Chapter Fifty-Four
Tonan felt like a graveyard. As I dug around in my locker and shoved books into my bag, it was as though I'd already dropped out. I couldn't say that that thought hadn't crossed my mind but that wasn't my reason for coming here today.
I had to gather a few things, enlighten my professors on this situation, and lengthen my absence from one month to two. After that, I would be meeting Sahoko at a coffee house about a mile from here.
After having completed all three of my objectives, I started down the hall. Ahead, a group of students chatted.
"Oh, hey, Irie!" One of them said. I recognized him as Hoshi, who I'd worked with on a thesis last fall, "You're getting married, right?"
If I had a nickel for every time I was congratulated today, Pandai wouldn't need a merger.
"Yes, I am."
"Congratulations." He said.
"Thank you."
On the way out, I thought to stop by the tennis practice underway and catch a glimpse of Kotoko as she clambered about to pick up balls and dodge out of the way of the ones that flew her direction. It wouldn't be long before even this small thing would be taken from me.
I searched for her through the few remaining ball collectors. Not a single one wore her signature highlighter pink.
Sudo caught me as I watched from the entrance.
"Aihara isn't at practice today, in case you were wondering." He said.
"I see," I said, but I continued to let my eyes search, "Well, I have things to do. Bye."
"Oh, Irie… I heard you were getting married. Congratulations." Sudo said with genuine happiness for me.
"Thank you," I repeated, "By the way, I've extended my absence another month, so it's not likely I'll be able to compete in next week's tournament."
"That's alright. You just focus on what's more important. See you later." Sudo sped back to the court and picked up his racket to destroy a few lives with.
Before I could manage to make it out of the court, Yuuko jogged over, the first time seeing each other since the night she confessed.
"Long time, no see!" She said.
She didn't look as at ease as she sounded, "How are you?" I asked, hoping she didn't think I was avoiding her as a friend. I just hadn't had the time.
"You rejected me," She half-smiled, "But I'm okay," Her confidence was blemished, but it was present, "Are you quitting school?"
I'd come close to dropping out today when I came here, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Once I dropped out of college, it meant I was taking over Pandai. It would mean the end of making my own decisions.
"Probably." I said
Yuuko gave me a different look then, one of disappointment, "I don't like her. It's boring that I can't say anything against her." She joked. It was good to know that she was still herself.
"That's so like you." I gave a tired, worn smile.
The joke faded, "I hope you stay the way you are even when you're married. Can you at least promise me that?"
I wasn't so sure I would stay the same. A lot of things were going to change, but it wouldn't start with the marriage. It was going to start with my dropping out. And then Kotoko and her father would move out and I'd never see her unless by chance. As Kotoko was going to be phased out, Sahoko would be phased in as her replacement, although I couldn't quite say she would do much justice in being such.
Still, I gave her a nod and she rushed back off to practice.
Heading back through Tonan's traffic, I thought once again of just quitting today while I was here. It would save me the trip, but I was held back. While it was something I would be doing soon, I had the ache that I would regret it throughout my life.
I passed some old classmates from the engineering department who turned their heads so quick one would've thought they'd seen a ghost. Alas, I was a ghost in a different sense.
I turned off the main walkway and onto the one that would lead me out of here.
"Naoki Irie!" A girl shouted and pointed at me. It would be my luck to have to run into Kotoko's two idiot friends before I could make a clean break.
"What are you doing at school?" The tall one, Satomi, went on in an obnoxiously loud voice.
"Is there something wrong with that? I'm still enrolled, no matter being absent." Her nonsensical shock agitated me.
She and the other looked to each other with some sort of mischievous expression, telepathically communicating something.
"I see…" The other, Jinko, drew out, "But, you know, Kotoko already left for today. Too bad..."
By the time she could finish what she was saying, I'd already decided I didn't want to play these games with them.
"I didn't ask." I said as I continued past them. They glued themselves to my hip and followed closely.
"She went to the restaurant already." Jinko said despite my desire to discontinue this conversation. Furthermore, it had to be a lie. Kotoko's father's restaurant wasn't open today.
"How? It's closed today." I increased my step to be away with them. They were unrelenting.
"Oh, you know very well, don't you?" Satomi taunted me with a knowing smirk, "But she didn't go there to work today. She's actually gone to be with Kin-chan and practice her cooking."
I slowed a little. I hated hearing about this every time it came up. And now it sent an unnerving feeling up my spine.
"Practice cooking?" My skin crawled with images of those two, of Kinnosuke finally achieving his goal to be with Kotoko.
"Actually, it's just an excuse," Jinko said as though she were sharing a juicy secret, "She's gone to give him an answer to his proposal."
My blood ran cold.
"Proposal?"
"Oh, something the genius doesn't know! Kin-chan proposed marriage to Kotoko." She eyed me, hungry for a reaction… a reaction I was too stunted to give. Marry Kinnosuke? But she loved me, didn't she? This far, I'd been thinking her dates with Kinnosuke were remedial somehow, since I was supposed to marry Sahoko.
But I guessed they weren't. It threw a wrench into my gut.
"Jinko, you weren't supposed to do that!"
"Oh, who cares?"
