"Every day's a brand new sky..."
--------------
A Simple Thing
Chapter I - "Leaves Off the Tree"
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler
--------------
I awoke with a groan to the sound of my shrill alarm clock. It bleated
angrily at me, as though it had been personally offended twenty minutes earlier
when I had hit the 'snooze' button. And yet, I thought dully as I shut it off
and sat up in bed, it should have been used to such treatment. It was the
daily routine.
At least something in life was routine. I dragged myself out of bed
and stumbled toward the bathroom door, the hardwood floor of my apartment cold
against my bare feet. It seemed to me that nothing, nothing at ALL, could go
correctly, no matter how hard I tried. I woke up twenty minutes late every
morning. I took a hot shower and threw on track pants before stumbling into the
office. It was the same thing, every day, and why I bothered -
The phone rang, breaking through my mental train wreck. Groaning,
I ignored my throbbing bladder and stumbled back over discarded clothes and
shoes to my nightstand. "Moshi moshi," I muttered into the receiver once I
could find it, though I admit my greeting sounded more like "mshmshi."
"Ten'ou-san?" questioned a chipper, happy-go-lucky female voice from
the other end. I grunted an affirmative which was quickly followed by a
relieved sigh from the stranger. "This is Karimi Kaoru from the Tokyo
Department of Schools," she introduced herself hastily. I could hear fingers
clicking across a keyboard in the background. "One of the physical education
teachers at Giakiin High School just left on pregnancy leave, and none of our
active substitutes can step in for such a long period time."
My nose wrinkled, but I didn't want to seem rude. "Continue," I urged
her, glancing at my clock. My editor would absolutely skin me if I wasn't in
by seven-thirty, and it was already rounding six as the woman chirped away.
"I found your name in our database. According to your file, you haven't
taught physical education for three years, but we could REALLY use your help."
She paused, and I could practically hear her flinch. "Could you possibly step
in?" came the inevitable question after a moment of silence.
I sighed and considered this. Education wasn't really my thing, and -
as much as I enjoyed sports - the thought of coping with pimple-faced teens
for the next six weeks made my stomach turn. Substitute teaching had been a way
to earn money for journalism school, nothing more. As it ended up, my free
lancing was good enough, and I never needed to go to school for reporting. No,
I had bought a car with the money - a nice, fast, American convertible. It
was yellow, it was streamline, it was FAST.
"Ten'ou-san?"
The query brought me back to my senses, and I sighed. "I just don't
know, Miss... Uhm..."
"Karimi."
"Right. Karimi-san." I chewed on my bottom lip in thought. "I'm a
writer, you know. For the 'Tokyo Daily.' I just don't know if I have time
for such an obligation, especially when I need to pay my rent." I left out
the part about all the money I had made in motocross, and the fact that THAT
was how I paid the rent. It just didn't seem important. "It's a tough decision.
Could I get back to you?"
Karimi paused, and I could imagine her dilemma. Here was a lower level
secretary for a huge, significant organization, an organization that subsidized
the education for every student in the city of Tokyo. She had probably been
working for the last three or four days trying to find a soul desperate enough
to step in for the pregnant educator. Somehow, she stumbled across the name
of a once-starving college student, and thought she could get off easy.
She sighed. "Please, Ten'ou-san," she pleaded with me, her voice
begging. "You're the last name on our list."
I groaned. I'm a sucker for playing the knight in shining armor. "When
do you want me?"
I was given the time and directions to the school, and my fate was
sealed.
---
"What do you MEAN you're going on a six-week hiatus?" roared my editor,
slamming his fist on the desk as he spoke. I flinched inwardly but managed to
remain calm, tossing my sandy hair as if it didn't matter to me if I lived
or died. "You can't just leave the 'Daily' for a month and a half and expect
to be let back into your position, and you KNOW it!"
I shrugged a bit and moved to brush my bangs from my eyes. Hageshii
Okuno was a large, powerful man, built with intimidatingly broad shoulders and
a sharp, piercing gaze. At thirty-four, he was the youngest editor to ever sit
in the 'Daily' building, and the fact that he manned the local beat was more
impressive than the fact that he was an editor at all. He loomed above my
five-foot, eight-inch frame and seemed dead-set on scaring me sooner or later.
"It's nothing personal, Okuno-kun," I addressed him with a small frown,
pursing my lips and avoiding his gaze. Whenever he went off on me, I knew, it
was more out of concern than out of anger. He was like the brother I never had,
a man I could respect and work shoulder-to-shoulder with...which was less than
I could say about the rest of my colleagues. "Remember how I used to teach,
before I wrote full-time?"
He huffed into his fuzzy black moustache. "Yeah?" he growled. I could
tell he wanted nothing to do with my anecdote. "You have a point or just
telling tales?"
Rolling my eyes, I rose and stood before him, eyes level. "I'm a last-
ditch effort for a high school the same way that I'm always a last-ditch for
you. You run to me when you can't find someone to write a dull-ass article,
and they just ran to me, too, for a whole different kind of help." I smirked,
rested my hands on my hips. "Besides, the more schoolgirls I can seduce,
the better."
Okuno laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. "I don't want you to
lose your job over this, Haruka," he told me in his normal, brotherly manner.
"You're young, you're quick, and you've got years of good journalism ahead
of you, even if you DID come out of nowhere. I don't want to see you ruin it
all for yourself." He gestured towards his desk and the rest of his tiny,
cramped corner office. "Someday, I want to let you have all these things I got.
I want YOU to be the youngest editor for Tokyo's local beat, sometime."
