Room For Your Heart
By Laura Schiller
Based on: The Grimbaud Series
Copyright: Kimberly Karalius
When the small wooden box appeared in a puff of smoke on Kentaro Oshiro's kitchen table, he was both surprised and apprehensive. If Hijiri wanted to speak to him, she knew that all she had to do was knock on his door, so the contents of this charm message must be something unusual. Knowing her, it was something she wasn't comfortable saying in person.
Was it bad news or good news? Only one way to find out.
The box was palm-sized, made of dark polished wood (his favorite color and texture – she'd remembered). He opened it and watched as an image of Hijiri's pale, serious face formed in the air above it. Clearly this was a variation on her "missed connections" charm. She was twisting a strand of hair around her finger, as she often did when nervous. She dropped it abruptly and cleared her throat.
"First of all, I wanted to say I'm sorry." The soft, echoing effect of the charm did not hide the rough sincerity of her voice. "I'm so sorry, Ken, for the way I treated you. I didn't believe you were real, but that's no excuse. Even if you had been born in a gift-wrapped box, you more than earned the right to be treated like a human being."
Her swirling thoughts, caught by the charm, showed him flashes of himself through her eyes: bringing her lemon-blueberry muffins; showing her his apartment with its hearth charms; shooting Stoffel in the eye with his slingshot; bringing her parents from the train station to see her win the love charm competition.
"I didn't know until I saw you in pain. Pain I caused you."
He winced. He'd fully forgiven her by now, but the memory of his transplant scar turning a dull purple as he hid from her in Sebastian's apartment was not pleasant. Had he really looked that bad?
"That being said," she added ruefully, "I'm glad, so glad, that you're human. That you won't disappear into a pile of glitter one of these days. And that you chose me. You don't know how much that means to me, being chosen."
A crumpled strip of paper appeared, with elegant cursive writing in red ink: one of Zita's fortunes. You will never find love unless you change yourself, it read.
Tears smudged the ink. "But I've always looked like this," Memory-Hijiri sobbed. "Why can't someone love me like this?" With oily hair that took two doses of shampoo every morning to look presentable. With chronic anxiety that made her palms sweat during the most ordinary conversations. With shabby clothes and a bleak apartment because she simply couldn't be bothered with aesthetics when her charm-making took up all her time.
A hiss of outrage escaped Ken. He fantasized grimly about seeing Ines Aandekerk within the range of some very sharp arrows. How dare she write a fortune like that to a girl who was perfect already? No wonder Hijiri had joined the rebellion. No wonder she had mistrusted him for so long.
"That was why I preferred to think of my heart as being too small," said Present Hiji sadly. "I'd rather be unloving than unlovable. I hated to think of myself as such a hard case that Love had to custom-build a boy because no real human could put up with me."
"Oh, Hijiri, no," he whispered. "It wasn't like that. It was never like that."
When Love had come to the hospital to offer him the bargain, his parents had been understandably suspicious. "What if this girl doesn't want him?" Mrs. Oshiro had asked. "She'd have to be a fool, of course, but a lot of us are foolish at sixteen. Will this magic heart of yours still work?"
"What do you take me for?" Love had snapped, in the persona of a brusque middle-aged doctor. "I'm not that cruel. Your son will live a perfectly normal lifespan, regardless of his romantic choices. If he and Hijiri don't work it out, that's their prerogative. I don't force anyone to be happy. Life would be so much easier if I did."
Ken had known what he was getting into from the start. It hadn't been easy, living with a charmed throat that made him cough every time he wanted to tell the truth, and being treated – at least in the beginning – like an artificial life form on a level with Stoffel the robot. But it had been his choice.
To know Hijiri Kitamura, to love and be loved by her, to make friends and go to school, to live like a normal, healthy boy for the first time … every second had been worth it.
"One more thing." The recording of Hijiri smiled, her onyx eyes bright with shy pride. "That box you're holding is my first attempt at a hearth charm. I hope you like it. If you see a bit of fabric in there, pull it out."
He squinted into the little box, saw an even smaller square of dark cloth, pulled … and pulled … and pulled.
It was a heart. A large one.
A heart-shaped pillow, to be exact, made of deep burgundy velvet, large enough for at least two sleeping heads. There was no way it could have fit into the palm-sized box without magic. It must be a storage compartment. How much could fit in there? The contents of a whole wardrobe, a room, a house? He'd have to experiment. His mind raced. Ideally, this would allow someone moving house to take all their favorite things along to the new place, without the hustle and bustle of a moving truck, without extra costs. It was brilliant.
He picked up the pillow and held it close. It smelled of hibiscus. He knew, without need for words, exactly what she had meant to say.
He placed the pillow on his bed, the box on the nightstand, and hurried out of his apartment, down to the first floor. He took the stairs two at a time, still exulting in his ability to do so without getting exhausted. He felt capable of running a marathon with ease.
Hijiri was waiting for him. She opened the door as soon as his footsteps sounded on the tiles. She wore a paint-spattered smock and had her hair in its "work bun", loose strands falling around her face. She was perfect.
"Hey," he said. "I, uh … I've had a delivery."
"And?"
"And … I'm not sure that model is properly on-scale, if you know what I mean. The original must be bigger. Definitely more beautiful." He was rambling, but judging by the tiny smile on her face, she liked it when he rambled.
"But I'll take care of it," he said. "The best care. I promise."
She grinned, caught hold of his sleeve and pulled him into her apartment, closing the door behind them.
"I expect nothing less, charm-boy."