THE PASSING WIND
-TheSilentReader-
{PROLOGUE}
As a child, Touko considered coloring maps as the mere simple experience that made her aware that there was an outside force, an outside world, besides her. She had plenty of blank maps, and she did not hesitate to use them all, even within just a day, just to change any particular drawn object in her map. Yes, she realized that not all things could be done at a snap of her fingers or her sheer force of will—it considered everyone, everything involved, to agree with her.
In this case, she successfully hauled her older sister out of her workplace in the gallery, and it was done deliberately, with a hastily well-thought planning and timing. She made her way into the gallery—she was known to be the only person besides Satou Sei who were free and had the nerves to be in that suffocating room—but she dared not to come with a loud, demanding feat for warm welcome, like she used to enjoy. After all, she was one of the very few who could make Yumi follow her, just with a polite plea. But she told herself that she did not enjoy going here, today.
Her black flats emit no sound as she walked on the pale marble pavement, her pace a beat more rapid, because she was neglecting the finesse that her legs used to possess. No, she would have run for Yumi's sake, but she waited. She knew that it was not the time to disturb her.
Being here meant that Yumi was in trouble, that someone needed her help to get her out of her shell once more.
Yoshino passed by her and the junior saw the former's hands relaxing and constricting into a fist—did she hit Yumi?
No, it was evident that the other hand was covering a cheek of her face, and as she walked more brusquely to be near Yoshino, she was greeted with a glare that could slice boulders. She thought that she might have dueled with that glare in their old high school times—she used to glare back with her feisty own—but she was equally surprised to find herself as an extension to the disappointment and anger that Yumi was supposed to experience from the willful Yoshino.
"Take care of her."
Maps were drawn. Lines and curves that were used to be thick with hard crayons were now thin lines stretched by a not-so-smudged, black, indelible ink. As you grow up, you use few colors than before. That endless spectrum would be reduced to distinct tints in the color wheel, until you could only distinguish and name and count them with just ten fingers. Trying to learn color-speak would be too bothersome, a waste of time. Colors are just a feast for the eyes, never for the tongue. Thus, monochrome or black-and-white it would be. Too much for boring maps.
But it was rather simple that Touko thought of maps as such—Yumi-sama taught her to see them in that way. Not in a sense that Yumi would have liked Touko to join in her rather apathetic tendencies, no. She taught her that when Yumi was the happiest, back when she was in uni—that maps are supposed to be like that. It was that simple and precise; no bullshit deeper meaning. Colors were not reduced because of devaluing maps as a tool and not as an artwork. It was just not meant to be like that. No oversized landmarks, just circles, oblongs, triangles, numbers. Or even a tiny blip in the radar. She thought that it's just that simple.
When she found Yumi in the washroom, she thought that she had seen too many of similar scenarios that she'd be invulnerable to the display. She'd been like that, and even though Yumi used to say that it was fine to cry and to show weakness . . . nobody wants that. Not the Yumi now. Nobody wanted to see another cry in grief and despair. You take flight from sadness. By any means, you try to avoid that feeling. It was stupid now to be like that—to risk a portion of the heart to feel pain and sadness, just to make sure one is alive.
She saw Yumi cursed herself in front of the mirror. Repeatedly.
Those were unclassy drops of expletives that she'd rather witness in a dirty and stenched bar than in a noiseless, dark toilet.
She made herself known to her sister. She expected Yumi to give her a sneer that would negate whatever poison that made her spurt out profanities pitifully and alone, and what she saw did not surprise her. The first thing Yumi did was to ignore her cries and transform into an apathetic, cool sister who appeared as if nothing was wrong. That's what she was trying to do; to hide that everything went wrong. When Touko acted as if what she saw was just a minor thing—
"Are you finished now?"
—Yumi laughed heartily. It was a genuine laugh to ease her pain, not just to hide it. Somehow, Touko thought that she was now trying to move on, not just to hide her feelings with false happiness. She was trying to laugh it off.
For once, Touko was thankful that she responded the way she did. Because, normally, she doesn't.
But she did not show her realization to the sensitive Yumi. Showing would only lead to Yumi contradicting it, hiding it more. Because she tends to rebel to her true feelings.
—Matsudaira Touko (1998)
CHAPTER 21:
Three days ago
Yumi was about to tear her hair off due to fatigue just to keep herself awake and welcoming to reunite with her apartment. She would have greeted the bloody room with a dramatic whine of welcome, but Touko was there, so she decided against her impulse. She was feeling like she had sniffed something illegal, feeling dizzy, uncharacteristically happy. She didn't know why.
