled up near the curb in front of a large, old building. “You’re here, kiddo.”
Yumi didn’t move, so Sei seized this one last opportunity, suddenly afraid that she would never get to ask this if she didn’t do it now.
“Yumi?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you ask me so many questions about Shimako?”
“I guess…” Yumi smiled a little. “I guess in a lot of ways, I felt as though I was your petite soeur, too. I guess I just wanted to know.”
Sei smiled at her. “Satisfied?”
“Satisfied.”
Yumi opened the car door. The chill air stung Sei’s flesh.
“I guess…I’ll see you around.”
“I guess you will,” Sei said. “If you need anything, call me. You’ve still got my phone number; it hasn’t changed. Unless, of course, you deleted it.”
“I didn’t.”
“I’m glad.”
Sei reached around and gave Yumi a quick, deep hug, which Yumi gladly returned. Sei made sure to savor the scent of this girl whom she cared about so deeply, in her heart thinking that this was perhaps the last time she would ever smell it so closely, if at all, and wanting it to make a nice, firm dent in her brain if this was the case.
Then Yumi left. She shut the car door gently but firmly behind her and began to trudge up the snow. Sei felt the pit in the bottom of her stomach expand, threatening to suck the car in with it, but she held her face steady in case Yumi happened to look back. There was a little snow on the ground, but Yumi didn’t slip on it, and Sei thought this a mark of how the girl had truly grown for some reason (though she had rarely slipped before, either—certainly no more than a normal girl, though Lillian’s graduates were by no means normal girls). Sei made up her mind to wait until Yumi was safely in her dorm before she left—she did not, she reasoned, want her to get locked out and freeze to death.
Yumi was a quarter of the way up the walk. Sei’s breath became a little harder to draw. Her head ached very vaguely.
Yumi was a third of the way up the walk. Sei felt her chest tremble a little.
Yumi was a half of the way up the walk.
Yumi was three-quarters up. Maybe I should leave now. She’s got to have a key, so there’s really no point in me st
Yumi stopped, and in spite of the way her exit had seemed to drag on into infinity, her return took no time at all. Sei rolled down the window when she approached, but Yumi ignored her, walking around to the other side, opening the door, and taking a seat.
“I always thought,” Yumi said quietly, “that Shimako was stupid. For not getting close to you when she had the chance. Even with Onee-sama around, I would sometimes think that. I never wished I could be her, but I always wished she would take advantage of what she had near her.”
Sei said nothing. She could think of nothing to say.
“I suppose…I suppose I would be stupid for not taking advantage of what I have near me while it’s here, either. If it’ll be gone tomorrow, then I should…”
“I’m not going anywhere, Yumi,” Sei said, trying to sound reassuring, and Yumi laughed.
“If your night were still up to me,” Yumi said, “I think that would have cost you it. I’ve never known you to…to misstep like that before.”
Sei, who had refused to see, looked, her smile fading.
She saw that Yumi was breathing hard. Saw that her eyes flickered between Sei’s eyes and her lips. Saw the little…spark? Was that it?...of adulthood in the girl’s face. Saw that Yumi was bolder and stronger than Sei was, and yet just as cowardly. Aren’t we all cowardly at heart, after all? All of us Ladies and Gentlemen, just (all-gone all-gone cattail fish is all-gone, ne’er seen again) big fat scaredy-cats? (where to where to into the sea its so blue; now we start again)
Sei wanted to kiss Yumi again desperately—wanted to savor the feeling of the girl’s soft lips again; wanted to feel the heat (not simply warmth) radiating off of her again. Wanted to
touch
lick
have her head drawn back into Yumi’s delicate, insistent arms again.
She did not, however.
“Am I Shimako, then?” Yumi said, and then Sei understood.
“No,” Sei said, and then she kissed Yumi a second time. She savored the feeling of the girl’s soft lips again; felt the heat radiating off of her face again.
She touched. Her hand was hesitant at first, moving towards Yumi’s breast, touching, squeezing; it was useless. She felt only the soft padding of a bra. She slipped her hand under Yumi’s jacket, onto the smooth, soft skin of her belly, and went upward from there, only encouraged by the small shiver Yumi gave in reply. When she came upon it, she slid her hand under Yumi’s bra and caressed her, stroking, savoring the hardness which mixed so well with the softness.
