The Aria company house peacefully stood at the southern dock of Neo Venezia. The first rays of sunlight radiated into the round window that peered into Akari’s room.
The bed was empty and made, for she had already gotten up to start the day’s errands.
One, make breakfast for Ai and herself.
Two, chart out the course for Ai’s training session.
Three, go over the financial inventories.
And finally four, revise her own chart plotting in order to give returning customers a new flavour.
She was scheduled to take an entire family on a merry trip through the ancient and antiquated tunnels that snaked their way here and there in erratic patterns around the city, but the family had cancelled their trip in favour of going on a mundane outing through the fox shrines.
Akari played with her luxurious pink locks and hooked her pinkie around her coffee mug. She liked black coffee these days. If it were a year back, she would have thrown up after one sip, but the bitter taste was growing on her.
Maybe that’s why they called it an acquired taste.
True, she still retained her cheerful disposition through the months, but even Ai could sense that something was horribly wrong with her on the inside.
Akari was pretty sure she had the first traces of bags under her eyes, for her sleeping over the past few months had not been sound. She had dreams, and the dreams bothered her immensely.
Akari gave a sigh and snaked out another pencil line in the Autocad 2150 blueprint of the city.
Maybe she would take the intersection at the heart of city and then take a detour into the watch tower.
But then she would miss the baked potato man- he always gave out freebies whenever her gondola neared- call it a perk of the job and an added bonus for her customers’ money.
Akari repeated the phrase to herself like a mantra, ‘Alicia’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do about it.’ It was supposed to give her a sense of closure, but closing up a one sided infatuation, no- love, was quite an impossible task for the pink haired beauty of nineteen.
Her Alicia would be twenty two by now, happily married to a man Akari had never even seen before.
It wasn’t characteristic of her, but the normally good natured girl felt a seething anger in her stomach when she thought about said unknown man.
‘How could he just whisk away my Alicia like that? She’s probably having a grand old time with him. She never even visits anymore....’
It was at that moment that Akari felt the ugly and utterly bitter sting of jealousy. It was an emotion rather alien to her, given that most of her life was led in a good natured and sweet environment free of relationship problems and strife.
‘Aika must be jaded though.’ Akari mused, trying to take her thoughts away from Alicia, ‘She’s had several boyfriends over the years after she dumped Al.’
Thinking of first kisses and confessions created a vicious knot in the pit of Akari’s soul.
She still hadn’t had her first confession, let alone her first kiss.
Putting down her pencil and burying her face in one hand, she contemplated the utter emptiness of her life and how, besides becoming a full fledged undine, she never had any romantic relationships.
It was fear.
She was afraid that Alicia might laugh at her confession and brush it off as another ‘senpai adoration’ phase. The pain would have been unbearable if that were to happen.
But it didn’t happen.
And now the stifled mass of feelings festered away at the pit of her soul, threatening to hollow her out into an empty shell.
‘An empty shell with no love lost.’ Akari thought glumly as she pushed her coffee cup aside.
She thought of the first day she realized that she harboured feelings for other women. It was at the age of twelve, and she thought herself a pervert. This wasn’t to say that her parents were overbearing homophobes or anything- they just harboured extremely high expectations for their only daughter.
Akari dug her finger nails into her palms and thought about that ridiculous fear that she would disappoint her parents by coming out of the closet. It was probably too late now, for her parents were divorced, and her dad was hiding out somewhere in the new underground colonies of Africa.
Fear.
She drew another course opposite her original plans. It still wouldn’t be too late to come out. Aika would no doubt berate her for keeping this crucial secret from her friends for four years.
‘She will be disgusted with me. She’ll be afraid of me.’ Akari fidgeted with her pencil and found that the side of her palm was smeared with graphite.
‘And then Alicia will know and think I’m pathetic.’ Akari spat at herself. The clock read eight o’ clock am. It would be a good hour and a half until Ai got up.
Akari felt tears well up in her eyes as she thought about what could have been.
Suppose she had confessed and Alicia had accepted.
What then?