On second thought, maybe because she outwitted, outshone Yoshino's stubborness with her own. Yoshino had a head as hard as diamond, but what did Yumi discovered—Yoshino turned out to be a fragile soft drink glass bottle.
She stepped out of her shoes, and immediately noticed how clean the foyer was; her cotton socks had not gathered dust even when she slid her foot sideways to the elevated wooden floors at the receiving area. With a snort, Touko admitted that she bribed Yuuki to pick the locks of her apartment. Yumi tried not to grimace with Yuuki's sentimental efforts of welcoming her back to Tokyo, because she thought that he might have done it in guilt for revealing that the painting was given up.
It seemed that Touko appeared not aware of that bit, but Yumi was not stupid, and neither was Touko. But Touko was aware; she went to the gallery to console her. She would have not come unless Yuuki spilled something to his terrifyingly adamant girlfriend, who could scrape Yuuki's eyes to get information about Yumi from him.
After all, her little sister was never bothered with blood.
That little sister, however, was trying to be careful not to upset her older sister more.
Touko told Yuuki that it's not his fault. He told her that he did not like seeing Yumi like this again, just like before, when Yumi left for Kyoto, again when she came back to Musashino after months with Hinomura. It was the same face—a face with a blank smirk and a sensitive tongue—that expressed her apathy, or her struggle to lose every emotion she harbored within her heart.
That's when Touko realized that Yumi was afraid of everything.
She was afraid of Kyoto before because she knew that someway in between her commissions, she might see her old lover, Professor Hinomura. At the time, remembering him and his betrayal made her remember Sachiko. She was afraid of going home, because she was afraid of what people thought of her, of trusting always her heart. She was afraid of depending on other people again. She was afraid of the word trust, itself.
But she can't do anything. She doesn't hold Yumi's life.
Yumi propped herself in a couch in the living room, just to test the regaining familiarity of her apartment after months of being with Kashiwagi. Somehow she was craving for tea, a strong one, something that Kashiwagi had preferred. It was becoming a habit, to smell the mix of turpentine and tea. She found herself not liking it, but not hating it either. She was unsure, which is decidedly annoying.
Next, she became annoyed.
She remembered once more, that this day was the third time in her life that she had been fucked. It was her rejection not to come into terms with yes, the painting is gone, yes, it's gone, I know, it's gone (saying those repeatedly in her head, not voicing it out, because she had no courage to). Touko was here now, rummaging into the compartments of her fridge (when she realized that Yumi emptied them before she left, knowing that the house would be vacant anyway). To be vocal with her thoughts would strip her more of the dignity left in her, because Yoshino had torn it to mush in her old workroom.
But she could not help but stiffle a mewl to her otherwise overflowed sorrow that she tried to suppress, like a hard rock blocking the crater of an active, raging, pressured, almost bursting volcano. Somehow, red, hot, spewing lava spurt out of a small hole beside that crater—and that was that mewl.
Crying won't make The Passing Wind come back to her. Throwing tantrums now won't. Anger because of Yoshino and that cunt Sachiko won't. But keeping it to herself won't. She changed her mantra now. She wanted to be numb. Numb. Do not feel pain. Take it easy. Easy. Numb. Numb. Numb.
Just like before.
Thus her usual, devil-may-care tone that she practiced with Sei: "Touko. You stuffed my fridge. Why did you do that?" because she noticed that Touko must have noticed that mewl too, the fact that she turned away her attention from the vegetables on the bottom compartment of the fridge just to look at the direction of the sofa. Should Touko have to be that conspicuous?
Touko answered, "Yuuki stuffed it with all you needed for the days you'd be here, until you go back to Kyoto."
Yumi deduced she was acting as if the mewling never heard. "Yuuki did?"
"Yes."
"Right, tell him I'll pay him back after I get my commissions." She dragged a chair and sat in front of the dining table.
"It isn't necessary. We're family, Nee-san." was the firm reply.
(Yeah, we are.)
It was already late at night, but Touko insisted that they'd eat whatever was there in the fridge, and unsurprisingly, the appliance was full. It came to Yumi that Touko already planned this; she knew what was going to happen. Yuuki, of course, would not want to be anywhere near her yet (she pissed him off because she was royally pissed off) but he was working in the shadows. She knew that. But that doesn't mean that she did not mean what she said to him hours ago.
