Chapter 12: Dream On
AN: Again, not the ending yet. This contains a time skip, in the last parts of this chapter Tomoko is 22 years old and Tomoki, 21. Also this is the longest chapter with around 8k words. Enjoy & I appreciate those who continue to read on this story! Edit (Sept.22): Thanks to pastpermanentia for pointing out some wordings that could be done better!
Tomoko sits in her classroom alone. There is no music from her blue headphones but she wears them anyway, in case she finds herself in need to dissuade anyone from trying to talk to her. She is here before class as she had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. She had a one-hour break between the three subjects scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays, and most of the classrooms were empty anyway so she stays there instead.
A situation similar to high school. Three months into this small college: she still didn't have anyone to call a friend. It was more bearable, though, it was easy to blend in and be a stranger. She was used to it now. There were more students in her classes than her high school classroom, and she had different classmates for each class.
It was better now, maybe because she spent more time at home than in school. She had more time at home to study, then sleep or entertain herself alone for the whole day. The house was empty save for her and her mother, no one to accompany her but a comfortable loneliness she had learned to live with, and the silence of her brother's empty room just next to hers.
The first month has been orientations everywhere, recruiters for college organizations doing their sales talk to the freshmen for them to join their groups. None of them approached or asked her, and she realized she didn't care either. Trying to join them would only cause stress again.
For this first term, she was taking general subjects for a course in the liberal arts, leaning to literature (not something she was interested in, but there was nothing else to take). She decided that before launching herself in real life, she had to rest from the four years of stress she had in high school. She took a break from thinking about her social life and instead enjoyed the freedom of having more time to herself. High school forced her to endure a hellhole for eight hours a day, now, 21 units and 7 subjects meant less time in school. She might have liked high school more if it was scheduled this way.
Three silent months passed, and soon the whole thing with her brother around a year ago was just that, a memory that never tired of replaying. But now, they were less intense... maybe time can make her forget, help her get over and move on. But every time she sees him at home, when they pass by each other in the hallway outside their rooms, there was a dread at the bottom of her heart. She can look at him now, but she still can't talk to him and the shame was still there. Like her father, he spent more time outside the house. Tomoki was going home later than usual, for practice and reviews for entrance exams, and he would be in university next year, too.
Sometimes her mind imagines on its own without her meaning to. She wondered how it would be like to touch him again, as freely as before. It had been so long ago, so brief a time, that Tomoko sometimes wonders if she dreamed up the whole thing, that maybe in her own loneliness she had become insane and made up false memories of them both. A comforting thought, but it was real, and until now she was living with its consequences.
#
She still had her habit from high school of walking and wandering to nowhere after classes. One afternoon, she went to the same WcDonald's branch near her high school out of nostalgia. She can order now without stuttering, she can go out of the place without having to disguise herself.
She sat down alone a small table for two by the entrance, with her order of burger, fries, and Coke. She wore her old cap from middle school, and she pulled it down her face to hide her eyes and to hide from anyone who might recognize her. She takes out her notes and tried to study, but she can't focus with all the noise around. She still looked down and pretended to read a book while eating the fries. The people from the next table were noisy, it was irritating. She looked back at them and saw some of her former high school classmates sitting around a row of tables, all who look overjoyed at their reunion.
Idiots. Three months out of high school and acting as if they haven't seen each other for years.
As she pretended to study, she listened. She heard them talk about their new friends, professors, gossip about what happened to who's who from high school.
"Isn't that Kuroki...?"
Tomoko heard her name, and her eyes widened for a moment, and she tried to think of the next move. Maybe she could look back, smile, wave at them. Maybe they'd invite her to their table and they would all talk like old friends. She took a deep breath, smiled to ease her nervousness, and looked back.
They weren't looking at her but to someone else going in. They didn't notice her smile at them at all, and Tomoko was half-embarrassed and half-grateful at that. Tomoko turned to look at who they were looking at.
Her brother was there, with a girl. She watched them fall in line to order.
She could hear her ex-classmates resume their talking and pretended they were not watching her brother. She continued pretending to study while her heart lurched inside. She was sure her brother didn't see her. Tomoko hated to admit to herself that it was jealousy inside, and she hated more that she felt it because it was evidence of her own feelings for her brother that she realized still remain.