"Only when you get promoted to editor-in-chief," I joked, moving away
from him to gather up my suit coat. It was a tight tan blazer, just form-
fitting enough to hide who I really was from the world. Glancing at it, I
sighed and shook my head. Why was it that, after three years as one of the
'Daily' regulars, I was still terrified to reveal who I really was?
He saw me look at my jacket in that peculiar way and smiled sadly. "Do
you teach boys or girls, at that high school job of yours?" he questioned,
nodding toward my coat. "Or is it mixed?"
"Mostly girls," I responded, slinging my arms into the tan monstrosity
and tugging it on. I button it just below my breasts and tug it into the
perfect place, making certain that it hides the nature curve of my form. It
does, and I smile sadly. "Call me if you need me, ne?"
Okuno smiled and nodded, and then paused. "You ever going to come clean
with the rest of the world?" he asked as he followed me to his door. There was
a certain quiet pity in his eyes, and I had to really strive to ignore it.
"Or are you just going to play Haruka-kun for the rest of your life...instead
of Haruka-chan?"
I glowered. He laughed. "I'll call you," he smirked before opening the
door and shoving me out. "Behave with the school girls."
I rolled my eyes again and started across the press room toward my
doom.
---
As a child, autumn was always my favorite season. I loved running
around through the fallen leaves and tromping through the mud in my goulashes.
Fall rejuvenated me, made the pieces whole, gave me reason and method to my
madness. Nothing made me happier.
I strode briskly across the Giakiin High campus, my shoes crushing
brown and fallen leaves with every step. I had been assigned three classes
of first-year girls, something I had expected and yet dreaded all the same.
I hated teaching giggly schoolgirls, and being assigned to first-year students
just sealed my fate. Welcome to six weeks of absolute Hell, I thought to myself
irritably as I followed the arrows toward the women's lockers.
A few girls blushed shyly and waved as I passed, recognizing nothing
about me beyond the "Ten'ou Haruka: Physical Education Department" badge I
wore on my coat. The male students glanced awkwardly at me, doubtlessly jealous
of my stunning good looks.
My eternal, inner dilemma flared up as I walked across that campus.
At my first high school, Mugen Gakuen, no one had ever managed to figure out I
was a female. It just never came up. I was the handsome runner, Ten'ou Haruka,
and that was that.
Not that it mattered. I dropped out of that high school after my second
year and started taking classes elsewhere. I had never been really sure why
I had done that, either, but sometimes, you don't question. You just DO.
I pushed past a kissing couple and opened the door to the women's
locker room. The period before I was supposed to teach had only a few minutes
left, and many students were lounging around the locker room, gossiping.
Those who saw me blushed and immediately adverted their eyes. One whispered,
"What a cute new teacher! Should we tell him that these are the girls' lockers?"
I groaned at the utterance and continued to walk.
The teachers' lockers lined the back of the room, complete with key-
only locks. I found the one that had been hastily labeled "Ten'ou" and opened
it without incident. A few girls glanced cautiously at me, not sure what to
say.
Silence ensued as I tugged out my school-issued sweatsuit and started
to unbutton my blazer. It was almost like a motionless tug-of-war. It was
me, the supposed male teacher, versus the giggling mass of schoolgirls. Oh,
the humanity.
"Ano, sensei?" gulped one of the green-and-gold garbed females. She was
a short, pigtailed thing, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that
she was embarrassed by her male teacher. "You DO realize that this is the girls'
locker room, ne?"
I nodded, smiling as best I could. "My name is Ten'ou Haruka," I
introduced myself pleasantly, "and I've been sent to replace Yahii-sensei."
"But Yahii-sensei was a GIRL," quipped someone from the back of the
room.
Turning around, I pulled off my blazer and began to remove my dress
shirt, as well. "It's good to know that I won't be teaching the young lady
who flunked anatomy," I shot back, tugging at the buttons with fervor, now.
Might as well get the embarrassment over with, my mind insisted. Better to
suffer gladly with who I was than to later cope with the shock.
That had been my mistake when I was a student teacher. I had hidden
in the bathroom to change, and - more often than not - the students just
assumed that the school had mistakenly put my teacher's locker in the girl's
room. I never let on to the truth. What was the point? A day here and there...
They never knew the difference!
"Y-you're a girl, too?" asked the pigtailed one again, her eyes
blossoming as I pulled of my shirt to reveal my full-developed, bra-clad
chest. "But you look so..."
The bell rang, and she trailed off into an out-of-tune D-flat. Many
of the girls rushed out of the lockers, undoubtedly anxious to tell all their
little friends about the hot new teacher...who was also female. Some cast
sideways, disgusted looks at me. I wasn't surprised by that, for some reason.
It seemed almost logical that they would be sickened by a woman who dressed
and acted like a man. Everyone else was disgusted, after all.
I pulled the sweatshirt on and went about changing my pants. It's just
another day, I reminded myself as a few girls began to file into the locker
room. Nothing more than another day.
---
Teaching high school is a blessing and a curse, and I'll be the first
to admit it. High schoolers think they're at the same level of maturity and
responsibility as you are, and nothing short of a lightning bolt will convince
them otherwise. I introduced myself to my first class of blundering sixteen-
year-old girls, and I could sense the power struggle starting as I finished
explaining how I taught. Already, the girls were glancing at one another with
raised eyebrows, silently asking, "Is she for real?"
I sighed and brushed my hair out of my eyes before leaning back against
the wall of the field house. "I'm for real," I told them bluntly, catching most
the students off guard with my non-sequitor statement. "I know what it's like
to have a substitute. I've tortured quite a few in my day, just as I'm sure
each and every one of you had." A few snickered. One tossed her hair. "But I'm
pretty easy to get along with. You respect me, I respect you."