Her intention was to know everyone how pissed she was.
Which didn't work in her favor.
(Shit.)
After what happened in the bathroom, she began to realize how . . . quiet after it went lost. There was no chance that it could be found ever again, and by some other force, when she thought that it could be destroyed, she felt that a large block of responsibility went away with it. Could this be numbness that she felt now? Oh, wait; was it working?
The truth was that she shivered with superstitious worry when Yuuki told her that he wished the painting burned into ashes. She knew he can be abrasive, but she did not expect him to be to her. He was always patient with her. He was always patient with her.
Touko noticed that Yumi was tapping her fingertips against the dining table too loudly and too rapidly.
(He was always patient with her . . .)
"Nee-san?"
She looked abruptly at her little sister and quickly folded her hands into fists, failingly hiding her fret from her. "What's cooking?"
"Pancakes."
Yumi felt her mouth water. "Pancakes? In the middle of the night?"
"When you're studying for almost forever, you appreciate things like this."
"You don't have to convince me; I didn't say I don't like it." Then after a moment, she thought of something unusual too. "Do you have tea?"
"Tea? In the middle of the night?" Touko copied her Onee-sama's reaction a while ago, mocking her surprise.
"Yeah."
"Ah, sure. I think Yuuki added new teabags here . . ."
Yet, after a while, she was with her own thoughts again, as she sniffed the bland smell of flour in the air, followed by eggs, and now the halfway-cooked mixture. Hearing not the uniformed tap of the four digits of her hand, not Touko's sigh as she watched the pan, not the swish of the fire from the stove that heated the water in the kettle for the tea she requested.
Touko tried not to talk to her older sister all the way through Yumi's apartment. She was quiet as she rested on the soft cushions of the passenger's seat of Touko's car, but something in Yumi's brooding face was not reassuring for Touko. She might be over-analyzing her (force of habit), but it felt more as if she wasn't sensitive enough. Yumi's behavior had been changing every now and then, and that's what she concluded after her grandesoeur's nonchalant retelling of events that happened that day before Touko witnessed Yumi shouting curses relentlessly to the unassuming mirror of the gallery's lavatory.
Not everything was according to what she expected as a fair life.
Of course, it was unfair.
She had the right to brood like this. She had the right to be angry. Touko knew that Yumi should have those selfish feelings. She was entitled to them. Yet, she would have preferred her Yumi to be as honest with her as with other people. She showed her anger to Yoshino-san. To Sachiko-san. But she never vented out her feelings to Touko. At this rate, she should have not feel jealousy with that—she was so lucky that Yumi could only smile in front of her, but this was too much. Yumi was hiding her feelings from her.
That was unfair.
She knew the answer, and she was glad she knew it. She was able to hold into that assurance that only she had that certain light that Yumi could find. That's how she was full of herself regarding her older sister.
Yumi ate her pancakes like flushing water into the toilet, lacking manners of loud bites and opened, occupied, talking mouth, because she was starved. She made a comment that crying makes you hungry, and with Touko chuckling over that, Yumi resumed eating while Touko served her the tea that she wanted and resumed to pouring the sticky mixture to the pan for Yumi's second helping.
It's just that, tea and pancakes in the middle of the night?
"That's not weird. You are supposed to be the artist. Weird things supposed to reinforce your creative drive."
"And shit."
"Yes, creative drive and shit. But you shouldn't be eating too much at midnight."
Somehow, Touko scolding her reminded her of Kashiawagi.
Mundane was this late evening was, she knew nothing that was happening to the people outside the confines of her home. Little did she know that not only did she provoke everyone, she also made everyone did what they had done. Sachiko couldn't handle keeping her secret to herself, thus confessing it to her bestfriend; Suguru went to Kyouiichi to openly announce war against the head of the company; Ryu called Sachiko to tell her to join him to usurp her grandfather from his position.
It wasn't related at all, to her and her painting. But that piece of artwork was the abberation to the otherwise flat and clear reason for wanting revenge, power and even love.
/ What do you know, you recognize my voice. /
"What's it?"
/ When I told you I'll won't let Ogasawara Kyouichii bother you anymore, did you believe me? /
". . ."
/ Yumi. /
". . . I didn't."
