THE LILLIAN INTERVIEWS
Chapter Four: Rei and Yoshino: Tiptoes and Mad Dashes
Some four weeks before the Lillian interviews….
"You said yes to the interviews?" Rei repeated the question to her best friend. She asked her three times already and she was getting the same casual and elusive response. They were sipping morning tea in an out-of-the-way al fresco café near the main Dojo Bar in Tokyo.
"Yes."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"There is something you are not telling, Sachiko." Rei was about to place the cup to her lips. Midway through, she decided to put it down. With kendo-like determination, Rei looked at Sachiko directly in the eyes. Rei raised her left hand and sported a gentle wave over the other girl's face. Still, the other girl was stoically placid.
"Hmm. Very Qui-Gon Jinn, I suppose?". Sachiko smiled gently at Rei before looking down on her own cup of chamomile tea.
"Obviously when it comes to you, it would take more than a Jedi master to break your resolve." So much for Rei's devotion to Star Wars. Rei glanced at her own hands and gently wiggled her fingers in the air. Like she was worried she lost her spark to the Dark Side.
"Ah. You sure are sounding more and more like Yoshino. She's due back here any day, isn't she? Or is that classified information now?" Rei knew that Sachiko was trying to subtly maneuver herself out of the conversation. Rei was not going to give in just yet.
"Her itinerary isn't classified. At least not to me. Unlike some people I know." Rei continued to eye the other girl across the table.
"Revenge of the witty come back, is that?"
Rei noticed the amused look Sachiko was quietly wearing. For several years, she had rarely seen the other girl with this kind of light effervescent demeanor. Come to think of it, Rei had seen this in phases, before when Sachiko was younger. Twice. First when Sachiko took on Yumi as her petite souer. The second one was during their Cambridge years. One particular winter in Cambridge. Some ten odd years ago.
"Sometimes I guess we have to do something refreshing once in a while. Like an interview with friends." The raven-haired beauty was obviously happy about something. A light breeze passed between them. Rei looked on as Sachiko tucked her blue-black hair gently behind her ears.
"It's nice to see you like this, Sa-chan. It has been a while." Rei paused. She remembered all those sad and angry years when Sachiko was trying her best to come to terms with being the young Ogasawara heiress. When the other girl could not even spare a smile for days on end. Rei saw her best friend tired, overwhelmed, severely work-intensive but not altogether dejected. Sachiko had her spirits down for quite some time and she owned a kind of sadness that was hers alone - private and lonely. Today, though, it seemed that spring was back after an unusually long winter. More so, in Sachiko's world.
"Perhaps you taking time away in Kobe is a good thing?" Rei told Sachiko, partly teasing, partly drawing her best friend to tell her more.
"Perhaps." Again, that secretive smile from the former Red Rose.
"Why did you go to Kobe, Sachiko?" Rei feigning impatience at how her best friend could keep her in suspense.
"To play the piano again, Rei."
Then there it was. Like sunlight slowly creeping, almost in tiptoes, gently arriving at your bedroom when you wake up in the morning. And Rei began to understand perfectly well. Spring really has returned to Sachiko's heart. Like love, once thought forever lost, interestingly found its way back home.
Rei gazed at Sachiko and they both knew what it all meant. The charming sound of music is back. Rei was so happy for her best friend. She was happy for the entire Yamayurikai also. She might as well find her percussion sticks when she gets back home, Rei thought.
When they were in the car, Sachiko who very recently had taken to driving herself around again, turned the CD player on. Workshy started to play. The song was Lately. The music interestingly apt, they drove in silence.
Then, all of sudden after making a rather sharp turn, Sachiko asked a pointed question. "Will you be staying with Yoshino when she arrives? Or will you be at your girlfriend's?"
***
Yoshino, seated at the airport deli, was staring at Rei who was at a far distance. The tall blonde girl was waiting for Eriko-sama to come out of the arrival section in Narita. Rei looked back at Yoshino for a minute or two and waved. Yoshino smiled, and thought to herself that if she were younger, she would have swooned right then and there. But the times had changed. She had grown up. And Rei and her had changed.
