Author’s notes:
This is the final chapter of Fake. It’s going to be very long.
Before you say anything, while it is true that some Japanese universities are difficult, in general, the Japanese university experience is fairly easy and laid-back, rather than difficult and competitive like most western universities. (Japanese high schools tend to give students their fill of difficult and competitive.)
Bonus points if you can catch where I swiped my definition of a good author from.
I have taken liberties with the entire Japanese language in this chapter. Small ones, but if they offend you, please feel free to tell me about it.
Japanese families are traditionally expected to put their children through university.
I know it’s been a long road and even a long time since an update, but I finally got it done.
--
This place has begun to cover me; I recall the light but the dark smothers me / I prefer the feelings I know right now / I don’t worry about feeling very proud.
Because here I know how it feels to be misunderstood / to reach for the sky, I thought you never would
Cause there’s not much more that I can fake.
--
Fake
1.
Madness. There were other words for it, but Sei knew the best one. It was madness. One hundred and ten percent homegrown grade-A madness with a side of bullshit. This was stupid. Worse, it was unbelievable. If somebody made it into a movie you couldn’t pay her to see it.
Who even does that? Is that some kind of power trip? We were coming back in two goddamn days and he couldn’t wait that long, so he gets in his imposing black car with a pair of men in imposing black suits and comes and finds us in Kyoto, fuckall if I know how. Did he stick Sachiko with a homing device? Was that it? It plays like a really, really, really bad spy movie and it stinks just as bad.
And then, what? He just says, “Okay, vacation’s over. See you later,” and for some utterly unperceivable reason, instead of kicking him in the nuts and telling him to go fuck himself, she just gets into the car and leaves. I was getting ready to stick Yumi with a tranquilizer dart to calm her down. How the fuck could she even explain that? Yeah, sorry about that, babe. I was going to have a great time with you at a live house, get piss-drunk, and then probably do things to slash with you that I couldn’t tell the nuns about, but I decided at the last minute that I was going to get into a car with my fiancé, whom I hate, instead.
It was just stupid. Madness.
And it pissed Sei right the fuck off.
She knew she shouldn’t fixate on it. It was none of her damn business if Sachiko said it was none of her damn business, and by getting wordlessly into a car with that son of a bitch Suguru, she had essentially done just that. If she wanted to fuck up her own life, she could fuck up her own life.
(Not many people would call marrying a handsome man and living in wealth and comfort for the rest of your life fucking up.)
But she could not help it. Remember? This was one of the cases they should get involved. They were going to bust shit up, tell her what’s what. Kick ass.
And none of it happened.
In the end they were all just motherfucking bluster and smoke.
Sei’s fist hit the wall before she realized what she was doing, and it hurt. “Son of a bitch,” she hissed, more in anger than in pain.
Wouldn’t you have wanted somebody to interfere with (her)? To have just stood (her) there and told (her), why in the fucking hell would you want to become a nun? You have a damn good life ahead of you, and people who love you. Why throw that all away just so you can die a virgin?
Sei supposed she would probably be told that she just didn’t understand. That there was something more to becoming a nun, something that made it perfectly reasonable for teenage girls whose hormones ought to have been beating down their hem-hem doors to dream not of being swept away by some good looking man (or woman) but of taking a vow of chastity for the sake of an omniscient deity who probably didn’t give a fuck one way or another who popped whose cherry.
Something that makes girls who are in love give it up. Give up love for God’s sake. Because God commands it. Because He wants all your love. Because He is all-powerful, infinitely wise and merciful, and He is also incredibly insecure.
It makes sense in some way, then, that man was made in God’s image.
And that, really, was the problem Sei had always had with God, but more than that, with His self-appointed church: Even though it preached love—and it really, really did; one could not attend a Catholic institution without reading the bible extensively—it demanded that one give it up. And for what? Because loving God is all you should need? You don’t need to love another man—or another woman? Then why bother getting married? Why not just fuck once in your life to procreate—or shit, just skip that step entirely and find a clean turkey baster—and then raise the kid to love Him as much as you love Him? Why even love your child if God’s love is all you need?
Why abandon people who love you? Just because God does?
And isn’t that the core of it all?