/ He won't. /
Yumi choked in her own saliva as she breathed for air, when she woke up from a dream that she could not remember. She coughed, cursed, and relinquished the times she had this same satuation whenever she woke up from the REM state—it was sorely repetative. Even the moment after she frantically searched for any indication that Touko wasn't disturbed by her awakening—just like the time she roused from that nightmare of Sachiko and the foggy summerhouse when she took Yoshino home with her to get drunk. A day after she lost her painting.
There were always things;memories that made her remember Sachiko. Even the most boring object in the face of the earth like a toothbrush could make her remember the time when she borrowed Sachiko's own when she'd forgotten to buy one in one of their secret rendevous and the heated episode that happened after that. A speck of snow that settled on her short, chocolate brown hair; a line that she made on a dirty tinted window of a car with the pad of her finger, gathering dust—recollecting that her giddy, overexcited, past self once put Sachiko's name on a dilapidated car at an old, abandoned park.
Yumi gave all of Sachiko's articles in her possession to the surprised Touko years ago, a day before she went back to Kyoto to be with Hinomura Takuya, with only few words—vague ones—not even in the context of how Touko should dispose two boxes full of Sachiko. She never told Touko how: she gave them in shy abandon and Touko smiled back, a proud grin—trying not too wide because of sensibility or courtesy reasons. She did not know if Touko burned them to ashes or returned them intact to the person who originally owned them, but she used not to care. She had Takuya back then, with the promise of forever.
But it didn't pan out.
In the years that she tried to get over her, she was constantly stopped—interrupted—whatfuckingever with simple things. The memories assigned to each piece of object. That's why having a boring day was the worst day ever. That's why she shoveled every idea, every inspiration to her canvass—even without visualizing the whole of the fucking picture first—because she feared remembering idle things when she stopped thinking and started staring at the surroundings. The reason she never wanted breaks. And the reason she never finished a single piece, because of impatience.
For the last two months, she had forgotten them. Ironic that in Kyoto, where she feared to make herself remember another fuckface like Takuya, she'd forgotten how to. In Kinomoto compound, she had somehow forgotten awful memories. With the Kinomoto women's works, she had forgotten the mundane objects. With Kashiwagi's evening tea, thick haori, and copy of The Scream in his office, she stopped thinking about them.
With time, she somehow forgot.
Somehow.
But tears flowed, as well as the cold sweat that gathered on her forehead and scalp, which seeped along the strands of her hair to their tips. Her t-shirt was also mildly wet. She could taste the salty, clear fluid oozing out from her nostrils. And she cried for real, not because she just felt thrashing, like in the lavatory of the gallery, but because it finally sank in. It finally hit her:
Sachiko, her missing painting, her unfinished works, her life, her memories, Yuuki, Sei, Touko, Yoshino, Hinomura Takuya, Ogasawara Kyouiichi, Touma Ryu, Kashiwagi Suguru . . . faces and people and places and things and everything that could be named—fucking dull things that made her remember.
Silently, that's how she cried. It was not a thrash anymore, but more of a tremble. There was no cursing. She couldn't curse. Just the lack of breath, short gulps of air, and the muffled croaks with her hand trying to suppress the noise to spare Touko of pure weakness and vulnerability that was Yumi. That three-ante meridiem Yumi. The hour when the population was supposed to be dead to the world, or somewhere else in the unvoiced throes of heaven or hell.
And she cried, because it finally, truly, hit her.
Yet, Touko chose not to interfere. Just like before, at the doorway of the lavatory, she observed with her ears, instead of her eyes. Each sound of gagged cry tore her. But she cannot interfere. It was that Yumi when it finally sank in.
Just like Yumi, Touko gritted the arcs of her teeth against each other for her never to be noticed.
The next day, she abruptly jumped from her futon when her vision showed a faded maroon color of hair seeping into her irises and realized that Touko should not be here. Touko should be somewhere, being a junior intern or whatever, sifting through medical files or assisting someone giving birth or mending broken bones and noses. Yet, sunshine was pearcing into the curtained windows revealing her little sister arranging her own futon.
"You're—you're—!" Yumi gagged.
"Nope. I'm free today." Touko uttered, interrupting the question.
"What are you doing?"
"Going to the bathroom a bit, then to the kitchen for breakfast. Any preferences?"
Yumi did not answer. Instead, she put her face to the softness of her pillow and tried not to expose her eyes to light.
