-1-
His hand is warm in mine, larger and rougher.
I feel giddy, and resist the urge to skip to the Italian restaurant. The city is lit up along the sides of the street with tacky old timey lamp-posts that are supposed to appear authentic. Cars race past, and the evening is pleasantly cool.
"Hurry up, Ty. We have to hurry to make our reservations, babe."
I pick up my pace and rush to keep up with him. He stops in under the awning of the restaurant, people peering out the windows that are darkly lit.
Ryan Gosling leans in for a kiss and then…
"TY!" Someone bangs on the door. "Get up, I need you, I NEED YOU!"
Lia?
I roll over and blink the sleep blearily out of my eyes. The blurry image of the alarm clock shining 4:30 in the morning startles me enough to sit up. Swinging my legs over the side of my suddenly comfy looking cheap queen sized bed, I stomp into the kitchen.
"Whatever this is, it had better be DANG GOOD. Ya hear me, ya crazy-" I fling open my front door to find my twin sister, Lia.
Her carefully styled makeup is smudged and running. Her blond highlighted hair appears to have been turned into a nest by a bird, which is quite an improvement from what she normally does with it. The sweater she's pulled over her skin tight dress is rumpled and stained with coffee. It is then that I know something is terribly wrong, because Ailia Murphy does not leave the house in anything but amazing.
She's told me so before.
"We need to leave, now. You have to come with me, pack your bags, whatever you can cram in there. I've already talked to your landlord." She wipes the mascara off her cheek, smearing it more. I cringe.
I'm ever so tempted to grab a Kleenex and tell her to wipe her nose right now. It's hard to concentrate on what she's saying with it just hanging there.
"Okay, what in the world is all this about? I just got interrupted with Ryan Gosling for some snivel fest about…?" I notice I'm wearing a baggy shirt and underwear. Ah, well, she's seen me naked at a party before.
"I'm pregnant."
I swear my heart drops to the floor. I was expecting something exciting. You know, like she just murdered someone and need my expertise to hide the body. Or she's a drug dealer and is wanted by the police. But nope, I get a pregnant sister.
"You interrupted my dream with Ryan Gosling, woke me up at 4:30, for PREGNANT? What do you expect me to do about it?" I must sound like a total bitch and I don't even care.
"I can't go to Claire; she has the twins and Gray. And Jack is…I don't know where Jack is. You're the smartest one of us, and…fuck. Just let me in." She shoulders me out of the way and slams the door behind her.
She sits down at my kitchen table and I sigh. She isn't going to leave, and I'm going to have to listen to my darling sister's problems. I did enough of that as a child, I think as I begin to make some coffee.
"I can't tell mom and dad, they'll kill me. I just…I need your help."
I sip on my coffee, mulling over her words silently. I don't see why I have to help her, seeing as how she's never done anything for me. But then an interesting thought occurs to me. A little while ago Mandy at work handed me a brochure for a farm somewhere in the boonies.
"Alright, I'll help you."
...
Lia comes out of the bathroom, wiping her mouth with a paper towel.
I look down at my watch and my foot taps on the floor. "We need to be there by two, and we still have a little bit of driving to do. And you still need to figure out which village we're gonna stay in."
She huffs a little before following me out the door of the restaurant and into my lovely jewel blue Jeep, who I have affectionately named Jewel. She slams the door and I almost want to reach over and smack her. My car is precious, and has never done anything to her so she doesn't have to be mean to it.
"Okay, Bluebell sounds nice, but Konohana has a doctor, which would be better for the baby and me." She instinctively places a hand on her belly. "I think you'd like Konohana too, because you don't like to take care of animals."
I scoff. "I never said that, I just don't like horses. Chickens and cows are no big deal, they just poop a lot. Horses are…big and…ugh. Never mind, I vote Konohana."
"Me too."
"I wonder if there's a bar."
...
"It's wonderful that you've chosen to move here, I'm sure you'll find the farm comfortable." It seems as if the mayor's eyebrows are trying to escape, they keep climbing up closer and closer to her hair. I resist the urge to giggle.
Lia shoots me a pointed glare. Despite my sister's appearances, she dwells very heavily on carrying oneself properly. Except when one is drunk, in which case one has the permit to act like a slut and get pregnant. Then move halfway across the country.
Just, you know, hypothetically.
"Thank you, I'm sure we'll like it here very much. Now, we'll be one our way." Lia smiles her best smile, and takes me by the arm roughly to lead me out.
I have to admit, the place is beautiful. I don't have a drop of Japanese blood in me, but even I could appreciate the breathtaking architecture of the buildings. The wood swooped low and it was painted in rich reds and burnished blues, cherry blossom trees lining the paths, their branches sagging under the weight of all the fuchsia flowers.