She imagined herself turn transparent, pretending not to see them when she's trying to observe them through her peripheral vision. The girl was pretty. Maybe it was nothing, maybe they were only friends, and he had lots of friends anyway. Tomoki ordered and paid, then they went upstairs.
Then, instead of calming down, Tomoko found the feeling of envy getting stronger. She forgot to eat her meal, her lips shaking, her hands shaking, her teeth set in an involuntary hiss. When she realized her physical reactions, she stopped them and breathed. She wasn't only jealous because of her feelings for him, but what she just felt was the same old jealousy that he had other people while she had none. She still didn't have the courage to apologize to Yuu after last school year's incident, she still had no one to talk to at the college, while he... can walk in casually in a fast-food chain with someone of the opposite sex and Tomoko hadn't. She had before, but also with him, but then he was her brother and there was no accomplishment in that, he was just her sibling anyway.
And then it dawned on her again that he was the one, of all the people in the world, who knew her better than anyone else. They've shared a secret, bared vulnerabilities and desires, once fooled themselves they were in love, but Tomoko can't allow herself to feel such things anymore, they only make her hurt.
Another group of students went in, wearing the uniform of her high school. She recognized them as Tomoki's classmates.
"Hey, look for Tomoki and her," said one to another, who scanned the entire first floor, didn't find them, then he went upstairs. Tomoko sighed in relief. It wasn't a date, just a normal outing of a group of high school friends.
However, her vision blurred from sudden tears welling in her eyes, at the thought of all her wasted years, wasted youth, and while everyone had the time of their lives, she hadn't even had the luxury of experiencing that kind of easy-going, simple friendships other people shared, that was so difficult for her before and until now. She hadn't helped herself, she hadn't changed. She only ever went out and had friends in her fantasies.
Get over it. You can't spend your whole life moping after high school, she scolded herself inside as she pretended to wipe the sweat on her forehead with a handkerchief, when it was really to wipe away the tears.
She finished eating and went out. Her hands were about to let go of the glass door and let it close, when she felt it being pulled from the inside behind her as another person was going out.
"If you won't go anywhere else, we can go home," said Tomoki's voice behind her. She froze on the spot. After months of not talking even at home, Tomoki spoke to her. He walked a few steps ahead. Tomoko still didn't move.
"You're not going?" he asked, and looked back.
"I am." She walked behind him, all the way to the train station. The sound of his footsteps and the silence soon calmed her from the unexpected bout of sadness she had earlier. They sat beside each other in the train. She stared at the window and at everything blurring past, while he was using his phone all the way. They walked again to their house.
"We're home," Tomoki said as they went in. Their mother was in the kitchen, and Tomoko saw her surprised when she saw them going home together.
She figured that even after all those things, he was still her brother, and they still have the same home. At the end of the day, they would still go home to the same place, answer to the same mother and father. What had happened between them didn't change that. They can't stay long pretending the other doesn't exist. Even if it would be long before everything could go back to normal (if they ever will), at least things would be a bit better.
#
That whole night, Tomoko was restless and she didn't know why. She had the idea of going to her brother's room and talk to him. She wasn't sure what she hoped to gain from it, and she didn't know what to talk about anyway. The door was open, so she went in. He was lying in bed with a book in hand. He only narrowed his eyes at her and continued reading. She sat on the floor, and he still didn't say anything.
"It's been so long since I went here," she said.
"So?"
"You won't ask me about college? It's cool, you know, it's better than high school, I think. I still don't talk to anyone but soon... I know I'll be getting all the perks! I'd party, get laid, have more fun..." Tomoko stopped and began to feel awkward at all the things she just said. After a long time of silence, the first thing she said to him was so stupid.
"As if," Tomoki said. "You know what you should do? It's better to study your ass off, Dad doesn't pay your tuition just so you can do pointless things. Which you only boast about but you won't do anyway."
"I won't let what you say affect me. I'm leading a new life. Without you."
"Why are you even here?"
"Because I want to."
"Get out if it's not important," he said, and it's as if it was this easy, like this was all it took and they were back to the way they were before.
"Tomoki, I think it's time for me to ask you to explain what that was last summer."
"Haven't I said all I had to say? You ruined me for sex."