"No pancakes, please," she scoured for her voice as she tried to sleep more. She remembered that she supposed to have her alarm clock beside her futon, but it was in Kashiwagi's compound, in her room, probably burst out two hours ago. Probably, no one in that extensive house must have turned it off, and just let its irritating, monotonous ringing went on until the minute hand of the clock had stuck five-o-one. Seven-thirty in the morning was the supposed time; she checked her wristwatch.
She ate breakfast with the laziness of a cat, surveying the eggs with suspicion, as if the yoke had grown a face. She even poked it with her metal fork, and then the yellow goo went out from the pierced hole. "You want it hard instead?" Touko asked, coordinated as she finished preparing sandwiches for them.
"Nope. It's fine." Yumi answered. She sliced the sunny-side up and forked a part of it to her mouth, tasting blandness, and a little of the salt Touko showered above it.
"When are you going back?"
"On my own."
"When?"
"This night. I'll be taking the train."
"Obviously."
"Obviously."
Normal Day was what she muttered against her toast. She bit it with languid enthusiasm, even withTouko's talent with preparing them. A little bit of butter would make Touko scream in terror, but it seemed Yumi's allowed for it today. The brewed coffee flowed freely into her throat, and the caffeine and reckless gulping were enough to make her belch. It was the moment that Touko chuckled. She chuckled back, as if she was required to reply. "This is not half-bad than your late-night pancakes."
Instead, Touko replied with the middle finger. And instantly, Yumi's eyes went wide, and choked, surprised at the audacity of Matsudaira Touko to have bequeathed rude hand gestures. It was the cooking that she was very concerned about.
As to being a dick, she fingered the same signal. It wasn't bad at all; Touko laughed more.
"I miss my bike."
"Ride on it then."
"Can't. It's in Kyoto."
"Then deal with it."
That was the first thing she'd done, after getting back to Kyoto after several hours of travel and waiting. Touko planned to stay with her until her train ride, but Yumi thought it a waste of time. In the event that her little sister would object, she had planned every kind of reason for her to be left alone. Yet, it never came. Touko just smiled when Yumi sent her home, where Yuuki was. There was never an argument, but a breathy statement after a three-hour silence of staring at the wall adjacent to the opened television. On her lap then was Touko's head; she told Yumi that she haven't been watching in one for so long that she couldn't even remember the last time. Yumi was half-listening, and just pacified Touko's unnecessary ramblings by combing her hair with her hand, trying to make her drowsy. Touko was trying to entertain her by being more . . . talkative, but Yumi couldn't say that it's fine, being quiet. It's fine if she didn't say anything. And it worked.
By the time Yumi said that she must go away to Kyoto, Touko just said "Okay," and kissed Yumi's forehead like the mother that she always had—like Miki, who she would never bother with the worry of the life she was living. She couldn't tell that to her; that would be too harsh. They left the apartment as if they'd come back just a few hours later: Touko never bothered to take out the trash, to throw away the contents of the fridge and turned it off. It was as if Touko was expecting Yumi anytime later.
Even though she was tired of the train journey, she still wanted to get away from the compund first and gather her thoughts in a more familiar, hurting manner. Going to the Kyoto downtown became a good idea.
Yumi lifted the tinted face-protector of her helmet, just feeling the cold air reached the very deepest of her pores, and hearing the gusts of wind against the confines of her helmet. In the wide metropolitan roads where she had roared her motorcycle, she remembered the last time she rode on it, back when her emotions governed her body—back when she used to release and raise her hands to the air for three seconds. It was dangerous, it was impossible to liberate her control for more than that duration, but it felt good. That high that one get when experiencing the death defying.
It was vanity that drove her to learn that skill—vanity to prove that she was wild and a celebrant of the torpid lifestyle that she learned to cope.
But she couldn't do it anymore.
There was a nagging voice in her head that stopped her from doing the stupid, and it occurred to her that it was Yoshino's voice—that bitch could not leave me alone even if we were miles apart. She snorted, almost eliciting a smirk.
It occurred to her that she didn't know anything about Yoshino now.
What was she thinking when she was saying those things to Yumi, while Yoshino's right fist was poised for her face? Did Yoshino truly mean those words?
She went back to the compound almost the breaking of dawn. There she came like a slug, slithing her tired body to every wall of her path, not minding the old caretaker in a very dull kimono watching her with mixed curiosity and silent apprehension. The last thing that she wanted to see before she seized into sleep was her only accomplishment after almost three months.