Lia spins around, her face flushed with anger. "We're going to the doctor's first to get registered and everything, and I swear to the Harvest Goddess, if you act as rude as you did in there, I will hit you."
She stomps off in the direction of the clinic. I sigh and follow her, kicking as many pebbles as I possibly can along the way. Lia and I may look alike, but our personalities are as different as night and day. Maybe that's because I was born in winter and she in the spring.
I was born Winter 31 and she was born on Spring 1. Our mother always said that we were born in different seasons because the Harvest Goddess knew that we would be so different. So she made our births different as well, to keep balance. I had protested saying that the Harvest Goddess wouldn't have paid much attention to us, but Lia had lapped it right up.
Lia was like a proper daydreaming princess and I was like the sarcastic knight. And with both of us to raise her kid, I was afraid of how it'd turn out.
I take a deep breath before following Lia inside the clinic.
Inside is cool, contrasting to the warm moist air outside. I've always hated spring, the heat being one of the reasons, so I'm not fond of summer either. Lia on the other hand, is in her prime when it is hot outside.
A woman with short dark hair is sitting at the large mahogany desk, bent over some papers. I hear someone cough from a separate room on the first floor. Lia marches up to the woman immediately, dutifully ignoring me. I am behind her a few seconds later.
"Hello, I'm new in town, and-" Lia begins.
"She's pregnant." I interject.
"Anyway, as my sister was saying, I'd like to transfer my files h-"
"Cause she's pregnant."
"Shut up, Ty. Anywho, would that be possible?"
"You know, because of her pregnancy."
Lia ungracefully hits me in the arm with her purse. I feel something sharp dig into my skin and ignore it, glaring at her. The doctor appears to stifle a laugh and retrieves a pad of paper from the other side of the desk.
"You'll need to fill this out, and if you wouldn't mind, my assistant will examine you to get a better view of things." She smiles primly.
Lia takes the paper. "Yes, thank you. Which room would he be in…?"
The doctor laughs. "Seeing as how there's really only two rooms on this floor, just go to the left and you'll find him. He's with a patient right now, so you can take a seat on one of the beds."
I stroll into the next room behind Lia, who sits on the nearest bed she can see. She sits primly, folding her hands in her lap, looking around the room, at the pictures tacked to the screen separating the beds. I stand there as well, my arms crossed and leaning against the wall.
"Well, aren't you going to go get the doctor?" She puts her purse on the ground.
I snort. "Why do I have to? You're the pregnant one."
"That's exactly why you have to. If I'm in such a delicate condition as you so…eloquently put, then you should be around to help me. That's what I brought you along for, obviously."
I grit my teeth and walk around the curtain. A man with longish brown hair sits on the bed, his arms tanned with a few tattoos. He has bushier eyebrows like the mayor, so my first thought is that they're related. Another man, maybe an inch shorter than me, is hunched over a few papers on a desk.
"Ayame? I need to talk to you about-" The smaller man begins, turning around, stopping when he sees me.
His face is bright and open, innocent in a mature kind of way. Straight dark brown hair frames his round face and despite the fact that he's shorter than I am, I find him handsome. His figure is slight but his arms are well rounded. And his eyes, they're an intelligent brown, rich chocolate. I clear my throat and blink really fast.
I did not come here to meet guys.
"Uh, the sarcastic lady in the other room told me to come and find the doctor. My sister's pregnant you see, and apparently she's supposed to get her uterus check-"
"TY! Shut up before you embarrass me any further!" Lia's head pokes around the side of the curtain. "I'm terribly sorry, she obviously doesn't get social cues, and-" She shoots a glare at me. "She seemingly cannot grasp the fact that she doesn't need to say things so literally."
I flip her off.
The two men appear to be in shock of our exchange. Most people are taken aback by how much we look alike, and then even more so when they learn how completely different we are. We both have brown hair, but mine is a few shades darker, both have blue eyes but hers are grayer and mine are more sapphire. Granted, I'm taller as well and my hair is curlier whereas hers is bone straight.
"Ah, I'll be with you in a moment. My name is Hiro by the way." The smaller man says, offering a small smile.
"I'm Kana!" The man on the bed just can't resist adding. Lia has that effect on people.
Lia pulls me back violently into her bed area.
...
After a long time of not writing anything, I am quite proud of this. Let's just call it a work in progress. Because I procrastinate a lot, I might not be able to keep to a schedule with this. But I will cautiously venture that a chapter will be posted every week, at least. Feedback is appreciated!
-Darkly Lit Dreams