Isn’t it really just that (she) made a bad decision, thinking not of herself, nor of others, but of the big man in the sky who supposedly asks us to love only him?
Isn’t that why this pisses you off so bad? Sachiko is doing the same thing. She’s making a decision not for herself, nor for those whom she cares about, but for some people who she shouldn’t care about, since they certainly don’t give a flying fuck about her.
Why do I blame her for that?
Why do I blame myself for that?
How can I blame anybody?
Sei felt like crying.
She really did blame herself.
It wasn’t her business. It wasn’t her problem. It wasn’t her life.
But she couldn’t help but feel like maybe it was her business. Maybe it was her problem. Maybe because she loved Sachiko—and she did, in the same way she loved
(she stares at me and I stare back, stark naked)
(what the fuck was that)
Rei—or maybe just because she was just on a vendetta. Maybe she felt like she needed some form of forgiveness for letting (her) make a mistake.
Maybe she was just trying to prove to herself that (she) had, in fact, made a mistake. Maybe then she could justify her anger. Because on some level, she knew she couldn’t. (She) had done exactly what she wanted to do with her life, and that was what everybody had to do, inevitably. Even if it was stupid or silly or foolish or just motherfucking painful.
But the cases…they’re different.
Sachiko isn’t doing what she wants with her life.
Is that the truth, though? Or is that just what you want to be true?
Maybe Sachiko has the same thing that (she) has. Some strange sense of duty that you could never, ever understand. Maybe there’s just something that you’re missing.
Maybe the world isn’t wrong.
Maybe you’re
Something vibrated near her crotch. She jerked, torn from her over-reflective reverie, and dug into her pocket reflexively, grasping onto her phone, which vibrated in her hand as she pulled it out. Without looking at who was calling, she flipped it open with a “Hello?” which was more than a little annoyed.
“Onee-sama?” The voice on the other end was gentle but timid, a nice girl unused to getting snapped at. Her petite soeur was just such a nice girl.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She shook her head. Idiot. Calm the fuck down or you’ll wind up pissing more people off. “What is it, Shimako?”
“I…was wondering if you could let me into your room,” Shimako said hesitantly.
“You…what?” Sei blinked. I dropped her off less than two hours ago. How would she even get down here? Topping that, why would she bother? “Now?”
“Yes,” Shimako said. “I tried knocking on your door and ringing your doorbell, but you didn’t answer.”
She did?
She stood quickly, hurrying over to the door of her small house. She unlocked and opened the door, and found Shimako standing there, her phone still held to her ear in one hand, a small plastic grocery bag in the other.
They stared at one another for a moment, and then hung up. Sei had to work hard not to say goodbye as she did.
“What is it, Shimako?” Sei asked, and then immediately wished she’d phrased it better.
Shimako did not falter this time. “I thought we might have dinner together tonight, Onee-sama.”
“I…kind of don’t have much to cook for two.” Sei had more or less just been planning to have ramen.
Shimako held up her bag and smiled gently. “I figured as much. May I come in?”
Sei nodded a bit dumbly.
Shimako entered. “Are you hungry now, or should I wait?” she asked, as if utterly dismissing the fact that she had essentially invited herself over to Sei’s house completely on a whim, something which was as un-Shimako-like as just about anything Sei could think of.
“I’m…we can eat now.”
“Good,” Shimako said. “I’ve brought fresh tofu, and I wouldn’t want it getting soggy.”
She really did plan this out.
What’s her game?
Sei wished she didn’t have to wonder that.
She wondered if she would ever stop.
From her bag, she produced a small plastic container full of some sort of liquid, and what was essentially a hunk of tofu. It looked unbearably delicious; fresh rather than preprocessed. Something you got from a local store rather than a supermarket or a convenience store. “Do you have a frying pan?” Shimako asked. “Or, better yet, a wok?”
“I have a wok,” Sei said, and immediately wished she hadn’t—she remembered just as she did that she’d left it to soak while she’d been gone. It was probably unbelievably rank at this point.
Sei, what in the hell is wrong with you?
What was wrong with her? She was not a messy person by nature—or if she was, she was not a messy person by practice. Lillian had beaten it out of her.
How have you been living these past few months?
