Failing
“Mmm, you’re warm.”
Oh, she’s awake. It’s cute how her voice is all hoarse and sleepy. Her body is quite cool. I think I might have hogged the covers.
“Do you know what time it is?”
The sun is coming in brightly through the open curtains and makes reading the clock’s glowing numbers rather difficult. Her hair tickles me every time she moves.
“10:30 already? Wuhh.”
And yet, funnily enough, she’s making no move to get up. I’ve become a pillow. Maybe a mattress is more correct. Most mattresses don’t get little kisses, though.
“Let’s just stay in bed all day.”
That would be nice. I haven’t slept this well in a while. Shit. I wonder how Grandpa’s cold is doing . . .
“We could re-enact last night, which was amazing, by the way.”
Last night . . . I don’t really want to think about. Is that wrong? It seems wrong – doing something like that and wanting to pretend it never happened. But I really don’t know what to think. The memory should be enjoyable, right? I should look forward to doing it again.
“How are you feeling? Sleep well?”
But I feel like something bad will happen if I think about it. I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. This . . . with Minako . . . was supposed to solve my problems.
“Mmm, that’s true, but who needs sleep anyway?”
It wasn’t supposed to take the questions I couldn’t answer and turn them on their side. Now I don’t even know what to ask myself. And now she’s getting up and I’m . . . very naked.
“I’m going to my room to get changed. Do you want me to bring you something, or are last night’s clothes okay?”
Going to her room. We . . . in the guest room? I guess anywhere will do in a pinch. It’s just a little meaningless sex, after all. This is laughable. I want to laugh, in fact, but I can already feel my temper growing. God, I do not want to do this right now.
“Rei? Oh. I guess that answers that. I’ll be right back in like two . . . uh, what’s the hurry? Rei?”
My head hurts. Chest feels like it’s going to explode. I feel hot and chilled, nauseous and so fucking . . . hurt. No, I feel stupid. Good work, Rei. This has all been a nice bit of self-delusion.
Minako pouted. She couldn’t even get mad because she fairly sure that she was to blame. Rei had seemed quite pissed about sleeping in the guestroom, which Minako had to admit, wasn’t very smooth.
“We . . . we . . . in the fucking guest bedroom, Minako!” Rei had spat.
“Um, sorry?” Minako had tried, but Rei’s glare had only deepened. “Oh, come on. It’s not that big a deal.” And the instant those words were out of her mouth, she had realised her mistake, but Rei just turned and made for the door.
“Have fun cleaning up from your party.”
And then Rei was gone, and Minako was fairly sure she had been avoiding her since, meaning she couldn’t even apologize. So here she was, sitting at home, in her room, glancing between the homework in her school bag and her cell phone on the nightstand.
Her left hand ached to close the distance between itself and the sleek, silver cellular device. Maybe she’s home now. You’ll never know unless you try, it reasoned, twitching its fingers impatiently.
Don’t be such an idiot! her right hand, balled into a fist, argued heatedly. If she hasn’t answered for the past two days, it’s because she doesn’t want to talk to you, and she’s not going to answer now either. You could do something productive, like your homework, instead of being so pathetic. There. The right was certain it had proven its point quite solidly. Any second now, Minako would get to work and both hands could cease their useless fidgeting.
Imagine the hands’ surprise when they were both shoved unceremoniously into dark, denim pockets.
“I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back for dinner.”
“Wait, Minako, what –” The concerned voice of Minako’s mother was abruptly terminated by the slamming of the front door.
Now the feet were in charge, and they knew just where to go. They had grown quite tired of all the restless pacing around lately, and they needed this all to be resolved post-haste! So they went straight to the source, and froze at the top of the steps.
The courtyard was strewn with leaves, looking its most unkempt in all Minako’s visits. But what stopped her in her tracks was the small billboard just before her.
Hikawa Jinja is closed to the public. We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope to be open again soon.
Rei’s neat writing was unmistakeable and, coupled with the fact that not a single light was on in the building, made it quite clear that the shrine was deserted. Minako wondered if she had driven Rei away completely.
This was an absurd postulation, so she sat down on the step and laughed at the ridiculousness of some dumb blonde making Hino Rei and her grandfather leave town. And then she laughed at how it was just so Rei to make visitors walk all the way up the stone stairs in order to read the sign that told them not to bother. Her laughter turned to tears almost without her noticing. She would have climbed the stairs even if the sign had been at the bottom, just as she had upon meeting Rei.
She was so ashamed she could cry, but tears would only lead to more tears about different failures and that wasn’t a deluge she was ready to unleash. For now, Rei just sat stiffly in her chair, facing her Grandpa’s prone, steadily breathing form on the hospital bed and contemplated the guilt gnawing at her insides.