"Wh-What do you mean?!" she asked, bewildered. She didn't expect Tomoki to just say that, but he always had a blunt mouth. He was leaning on his bed and looking over at her, and he looked like he was seducing her. Or maybe it was her dirty mind again, from remembering that it had all started in his bed. Tomoko tried to suppress an unexpected feeling of excitement at remembering: being blindfolded and ending up sleeping together here, and the last and second time they did... something. But soon after she remembered that, there came again the worst of the memories of all that happened after. He glared at her.
"Because of what Mom and Dad said and did, I can't think about it without cringing. I mean, it was stupid, everything. And it was your idea in the first place and they almost wanted to kill me then."
She didn't know what to answer. She sat still. After a few moments of silence, she spoke.
"But you know what's even more stupid? You. You telling me that it wasn't wrong then, and when they found out you kept on talking as if it's was all my fault," she said.
"It's over, okay? It was good in theory, but as we'd seen, a fantasy that's better not done," he said. He remembered that first confrontation with his mother, that he said it was both of them at fault. But he didn't want to defend or justify themselves anymore, he was done with that, and thinking of what his mother and father did only made him angry at himself.
Tomoko looked down on the floor. "I had really believed you that time," she said, almost whispering.
"Do you want to start a fight? Stop digging up the past. We can't move on if you keep on bringing it up. Please, just get out, I don't want to think about it and Mom might get suspicious that you're in my room again."
"I told Mom... that I won't. Yes! I'm looking forward to the future! My ideal guy is just out there," said Tomoko, and Tomoki rolled his eyes. His sister hasn't changed, she still had a knack of turning serious conversations to stupid things, and what she said made him disgusted at himself, remembering all that he said to her and that whole farce of a 'relationship'. It was easy to keep this act of hating, for her to act stupid, because he can't take anything close to sincere. It was like they were only pretending.
"And I'm going to have better sex than with you," she said, and Tomoki lost it. He threw the book to her face and she dodged it and ran out the door and back to her room. Tomoki went after her to close and lock his door. Tomoki was left confused. They just talked again, after a long time of not even acknowledging each other's existence.
In her bed, before she slept, Tomoko imagined an alternate reality. What if, their mother didn't find out? If it had been any other way, another situation, would they have accepted it? She let her mind wander and dream. They'd be different. Maybe they would have something deeper, but she shut out the fantasies – she didn't want to give herself the bitter hope anymore. If she starts to imagine a scene, later she will have a whole story line going on in her head, but then in imagining the good things that don't happen in her life, her own loneliness became only more acute. If she lets herself fantasize, she only ends up sad that she knows it's all impossible.
#
One night, at dinner, Tomoki gave a letter he received to his mother. It was stating his acceptance to a national university in Saitama, the same area of the school he had wanted to attend for high school. It was far, but the varsity scholarship would pay for everything.
"It's great that you got this, Tomoki. You better not pass it up," their mother said.
"I won't and I've decided I'll go there. My other friends applied but only me and Suzuki got in there."
"Your same classmate from middle school?"
"Yeah, the same guy in the team with me now."
"Ah, at least you have someone you know there."
"But it's so far, though. I'm not even sure if I'll be able to go home. I need to keep up the maintaining grade and all the games and all the practice would be more demanding."
"I know you can do it! Your father will be glad to hear about this."
#
It was easy to fall into routine again, and it didn't take long for her to adjust to university. There were a few people she could talk to, casual acquaintances in classes - a girl from Intro to Philosophy named Sakura, or another quiet, foreign girl with glasses in Natural Science named Linea. They weren't her friends, just people to talk to, eat with, and chat with about classes. She knew that most likely, she wouldn't even meet or interact with them after this term is done, unless they would also be her classmates for her subjects next semester. Before she knew it, it was near summer break again, and Tomoki graduated high school. She had exams that day, she didn't attend.
Tomoko didn't know her brother was going away until the day before he was leaving. She went home one afternoon and her mother said that tomorrow, Tomoki would leave for another university in a far city.
"Tomoki will leave tomorrow at 5 in the morning to go there early."
"Summer break is just starting, why'd he have to leave so soon?"
"He's required to."
#
Tomoko couldn't sleep that night. She usually slept late, but the thought of Tomoki leaving without any sort of resolution between them disturbed her. Her brother would be gone for a year, or maybe more than that. Should she talk to him? How? About what? For a better conclusion? For closure?