No one seemed to care about respect. A dull, whispered chatter had
sparked, and three or four of the girls in the back were bowing their heads and
muttering something. One laughed, a little too loudly, and immediately covered
her mouth. I rolled my eyes.
"Do any of you know what my real profession is?"
A girl in the front - a pale girl with shoulder-length, dark hair and
bright purple eyes - raised her hand politely. I glanced down at her to ask
her to answer, but something came over me. A shiver ran up my spine, as though
a cold hand had just caressed my back. Something about the strange, young girl,
was unerringly familiar. It was almost as though I had seen her before...
I coughed, tossed my hair, and forced a smile. "Yes?" I acknowledged
her, nodding.
She smiled shyly. "Ten'ou-sensei is a journalist, ne?"
The talking stopped there, and everyone looked at the pale girl in
shock. "Hotaru-chan never says ANYTHING," whispered one girl to her friend,
eyes wide in surprise. "I didn't know she COULD talk."
Hotaru-chan, as she had been called, blushed and pursed her lips
together. Her purple-eyed gaze focused intently on the floor.
"I am a journalist," I nodded, hands on my hips. I was weary to smile
down at the shy girl, for fear that I would get the same deja vu as before.
So, instead, I stepped forward to stand right in front of the group of twenty,
my lithe form overshadowing them in their sweatshirts and little gym shorts.
"And journalism has an unwritten rule that you respect EVERYONE to their face,
no matter how they look, act, or treat you." I bit my lip, trying to think of
a way to explain the concept; when Okuno had explained it to me, every other
word had been a curse, and somehow, I didn't think that was appropriate for a
bunch of sixteen-year-olds. "Even if you're talking to someone for an article
and they lash out at you, you carry on. You don't shoot lip back, you don't
curse, you just take notes and mentally prepare your article as if nothing ever
happened. It's a law.
"We're going to live by this law in my class." I crossed my arms over
my chest matter-of-factly, and I found pride in the fact that not a single girl
was talking. They were all staring, wide-eyed, at me, as though I was some sort
of scarily magnificent creature. "We're going to respect everyone the same, no
matter what they do. If your friend, enemy, WHATEVER lashes out at you, I
expect you to ignore it. I'll deal with the rest." I smiled. "Now, we're going
to play basketball. Got it?"
There was a collective, if dull, nod from all the students.
Triumph came again to Ten'ou Haruka. "Good."
---
I slung my gym bag over my shoulder and stretched. The day had gone
without a major hitch, and I was grateful for it. The first couple days, I knew,
were going to be small power struggles with the students, but I had faith in
myself... Well, mostly, at least.
As I strode into the crisp fall air, I couldn't shake the unsettling
feeling that had surfaced when the quiet girl in my first class spoke to me.
There was something about her soft, bright eyes that shook me. I knew that I
had never seen her before, and yet it felt as though I had. Mentally, I tore
myself apart, searching desperately for a connection.
Could I have subbed for her once before? Not unless this was her third
or fourth time through her first year of high school, my mind chided. Well, if
not that, could she have ever been at the paper office for something? She knew
I was journalist, after all, and Okuno and the other editors were always
sponsoring tours. Still, I had only ever been present for two tours, and one
had been a group of college journalists. Come to think of it, BOTH groups were
college students, so it couldn't have been then. Maybe... Perhaps...
"Ten'ou-san!" called out a voice, and I turned at the utterance of my
name. Jogging up to me was a young woman in a blue-and-white sundress. Her
reddish-brown bobbed hair bounced with every step. "Wait up!"
I groaned. The last thing I wanted to deal with was an insane colleague.
Where were the male teachers when I needed them.
Huffing and puffing, the woman skidded to a halt before me. "I...was
hoping...that I would get to meet you..." she panted, obviously short of breath.
After a moment, she straightened up and offered forth a hand. "I'm Hagitashi
Megumi," she introduced herself, seizing my hand and shaking it excitedly. "I
teach upper-level English and basic-level Japanese."
"What a combination," I muttered softly before I became completely
cognizant of her bright blue eyes on me. "I mean... What a challenge, to teach
both subjects!" I blushed slightly as I spoke, certain that she had heard my
rude quip. "It must take a lot out of you."
She laughed and rolled her eyes. "I know what you said, Ten'ou-san, and
I'm not offended by it." Megumi released my hand and crossed her arms loosely
over her stomach. "I just... I wanted to thank you."
My eyebrows arched involuntarily, and I didn't try to stop them. "Thank
me?" I questioned, a bit confused by what she meant. I couldn't think of how
I would have helped this woman, unless... I chuckled and shrugged. "Karimi-san
was very convincing," I responded after a moment. "The school needed me so
badly that - "
"Who?" cut in the redhead with a rather profound blink.
"Karimi-san. The woman at the Department of Education...?"
Laughing - something she seemed to do a lot - the other teacher shook
her head. "Oh, I'm not thanking you for being a substitute," she told me with
a noncommittal wave of her hand. "I'm thanking you for making Hotaru come out
of her shell just a bit today. One of my other students told me about it, and
I was really refreshed to know that she isn't totally hiding in her shell
again."
I pursed my lips and nodded slightly. There was that dark-haired girl
again! I wondered if Kami was purposely setting me up for all the deja vu, just
for amusement. "I didn't realize that she was so very shy until after she
spoke," I responded nonchalantly, hands in my pockets. "She raised her hand,
and I called on her."
