物の哀れ
Mimi pulled the seatbelt across her chest and clicked it snugly into place, taking up her usual spot in the front seat of her mother's car. The drive from her parents' suburban home to her new American high school had once been a thrill, the rush of new sights flying by her too quickly for her to properly breathe it all in. Now the blurs of grey, green, and brown brushed by her in indefinite blurs, the careless paint strokes of a familiar cityscape. Mimi cradled her chin in her hand, elbow resting on the window, as she gazed disinterestedly out the window wondering when the newness had worn off.
She thought back to her arrival in America and the excitement she had felt at the prospect of her new life: new friends, new opportunities, and a new city to explore. It was all very romantic in her head, but her imagination had always run wild with idealizations (a trait that had garnered ire from some of her more down-to-earth companions at times). She had day-dreamed of a New York littered with celebrities, ripe for romance, and so gloriously glamorous she'd hardly miss her life – or her friends - back in Japan.
The reality of living in America as a Japanese immigrant hadn't hit her until her first day of school, when the speed of her teacher's English oration had left her head spinning. She'd always been proud of her English abilities, wowing her friends back home with her keen translation skills. She recalled a trip to the mall where she had stopped Sora from purchasing a shirt with the English word "NAKED" written across it, explaining between fits of giggles what the word meant to her more conservative friend. 裸. She had never seen Sora's face so red as the moment she thrust that top back onto the clothes rack in embarrassment. But dazzling native Japanese speakers with her translation prowess was hadn't properly prepared her to scramble to take notes at the pace of her American teachers' lengthy lectures. She used to love school, but the daily struggle of navigating a second language brought her to the realization that what she loved about school wasn't exactly the school part, but the socialization.
There was a part of Mimi that had wanted making friends in New York to be like a sitcom, where she would arrive at her new school to find a group of Americans students that comically resembled her friends back home: a passionate redhead named Sarah, a brooding blonde named Matthew, a reckless brunette with an intoxicating smile named Tyler… a group she could easily slip herself into. While this playful fantasy was far from her reality, Mimi took care to remind herself that she wasn't without friends here. As she exited her mother's car in the parking lot of her American high school, she was greeted by Michael and she smiled, remembering her small circle of friends here. Not lesser than those back home, she thought, just different. Still, sometimes a gentle sadness would settle about her like the minute ripples of a great loss.
Today, as Mimi travelled the hallways full of her boisterous classmates, that gentle sadness crept in as she caught, out of the corner of her eye, a rush of brown hair tousled in just the right way. Taichi? She blinked and he – whoever he was – was gone; a flicker of his playful smile echoing through her mind. She shook the image from her head, a pang of longing nestling into her chest as the reality set in. The days of glimpsing Taichi during class change, bumping into him at lunch, or catching his eye across the soccer field had ended; the moments were only memories now, soon to fade.
Mimi opened her locker and took her magnetic photo frame from the door, taking in the grinning faces of her forever friends. She lingered on his in particular – the biggest, most genuine smile of them all, naturally – and wondered to herself when she had first felt her heart shift? When had the sight of him first caused her breath to catch, her pulse to quicken? She searched her mind, scanning through her memories; surely, it hadn't always been this way?
She placed the picture frame back on her locker door, removed her textbooks for her first class, and slammed the door on that line of questioning. Students poured through the hallways like molasses embodied, as Mimi broke through the crowds toward her English class. As she plunked down in her seat and pulled open her notebook, a word scrawled in the top left corner of the board caught her eye, a mere moment before her teacher swiped his dusty eraser over his chaotic notes. Through the white haze of smeared chalk, Mimi could just make out the word before her teacher completely obscured it with a final flick of his wrist. She jotted it down in her notebook before it disappeared from her mind as well. Transience.
Mimi pulled out her English to Japanese dictionary to double-check her quick translation when her mind was unexpectedly flooded with the memory of her parents breaking the news to her about their upcoming move to America. She remembered how abrupt it had felt, and how she felt she hadn't had enough time to say a proper goodbye. Transience. But she remembered it clearly now: the shift. A shift that had caused her to look at Odaiba with new eyes, her newfound awareness of the impermanence of things heightening her appreciation of their everyday beauty. She found sudden beauty in the ripple of his sun-bronzed muscles, toned from a dedication to sport, and the depths of kindness found in his chocolate eyes. She found sudden beauty in the wave-like echoes of his sparkling laughter, and his immeasurable courage. She smiled sorrowfully to herself, memories of Taichi encouraging her gentle sadness. Her hands stilled as she felt the slow spreading of that wistful blossom in her chest.