"Yoshino-chan?" Yumi was sitting beside her, furtively entertained by the looks the former Yellow Roses were giving each other. "There are times when I feel like a third wheel hanging around the two of you."
"Don't be silly, Yumi. When Eriko-sama arrives you'd be relegated to fourth wheel." Yoshino jokingly punched Yumi's shoulder. "It's just that Rei-chan and I have not seen each other for more than three weeks. Until three days ago."
"Goes to explain why I haven't seen either one of you since we arrived from the States." It was then Yumi's turn to punch Yoshino's shoulder but lightly.
"We now? So you did arrive with someone? We called you though. But you weren't answering. Even Sachiko-sama was looking for you the evening after you and whoever-was-with-you arrived." Yoshino was liking the fact that she could now turn the tables on Yumi and her mysterious whereabouts these past two days.
And Yumi started to blush like there was no tomorrow. Yoshino thought. Some things about Yumi never change though.
"Your onee-sama already beat the secret out of you, I deduce."
Yoshino chided Yumi tugging at a strand of chocolate tanned hair that hid Yumi's eyes, laughing at her best friend in the process. Yumi's hair was longer now and often times would don a pony tail in place of the ribboned pigtails she had when they were younger.
"You're the region's Samantha Spade. I do not need to tell you who I was with coming over." Yumi defiantly said. Like it was routine that Yoshino could easily order a copy of any airline passenger manifest.
"Yumi my dear friend, you cannot possibly believe that I can just ask for a passenger manifest at any airline. That's a myth. I can only do things in the interest of regional security. You are not harboring nor dating a terrorist, are you?"
"Far from it…" Yumi murmured like her life depended on it.
"Oh and besides Samantha Spade is limited to missing persons."
"I like her hair though." Yumi began to sigh.
"So, your girlfriend just got promoted to director at this interior designs company, is that it? No wonder you've got a partnership agreement on the reconstruction project on this airport." Yoshino blurted out. Then the quasi-spy laughed a sinister laugh.
"See, I do not even need to tell you now. I was wanting to tell this grand dreamy story about how she and I came together. But you, my friend, have just practically taken the romance out of it."
"Oh Yumi, I'm sorry if I deprived you of the pleasure. It's just that I've known far too long now that you were dating her since your castle reconstruction project in Kyoto. Besides, Eriko-sama saw her making these adoring glances at you at the Ikebana opening. It is so easy, at times, to put two-and-two with you. Why do you feel the need to hide it?"
"I'm just worried about what Youko-sama would say."
Yoshino wanted to tell Yumi that Youko knows already. Although it seemed that Sei had yet to figure it out. The older roses have been known to travel far more frequently than the younger ones that it usually took them some time to notice that Yumi was officially dating again. Then again, Eriko-sama is an apparent exception. The older Yellow Rose was quite observant as an owl. And Eriko is best friends with Youko.
"It's like a complicated three-dimensional love triangle of sorts, don't you think?" The engineer in Yumi was extending analogies to geometric constructs again.
Then Yumi realized what she had just said. Yoshino was in a three-dimensional love triangle herself in her own peculiar sort of way. It's like freewheeling on a bike down on a steep hill. Yumi discovered too late that she failed to use the breaks again.
"Yoshino? I'm sorry. It was inconsiderate of me. I wasn't thinking. " There was a concerned tone to Yumi's voice.
"I've come to live with it, Yumi." Yoshino's said this softly.
Yoshino knew she was being also deceitful. Rei already had a girlfriend. And she, Yoshino was simply a past love. Only the Yamayuri knew. But they never really openly talk about it. It was sometimes their way of having Rei and her sort problems on their own. There were incessant sarcastic drops and cynical hints though but not to the point of meddlesome.
"Yumi, I want to believe that like all challenges in life, there are things that will fall into place after some time."
"You have been spending too much time with Shimako, girl."
"Maybe I should date again? What do you think? Yuuki has good looking friends still , doesn't he?" Yumi was giving a quizzical look at her friend who she thinks at times have something in her system likened to a hyper sugar rush on automatic pilot.