If life were an animated series, I believe Megumi's eyes would have
popped out of her head. "She raised her hand?" she questioned, gaping at me.
"I hardly believe it!"
"Do students generally not raise their hands here...?" I prompted,
suddenly very confused.
She laughed again, and I somehow resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
"Hotaru has been in my English III class since the beginning of the year," she
explained, her mirth fading to a soft concern as she spoke. "A very bright
girl, but also very introverted. She doesn't say anything, very often, and I
have never seen her raise her hand in class."
I pursed my lips, unsure of what to say. How could I explain away the
fact that this girl - a girl I didn't know but felt I did - had raised her hand
and known my profession when no one else did. And, more than that, how could
I explain away the fact without telling Megumi how odd it felt?
"Well, Hagitashi-san - "
"Megumi."
"Okay, Megumi-san, I guess I really can't - "
And it was at that exact moment that I saw...HER.
She was garbed in a long, flowing pink dress, the kind of dress you see
famous models wearing when they're wandering down the street, her long waves of
aquamarine hair clipped back at the nape of her neck. As it was, she stood about
halfway across the campus courtyard from me, doubled over as she picked up what
appeared to be sheet music.
I gulped down the lump that had just risen in my throat and gestured
shakily to the strange woman at the end of the courtyard. "Who's that?" I asked
of Megumi, my voice nearly catching in my chest.
Megumi turned around, glanced at the woman, and then shrugged as though
it was nothing. "Ah, that's just Kaioh Michiru, our orchestra director," she
responded casually, unconcerned. "She's nice, but awfully quiet. I've eaten
lunch with her for the last four years and never ONCE has she said more than
three words to me about anything substantial. Sure, she talks about the
orchestra and all the playing she does and how much she loves the violin, but
she doesn't talk about her family or anything like that. She seems normal
enough, though."
I watched with wide eyes and a dropped jaw as she straightened the
papers in her arms and continued across the courtyard and toward the faculty
parking lot. If I was endowed with any sense of social gumption, I would have
run after her to introduce myself, but...
Another shiver ran up my spine, and I fidgeted. The same feeling that
surfaced with Hotaru-chan had just come back...
"But anyway," drawled Megumi, snapping me out of my mental field trip,
"I want to hear more about Hotaru. Did she REALLY raise her hand?"
Blinking, I nodded and began to relate the story dully, my mind still
fixated on Kaioh Michiru.
---
Okuno guffawed from his end of the phone, voice so loud that I had to
hold the receiver six inches from my ears. "Hearing you say deja vu in ANY
context is funnier than the time I let Dekino write that article on the Juuban
Art Festival!" he laughed at me. "Especially since you're feeling it in reply
to a WOMAN. Ho-boy, when the guys at the office find out that their tough-cookie
Ten'ou-san's found herself - or himself, as they all may believe - a woman,
they're going to have a field day!"
I rolled my eyes. So much for a sympathetic ear to lean on. "I kid you
not, Okuno," I confided, beginning to pace back and forth across my kitchen.
"It DID happen. I looked at the little dark-haired girl in my third period
class and I felt suddenly like I knew her. I felt like I should run up and
hug her and mother her, like I had held her as a baby, like I..." I sighed and
shook my head. "I can't explain it. I just FELT it."
He snorted. "And this - what was it, Kaiho? - chick did the same thing?"
"Kaioh." I had not allowed myself to forget anything about her, whether
it was her name, her profession, or the gentle curl of her long hair. I
committed the scene to complete and total memory and - when I closed my eyes -
I could see her bending over to pick up her sheet music in my mind. "It was
different with her. With HER, I felt..." I blushed and stopped in my mad pacing.
"I felt that I loved her, right then and there."
For a moment, my boss was completely silent. The only sound from his
end of the connection was his fingers on computer keys, something I had become
used to years before - even when he was having a heart-to-heart conversation,
he was typing up his article for deadline. Then, he sighed. "Do you even know
who Kaioh Michiru IS?" he asked after a moment, his voice a bit gruff.
I frowned, my brow furrowing. "She's an orchestra teacher at Giakiin - "
"No, she's not," he responded gruffly. Then, he paused. "Okay, well,
she is NOW," he acquiesced, knowing that I would make some smart-ass comment if
he wasn't careful. At least, the usual Haruka would, but this was a day that
I was about as far from the usual Haruka as I could get. "But Kaioh Michiru
was, at one point, a world-renowned violinist. Traveled all over, played with
people like The Three Tenors and Charlotte Church and even some J-Pop artists,
like the Three Lights." He sighed, and I didn't need to ask to know he was
frowning. "But she quit all of a sudden when she hit eighteen. Said she had
'lost her passion' for the instrument."
My heart skipped a beat. "B-but," I stammered, my hands shaking. My
whole body went cold and clammy. "That's the same reason I gave..."
"...for leaving motocross, I know," finished Okuno for me. Again, he
allowed a heavy sigh to echo across the connection. "I don't want to sound like
a pessimist or some sort of naysayer, Haruka, but I think you'd be better off
not exploring your deja vu. I mean, if she used the same reason you did for
quitting what she loved only a few short weeks after you did..." He paused.
"It's too weird."
I nodded, thanked him, and hung up the phone.
That evening, I sat alone on the window seat in my apartment, staring
out at the slowly setting Tokyo sunshine and the coming nighttime sky. The
steam from my coffee left a mark of fog on the windowpane, the condensation
slight and yet still significant enough to block just a tiny portion of my
sight.