She couldn't will herself to sleep, so she waited until morning, until she heard Tomoki in his room, maybe fixing things to bring. In the early morning silence, she could hear her mother cooking downstairs. Tomoko got up and went out her room, and the door to Tomoki's room was open and the light was on. She stood on the space between their doors, careful to stay in the dark and wait. She only wants to see him before he leaves.
At last, he got out and paused at his door to lock it. As he was about to turn and walk down the stairs, he stopped when he sensed Tomoko standing beside him. But he didn't look at her.
"So you're really going?" Tomoko asked.
"Yeah."
"You don't have anything to say or something?"
Tomoki closed his eyes, in resignation. Then he looked at her. There was an odd look on his face that she only remembered from the time they had been more than siblings, and it almost made her heart break. She realized that she was still in love with him. She will always be, and she couldn't do anything to change that. It was as natural as the fact that he was her brother.
His face was close to hers, and she almost wanted to lean close. Instead, Tomoki's hand gripped her head, fingers digging to her temples, what he always did when she used to annoy him before.
"Stop, that hurts!" she said, and then she felt his arm encircle her shoulders and pull her close to him. Tomoki got his hand off her face. Her arms found their way around his waist, she pressed her face against his chest, and just as she was returning the reluctant hug, Tomoki let go and walked away... leaving her alone and confused in the dark.
"Goodbye, neechan," he said, and Tomoko watched as he walked down the stairs until he was gone.
#
Tomoki arrived in the university dorm near lunch time that morning. The room was small, just a bed, a desk, a bathroom with a shower and toilet, but it was enough for him. Classes were starting weeks away and Suzuki had texted that he'll arrive tomorrow. He unpacked his things, arranged the room, and lay down on the bed.
A new life is starting. He misses his room. He recalled the parting with his sister that morning.
"What made you do that?" he asked himself.
"I don't know. It didn't mean anything," he answered his own question and went to sleep. He'd wake up later, to go around the campus and see the place for himself. He knew that the games and the subjects would be more difficult at this level, and he didn't know if he could go home anytime he wanted even if there were breaks.
(Three years later)
Tomoko's group mates for some finals project have left, and she ordered another cup of coffee to stay in the cafe a little longer. At home, it would all be the same boredom. Her brother left three years ago and never came back. She had not talked to him since then. She sees his face on the internet or television sometimes, when there is coverage on those university football games. He's semi-famous now, but Tomoko doesn't read or watch anything where he appears.
She was alone in the place where people can lounge on the floor covered in thick carpets, sitting among silk pillows and low wooden tables. She looked around and saw a couple in one corner kissing, not seeming to get enough of each other, who looked like they were devouring each other's mouths. They were on the table right beside her, and there was no other empty table to transfer to, the place was crowded. She wished she had walked out with her classmates instead of suffering beside this irritating display. No one seemed to care. Or maybe everyone noticed but chose not to care. She tried to ignore them and sip her own coffee. But after ten minutes she couldn't taste it anymore, disgusted at them so she decided to get out, still thinking, why do people have to do that in public?
But when she got home, she ended up sad on her own bed, imagining imaginary lovers. She was alone, with no one to hold unlike the couple in the coffee shop. Every night the same despair and fever visits her, clutching at nothing, touching and hurting herself but never finding satiation. Desiring and at the same time wanting to get rid of the desire, never getting any.
Then she remembers something she almost had forgotten: her brother, when they were both ignorant teenagers who thought they were in love, but that was so long ago and childish to her now. But didn't she truly feel it, then?
That was far away now. She's already forgotten by Tomoki. That caused trouble with her parents then, but even her mom has forgotten about it. She's replaying memories from four years ago. There were too many realizations, after the years she learned there was so much more to worry about the world than her self-centered worries in high school. Loneliness, wanting approval, was typical at that age and she learned that the thing about feeling alone is you think you're special, the only one feeling it. It made sense to feel that in high school, but it's just stupid to still feel the same things past twenty.
She's older, wearier now. She must do something to change, once and for all. (She had told herself that so many times now).
#
After realizing still, that she has not gotten over her brother, it's time that she do something about it. She read internet articles, on how to socialize, how to date guys, but she could not make herself do what they suggested. She browsed her mother's issues of Cosmopolitan for sex advice but she only wanted to tear up the magazine. And she did tear the magazine out of despair. In school, she ended up on the self-help shelves in the library looking for books on how to become more appealing, how to be approved, how to win at life. Surely now, armed with information, nothing can stop her.