"Are you even sure you want to? Date? Again?" Yumi was a bit flabbergasted at her friend for even entertaining dating again after dumping one boy after another. Let alone the thought of dating anyone other than Rei. But hey, Yoshino did have her luck at long relationships, didn't she? There was this guy that lasted nine months, she recalled.
"Yumi, I would've asked Kashiwagi if he knows anyone. But of course, he is of a different persuasion."
How Yoshino could be so insanely light hearted about her own relationships is beyond Yumi sometimes. But some part of Yumi did think that Rei was not going to make a choice for Yoshino any time soon. So, the dating other people plan just might help out her best friend. Even if it was only some form of healthy distraction. For now.
"Well, Yuuki still has these good looking single friends. But I think Touko-chan some times scares them away."
"Well if they can't survive Touko, how do you think they'd survive me? Hmm. Ours is a bad plan."
"There is this one guy though." And Yumi, despite a deep respect for Rei, smiled at the thought of Yoshino dating this one cool guy.
"Yumi, look! Eriko-sama has arrived!"
***
Four years ago somewhere in Tokyo….
She was frantically fidgeting over her handheld monitor. A particularly determined look on her face. Almost to the point of her eyebrows meeting.
"Are you not glad those things are agency-issued?" Rei, looking up from the book she was reading, muttered at the woman with dark brown mahogany hair, slightly feeling sorry for what might already be a beleaguered handheld. Yoshino was in such rapt concentration over her new toy-gadget that it was delightful simply to watch her. The wonders of technology and her petite souer. The kendo master sitting up on the bed lazily leafed through the pages of her reading material.
"I am stress-testing this new security monitoring application the agency developed on this digital handheld, Rei-chan. It can be satellite configured. Else, it might be worth bringing it back to the design team." Yoshino with her long hair clipped into a half-moon. She had sported this look for sometime now. It's a long way from the braided haired girl ten years back. The hair had allowed Yoshino to appear more grown-up, with eyes still equally piercing that it could alarm the palest of creatures sometimes.
"Are you not glad that electronic gadgets do not have feelings?" Yoshino looked up towards Rei only to see a pillow being thrown at her direction.
"Rei-chan! I'm holding an expensive one here!" The younger woman ducked to her left as the pillow hit the right side of her shoulders. "The device may not have feelings. But I do."
"Come now, Yoshino."
There was a kind of tempting look to Rei that Yoshino felt slightly hypnotized at her beckoning stare. It was all it took sometimes for Yoshino. The younger woman slowly walked over to Rei sitting on the bed and placed the handheld device down the night stand. Not even breaking eye contact.
"Your young padawan is here, Master." Yoshino said this almost in a whisper as she took the book away from Rei's idle grasp. Slowly, unhurriedly, she descended her lips upon Rei's own. They kissed in a soft frenzy, gradually rising into a whirling maelstrom of tongues exploring, hair enmeshed in hastily twirling fingers. Clothes, skin, breath and shared body heat.
"I have missed you." Rei said a few minutes after making love to Yoshino. They were snuggled in bed, under the covers. Yoshino spooned against Rei whose right arm, above the sheet, rested on the curve of the other woman's hip.
"It does feel that you have. Very much so." Yoshino replied with a mildly naughty hitch amidst a slightly sleepy demeanor. "I should come home more often then."
"Yes, you should." Languidly, Rei with eyes closed placed a kiss on Yoshino's shoulder blade.
"Or we could do what Youko-sama and Sei-sama does….." Yoshino reached for Rei's blonde hair with her free arm. Cuddling her closer, making the other woman press her lips more to her skin. Yoshino was hoping that Rei could catch her drift this time. "Simply be together. All the time."
"Hmm. Are we not like them already in our own secretive way?" Rei could be so utterly dense sometimes.
"Not quite, Rei." Yoshino wanted something more. Needed something more. She took back her free arm and her hand went to touch the side of the pillow close to her. Calmly, she waited for Rei to say something. In earlier years, she would just probably get up from the bed, get dressed in a huff and storm out of the apartment house. But she wasn't a crazed teenage girl anymore. So, she waited for Rei. Please, Rei. Give me something to hold on to. Please.
