I know something you don't know:
The test results were final: the girls were presented with these words just moments after leaving the breakfast table that morning, as they left off for their foreign aptitude test. The picture of Cleo, cousins wife: holding tight to his clenched hand as her long blonde tresses hit a stream of careless sunlight that cut across her fair cheekbones, was one that yumi would never forget.
There was a kind of intangible sense of foreboding, there in their wide-eyed, off-kilter stance. He was sitting there at the head of the breakfast table, with back straight and shoulders hunched forward. Sayuri had quickly pointed this out, with the nudge of a hand.
"Cousin, is…something…wrong?"
Their expressions didn't change, but sayuri hooked a hand into yumi's, drawing her closer as the couple slowly arose from the table, eyes nearly as quiet as their strangely small footsteps, as they moved on down the hallway, toward his study.
"Yu-Chan, we have to go now,"
"Yes…we really do."
Something strangely prophetic rang in the air then, and even held a long moment: as yumi turned to looked, started at the tone in her sisters voice, which was matched by the sudden sorrow painted there on Sayuri's face.
"We will now begin the testing. You will have all you need here, within this room. Do not ask to leave for any reason at all, save signs of medical attention that cannot be ministered here. I will now ask that you all refrain from speaking to one another,"
The old woman; eyes sharp and small; fled the students minds as they glanced into their lengthy test booklets. There was a synomonus rusting of paper, and then a few muffled coughs. Somewhere off in a corner of the room, an advisor to the tests' administration blew his nose and shifted his weighty body in the little creaky chair of a long, plastic seat and wood-paneled desktop.
Yes, the tense test atmosphere was here, and now nothing was going to break it.
"Yu-Chan!"
The days had changed now, shifted from one place to another: and now, yumi ran rather recklessly through the halls, blood pumping from heart to legs, from legs to heart, rather quickly. She spotted her sister just down the hall now; with jasmine and another girl whom she seemed to recall was named 'Rachel'. She ran right into the three, for lack of her being able to stop herself from toppling them all over, but quickly pulled her younger sister away, with the news that the test results had now been announced. With a little stumble, and a breath of fresh air, she set off with sayuri in two: both of them racing down the hallway, hearts beating fast.
"See—it's here, yu-chan."
On a long, admittedly aged corkboard for the school who usually seemed so well on top of replacing old things, there were a whole collection of little papers: club notifications and recent dress codes ammendants—all spanning about half a wall of classroom, should the section of hall they were in right now been, rather than a hallway; a small classroom.
"Ah—yumi! You're #1! And suki, too…she's third."
"Anna's second of course, and there you are-#4!"
Yumi quickly grabbed hold of her sister, and let out a long string of words in one breath.
"We're going there, yu-chan. Back to the place that we lived long before any of this!"
With every word, a little bit of sadness leaked into her face; an irrepressible, unammendable, sadness. Sayuri took hold of her sisters' hands, which pressed there up against her forearms, and closed them in on each other as she whispered.
"Mi-Chan…it'll be fine. I've missed it there, too…"
The indescribable communication that fell in those words was heard by none but themselves. The hall was empty, until at last the final bell rang, and they left the school together with hands locked, their security founded as they walked home together, Moki trailing somewhere not far behind: watching as the two girls made their way home, hardly speaking; barely making any kind of sound. Just the intangible kind, which can't really be taught or explained. Simply speech without words.
"Just remember to call us, girls. If anything comes up, just be sure to call…"
Sayuri took her aunts embrace in stride, standing there with her bags packed at her sides, and with the flight gate calling forward their flight. Yumi had accepted a little folded piece of paper from cousin, tucking it away before embracing their aunt as well, and pulling her sister off to their destined gate.
"Come on sayuri, we've got to go now,"
"…right. I'll see you guys soon,"
After being pulled away, yumi and sayuri joined the line for items check, finding their little group of japan-bound colleagues sitting, absentmindedly watching the most recent flights plane take off into the distants.
The test results were final. Those were the words the girls had the chance to expiernce, late one morning at the conclusion of breakfast; with a usually calm and strangely still cousin. His wife (Cleopatra) Cleo, stood beside him with her hand wrapped over the entirety of his; molding around his clutched hand like a glove of some bulky, yet thin material.
"