After scanning them, she realized she wasn't the target audience. How can she apply the suggestion to 'try dating many types of guys to explore' when she still didn't even know boys outside her classes, and she didn't even talk to them except for class requirements? She wondered if there was a book here called Social Skills for the Utterly Hopeless, maybe if she read that then she can start with applying the advice in the books in front of her.
It was all so complicated, relationships. Dating was a concept as incomprehensible as calculus. It was so hard to think of, trying to decide who you want, choosing from who wants you, well no one wanted her anyway. There would be wrong choices, rejections, finding the right person... it made her mind want to explode. Her mother had said she'd find a nice boy, but where was he? 'Date many guys'? Huh, really? Her fists crumpled the book's pages, and in anger she tore it apart.
A work student called out, "That's library property, miss! Release your anger elsewhere!"
"Komiyama!?" Tomoko exclaimed. She had been in the same school with her for three years and hadn't noticed?
"You!?" Kotomi said, just as surprised as her. "Haven't you read the rules? You have to replace that or pay," she said and pointed to the shredded pieces of paper from the book Tomoko had torn in her frenzy of anger and despair.
"I'm sorry. So, how much do I have to pay?"
"I'll still check, depends on how much you've damaged," Komiyama said, collecting the torn pages and checking how many pages were gone. It didn't look like a book anymore.
"How's Yuu?" Tomoko asked.
"Honestly, we haven't even met since high school. Though I've heard she's in a women's college near the city. She hasn't texted you?"
"I had changed my number. And I haven't talked to her too," she said, recalling that the last time she talked to her was also years ago.
"How's your brother? Seems that he's famous now, I can see him in live telecasts of the university games."
"Him? Why, after all these years, you're still into him? Since starting university, he's been so busy that he hadn't come back home even during breaks."
"No. I'm just curious." Kotomi paused and added, "I have a boyfriend now."
"What!? You're lying!" To Tomoko, how can this girl bag a guy while she's still trying to learn how?
"Hm. Think what you want."
"Well, I'm not a virgin anymore!" she answered, and Kotomi's eyes widened in shock while some students on the tables around them looked at them funny, some laughed. Tomoko turned red and wished to disappear, she had almost screamed what she just said and it must have been heard all over the library. Kotomi also turned red from embarrassment for Tomoko.
"Let's go over the desk, I'll check how much this costs," Kotomi said, and they walked away. Kotomi typed something on the computer and wrote down the price on a receipt and showed it to Tomoko.
"That much? I don't have enough money to pay."
"Then pay tomorrow or some other time." Kotomi glanced at the clock. "It's time to go home. Do you still have class?"
"No. I actually just went here to the library for research."
"Researching... on how to date guys?" Kotomi asked. Tomoko, for the second time that day, wished to turn to a grasshopper for today's top embarrassing moments. They left the library and went to the train station to share a ride home together.
"I don't even talk to anyone from high school anymore," Komiyama said.
"Me neither."
"Really, Tomoko? What was that about not being a virgin anymore in the library? Can't you think of something else? Did you need to one-up me that much?"
Tomoko fell silent.
"Don't be offended, I can't imagine you losing your virginity. And with who? Your brother?" Komiyama joked and laughed.
"Who else?" Tomoko asked. No one knew about that except Tomoki and her parents.
"Don't tell me..." From the look on Tomoko's face, Kotomi knew better not to ask anymore. She recalled that kiss she saw before, so long ago. They spent the rest of the ride not talking.
#
Tomoki spent his summer break on sports practice, and he always had wanted to go home, but after three years it has always been delayed. He's now used to living on his own, and his life before seems so far away now. His mother and father only talked to him on the phone, and he hasn't heard from his sister at all, except for the few times when he calls their landline at home and she answers but he's never talked to her and he only asks for their mother.
He only calls to talk to his mother about games, his grades, exams, but Tomoki could get by. They didn't need to send him anything, the scholarship pays for all his needs. Nothing much has changed with him. He's dated two other girls introduced to him by friends, but he's always the first to break them off. He's decided things like that weren't for him, he just did them because that's what everyone else was doing.