It had not been good.
She could barely even remember it.
“Onee-sama…how long has this been soaking?” came Shimako’s voice from her kitchen. She sounded almost nervous, and Sei could not blame her. She, too, would be nervous about tentacles maybe coming from that water, grabbing her by the wrist, and dragging her down an unnecessarily wide drainage pipe.
Son of a bitch.
“You maybe … don’t want to touch that.”
“I need to use it, though. I’ll be okay.”
I’m not so sure about that.
What the hell is wrong with you, Sei? You’re not a messy person. How did you let that happen?
I had just kind of … kept putting it off. I hadn’t really felt like cleaning.
Before Sachiko invited you over, when was the last time you actually got out?
She could not for the life of her remember. She had to have gotten out at some point. She was typically a marginally sociable person. Certainly she was one of those that needed social contact to function properly. Maybe that was why the time after (she) had left, but before she had met the Rose Council, had been so hellish for her. So difficult. Certainly it wasn’t painful anymore, but it wasn’t something she enjoyed thinking back on.
Then why had you been wallowing in it for so long?
Was that what she’d been doing?
Yeah, it is.
That’s what you did instead of washing the damn dishes. You let them wallow, and then you laid in your bed and wallowed yourself.
How long had she spent simply laying there, watching television? Feeling like she was wasting away, occasionally drifting into sleep. Never sleeping a full night.
She could not remember.
She heard dishes clattering in the kitchen, and cursed again, stood up, and went quickly into the kitchen, to find Shimako drawing new water for her dishes to soak in. The smell was not pleasant but it was getting better.
“I’ll do it, Shimako.”
“Thank you, but I’ll take care of it, Onee-sama.”
“No, I’ve got it. It’s my mess. You don’t need to get some sort of damn infection off of my grime.”
“I’ll be just fine.”
“Seriously. Thank you for coming over with food, but I can take care of this.”
“You’re quite welcome, but please, allow me to handle it.”
“Shimako. Seriously. Please.”
Shimako gave her a look as hard as steel. “Onee-sama, please go sit down.”
It was about as close to snapping as Shimako had ever gotten, and Sei was actually taken aback. “What’s…” she stopped. Don’t start anything. That’s the last thing you need, you stupid shit. “You know what, forget it. Fine.” That was not how to not start anything. What the hell is the matter with you? “I’ll wait in the other room.”
“Thank you,” Shimako said, and Sei retreated, finding herself physically shaking from the confrontation.
When she was back in the living room, she collapsed into a heap on the floor.
God. Damn it.
What was wrong with her?
She thought about it as Shimako cleaned, and then cooked, and then cleaned again. All in all, in the better part of the hour Shimako was in the kitchen, she came up with precisely nothing. More often than not she just wound up circling around the same point: I just haven’t felt like doing much lately.
Shimako eventually came back carrying two large, steaming bowls which smelled absolutely heavenly. She had no idea what was in them, and didn’t much care at this point. As she smelled them, her stomach growled.
It’s been a while since I ate.
She hadn’t been planning on eating ramen.
She hadn’t been planning on eating at all.
What was wrong with her? It wasn’t as though she was planning to starve herself. She had simply made no plans to eat. She didn’t even have any ramen.
Shimako set the bowl down in front of her, and then sat down across the table, set her own bowl down. Each bowl, Sei found, already had a wide spoon in it. They clapped their hands together, said a brief thanks for the food, and then began to eat.
The flavor of the soup was absolutely astounding, and the tofu inside was delicious, neither too rubbery nor too mushy. Before Sei was quite aware of what she was doing, her bowl was empty.
Her stomach growled again.
Shimako said, “There’s more in the kitchen,” shortly.
Is she pissed at me?
She ought to be.
Sei went through the cycle of refill-demolish twice more before she felt more or less sated. Shimako, during this time went through only one bowl. When she finished, they set their spoons down, said a quick thanks for the food (again), and then lapsed into silence. Shimako began to gather up the dishes after a minute, and Sei made to stop her, but as she did, she got another tough look from Shimako.
She slumped back.
What’s wrong with her?
Another ten minutes and Shimako reemerged from the kitchen holding two small prepackaged ice cream cups.