"Somebody decided to have a marriage of convenience with a rich girl. Kotoko was so down, but she's realized her real love now."
Hearing all of this, I felt terrible. My mood dropped to an all-time low as my heart sank lower and lower. It was finally happening. She was being taken from me. For the longest time, I'd unrealistically thought she would always just be mine. I was being stripped bare of all that I held of importance.
"That's right," Satomi jumped in, "A love that doesn't get affected by money."
"Well, we just thought you should know. Excuse us."
Her friends left me, but their words clung.
On the walk to the coffee house, my feet dragged. Parading around with Sahoko and pretending to be happy was the last thing I was interested in doing. I was scaling a tightrope that was about to snap, but I urged myself forward into the inevitable, drawn back by the life I wanted to have versus the life I was going to have.
A drop of rain hit my cheek. A storm swept in quickly and without warning. Strong gusts of wind whistled through the trees, and the dark clouds let loose spurts of rain. All those around me took out their umbrellas, but I didn't reach for mine just yet. The rain poured over my head. I allowed for the cool rain and crisp air to nip me, so I could feel something other than this hollowness.
I was good and wet by the time I opened the umbrella, goose bumps having risen underneath my soaked sleeves.
When I reached the coffee house, Sahoko was already there. She sat properly in a booth by the window, dry as she could have been.
"Oh, Naoki-san," She said as I sat opposite her in the booth, "You got caught in the rain?"
"Yes." I nodded, not even attempting that fake smile that had been beaten to a pulp.
Sahoko analyzed me. With the way she did so, I wondered how much of my oppression she could sense, "Are you okay? You seem a little off."
"I'm alright." I didn't think the smile played out right since her expression worsened with it.
"It's too bad it's raining out. We could've gone to a park. Weather like this really does ruin plans." Sahoko held her gaze out the window. Weather, however, wasn't the only factor in the ruin.
"So it seems." I rested my chin in the palm of my hand. I didn't have it in me to search for longer answers.
"There's something I've been meaning to ask you," She said, "What kind of wedding do you want to have?"
One that I'm happy about.
"I don't know. What about you, Sahoko-san?"
"Me? I think I'd like a traditional wedding. My parents had one and I always loved the pictures and the way my mother told me about it. It all seems very magical to me. Except that I'd like mine to be smaller…"
I zoned out of it as she described to me her ideal wedding. Sahoko wanted such a simple wedding, one that you could mistake for any other girl's.
I could imagine Kotoko giving a much different answer.
She would tell me about what a long train she wanted her dress to have, how we'd both ride in on white horses, and doves would fly. Ridiculous things like that. It would've brought an actual smile to my face had I not realized that Kotoko wasn't here.
Sahoko was here instead, and I stared right through her as she spoke. It was right here in this diner, as Sahoko doled on and thunder plowed through the sky, that I woke up.
Wait.
A voice said, countering all that my future had been built around in the last month. I remembered that I did have a choice. I could marry Sahoko or not. I could take over Pandai or not. And I was making the wrong choices.
Everything I'd been working to advance for my future was wrong. I didn't want this for myself, but for my father, and that was not a good enough reason to want it.
I still love Kotoko.
I can't marry Sahoko.
I'd tried to force it to change, but I hadn't succeeded. But she didn't know that and now she was off with another guy, possibly accepting a marriage proposal.
I was jolted into the harsh reality that I had to do something about this. It might not be too late right now, but if I waited any longer, it would become so.
I let Sahoko keep talking about her plans as I mapped out what I should do next. Realizations hit hard and fast, forcefully showing me all of my mistakes, all the ways I'd hurt Kotoko in the last month. It showed me how I was needlessly about to hurt Sahoko as well. All this time I'd been trying to help my father, and all it was resulting in was pain for everyone involved in it.
If she married Kinnosuke, and I to Sahoko, my life would transform from the colorful scape of smiles that it was, into a dull, lifeless gray. Because I would never love Sohoko. It would always be Kotoko.
And then she said something that brought me to attention.
"Naoki-san, you don't want to marry me, do you?" Her eyes pierced me with how intense they were in this very moment. I was left speechless. In my hesitation, she would have all the answers she needed.
"Okay, can you answer me one thing? I've been seeing this for a little while now and I can't dismiss it. You act completely different around Kotoko-san. Why is that?" She asked, although she looked like she already had the answer. And maybe she'd had that answer for a while.
Outside, it grew darker and rain pummelled the window. Thunder rolled ahead. Again, I had no answer that she didn't already know.
"You're in love with her, aren't you?" I brought my focus back sharply on her. She was sad and embarrassed. The least I could do was speak.
"Yes," I said, "I'm sorry."
Sahoko focused on the table.
"I guess this is where this ends, then," She slipped the ring off her finger and set it on the table in front of me, "I hope you can find happiness." I swallowed my words as she left. There was so much more I should have said, but my priorities had shifted.
I, too, made my way out of the coffee house as I shoved her ring into my pocket. Mine soon met it there and I braced myself for the storm.
A/N: I promise not to make you wait too long for the next chapter. Yes, I know these are short. Trust me, everything I write has short, tiny little chapters. Hope you're having a great weekend. ;D