Rei did notice Yoshino slightly wanting to pull away. However she held on to Yoshino, tightly locking her arms to the younger woman's naked frame. "I aim to do right by you, Yoshino."
"Someday." Yoshino sighed gingerly. She closed her eyes keeping secret tears from flowing.
"One day." Rei kissed Yoshino's hair and, sensing that the other was crying, turned Yoshino towards her. She saw the hurt on her beloved's face. "Sweetheart, you know I love you."
They gazed at each other with a kind of tempestuous longing. Yoshino lost herself in this turbulent emotional stare of Rei's. She pulled Rei closer to meet her mouth in a raging fiery kiss.
"I need you, Rei."
They made love again that night. The next one with an unrestrained, unbridled passion that would leave them thoroughly spent yet satisfied.
The following day Rei left to train for the Olympics. Yoshino left to spend a whole year in CalTech.
At the end of that year, without words, the Yellow Rose seem to have drifted apart.
***
Fast forward: One week after the Lillian interviews….
A short draft of an off-stage video transcript was sitting on Gaela Horowitz desk. It was being silently read. It went something like this:
Rosa Manor Pavillion. Special Lounge B. 1 hour before live to tape recording.
Fukuzawa: She's playing again.
Shimazu: You mean the piano?
Eriko: She meant the movie, Yoshino-chan.
Fukuzawa: Eriko-sama! We are talking about my grande souer here.
Hasekura: Come to think of it, Holly Hunter is not befitting of Sachiko.
Satou: So much so is Harvey Keitel!
Shimazu: Let's get right back to the story, dirty old men. Yumi, you were saying?
Fukuzawa: She went to Kobe & rediscovered the piano.
Eriko: Sachiko went to Kobe to rediscover not only the piano.
Todou: I think it's what is called a metaphor, Eriko-sama.
Hasekura: Metaphor indeed.
Shimazu: You knew about this all along?
Hasekura: Sachiko told me in not so specific terms.
Nijou: You people talk in code sometimes! The piano!?
Matsudeira: I'm curious, Rei-sama. You've been w/ Yoshino-chan for 4 whole weeks & you didn't tell her about Sachiko-onee-sama?
Satou: Hmm. Good catch, drill-chan. Hahaha!
Hasekura: We were, err…pre-occupied.
Mizuno: This conversation is taking a different turn all together.
Gaela Horowitz said to herself: The Yamayuri does talk in code. She may not be able to use the pre-interview clip after all.
***
Reference Terms:
Qui-Gon Jinn: Jedi Master and mentor to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Discovered the young Anakin Skywalker. From the popular science fiction movie Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace
Workshy :British pop-jazz duo. The song Lately tells about how the singer realizes that she has changed and have "stopped fooling around" to keep the love of her life.
Samantha Spade: works as a Special Agent of the New York FBI's Missing Persons Department. From the highly acclaimed CBS TV Drama, Without A Trace. Played by Poppy Montogomery who sports a long blond hair.
Padawan: a Jedi Apprentice in the Star Wars literature. Trained under the tutelage of a Jedi Master or Jedi Knight. In the Old Republic, male human padawans had to wear braids on their hair that were removed upon attaining knighthood. This is also in reference to Yoshino wearing braided pigtails. She discards them two years later after graduating from Lillian.
CalTech: Officially, the California Institute of Technology. Private academic institution for research and learning with strong emphasis on science, engineering and technology. They manage and operate NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Yoshino gets her Master of Science degree from CalTech.
The Piano: A Jane Campion film produced in 1993 about a mute Scotswoman pianist, Ada McGrath (played by Holly Hunter) who was sold into marriage to a New Zealand Frontiersman, Alistair Stewart. Obsessed about playing the piano, hers being left on the beach when she and her daughter were shipped to New Zealand. Ada begins to feel unhappy about her marriage to the distant Alistair and the local natives' inability to retrieve the piano. Baines (played by Harvey Keitel), a forester who has adopted the customs of the natives retrieves the piano. Baines then arranges for Ada to buy back the piano, one key at a time, by indulging him in whatever he likes to do with her whilst she plays.