Predictably I chafed at the idea of marrying someone that I barely knew. To me, Tsuneo was an interloper in my life, someone who walked into the fine balance that I had taken for granted until he tramped all over it.
Before Tsuneo, life was just studies and sensha-do and Chiyo - and I liked him that way.
After Tsuneo, well - Tsuneo brought a myriad of things into my day-to-day routine. My mother insisted that I see him once a month for an entire day as a sort of "acclimatisation training", as she put it. And after the first twelve visits, she began moving them closer and closer together, until by my second year of high school I was seeing him at least once a week.
This did not make me very happy, and the childish side of me strove to make each visit as unenjoyable for Tsuneo as possible, in the hopes that perhaps my parents and his would notice that it was never going to work out.
He didn't deserve it. By all standards he was a good person - kind, hardworking and eager to please. If I had met him in any other situation there was a good chance that I would have ended up falling for him - but because I was forced into it I was unable to admit that marrying him might have any good sides.
I would ignore him for hours on end, and when I spoke to him I mustered up all the vitriol I could. I'd berate him for every perceived incompetence and continually remind him of his inferiority compared to me. Everything that I personally found infuriating when done to me I did to him.
A lesser man would have simply given up, and it is to Tsuneo's credit that he did not. Instead he was ever-patient, ever-passive, and he would simply endure my continual abuse with a sad, stoic smile. He was just like my father.
And just like my father, I hated him for it.
Why don't you do anything? The words from long ago very nearly welled out of me. I didn't want a partner who just sat there, like a doll. I wanted a person.
But regardless of what I wanted I would still have to carry out my mother's wishes, because I had no other choice. So I continued to pretend to get to know Tsuneo, and I continued to hate him.
When I was seventeen my mother advised me to spend more time with Tsuneo, as the date of our marriage drew near. Instead of staying in the house we went out and around the city, doing things like sharing a meal, or perhaps going sightseeing at places like the local aquariums or parks.
I believe this is what the youth of today refer to as a "date". But there was no element of courtship, no spark of romance if you would. I carried out these excursions with the fatal determination of a soldier on a mission, because I was sure that they would not affect my appraisal of this boy. I simply went through the motions.
On one such occasion, when we had gone to the park, I was sitting at a bench in the usual bad mood I had cultivated during such a time, and Tsuneo was sitting on his haunches a ways away, watching the fish in the lake. I abstained from joining in as there was a perfectly functional fishpond back at home, and also because I didn't want to be anywhere near him.
After a while he got bored and returned to the bench. I shifted over to one side silently, and he sat down on the opposite side, an unspoken ritual that had developed over the years that meant stay away from me. I am not here because I want to be.
"Hey, missy. Care to take a walk with me?"
I turned my head and found a young man, maybe about eighteen or nineteen - older than me - looking down at me. He was wearing an earring on one ear, a garish fashion choice that made my skin crawl.
"May I ask what business you have with me?" I asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. In fact, I knew exactly what he wanted. Stay away from me, you pick-up scum, I wanted to say, but wisely I kept my mouth shut. Out of my peripheral vision I could see two more young men milling about, and from their body language it was easy to tell that they were waiting for this one, their attention fixed on me.
"Oh, no, none of that sort," the boy with the earring said. "You just looked rather lonely."
"I assure you that I am not," I said icily.
"Come on, just a walk?" He took a step forward and I immediately tensed, nerves in my legs and hands immediately firing. "It won't be long," he said as he reached out, as if to grab my shoulder.
"I believe the lady has spoken," Tsuneo suddenly said, his voice mild. The young man looked up at this unwelcome intrusion, and I groaned inwardly.
Great, now he's barging again, like he does with everything.
"Who are you?" asked the boy with the earrings. "Her boyfriend or something?"
"Something of the sort," acknowledged Tsuneo, flashing a disarming smile at the boy. "But even if I wasn't, shouldn't you be listening to what she has to say before running off with her?"