He had been doing her chores while she was . . .
The door to the silent room clicked open and Rei raised her head to see the doctor enter with a clipboard and give her a polite smile.
“Good news, Ms Hino,” he informed her in a hushed voice so as not to wake his patient. “With proper care, your grandfather is expected to make a full recovery in no time at all.”
Rei nodded. “. . . That’s good. Thank you.”
“He’s going to need a few more days in the hospital, just so we can get his fluids back to where they should be. Then he can go home so long as someone checks in often. He’s going to need one of these,” he held up a pill bottle and handed it to her, “with breakfast and one with dinner. Give him plenty of fluids – tea and soup should be easy enough to keep him on. Call if his temperature starts to go up again, and bring him in next Sunday so we can see how he’s doing.”
Rei nodded, and put the pills in her bag. “I’ll take good care of him.”
The doctor eyed her school books sitting on the bedside table. “Are you sure there aren’t some relatives who can help with this?”
She straightened and eyed him coolly. “Yes, I’m sure.”
He shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, I know you’ll do a great job; you’re very attentive from what I can tell, but missing so much school . . . well, I have a daughter your age. I have heart palpitations just thinking about her missing so much class.” The doctor curled the side of his lips into a wry smile. “Though I suspect kids these days skip enough as it is.”
“That’s probably true.” Rei managed a small smile in return.
The doctor left quietly and Rei sat back down, her closed eyes seeing the day she had opted freedom over class time and the grinning accomplice who had laughed and danced along beside her the whole way.
It was two weeks and three days since Rei had been at school. Not that anyone was counting.
Minako’s math mark had steadily declined in that time, and she was fairly positive that this exam, worth nearly their entire final mark, was going to be the bomb that blew her average straight to hell. Every page of formulas and notes she had sat down to try and study had run through her mind in Rei’s voice. Low and clear, bored but confident, her memory had recreated the sound of the miko’s instructions perfectly. It was nothing short of torture.
“Please find your seats. The exam is about to commence.”
Minako was already seated, drumming her fingers on the booklet with her name on it. How bad can it be? she wondered, trying to relax herself.
“It is now eight o’clock. You may begin.”
Very bad, was how bad it could be, as it turned out. Three hours later, Minako was just relieved that it was over and she could go home to turn her brain off. And then she saw Rei.
Just a figure striding out the doors from the corner of her eye, but Minako was positive and gave chase. But of course here were many dark haired girls in the hallway and Minako lost Rei in the crowd.
She guessed at the miko’s destination, and took off up a flight of stairs to the hall Rei had once said her locker was in. There were a handful of students in that hallway who all looked up at her sudden arrival when she burst up the flight of stairs, but none of them was Rei.
“Eheheh . . .” Minako smiled apprehensively and marched back the way she came.
She dwelled on her embarrassment until she reached her bus stop, and then ruefully realised it had been pointless to run after Rei in the first place. She didn’t have anything to say to her, really. She would have ended up staring at the miko, searching for words while Rei, arms crossed, conveyed her displeasure at being held up through her steely, violet gaze.
The bus pulled up, and Minako got on, growing more and more depressed. Rei probably would have been worse than displeased. She wouldn’t be surprised if Rei hated her. Minako sat on her stiff, uncomfortable bus seat and thought back to the night of her party to consider what had happened and finally acknowledged the hesitation in Rei’s eyes that she had pushed past upon seeing that night. She had known it wasn’t what the miko was looking for, but had taken the opportunity as it was offered . . . in the guest bedroom. Rei must have been convinced she was only after a fling.
Were you trying to drive her away? she berated herself. You couldn’t have done better with a bat in your hand, dumbass.
Grandpa was asleep, had been asleep all day, and would sleep some more if Rei could keep it that way. With all the stealth of one who knows every creak and hollow spot in the house, she padded down the hall and into her grandfather’s bedroom. The room was quiet and the old man’s face was relaxed, his eyes shut and mouth cracked open. Rei felt the familiar guilt that appeared when she saw him in all his frailty, accompanied by relief at his state of relaxation.
Rei picked up the tray beside his bed, cursing herself silently when the spoon rattled in the empty bowl.
“Rei.”
She looked down. His eyes were still closed but he was undoubtedly awake. “Yes, Grandpa?”
He cleared his throat and coughed for a bit. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You make sure you feed yourself too, Rei,” he insisted, slitting an eye open.
She smiled wanly. “I will. Just get better. I’ll come help you up in the morning.”