Tomoki received a text message that weekend from high school classmates, inviting him to a reunion in a nearby bar. He went with Suzuki, who had a motorcycle. The guys have changed. Tomoki was still, more or less the same.
"What age did you have your first time?" someone asked after bottles have been drunk and there was nothing else to talk about. One person answered, then the next.
"Seventeen."
"Nineteen."
"Sixteen," Tomoki said without thinking when it was his turn, and everyone looked at him in silence and shock, then laughed in exaggerated hysterics.
"Heh, I guessed it. You were getting laid since second year? We always figured you to be the discreet, silent type who was actually screwing all the girls."
"Huh? Well, that impression is totally wrong."
"So with who? Your sister?" said Suzuki, his friend and teammate, and only when he mentioned sister did Tomoki remember... that he actually had lost his virginity to his older sister. He has not even thought about that or about her for some time, being busy with studying and playing. The other guys continued laughing over their drinks. Tomoki didn't drink, he only ordered a Coke and ate the fish and chips.
"How'd you guess?" Tomoki asked, and he didn't hide his shock. How did this guy ever guess? His friends only laughed harder. Then Tomoki realized that they were laughing because they thought he was joking. Maybe his expression, usually scowling and serious, looked funny when it suddenly turned to feigned innocence and surprise. But he meant his answer to the question. Tomoki let them, and he laughed himself along with the joke. If they knew it was true, maybe they wouldn't find it that funny anymore. It wasn't funny to him either.
"I mean, man, we always noticed your tiny sister sneaking in class sometimes just to see you - so caring, isn't she? So, by the way, how are you with Ren?"
"She's a nice girl, but I just can't stay with her."
"She really liked you! And I heard you had another girlfriend after her?"
"Ah, Mei? She wasn't my girlfriend. We just hung out for a while. Sorry, I don't want to be together with anyone, you even bothered introducing them."
"What? Tomoki, you don't know how lucky you are, I can't figure out what's in you that makes the girls like you."
"They don't like me. They only like an idea of me, and when they know I'm not that, they stop liking me. I don't know where the hell they get that impression - well, they find out I'm pretty dull and I actually have a rather shitty personality. Maybe there are people not fit for those kinds of relationships and maybe I'm one of them."
"Well, that's weird to hear but I guess it's your choice."
#
Mindlessly browsing a social networking site at 1:28 AM, Tomoko searched for the name of her brother. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw his name and his profile picture, him smiling between two other teammates, all of them in their football uniforms. A button on the right invited her to "add him as a friend" in one click. But would Tomoki accept the request? She guessed maybe not. She clicked to his profile, it was locked to friends only.
The cursor hovered over: Add Friend. Follow. Send Private Message. She clicked that and a new window popped up, a blank form appeared. A cursor line blinked at her. She was about to close it and just continue studying, but there was something she wanted to say to him, all the things she had thought of and felt the past days without him.
She started to type without thinking. After a tentative first paragraph, she felt that she had a very long thing to say, so she let go, let the feelings that have been there for a long time put them into words. She didn't think of her misspellings and wrong grammar, just got it down as fast as she can and wrote under waves of emotion and let her heart guide her hand, trusting that they know better than if she consciously thought of every word.
Tomoki, I hope you wouldn't think it weird that I'm sending this message to you. It's been a long time and there are things I don't know how to express and maybe this message will be a mess and you can ignore it. But I keep on remembering high school and you might think I'm a creep for talking to you like this and you might not even remember it, but these days my mind keeps drifting to it. I know it is childish to think of. But I've been sad and lonely lately, still unpopular, I never changed much really. Even if people and mother keep saying that 'I'll find the right person' and countless advice I don't want to hear, I realized that I don't even want that 'anyone else' that they talk about.
They don't make me feel anything. It seems that I am just drifting through life not happy or not sad either. Sometimes I walk across a bridge and think, what if I just jump into it? No one will care. But I know I'm rambling because I haven't even talked to you properly for a long time and even all that before.
I keep on remembering you and all those things you told me before. It might be foolish to you now but maybe I'm thinking that our young selves know something that we've lost now. I keep on meandering my words, I know. But when you said there was nothing wrong with it, that it felt right so even if people say it's wrong then so what? We have a right to choose how to live our lives. We can have our own rules and we don't need to ask others if it is right or wrong. We don't have to be like everyone, no one has to know what we do or what we don't do. Everything you said was right, and it wasn't childish or naive.