Akari closed her eyes and daydreamed about nestling her head in Alicia’s soft and volumous blonde hair, while two perfectly shaped and delicate hands caressed her own. Akari remembered the smell of Alicia’s rose and vanilla perfume, surrounding the blonde in a delicate misty aura which partially constituted for her unconscious air of being the unattainable snow white princess of Aqua.
The Alicia in her mind smiled warmly and took Akari’s face. No words needed to be spoken in the idealized fantasy, for they were standing on the beach of Neverland, bathed in the fiery orange glow of sunset.
Akari felt a tear run down her cheek as she realized that the tender and soul searching kiss was not real. The perfect portrait of Alicia’s features shattered as she dropped her mechanical pencil on the floor with a high pitched clatter.
Wiping away the single tear from her cheek, Akari ignored the pencil and kept on day dreaming about what could have been.
She fell in love with the perfect blonde the first day they met, her being in the undine uniform perfectly tailored to show off her gently curving body and Akari being in a simple turquoise sundress, still panting and sweating from the exertion of running to Aria company all the way from spaceport.
She had blushed a crimson red the next day when Alicia complemented her uniform at the breakfast table. What an utter fool she made of herself! Thinking that Alicia had somehow noticed her infatuation.
‘That’s what scared me off.’ Akari deliberated, ‘I never really had the courage to confess after that moment.’
Her train of thoughts suddenly wandered over to Ai.
She had blushed the same deep red when Akari unknowingly flashed her ‘the look’ over a typical Aria company gourmet breakfast.
‘Could it be possible that history is repeating itself?’ Akari felt a sick chill go up her spine, ‘I cannot allow the same thing to happen to Ai.....’
But then again, maybe she was being paranoid. Akari twirled her pink locks into a tight knot, ‘She probably already has loads of admirers at school already. She probably just has senpai adoration. That’s all.’ Akari felt the intense urge to stab her mechnical pencil into the hand, ‘How pathetic is this? I’m projecting myself onto Ai!’ Her black coffee was growing lukewarm. She sipped at it and deliberated that she did not like hazelnut roast. Akari rubbed her temples and discovered an lump.
Strange, she didn’t have pimples before. Perhaps all the stress was taking it’s toll on her complexion.
Looking at her face in the reflecting window, Akari suddenly realized that she had grown up quite a bit from her days as a naive and optimistic fifteen year old. What was once cute baby fat was now replaced by the exposure of a young woman’s delicate bone structure. Her eyes had grown wiser, and long gone was her thin pigtails of old. Framing her face were two thick locks of flowing pink hair, along with waist length hair at the back.
It was not experience that had jaded her but an emptiness. Akari already lost all her optimistic hopes and dreams and realized what an undine was really all about.
There were bills to pay and customers that snubbed you. There were bigger and more intimidating companies constantly threatening to liquefy you, and then there was the endless loads of paperwork, manual labour, and domestic chores.
And to think that she thought the job was romantic! Alicia was probably tired of the lifestyle, so in all her stately wisdom, she went on to pursue the ever more relaxing job of a researcher.
Akari picked the insignificant little pimple and drank a little bit more of cold coffee, ‘If I were a man, I would have a five o’ clock shadow all day.’ Akari thought ruefully. In spite of her stressful job, she still managed to keep the image of a beautiful maiden sailing away on an arched gondola intact, causing many an infatuated male fan to send her barrowfuls of fan mail.
Most of them went in the paper shredder. She only responded to the ones she found particularly quirky or interesting, like the letter stating that she was the incarnation of a water siren. There were also letters from female admirers, but Akari never answered those. To do so would be to insult the memory of Alicia.
`Look at me, I`m talking about her like she`s dead....’
Another voice appeared, ‘Or is it like you’re dead to her?’
Akari muttered, ‘Shut up.’ To the stupid little voice of blame and tried to concentrate on map.
Who really gave a toss anyways? She was almost done. The rest of Ai’s training course would be improvised. Perhaps she could give Ai a few pointers in backwards rowing.
A cheery, ‘ Good morning!’ sounded from the top of the stairs.
Ai bounded down along with President Aria, who was as corpulant as ever.
‘Pui NUI NUI!!’ In spite of his girth, President Aria bounded down four steps and scampered into Akari’s lap, eliciting a small tinkling laugh from the somber undine.