I wondered if there was fog over a portion of my memories, too. For
years, I had struggled with remembering simple little things - where my parents
had died, why I switched schools during my second year of high school, why I
always kept two golden, crescent-moon earrings in my bureau drawer even though
I never wore them. I didn't remember buying a few of the paintings that were
displayed in my apartment, I couldn't recall replacing my car battery three
years earlier even when the mechanic could, I had forgotten why I bought a
pair of blue-black, high-heeled boots. It was unsettling, the little things I
fought to recall and yet NEVER COULD.
With the day's events, I found myself plagued by wonders. Why had that
girl made me feel like a mother? Why had the orchestra teacher made me feel
like a lover? I was certain that the two had nothing in common, not a thing
at all, and yet...
And yet...
I sighed, downed the rest of my coffee, and pulled shut my drapes. "No
use worrying about the things you can't change," I told myself bluntly,
crossing to the kitchen and dumping my cup in the sink. I could wash it, along
with my dinner dishes, in the morning. "I guess I'll just have to live with
it. I'm probably just a candidate for early Alzheimer's or something."
And then, I turned off the light and went to bed.
---
End Chapter I
---
--------------
A Simple Thing
Chapter I - "Leaves Off the Tree"
Written by Kate "SuperKate" Butler
--------------
I awoke with a groan to the sound of my shrill alarm clock. It bleated
angrily at me, as though it had been personally offended twenty minutes earlier
when I had hit the 'snooze' button. And yet, I thought dully as I shut it off
and sat up in bed, it should have been used to such treatment. It was the
daily routine.
At least something in life was routine. I dragged myself out of bed
and stumbled toward the bathroom door, the hardwood floor of my apartment cold
against my bare feet. It seemed to me that nothing, nothing at ALL, could go
correctly, no matter how hard I tried. I woke up twenty minutes late every
morning. I took a hot shower and threw on track pants before stumbling into the
office. It was the same thing, every day, and why I bothered -
The phone rang, breaking through my mental train wreck. Groaning,
I ignored my throbbing bladder and stumbled back over discarded clothes and
shoes to my nightstand. "Moshi moshi," I muttered into the receiver once I
could find it, though I admit my greeting sounded more like "mshmshi."
"Ten'ou-san?" questioned a chipper, happy-go-lucky female voice from
the other end. I grunted an affirmative which was quickly followed by a
relieved sigh from the stranger. "This is Karimi Kaoru from the Tokyo
Department of Schools," she introduced herself hastily. I could hear fingers
clicking across a keyboard in the background. "One of the physical education
teachers at Giakiin High School just left on pregnancy leave, and none of our
active substitutes can step in for such a long period time."
My nose wrinkled, but I didn't want to seem rude. "Continue," I urged
her, glancing at my clock. My editor would absolutely skin me if I wasn't in
by seven-thirty, and it was already rounding six as the woman chirped away.
"I found your name in our database. According to your file, you haven't
taught physical education for three years, but we could REALLY use your help."
She paused, and I could practically hear her flinch. "Could you possibly step
in?" came the inevitable question after a moment of silence.
I sighed and considered this. Education wasn't really my thing, and -
as much as I enjoyed sports - the thought of coping with pimple-faced teens
for the next six weeks made my stomach turn. Substitute teaching had been a way
to earn money for journalism school, nothing more. As it ended up, my free
lancing was good enough, and I never needed to go to school for reporting. No,
I had bought a car with the money - a nice, fast, American convertible. It
was yellow, it was streamline, it was FAST.
"Ten'ou-san?"
The query brought me back to my senses, and I sighed. "I just don't
know, Miss... Uhm..."
"Karimi."
"Right. Karimi-san." I chewed on my bottom lip in thought. "I'm a
writer, you know. For the 'Tokyo Daily.' I just don't know if I have time
for such an obligation, especially when I need to pay my rent." I left out
the part about all the money I had made in motocross, and the fact that THAT
was how I paid the rent. It just didn't seem important. "It's a tough decision.
Could I get back to you?"
Karimi paused, and I could imagine her dilemma. Here was a lower level
secretary for a huge, significant organization, an organization that subsidized
the education for every student in the city of Tokyo. She had probably been
working for the last three or four days trying to find a soul desperate enough
to step in for the pregnant educator. Somehow, she stumbled across the name
of a once-starving college student, and thought she could get off easy.
She sighed. "Please, Ten'ou-san," she pleaded with me, her voice
begging. "You're the last name on our list."
I groaned. I'm a sucker for playing the knight in shining armor. "When
do you want me?"
I was given the time and directions to the school, and my fate was
sealed.
---
"What do you MEAN you're going on a six-week hiatus?" roared my editor,
slamming his fist on the desk as he spoke. I flinched inwardly but managed to
remain calm, tossing my sandy hair as if it didn't matter to me if I lived
or died. "You can't just leave the 'Daily' for a month and a half and expect
to be let back into your position, and you KNOW it!"
I shrugged a bit and moved to brush my bangs from my eyes. Hageshii
Okuno was a large, powerful man, built with intimidatingly broad shoulders and
a sharp, piercing gaze. At thirty-four, he was the youngest editor to ever sit
in the 'Daily' building, and the fact that he manned the local beat was more
impressive than the fact that he was an editor at all. He loomed above my
five-foot, eight-inch frame and seemed dead-set on scaring me sooner or later.
"It's nothing personal, Okuno-kun," I addressed him with a small frown,
pursing my lips and avoiding his gaze. Whenever he went off on me, I knew, it
was more out of concern than out of anger. He was like the brother I never had,
a man I could respect and work shoulder-to-shoulder with...which was less than
I could say about the rest of my colleagues. "Remember how I used to teach,
before I wrote full-time?"