I hope if we had been stronger, if we had more time before Mom and Dad found out... maybe we can fight for it? That time, it was both our choice, right? Isn't that enough for it to be okay? But maybe I'm still dreaming, and I can guess what you're thinking, that I'm still living in a fantasy and you'd advice me to get over it. I keep on thinking about that because the last time I felt genuinely happy was during those times. Like I said before (you've probably forgotten this now) I admit I still feel that way and would be happy if you feel the same too. But mom and dad's reactions were still stronger than that fantasy we built for ourselves.
I feel that things and life would be easier if we were together. I imagine that everything would be alright, would not be so difficult if you're with me.
But if you don't agree or still think this is stupid, I'm not forcing you. Cliché as it may sound, I'll go with your choice, even if that choice excludes me. I wish the best for you since you are my brother but I just want to let you know that I still
love you and I miss you so much - but Tomoko didn't type it, just hit send. It wouldn't accomplish anything. She was entertaining a childish fantasy that will never happen again.
After closing the browser, she immediately regretted sending the message. She hoped that there would be a glitch that would prevent it from sending.
#
In summer breaks, he and Suzuki always drove through the coastal roads, with him on the back of his friend's motorcycle. He liked the white sunshine on hot summer days, with the wind whipping through their jackets and the air salty from seawater. They stopped in beaches and did nothing, just watched the water and the people, ate seafood in the many restaurants near the shore. He liked the zen-like calm that comes when he sat by a rock on the shoreline and watched the sea. They always stopped at somewhere to either watch the sunrise or sunset over the ocean.
After the reunion ended past midnight, they both decided to take a side trip again. The sea was a different beauty when it was the sky was darkest, when the stars were brighter than ever. They stopped by an empty beach, sat on stray driftwood, and watched the lights of the boats and ships in the far sea. After that, they left and stopped again in a convenience store, he bought bottled water and mint gum, and his friend got a pack of cigarettes. They sat on the sidewalk near their parked motorcycle and beneath a street light.
"You know what. When you said I had my first time with my sister... where did you get that idea?" Tomoki asked.
"I was only joking, of course," his friend said, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag on it. Curlicues of smoke hovered and disappeared above them.
"I haven't told this to anyone. It wasn't a joke."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Tomoki said, and shrugged, hoping his friend would get it.
"Don't tell me that you really did! Tomoki, just... what? I mean man, I must be your true friend for you to just confess that? Fuck!"
"So, is that disgusting to you?"
"Oh. Sorry. I didn't mean to sound like that, it's just... you seem to be telling the truth, Tomoki. But I don't know anyone just casually saying that! How come?"
"It was in high school. Both of us were curious, but at one time we were really fooling ourselves thinking we were... in love. Then, it ended, like, can you imagine what my parents did? Almost disowned us, so it was over."
"That's insane," his friend said.
"It wasn't. At that time it was so... natural," Tomoki said. "I know this sounds weird but I've told this to no one ever. Except you. No one knows this happened except my family. I haven't gone home since I started college. I wasn't okay with my sister after that."
His friend was silent.
"I've just been thinking about this. I look at you guys, going out with girls and breaking up, but I'm not entirely sure of what I feel with my sister, if I should just stop all this. I think it was my fault that time, because I really had been telling her something so cliché like, 'It isn't wrong because it feels right'. But then, it ended up in a mess. My mom slapped me. Dad hit me."
His friend still didn't answer and just let him talk.
"And I still think about it and I am still confused. Maybe it's best to just forget it and move on, right? But it's something that when I think about, it is like a dead end."
"Are you still in love with her, then? I don't know the whole story and I don't know much about morality or whatever, but I feel... honestly bad for you. It's sad that of all people, it was your sister. If it was another girl it wouldn't be that bad."
"That's what I mean. But, I wouldn't feel that way if she wasn't my sister. I had felt those precisely because she was my sister. And she felt the same way. Tell me, what do you think of me now that I've said that?"
"Wait. I'm still kind of shocked, that's all, I've never heard of anything like this before. The first thing I thought of is it's wrong and you should stop it, but... I haven't really taken the time to think of these things."
"Yeah. And this is what I had said to her: people only say its wrong but then, didn't really ask themselves why. But that didn't save us."