“Dessert,” she said, her voice a bit gentler, less edgy.
Sei nodded, sat up straight, and they went through the same routine they had before—Sei demolished hers, Shimako savored hers.
When they had finished, as before, they lapsed into silence.
Sei took the opportunity to gather up the cups and throw them away. She found Shimako had taken out her trash for her while she’d been cleaning.
God damn it, you’re not my mother. What are you doing?
It irritated her a little. Was Shimako implying that Sei could not take care of herself? Was she implying that she was simply too messy? What was she saying?
Maybe she was just saying that the trash was getting full. Maybe she’s saying that it’s burnable trash day. You ever think of that?
What is wrong with you?
She went back into the small living room and sat down next to Shimako.
“You have been worrying again, Onee-sama.”
Sei felt like she should wear a tin hat.
“I have not.”
“You are a poor liar.”
“I’m really not lying. I haven’t really been thinking about anything at all.” Not a lie, given the proper timeframe. “It’s just been a rough few months is all, with classes and all.”
“You are a very smart person, Onee-sama. I have a hard time believing classes would trouble you that much.”
“What much? I’m fine.”
“You are not.” It had been over a year since Sei had heard that sort of outright defiance from Shimako. It was both refreshing and a bit troubling. Mostly troubling. “Please. Stop lying.”
Sei leaned back and sighed. “I’m not sure what you’re expecting out of me, Shimako. If you think that you’ll push hard enough and eventually I’ll just break down and start sobbing about how miserable I am, you’re going to be disappointed, because I’m not. I really am all right. If I was break-down-sobbing miserable, I would get help. I’m not Sachiko.”
“Were you going to eat tonight? Honestly?”
“Probably,” Sei lied.
“That’s not all right.”
“It’s close enough for government work. I’m serious, drop it.” What is she doing? This is not how we are. Why doesn’t she realize that? “It’s not befitting of either of us.”
“I don’t care about that,” Shimako said, her voice almost pleading. “I’m sick of this.”
“Sick of what?” Sei asked before she thought about it. If she had thought about it, she might have apologized and asked Shimako politely to leave. She wasn’t ready for this. Not yet.
When, then?
Not yet.
Then, when? Are you waiting for something? Elapsed time? Some level of maturity to be reached? What the hell does she need to do, say a fucking password?
“I’m sick of not talking about anything at all. I’m sick of keeping you at arm’s length when you’re hurting. I’m sick of being kept at arm’s length when I’m hurting.”
“Shimako, I—” How did she explain this? That that was how she did best? That not everybody needed open-heart surgery every time they had a bad day. That she just … was not the same as her friends, who would come over, strap on latex gloves, and start opening up every single fucking part of their friends’ lives whenever they bumped their proverbial ankle. That she wasn’t…fucking…nosy. She loved her friends, but some days, they were just so. Fucking. Nosy.
Didn’t you just spend the last three days being nosy?
That’s different.
Why?
Sachiko actually needed help.
And you don’t? Ha. Ha ha. And boy, what is the deal with airline food?
And then, Shimako said something that surprised her, but shouldn’t have. “You don’t need somebody to give you an invasive exam every time you feel a little sniffle coming on? I know that, Onee-sama.” Sei realized she should be used to this from Shimako. To being surprised. “You and I are alike, rememeber? But this is different. This isn’t just being yelled at and sulking for a while. This isn’t getting a poor grade on an exam. This isn’t even losing a friend.”
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t know!” Shimako’s voice actually trembled in frustration, and it was only then that Sei realized just how hard this was on her. “I don’t know, all I know is that you’re not taking care of yourself, and when you get to that point, that’s when you need help. And I wish you would tell me what it is. I wish you would even just let me help you, but you won’t. Because we don’t interfere with each other’s lives. That’s an awful way to be.”
“It’s the only way we can be.”
“That’s not true, and you know it. You can be caring without being nosy.”