He huffed into his fuzzy black moustache. "Yeah?" he growled. I could
tell he wanted nothing to do with my anecdote. "You have a point or just
telling tales?"
Rolling my eyes, I rose and stood before him, eyes level. "I'm a last-
ditch effort for a high school the same way that I'm always a last-ditch for
you. You run to me when you can't find someone to write a dull-ass article,
and they just ran to me, too, for a whole different kind of help." I smirked,
rested my hands on my hips. "Besides, the more schoolgirls I can seduce,
the better."
Okuno laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. "I don't want you to
lose your job over this, Haruka," he told me in his normal, brotherly manner.
"You're young, you're quick, and you've got years of good journalism ahead
of you, even if you DID come out of nowhere. I don't want to see you ruin it
all for yourself." He gestured towards his desk and the rest of his tiny,
cramped corner office. "Someday, I want to let you have all these things I got.
I want YOU to be the youngest editor for Tokyo's local beat, sometime."
"Only when you get promoted to editor-in-chief," I joked, moving away
from him to gather up my suit coat. It was a tight tan blazer, just form-
fitting enough to hide who I really was from the world. Glancing at it, I
sighed and shook my head. Why was it that, after three years as one of the
'Daily' regulars, I was still terrified to reveal who I really was?
He saw me look at my jacket in that peculiar way and smiled sadly. "Do
you teach boys or girls, at that high school job of yours?" he questioned,
nodding toward my coat. "Or is it mixed?"
"Mostly girls," I responded, slinging my arms into the tan monstrosity
and tugging it on. I button it just below my breasts and tug it into the
perfect place, making certain that it hides the nature curve of my form. It
does, and I smile sadly. "Call me if you need me, ne?"
Okuno smiled and nodded, and then paused. "You ever going to come clean
with the rest of the world?" he asked as he followed me to his door. There was
a certain quiet pity in his eyes, and I had to really strive to ignore it.
"Or are you just going to play Haruka-kun for the rest of your life...instead
of Haruka-chan?"
I glowered. He laughed. "I'll call you," he smirked before opening the
door and shoving me out. "Behave with the school girls."
I rolled my eyes again and started across the press room toward my
doom.
---
As a child, autumn was always my favorite season. I loved running
around through the fallen leaves and tromping through the mud in my goulashes.
Fall rejuvenated me, made the pieces whole, gave me reason and method to my
madness. Nothing made me happier.
I strode briskly across the Giakiin High campus, my shoes crushing
brown and fallen leaves with every step. I had been assigned three classes
of first-year girls, something I had expected and yet dreaded all the same.
I hated teaching giggly schoolgirls, and being assigned to first-year students
just sealed my fate. Welcome to six weeks of absolute Hell, I thought to myself
irritably as I followed the arrows toward the women's lockers.
A few girls blushed shyly and waved as I passed, recognizing nothing
about me beyond the "Ten'ou Haruka: Physical Education Department" badge I
wore on my coat. The male students glanced awkwardly at me, doubtlessly jealous
of my stunning good looks.
My eternal, inner dilemma flared up as I walked across that campus.
At my first high school, Mugen Gakuen, no one had ever managed to figure out I
was a female. It just never came up. I was the handsome runner, Ten'ou Haruka,
and that was that.
Not that it mattered. I dropped out of that high school after my second
year and started taking classes elsewhere. I had never been really sure why
I had done that, either, but sometimes, you don't question. You just DO.
I pushed past a kissing couple and opened the door to the women's
locker room. The period before I was supposed to teach had only a few minutes
left, and many students were lounging around the locker room, gossiping.
Those who saw me blushed and immediately adverted their eyes. One whispered,
"What a cute new teacher! Should we tell him that these are the girls' lockers?"
I groaned at the utterance and continued to walk.
The teachers' lockers lined the back of the room, complete with key-
only locks. I found the one that had been hastily labeled "Ten'ou" and opened
it without incident. A few girls glanced cautiously at me, not sure what to
say.
Silence ensued as I tugged out my school-issued sweatsuit and started
to unbutton my blazer. It was almost like a motionless tug-of-war. It was
me, the supposed male teacher, versus the giggling mass of schoolgirls. Oh,
the humanity.
"Ano, sensei?" gulped one of the green-and-gold garbed females. She was
a short, pigtailed thing, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that
she was embarrassed by her male teacher. "You DO realize that this is the girls'
locker room, ne?"
I nodded, smiling as best I could. "My name is Ten'ou Haruka," I
introduced myself pleasantly, "and I've been sent to replace Yahii-sensei."
"But Yahii-sensei was a GIRL," quipped someone from the back of the
room.
Turning around, I pulled off my blazer and began to remove my dress
shirt, as well. "It's good to know that I won't be teaching the young lady
who flunked anatomy," I shot back, tugging at the buttons with fervor, now.
Might as well get the embarrassment over with, my mind insisted. Better to
suffer gladly with who I was than to later cope with the shock.
That had been my mistake when I was a student teacher. I had hidden
in the bathroom to change, and - more often than not - the students just
assumed that the school had mistakenly put my teacher's locker in the girl's
room. I never let on to the truth. What was the point? A day here and there...
They never knew the difference!
"Y-you're a girl, too?" asked the pigtailed one again, her eyes
blossoming as I pulled of my shirt to reveal my full-developed, bra-clad
chest. "But you look so..."