She lifted the shirt slightly and broke the kiss. She licked.
Yumi gently pressed her hand and head away. Sei refused to allow herself to look hurt, but didn’t have to try after a moment, when Yumi said simply, “Not here. My dorm light isn’t on, which means my roommate is either gone or passed out for the rest of the night, come earthquake or avalanche. There.”
Sei turned the car off, taking half a second even in her fervor to make sure she wasn’t illegally parked. She wasn’t.
And then, for the first time in many years, Sei Satou allowed herself to be led.
She was led up that walk.
She was led up several flights of stairs. She was led into a small, well-kept dorm room which was, indeed, empty.
She was led onto Yumi’s soft bed. They both huddled slightly under the sheets; it was cold. When Yumi saw the shape of Sei’s body; the smooth, well-developed curves, she gave a sharp, flustered intake of breath: Her own body was nowhere near so well-proportioned. Sei was, by most standards, very beautiful. Her breasts were full and her waist was slim, her hips curved just so. Yumi’s body was, in many ways, still young, though it would never grow much more than it already had.
Sei thought her gorgeous, and told her so, the honesty apparent in her voice. It made Yumi smile, and it made Yumi blush a little, and it made Yumi kiss her.
They didn’t notice the cold after that.
Sei later thought that what they did that night might have been cowardly. Hell, she would think, most of that whole night was cowardice, through and through. She would later tell Endo Kunikuda most of the story, though she skipped over certain, less plot-centric details. (Much to Endo’s disappointment). What Endo Kunikuda, ever a good man, had to say about it was this:
Obviously, I don’t know the whole situation. I don’t know this Shimako girl, and I don’t know Yumi, either. I don’t know the relationship you two guys have, nor what relationship Yumi has with her ‘Onee-sama,’ (I hope that is a term you guys use for something other than blood siblings, too; I really do). It doesn’t matter, though. What I do know is that you were lonely that night, and a little scared of something that wasn’t entirely me and wasn’t entirely the girls at your school. It seems to me like you were scared on some fundamental level of something like being alone. And it sounds to me like Yumi was feeling more or less the same way. What you two did had nothing to do with cowardice and everything to do with love and support. There, he stopped, and added with a wry grin, Or some girly bullshit like that.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe it all was just bullshit. After all, Sei was the kind of girl who wore her hair down and played her music as loud as she damn well pleased.
And Yumi…
Yumi was the kind of girl that Sei would love to have along for the ride, whatever that ride might have been. Even if there wasn’t any sex at the end of the tunnel; even if it was just friends for them. (It’s curtains, curtains for you).
That was enough. Six weeks later, she was asked out by a pretty girl from her school—one who had always worn her hair down, even though she kept her head down; Sei accepted. She told Yumi, and Yumi was delighted. That meant that it was Just Friends for them. It hurt, but there was nothing cowardly about that. Not at all.
That was just fine.
Cowardice happens to us all; we do strange things when we are afraid. Those who do not are not truly human. I have deliberately not described in great detail the events which led up to this story (for example, what precisely Sei is afraid of, though I'm sure those of us who have grown up different in a bigoted environment can guess) because I wanted to leave this up to the reader's imagination. So, imagine, for a moment, if you will: What would you be afraid of which might cause you to act out in a way that would make people hesitate to believe that it was even you? If you were in Sei's shoes, what would you fear? If you like, I can generate a probable scenario for you--it is certainly not beyond my realm of talent, however meagre it may be, to do so--but I think it's fascinating if you, dear reader, consider it unto yourself. Consider how Sei observed Yumi overcoming her own fear, and think on how that may have affected Sei, who has always been affected by Yumi.
Of course, all of this may simply be the author's melodramatic attempt to bullshit his way out of a mediocre piece of work--if that is how you see it, that's your business. I think about these things after I've written them, and they seem to make sense to me, but of course they do--I wrote them. However you think of this, I thank you for reading.
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