And Sei knew it was true, and she knew it was important. It was the reason she had not pursued Yumi in earnest. It was the reason she had not pursued any of the Rose Council in earnest. Flirting was fine, and hell, speaking candidly, if any of them had come around for a casual tussle in bed, Sei probably would have been all right with that. But she couldn’t really pursue a relationship with any of them, because they were all just so. Fucking. Nosy. It was fine for friendship, and in truth, none of it was related to the malicious gossip that was the property of housewives across the country, but Sei needed privacy and she knew it. And even Sei occasionally looked thirty years down the road, when the beast of time inevitably sucked the passion of love away and left it with a gentle caring, at best, and she saw anger and bitterness growing quietly, but maliciously, inside of her.
But not Shimako.
Shimako knew when to keep her hands off of Sei, and when not to.
(Well, not quite her hands.)
Sei leaned back and sighed. “I’ve just been lonely lately, okay?”
“Why didn’t you call any of us?”
“Not that kind of lonely.”
“Oh. You have been thinking about” (her) “again.”
Here it comes.
Shimako touched Sei’s hand gently and said…nothing.
And they stayed like that for quite a while. They simply sat next to one another, Sei’s hand in Shimako’s, and said nothing. And somehow, during that time, at some point, Sei simply felt the loneliness drain out of her.
That, after all, was what Shimako understood so well. She didn’t need to talk. She didn’t need anyone to listen. She didn’t want sympathy or reassuring pats on the back or a shoulder to cry on.
She just needed somebody to understand, and to hold her hand while she worked through it on her own. And occasionally, somebody to kick her in the ass, to not accept her excuses.
And that was what Shimako was best at. She was awful at giving advice, and her reassuring pat was probably the most awkward thing Sei had ever witnessed on God’s green earth.
But she was good at being a hand to hold.
Sei looked at Shimako closely. Studied her calm face, noted the slim lines of her neck as they curved into the conservative blouse she wore which ended much too high for Sei’s liking.
And Sei looked again thirty years into the future. She didn’t see much—she never did. But instead of seeing herself nursing bitterness and a need to be alone, she saw something else.
She saw herself saying to Shimako, I love you. And meaning it.
Fuck it.
She moved towards Shimako, closing her eyes slowly. Shimako pulled away.
Wait, what?
“No, Onee-sama.”
“No?” Not a challenge, but a question.
“No more of that.” What did that mean? “I made a mistake before, and I don’t want you to make the same mistake.”
“What mistake is that?”
“The mistake of not following through, of not doing something properly.”
Truly, Shimako was a wise girl. And possessed of a willpower that nobody would expect by simply looking at her calm, oft-fragile demeanor.
Sei grinned a bit. “Properly, huh.”
“Properly.”
Sei sighed, and the butterflies started flapping around in her stomach, trying desperately to cause a typhoon on the other side of the world. Even now, it was hard. When was the last time she had actually asked somebody out on a date?
When was the last time she had had a date?
“Shimako, would you like to get coffee with me tomorrow night?”
“In what capacity?”
No stone unturned, huh.
“In the capacity of a date.”
“Now, in a full sentence, if you would.”
Sei nearly sputtered. “Wh…you little…”
“If you please.” That coy grin. That one that said, got you.
Sei loved that grin. Loved it dearly.
“Shimako, would you go out on a date with me tomorrow night, for coffee?” What an awful sentence. It was like she was making Japanese her second language.
“I most certainly would,” Shimako said with a grin, and then she stood up abruptly, a girl no surer of where she was going than the rest of us.
Sei blinked at her.
“If we’re going out on a date tomorrow, we can’t loiter around together today.”
“Why not?”
“Then when would we say our first date began? When would our anniversary be? Today or tomorrow? It’s important, you know.”
Sei wanted to sputter again.
What a difficult girl.
What a difficult, stubborn, lovely, intelligent, coy, clever girl.
Shimako left.
Sei cleaned her apartment after that. She spent the rest of the evening reading and listening to music at the table. She got a good night’s sleep, although it took her about an hour to finally settle down.
She was excited.
For the first time in many moons, she was excited.
Maybe that was all she needed. All she’d ever needed. What she’d found.
She certainly hoped so. After all, Father Time was a beast, and without a sense of adventure, all the world’s travelers were doomed to die bored and lonely and mangled off the side of the road.
Back to Fake Index - Back to Maria-sama ga Miteru Shoujo-Ai Fanfiction