She looked at the two paintings that she finished restoring and the third resting at the stand. She felt proud serving the Kinomoto just by letting her touch these women's art.
She fell asleep on the tatami mat of her workroom, breathing the air thick with turpentine scent and faint tea leaves.
Present Day
The shares of a certain Mr. Kinomoto were Sachiko's target of buying for her to secure that hers and her grandfather had the majority for the general stock-holder's meeting. Securing her people's support was almost an impossible of feats, particularly with the status of the company, but she had to prevail in convincing them. If only the subtext for their support was not about her finally taking the reins from her grandfather, she wouldn't be gittering silently in her seat as she talked to the phone with an associate of Kinomoto. He was getting another offer from another party, and it was obvious that it was Kashiwagi, but she did not let anger take her from speaking fluidly and glibly. Trying not to call Ryu would only make Kashiwagi gloat to himself.
It was not going very well.
"The other clientele was making a very generous offer."
"And I assume that you've sworn not to disclose the identity of my competition." She hinted.
"Yes, that is correct. We apologize for that."
"It wasn't necessary." She knew who they were.
The stakes were getting higher and higher, as Kinomoto had been proposeed by the other party with the sum twice as large as what she offered. She continued to raise, and with almost four hours of waiting, the other client folded, and it was her call to close the deal in her hands.
It was not a victory that she was happy.
There was a moment that she might have thought that Ryu and Kashiwagi was scouring every possible way to gain more in this fight, but as she pushed more to secure her own, she had been stepping into victories, phone calls and conferences later.
She would make Ryu come back to her, and into the family after this affair. She forgave him for managing that exhibition, days ago with Kashiwagi. She forgave him for giving up on her. She forgave him for keeping that painting for the longest time.
Let Yoshino-san and Yuuki-san deal with the aftermath. They had seen it, and they would discover it right away. The ashes of that painting did not matter anymore, but the person who had it before was. Sachiko thought that it was Kashiwagi. He must have coerced Ryu—talked lies to him—to make him do things he didn't normally do.
They must have known that it was all just a set-up. A performance of lies.
It was only a matter of time for her to find out the third person involved in this. Of course, art is a very small world. She would know soon enough.
After all of this, she would keep her responsibility as Yumi's older sister. Even though she hadn't have the rosary to prove their connection, she would make Yumi acknowledge her, even only in that aspect.
Because she believed she could make things right again. And she would end this quietly, peacefully, without involving Yoshino or Yuuki's influences. She knew they would not reveal anything—they won't re-open the case—becayuse the police and the gallery had no business here. She contacted them because they have the right to know. They shared and saw Yumi.
That this was personal.
{AFTERMATH}
Yumi was as alone as ever when Kashiwagi was nowhere inside the Kinomoto property, all the more that she wanted to check out every possible rooms and discover what was hiding on them. It was a break that she needed, and since Kashiwagi wasn't here to check on her and her progress by blocking the hallways of her workroom with tea, she did not hesistate to wander around. It has been two months, but there was little time taking a tour about the compound. Kashiwagi never bothered; his butler, Shimata, never bothered; and that old woman, who she had yet to know her name had not bothered. Even the rest of his phantom staff—if ever there were other people living here—had not shown their faces to her.
The house was just as inhospitable as its inhabitants were.
She opened paper doors one by one, expecting every room furnished and well-decorated, which they were. She had spent more than five minutes just gazing at the beauty of Japanese simpicity with less furnitures yet heavily decorated windows and walls. Woodcarvings in corners of the room never seize her fascination. Could it be that one of the Kinomoto's had done them? But they were always exclusive with painting.
She had not stopped admiring every room except when it was time to eat. She had gone to the dining area during breakfast and lunch, but she was greeted with the old woman who had just finished preparing her food on the table. She stayed at the door, standing, as if waiting for a command.
"Please sit and eat with me." Yumi obliged, awkwardly.
"I already ate, Ojou-sama."
When Yumi almost finished a bowl of rice, Obaa-san unhesitantly asked if she want a second helping. Yumi declined. There was a long line of silence as she finished the rest of her meal. She had thought of complimenting the food, and shyly done it; she was welcomed with a small smile. She regained her confidence and was about to ask her name, but Obaa-san just disappeared—excusing herself quickly—until Yumi's question faded from her lips like the breeze outside.