The bell rang, and she trailed off into an out-of-tune D-flat. Many
of the girls rushed out of the lockers, undoubtedly anxious to tell all their
little friends about the hot new teacher...who was also female. Some cast
sideways, disgusted looks at me. I wasn't surprised by that, for some reason.
It seemed almost logical that they would be sickened by a woman who dressed
and acted like a man. Everyone else was disgusted, after all.
I pulled the sweatshirt on and went about changing my pants. It's just
another day, I reminded myself as a few girls began to file into the locker
room. Nothing more than another day.
---
Teaching high school is a blessing and a curse, and I'll be the first
to admit it. High schoolers think they're at the same level of maturity and
responsibility as you are, and nothing short of a lightning bolt will convince
them otherwise. I introduced myself to my first class of blundering sixteen-
year-old girls, and I could sense the power struggle starting as I finished
explaining how I taught. Already, the girls were glancing at one another with
raised eyebrows, silently asking, "Is she for real?"
I sighed and brushed my hair out of my eyes before leaning back against
the wall of the field house. "I'm for real," I told them bluntly, catching most
the students off guard with my non-sequitor statement. "I know what it's like
to have a substitute. I've tortured quite a few in my day, just as I'm sure
each and every one of you had." A few snickered. One tossed her hair. "But I'm
pretty easy to get along with. You respect me, I respect you."
No one seemed to care about respect. A dull, whispered chatter had
sparked, and three or four of the girls in the back were bowing their heads and
muttering something. One laughed, a little too loudly, and immediately covered
her mouth. I rolled my eyes.
"Do any of you know what my real profession is?"
A girl in the front - a pale girl with shoulder-length, dark hair and
bright purple eyes - raised her hand politely. I glanced down at her to ask
her to answer, but something came over me. A shiver ran up my spine, as though
a cold hand had just caressed my back. Something about the strange, young girl,
was unerringly familiar. It was almost as though I had seen her before...
I coughed, tossed my hair, and forced a smile. "Yes?" I acknowledged
her, nodding.
She smiled shyly. "Ten'ou-sensei is a journalist, ne?"
The talking stopped there, and everyone looked at the pale girl in
shock. "Hotaru-chan never says ANYTHING," whispered one girl to her friend,
eyes wide in surprise. "I didn't know she COULD talk."
Hotaru-chan, as she had been called, blushed and pursed her lips
together. Her purple-eyed gaze focused intently on the floor.
"I am a journalist," I nodded, hands on my hips. I was weary to smile
down at the shy girl, for fear that I would get the same deja vu as before.
So, instead, I stepped forward to stand right in front of the group of twenty,
my lithe form overshadowing them in their sweatshirts and little gym shorts.
"And journalism has an unwritten rule that you respect EVERYONE to their face,
no matter how they look, act, or treat you." I bit my lip, trying to think of
a way to explain the concept; when Okuno had explained it to me, every other
word had been a curse, and somehow, I didn't think that was appropriate for a
bunch of sixteen-year-olds. "Even if you're talking to someone for an article
and they lash out at you, you carry on. You don't shoot lip back, you don't
curse, you just take notes and mentally prepare your article as if nothing ever
happened. It's a law.
"We're going to live by this law in my class." I crossed my arms over
my chest matter-of-factly, and I found pride in the fact that not a single girl
was talking. They were all staring, wide-eyed, at me, as though I was some sort
of scarily magnificent creature. "We're going to respect everyone the same, no
matter what they do. If your friend, enemy, WHATEVER lashes out at you, I
expect you to ignore it. I'll deal with the rest." I smiled. "Now, we're going
to play basketball. Got it?"
There was a collective, if dull, nod from all the students.
Triumph came again to Ten'ou Haruka. "Good."
---
I slung my gym bag over my shoulder and stretched. The day had gone
without a major hitch, and I was grateful for it. The first couple days, I knew,
were going to be small power struggles with the students, but I had faith in
myself... Well, mostly, at least.
As I strode into the crisp fall air, I couldn't shake the unsettling
feeling that had surfaced when the quiet girl in my first class spoke to me.
There was something about her soft, bright eyes that shook me. I knew that I
had never seen her before, and yet it felt as though I had. Mentally, I tore
myself apart, searching desperately for a connection.
Could I have subbed for her once before? Not unless this was her third
or fourth time through her first year of high school, my mind chided. Well, if
not that, could she have ever been at the paper office for something? She knew
I was journalist, after all, and Okuno and the other editors were always
sponsoring tours. Still, I had only ever been present for two tours, and one
had been a group of college journalists. Come to think of it, BOTH groups were
college students, so it couldn't have been then. Maybe... Perhaps...
"Ten'ou-san!" called out a voice, and I turned at the utterance of my
name. Jogging up to me was a young woman in a blue-and-white sundress. Her
reddish-brown bobbed hair bounced with every step. "Wait up!"
I groaned. The last thing I wanted to deal with was an insane colleague.
Where were the male teachers when I needed them.
Huffing and puffing, the woman skidded to a halt before me. "I...was
hoping...that I would get to meet you..." she panted, obviously short of breath.
After a moment, she straightened up and offered forth a hand. "I'm Hagitashi
Megumi," she introduced herself, seizing my hand and shaking it excitedly. "I
teach upper-level English and basic-level Japanese."
"What a combination," I muttered softly before I became completely
cognizant of her bright blue eyes on me. "I mean... What a challenge, to teach
both subjects!" I blushed slightly as I spoke, certain that she had heard my
rude quip. "It must take a lot out of you."