“Don’t work yourself too hard, either. I can tell you’re stressed.”
“Yes, Grandpa.”
“And –” He paused to cough, and opened his eyes to look at Rei with a sternness that disguised his weariness. “Not too much skipping class, either. Your grades are much too important to your future.”
“I know. Don’t worry.” She closed the door softly behind her and quietly set the dishes in the kitchen sink. She rinsed and washed them in a silence that was broken only by rough coughs and worry beating like a drum in her chest.
This was boring. Walking was so outdated. One would think that the new year might usher in flying cars or something but nooo, here she was, walking just like people had been doing for a bazillion years.
She got to the top of the hill, sat down at a bus stop bench and looked dizzily upward at the stars. Her blissful contemplation of the night sky was derailed only seconds after it had begun by thoughts she’d hoped she might be able to drink away.
She fished her mobile out of her pocket and dialled Rei’s number at the shrine. It began to ring, so Minako got comfortable by settling herself lengthwise along the bench, and sat her phone down on her sternum where she could talk into it without having to lift her arms. She heard Rei’s calm voice speak into the phone.
Minako blinked and frowned at that. “You’re home? I thought I was just gonna leave a message. This is okay too, though. Just let me tell you some things.”
There was an acquiescent silence on the other end, so Minako continued.
“I know the guestroom thing was a bad . . . thing. I mean, I enjoyed it! . . . and I thought you did too, but I really didn’t mean for our first time to be so, uh, unromantic. I guess you thought that’s all it meant to me . . . but it didn’t. It’s just . . . it’s hard with you, and I don’t understand it.”
She could hear Rei start to reply to this, so she cut her off.
“No, no, I mean something about you just sets me off and I make mistakes. Like, not just that way, but . . . but I feel like I have to always be moving forward with you or you close up. Every second you aren’t with me, speaking to me, is a second you spend thinking things that I never get to know. I . . . Sometimes I think you don’t even like me!” Tears pooled in her eyes at this confession a long time coming, and Minako blinked them out. “Like that time I showed up at the shrine and told you I needed to see you, and whenever your mother is mentioned, and anytime I get close to you, you just – you leave me hanging there! We go back to that time where I did all the talking and you could give a shit! Where do you go? Are you scared like me? Or do you just not care?”
Minako sat up and wiped her eyes with her sleeves, sniffling and composing herself so she could finish.
“I thought that maybe I could get close enough that you wouldn’t be able to ignore me. It drives me mad when you ignore me,” she chuckled and sniffed. “I guess I just got carried away and ended up pushing too much. So I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I miss you.”
And then Rei spoke, so Minako quickly lifted the phone to her ear and listened for a few moments before she could make sense of what she was hearing. A laugh bubbled to her lips and died a twisted sob. Minako slid her phone shut and got back on her bike, stung by disappointment and crushing humiliation.
“The call you have made cannot be connected. . . . Please try again, check your directory, or press zero for assistance. . . . The call you have made cannot be connected. . . .”
“Well, Rei, usually we have students repeat classes or take remedial lessons when they miss this much school. However, all of your teachers speak very highly of you. I’m told you completed all the assignments you missed and came in to write exams as well – exams which you scored exceptionally well on. Is this correct?”
Rei nodded stiffly, shifting anxiously in her seat. Being in this office, the one were punks and slackers got chewed out on a daily basis, was not a situation Rei had ever envisioned herself in.
Vice-principal Yuumura continued. “So, instead of having you catch up on lessons you already seem to have mastered, you will only need to make up for some of the school hours missed. I would like you to choose two of these to see through to the end of the year.” He extracted a folder from a large pile of documents and slid it across his desk to her.
With a little trepidation, Rei cracked it open. The title Club Registration Form glared up at her. She flipped to the next – Team Waiver Form, and the next – Volunteer Application.
She looked up at the vice-principal, who mistook her resigned expression for one of uncertainty.
“You don’t have to decide right this moment. Take two of each sheet home with you and hand in the ones you want to the main office. Here’s a list of all your options.” He pulled a sheet out from the back of the folder and handed it to her.
Rei wordlessly did as ordered, stood when Mr Yuumura did, and politely let herself out of his office. Only out in the hall did she sigh gloomily. It would figure that the universe would somehow conspire to get her, Hino Rei, She Who Disdains Contact With Others, roped into not one, but two extracurricular activities. Hours spent chumming it up with randoms all looking to pry her from her comfortably reclusive shell, is all that teams, clubs and volunteering meant.
Solitude was supposed to be an upside of leaving Minako. And then Rei cringed at the casual callousness of this stray thought and walked home at a brisk pace.
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