She kept on wandering around the compound until late afternoon. It was a bit of exhausting to be exposed to the compound's rooms all day; it was as if she was in an exhibition, a museum, sans the people and curators. She was alone, all day, and not even a single soul had witnessed her attraction in each and every article that she saw; her face shone like gems when exposed to light.
Yet, there was one mistake that she would keep to herself: it was accidentally breaching Kashiwagi's quarters.
It was a spacious room, with a large, thick futon that could fit seven people. A large closet door was near the bed, where it must have all Kashiwagi's clothes, including secrets that she had the opportunity to learn, but had chosen no to. Yet, in the vastness and cleanness of the room, another sliding door caught her attention.
There was a thin slit of light that seeped into that door, and agonizingly, she took two steps back from where she stood, just to rid of the building interest that stolen her logic over the idea that Kashiwagi would slowly kill her for this. That she betraying his trust and she was being an unprofessional, sticking her nose to things that would surely fuck her later.
But, she slid open the door and sneeked in guiltily. She felt like she had breached a wall so delicate and secretive, that taking a step because of curiosity was painful against the soles of her feet.
Yet, none she found surprised her. It was something that she thought he was always responsible for: he was keeping duplicates.
Art, indeed, is a small world. It always was, and always will.
Everybody knows everyone; everyone who had stablished himself or herself a place in this world had the help of others who had done it before, those who also appreciated his or her works.
She saw a table like in her own workroom, filled with brushes and tubes and cans. She smelled fresh paint—tangy and bitter when her tongue tasted the air.
Yet, she did not know anyone besides a few who could duplicate or fabricate art pieces except this one. There were two painters in this house, including her—two painters who never saw each other, not even once in the course of three months that she stayed here. There were halfway-finished works dabbed in canvases, unfinished copies of other works of the famous western painters. She had not found yet a single Kinomoto being fabricated, neither anything Nihonga.
Who was this person, and why was that person's workroom next to Kashiwagi's? Was he really keeping someone here?
However, she searched more, looked into crates that would make her solve the identity of this person—this person who had been in this house, fabricating works of art, an artist aside from her. And probably, Kashiwagi's lover.
Kashiwagi never said this—had the right not to—but this was, nevertheless, upsetting and tactless.
She looked at each duplicated piece, one by one, trying to search in her head the people that she had known to work with this kind of style; she had a few guesses, but all of them were either in jail or hiding, because of art fraud. Making and selling duplications were illegal.
In a corner of this large room, two fusuma paintings appeared like a barricade. She popped her head between the fusuma to hide another set of paintings, yet these were draped in white cloth.
The last half-dozen items that were draped in white cloth, she yet had to see. In painfully stretched time, she gently pulled one cloth away.
She was stunned with pure, unadulterated shock as she stared at the half-finished canvass. It was here; it was here but it was unfinished. That doesn't make any sense . . .
She pulled all the rest of the cloths that draped the last ones, and the picture that she saw in the first one was the same with the rest. Six unfinished duplicated works of art, all showing the same picture. All showing the imperfections and nostalgia of the artwork that Yumi once declared as the piece that encapsulated her heart.
Of the masterpiece that was once called The Passing Wind.
Her knees was liquid and her legs wobbled, having no strength to stand herself—she sank, watching painfully the work that she had lost, but painted with another's hand. Yet she found that her own was not there. The original was not in this room. She haphazardly searched for it in the boundaries of the corner and the two fusuma, flipping down all six of the fake Fukuzawa's, but it was not there. Just a can of paintbrushes, a dirty cloth, the white hangings that protected the paintings from dust, and a pallete.
She looked away from the fakes, and she found another article that made her eyes hot with tears: a wooden, circular tray with a dark-brown clay cup.
And she smelled the same smell that was all too memorable as her workroom in the Kinomoto compound.
Turpentine and tea leaves.
TO BE CONTINUED
A/N: I'm so happy I wrote Yumi again.
I AM SO SORRY. I am certainly not dead, just stuck for two months. I'm so sorry the frequency of my updates turned out this way, but please do understand. I hope you appreciate this one, even though I've been MIA for a very long time. I hope I could get back to the usual routine of one update a week. Reviews though, are all I desperately need (honestly). Thanks for those who waited patiently while I squeeze myself out of this pitiful state. XD
Business-talk is painful. I could almost hear the sharp swish of butcher's knives blazing in the direction of my neck. I hope someone here could tell me how I crap this chapter providing a surreal situation of money-talk, and improve this.
Please review!