"What's it to you?"
"Oh, not much. Just a matter of decency."
"That's one smart mouth you got there," said the boy, and moved away from me, walking towards Tsuneo. I could see his fists balled up behind him. Idiot, I thought. I'm stronger than you. Why did you have to -
Now the other two boys, who had been waiting behind, were closing in on us as well. Three on two now, and one of the two - as far as I was concerned - was a passive herbivore with nearly zero combat ability. The tactical section of my brain kicked in. If I hurt one of them enough would the others back off?
"You're Mr. Ishida's son, aren't you?" Tsuneo asked. The boy hesitated. "What do you mean?" he asked, but I could see that Tsuneo's question had thrown him off balance.
"Honekawa General Motors, Higashi Section, Sakuragi Industrial Park, Building 047, oh six, oh eight," Tsuneo checked the numbers off his fingers. "I saw you a couple of years back with Mr. Ishida, and I thought you might be related."
"What are you trying to get at?" asked the boy.
"All I'm saying is that this lady here has some…ah…ties with the Honekawa family. And if you continue to treat her with a lack of courtesy then I cannot guarantee what I'll say and what I won't."
"Is that a threat?" snapped the boy, stepping closer so that he loomed over Tsuneo. "Who are you, even?"
Tsuneo didn't bat an eyelid, and kept his smile, but his eyes turned frigid. "Not a threat. You should know - after all, your father works there. The Honekawa family doesn't issue threats. Just facts."
"Throwing your daddy's weight around, eh?" said the boy, but his eyes were twitching in their sockets, like that of a cornered animal. It was not hard to tell that the balance in power between the two had shifted.
"If you'd like to put it that way, I suppose," said Tsuneo. "But a sharp tongue isn't going to change what I just told you."
"And what is that?" stalled the boy, trying to regain some form of foothold.
Tsuneo's eyes flashed for a fraction of an instant. "A choice. Leave - now - and refrain from accosting us, or I will make good on the consequences I have outlined."
There was a tense, brief moment where both boys stared each other down, daring the other side to give way, but in the end the boy with the earring's nerve failed first. He straightened, shooting a scornful glare at Tsuneo, and turned on his heel. He vanished quickly.
When he was gone, I hissed at Tsuneo, "There was no need for that! I could have handled them perfectly!"
"Oh, I don't doubt that, Shiho. But - let me guess - you were thinking of how to fight them, weren't you? Maybe hurt one of them, get the other two to back off?"
I had no words for that. After all, he was right.
"It doesn't become someone to raise a hand against others, Shiho. To be honest, I never thought you were in actual danger. But what comes after? Someone gets hurt? What then?"
"Then he had it coming," I snapped.
"But there's another way, isn't there? Shouldn't we try and find a way where we don't need to fight?"
"That's cowardly."
"No," said Tsuneo. "It isn't. Sometimes it's braver not to fight. Especially if you know you can win, but you don't want to hurt someone."
I was silent for a while. Then, I finally said grumpily, "What's it to you?"
Childish, I know. But I couldn't just leave it like that. I had started this argument and by the gods I would end it.
"What's it to me? I saw a problem and I tried to fix it. I'm a son of a mechanic, aren't I?" Tsuneo chuckled, trying to defuse my anger.
"You could have just let it play out," I argued. "You could have just left me. They thought we weren't together. I would have done the same to you."
He didn't swallow the bait. Instead he sighed and looked straight at me, and although he didn't show it overtly I could see the exasperation in his eyes.
"Look, Shiho, you don't like me. I get it. For what it's worth, I really do. I wasn't happy when they told me either, so that makes two of us. But that shouldn't affect how we treat other people. If I saw someone in trouble and didn't do something then what kind of a person would that make me?"
"I wasn't in trouble," I said.
"No, you weren't," he deferred, and then smiled wryly. "He was. You think he would have gotten out of that in one piece?"