‘How’re you doing, President Aria? Ready for breakfast?’
‘PUI NUI!!’ The cat bounced up and down, stood on his hind legs, and pumped his arms up and down in a valiant attempt to cheer in a bipedal position. Akari’s heart lightened up as Ai padded over in her summer uniform, afraid to give her senpai a glance as she looked to the ground shyly.
‘It’s your favourite today Ai!’ Akari proclaimed brightly, ‘ Sausages and hashbrowns!’
Ai muttered a small, ‘Thanks.’ As she sat down on the other end of the table.
Akari smiled inwardly as she caught sight of Ai fidgeted with her fingers. Her inability to pull herself together in Akari’s presence was quite endearing, and it made it all the better for Akari’s assumption that Ai had a crush on her. ( or was it the other way around?)
Sitting around at a table spread with painstakingly prepared food, (Akari now knew that food did not magically appear on the table) the three chirped out their thanks for the olive oil seared breakfast and dug in.
Akari pushed the burdening thoughts of Alicia into the backburner with a considerable amount of difficulty. It was like moving a couch with a finger.
‘So, Ai....’ Akari pushed her fork into a slice of french toast, ‘It’s time for your single test in two days! I think we should try a heavier course this time.’
Ai bit her lower lip and pouted, ‘Can’t we take a day off today, Akari senpai? We’ve already done the canal through the countryside yesterday!’
‘I’ll let you practice backward rowing.’ Akari flashed Ai a radiant smile, ‘And since my customers cancelled today, I think we have enough time to do some free sight seeing around the city! How’s that sound!’
Ai quickly brightened up in simultaneous conjunction with the hopping of President Aria into her lap, ‘That would be perfect!’ she gushed, ‘The weather’s beautiful today too! President Aria can bring along his sandbox play set, right Aria shachou?’
‘PUI NUI!!’
Akari kept up her painful smile. It wasn’t really hard to keep up a radiant smile back in the old days, now it just felt like her facial muscles were cramping up with a vengeance.
Setting down her fork demurely on the flowered china, Akari wiped her hands with the silken cloth on her lap and smiled once more, taking any remaining stamina her face once had with her into hell.
‘Get your gear then Ai! We’re leaving in ten minutes!’
Shoving her chair aside and leaving the dishes for another time and age, Ai bounded up the stairs like an enthusiastic puppy with President Aria trailing behind in a scrambling ball of corpulent panting fur.
Akari’s smile faded, and was replaced by a sombre look.
Alicia had invaded again, and this time, Akari’s thoughts were beckoning her to speculate about Alicia’s current life. Was she happy? Was her new man abusing her per chance? Was she truly happy?
‘I’m so pathetic, thinking that she gives a toss about her pathetic old apprentice....of course she’s truly happy! Did I think she would be happy without me?’ Akari recalled the last day she saw Alicia Florence as the Snow White of Aqua. The sunset had cast an orange luminescence over Alicia’s golden hair, creating shimmering patterns of rippling waves that bounced around playfully every time her oar hit the water.
Akari had held back her tears that day. She had decided she would be strong for her senpai- besides, she already wept in her arms the day before. There was no point in evoking another tear fest from the already wet eyed audience. She remembered the numbed feeling at the back of her skull and the fuzziness on her tongue as the snot threatened to sneak out of her nostrils. It was quite a feat, holding back a bawling session brought on by reasons too complex to explain. Akari recalled the utter stew of confusing images running through her head as Alicia made her final bow towards her city.
Alicia’s smile, her voice, her lilting ‘my my’s’.
The warm and reassuring feel of her slight hands.
The heat emanating from her body on that cuddling session they had at Neverland.
Akari almost bit off her tongue in surprise as Ai’s pattering steps turned into ungainly clomps down the stairs, ‘I’m ready!’
‘Pui nui!!’
Akari thought over that encounter on Neverland and wondered if it was actually possible that Alicia detected some of her hidden feelings in that seemingly platonic sisterly embrace.
‘Hurry up slowpoke! We’re on the gondola already!’
Akari let the faintest trace of a smile creep back into the corner of her mouth as she got up from her chair.
‘I’ll be there Ai.’