"I don't really know how to help you, Tomoki. I just think it's sad that even if your intentions were good it still won't be okay in everyone else's eyes. If I were you, I won't know what to do, too."
Something calmed in Tomoki's heart. Telling all that to his friend has lifted a burden in inside him that he didn't realize was weighing on him for years. Now, sitting on the sidewalk near a convenience store at 3 A.M., was the last place in his mind that he'd talk about this. He again remembered the worst of those times, when both his mother and father hit him for his silly, childish reasoning. Looking back, it was his fault, in a way. He started it and ended it. Until now, he realized it still wasn't over, and even if she was the most annoying human in the world to him, he missed her, too.
He hasn't talked to his sister since starting college, and he had not come back home for years. He only heard her voice when she answered the phone, and she must have changed now. He preferred to remember her as this scrawny, kind of psychotic, good-for-nothing sister who always barges in from the next room, who had cried and wailed on his bed out of jealousy because of girls visiting him while he was sick.
And the things after that... the time they were more than siblings. It only lasted for mere weeks, a month more or less, but it seemed like a tiny eternity, they were like two figures inside a glass globe unaware of consequences. Flashes, incomplete shards of memories like sunlight on broken mirrors, came back again, of the two of them: looking at stars, secret kisses, just like all their games in childhood when they were inseparable.
The stars are bright, endless. They sat in silence as Suzuki finished his cigarette, and lighted another one.
He checked his phone. They would be back to the campus again come sunrise. The store's WiFi was on, so he browsed his phone out of habit, checked e-mail, the news, and logged in Facebook. It has been a long time since he got in the site, there were a hundred notifications and messages. He checked the notifications, all for pictures of him in games, asking if he'd like to be tagged. He glanced at the messages, excerpts asking how he was doing, and more of the expected Congratulations for all the games they've won.
The latest message was from someone he didn't recognize, the picture was a purple-haired girl from some anime he didn't know about and the name was probably from an anime character too. He read the message.
Tomoki, I hope you wouldn't think it weird that I'm sending this message to you. It's been a long time and there are things I don't know how to express and maybe this message will be a mess and you can ignore it.
So he ignored it. After reading the first two sentences, he replied:
Who is this?
He checked the other messages: all generic congratulations for them winning. He typed, Sorry for this late reply but we appreciate it, so thanks! and he copied and pasted it to the replies for the rest of the messages. When it got boring, he logged out and put his phone back to his pocket.
"Let's go?"
"Yeah."
#
Tomoko stayed up until morning, her mind still agitated about the message she sent. She logged in and out of Facebook so many times until she was sick but then she still did it some more, and hours later a red notification appeared, one message received. Her heart raced and she clicked it.
The reply, in one question, said, Who is this?
The three words echoed in her mind, ominous. Of course, she was an idiot, she wasn't even using her real name in this account. Hopeless, she turned off her computer and screamed into her pillow. She was still clinging on that hope even if, probably, Tomoki never thought about it anymore. After years, she still hasn't gotten over it yet when Tomoki had moved on.
And she must also move on. Even if it is hard, she must. She can't be like this her whole life.
#
The streets were empty as the motorcycle glided through the empty stretch of road, stretching in front of them like a black ribbon that led to the very stars. They were going a hundred fifty kilometres an hour, and Tomoki kept on thinking of his sister and those days. Then, his mind drifted to that message he didn't finish reading – then there was a strong gut feeling, who else would that be? Could it be... her?
So he took out his phone again and read it. Cold wind whipped past his face, and beyond the motorcyle's single headlight, everything was so dark.
"Hey, can you slow down a little? I have a message to read," he said, and the driver complied.
He read it all. It was none other than her. He swallowed and he didn't know what to think.
"We're near school," the driver said, and they travelled faster again. They were alone on the road and the sound of the motorcycle drowned everything else as it screeched fast across the street.
Out of nowhere, there was the sound of sirens blaring and a large ten-wheeler going too fast appeared out of the shadows.
"STOP!" Tomoki screamed, but before they could halt the other vehicle's metal slammed into the motorcycle, crumpling it in a second. Tomoki was thrown with a force to the concrete roadside. He heard the snap of bone, and there was blood over his eyes and over his open mouth. The last thing he saw was the bright broken screen of his phone still showing his sister's message, meters away from his hands.
Then nothing.
to be continued
