A/N: A work in this series not about Kamuro or Tokugawa! Wow!
A different sort of reflection than what I usually write.
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"Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships."
-Zora Neale Hurston, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'
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"When we grow up, I'm going to marry you!"
"D-Don't say something so stupid!"
Mariko saw the memory play out in his eyes: in his panicked, pleading expression, that looked to her with such need that she grimaced instantly. He had broken her trust, and now expected kindness from her.
When she looked to him, she saw that broken trust: saw the recorders tumble out of his desk, and how he lashed out so violently against the student council. Tenga felt the eyes of judgement and how they cornered him, and how his reputation had run off him instantly, like muddy water.
Mariko and Tenga stood a chasm apart, distanced by the dirty sea that had been created between them.
Mariko turned away first.
"Gross!"
Tenga's face fell. He stood a beat in his own frozen horror, like he allowed the moment for his heart to shatter properly. With the word, he knew the fight was lost and there was really nothing he could do, and that the muck had been shed to swallow him.
Mariko did not watch.
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"Do you want to walk home together, Mari-chan?"
Mariko wanted to say yes, but something in her told her not to, and she followed the little voice instead.
"No, I have to stop at the store on the way home… Thanks, though!"
Her friend nodded in understanding, bid her farewell until the next day, and departed down her path home. Mariko shut her footlocker and started her own way towards the mini-mart. She walked along the incline near the canal, where the sun drew closer to the clear water as it sank and the salt-white clouds reflected on the surface, and she began to wonder…
When had Tenga changed?
She remembered—it seemed like aged ago—in elementary school, they would go out after a rainstorm in their boots and coats and hats to float little paper boats in the puddles. She would giggle at how delicately they balanced on the surface and have to say something about it.
"It's like an ocean! An ocean for ants, maybe."
And he would scoff, maybe flush, and mutter something like:
"It's just a mud puddle! But, maybe that is like an ocean to ants…"
"They could ride in the paper boats, Tenga-kun! With little sailor hats and spyglasses."
It was fun to get him flustered because he did so easily, and they were so young then. Mariko found herself missing those times, and had to really wonder when they stopped. She could not pin down a specific instance, but she could recognize that over their elementary years, she started spending time with her other friends coloring or reading instead of hunting for bugs and rocks with Tenga. Their interests had split over time, and a sort of natural rift formed between them, where they put themselves in separate social circles that were destined never to overlap.
The bell over the mini-mart door tinkled, and the noise seemed to ripple the distress building up in her thoughts. She, almost robotically, distracted herself with the simplicity of getting the milk and oranges her mother had asked her to buy. But, outside the store, no easy necessity was known to her, so she stopped on the sidewalk, not sure where to go.
If she walked a block and turned left she would get home in a few minutes, yet that thought was not appealing to her. It was almost as if she had something else she needed to do, and she could not remember what.
She found herself turning right instead of left at the end of the street, following the path she used to travel to elementary school. She knew the way like she always had: at the bakery she would turn left, and the school would be right across the street.
It stood as she remembered. Mariko did not take the next direction past the bakery, instead standing across the street to stare at the building nostalgically: for the sake of her old emotions, perhaps. Before the front double doors she had rushed into to get to class on time there resided a small pond, where water lilies would grow every year. They were a favorite of the first principal. They grew even now.
Mariko startled herself with the stray tear that escaped her eye. It came alone and without warning, and Mariko brushed it with her palm before it completed the trail down her face. It left a stain in her hand, and she had to marvel at it: its origins, and its purpose. Awed as she was, the water could not give the answer, and she in the end had to wipe it away and return home before the milk became warm.
As she arrived home, Mariko thought she maybe mourned the loss of who she used to be for reasons she did not yet know.
.
"What does it matter?" Her friend rolled her wrist. "He's bad news, anyway."
Mariko slipped the straw out of her mouth, an icy feeling crawling up her arm.
"What are you saying?"
"It's not like Onigawara-kun does good things," she expounded. "He's bad news! The student council wanted to catch him before he did something very bad."
"But he didn't do it." Mariko plunked her milk carton on the table. "That's the whole point."
Her friend leaned her head to the side.
"Why are you defending him?"
"Why are you not?"
Kamuro had done it—he had admitted it, in front of the entire school!—and yet she acted like it did not matter, or she did not care. She insisted upon continuing to blame Tenga, who was victimized, for some warped notion of martyrdom that held the wrongdoings in a better light. It frustrated Mariko enough that she could not finish her lunch, and she spent the rest of the school day festering in her guilt.
Tenga had asked for her to save him, and Mariko had let him down.
He had asked for her to believe him: to look back to who he really was, and realize there was no way he would go about licking girls' recorders. He had a pure heart somewhere underneath all his scruffy exterior, and no one had believed him. Not even the one he trusted to.
That accounted for the most of her guilt. Mariko had chosen to go along with the crowd instead of what was right, and that meant:
Tenga had never changed. She had.
And she had to live up to that. She may have not changed for the better, but she did not have to remain that way. So she stood outside the school, school bag in both hands and fear in her heart, waiting for Tenga to return.
She had seen him running with the Body Improvement Club on her way home, and sure enough she saw his outline as he kept up with the group, and when they slowed to rest she walked towards them.
They rested near the center of the canal path like a pack of panting wolves—although, they were not nearly as vicious as wolves. Mariko felt nothing by warmth and friendship as she approached them. (Maybe that is why Tenga enjoyed spending time with them.) Their presence did not threaten her not to speak, and she called out softly.
"Tenga-kun?"
It was meant for one, but she received the attention of all; most importantly Tenga's, whose surprise was no mystery. She waited as he rubbed his neck with a towel and pulled away from the group, snapping at them to finish without him. It was not a difficult request, but the protective knitting that held them as one practically hummed audibly, and the unease of leaving one of their own on his lonesome followed them to the school. Tenga made sure they fulfilled his request before focusing fully on Mariko.
"You seem like you're enjoying yourself," Mariko started with humor, hopefully communicating that she meant peace and not harm. "They seem nice."
Tenga scoffed a little, stringing the towel to rest around his neck. "They're alright."
A breeze ruffled at their clothes. They found themselves looking out across the canal quietly, the water so clear it was practically a mirror and scattered water lilies framing the edges like a painting.
"… I wanted to apologize for letting you down," Mariko spoke, finally, the true reason for her coming. "For not believing you didn't lick the recorders."
Tenga uplifted one shoulder, apparently not nearly as bothered about it as her anymore. "Don't worry about it. I shouldn't have tried to put you in that position, anyway. You would've had to face the whole class with me."
Mariko watched the clouds move on the water, like great ships out at sea. The sight put her at ease, and she felt comfortable in Tenga's kindness.
"I suppose I was not ready to admit it was me who changed for the worse and not you."
"You're too hard on yourself," Tenga advised. "You are the only one aside from Kamuro who has apologized to me, and that's something."
Tenga was so ready to forgive, and Mariko had to accept that very real sweetness he had towards her. She smiled gently and peered at him out of the corner of her eye, catching him off guard in the only way she knew how.
"It's the least I could do for the man I'm going to marry."
Tenga flushed deeply and nearly yelled a curse, Mariko's laughter chiming like seafaring bells.
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A/N: The quote used in the last fic could also fit this one, but alas.