She laughed and rolled her eyes. "I know what you said, Ten'ou-san, and
I'm not offended by it." Megumi released my hand and crossed her arms loosely
over her stomach. "I just... I wanted to thank you."
My eyebrows arched involuntarily, and I didn't try to stop them. "Thank
me?" I questioned, a bit confused by what she meant. I couldn't think of how
I would have helped this woman, unless... I chuckled and shrugged. "Karimi-san
was very convincing," I responded after a moment. "The school needed me so
badly that - "
"Who?" cut in the redhead with a rather profound blink.
"Karimi-san. The woman at the Department of Education...?"
Laughing - something she seemed to do a lot - the other teacher shook
her head. "Oh, I'm not thanking you for being a substitute," she told me with
a noncommittal wave of her hand. "I'm thanking you for making Hotaru come out
of her shell just a bit today. One of my other students told me about it, and
I was really refreshed to know that she isn't totally hiding in her shell
again."
I pursed my lips and nodded slightly. There was that dark-haired girl
again! I wondered if Kami was purposely setting me up for all the deja vu, just
for amusement. "I didn't realize that she was so very shy until after she
spoke," I responded nonchalantly, hands in my pockets. "She raised her hand,
and I called on her."
If life were an animated series, I believe Megumi's eyes would have
popped out of her head. "She raised her hand?" she questioned, gaping at me.
"I hardly believe it!"
"Do students generally not raise their hands here...?" I prompted,
suddenly very confused.
She laughed again, and I somehow resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
"Hotaru has been in my English III class since the beginning of the year," she
explained, her mirth fading to a soft concern as she spoke. "A very bright
girl, but also very introverted. She doesn't say anything, very often, and I
have never seen her raise her hand in class."
I pursed my lips, unsure of what to say. How could I explain away the
fact that this girl - a girl I didn't know but felt I did - had raised her hand
and known my profession when no one else did. And, more than that, how could
I explain away the fact without telling Megumi how odd it felt?
"Well, Hagitashi-san - "
"Megumi."
"Okay, Megumi-san, I guess I really can't - "
And it was at that exact moment that I saw...HER.
She was garbed in a long, flowing pink dress, the kind of dress you see
famous models wearing when they're wandering down the street, her long waves of
aquamarine hair clipped back at the nape of her neck. As it was, she stood about
halfway across the campus courtyard from me, doubled over as she picked up what
appeared to be sheet music.
I gulped down the lump that had just risen in my throat and gestured
shakily to the strange woman at the end of the courtyard. "Who's that?" I asked
of Megumi, my voice nearly catching in my chest.
Megumi turned around, glanced at the woman, and then shrugged as though
it was nothing. "Ah, that's just Kaioh Michiru, our orchestra director," she
responded casually, unconcerned. "She's nice, but awfully quiet. I've eaten
lunch with her for the last four years and never ONCE has she said more than
three words to me about anything substantial. Sure, she talks about the
orchestra and all the playing she does and how much she loves the violin, but
she doesn't talk about her family or anything like that. She seems normal
enough, though."
I watched with wide eyes and a dropped jaw as she straightened the
papers in her arms and continued across the courtyard and toward the faculty
parking lot. If I was endowed with any sense of social gumption, I would have
run after her to introduce myself, but...
Another shiver ran up my spine, and I fidgeted. The same feeling that
surfaced with Hotaru-chan had just come back...
"But anyway," drawled Megumi, snapping me out of my mental field trip,
"I want to hear more about Hotaru. Did she REALLY raise her hand?"
Blinking, I nodded and began to relate the story dully, my mind still
fixated on Kaioh Michiru.
---
Okuno guffawed from his end of the phone, voice so loud that I had to
hold the receiver six inches from my ears. "Hearing you say deja vu in ANY
context is funnier than the time I let Dekino write that article on the Juuban
Art Festival!" he laughed at me. "Especially since you're feeling it in reply
to a WOMAN. Ho-boy, when the guys at the office find out that their tough-cookie
Ten'ou-san's found herself - or himself, as they all may believe - a woman,
they're going to have a field day!"
I rolled my eyes. So much for a sympathetic ear to lean on. "I kid you
not, Okuno," I confided, beginning to pace back and forth across my kitchen.
"It DID happen. I looked at the little dark-haired girl in my third period
class and I felt suddenly like I knew her. I felt like I should run up and
hug her and mother her, like I had held her as a baby, like I..." I sighed and
shook my head. "I can't explain it. I just FELT it."
He snorted. "And this - what was it, Kaiho? - chick did the same thing?"
"Kaioh." I had not allowed myself to forget anything about her, whether
it was her name, her profession, or the gentle curl of her long hair. I
committed the scene to complete and total memory and - when I closed my eyes -
I could see her bending over to pick up her sheet music in my mind. "It was
different with her. With HER, I felt..." I blushed and stopped in my mad pacing.
"I felt that I loved her, right then and there."
For a moment, my boss was completely silent. The only sound from his
end of the connection was his fingers on computer keys, something I had become
used to years before - even when he was having a heart-to-heart conversation,
he was typing up his article for deadline. Then, he sighed. "Do you even know
who Kaioh Michiru IS?" he asked after a moment, his voice a bit gruff.
I frowned, my brow furrowing. "She's an orchestra teacher at Giakiin - "
"No, she's not," he responded gruffly. Then, he paused. "Okay, well,
she is NOW," he acquiesced, knowing that I would make some smart-ass comment if
he wasn't careful. At least, the usual Haruka would, but this was a day that
I was about as far from the usual Haruka as I could get. "But Kaioh Michiru
was, at one point, a world-renowned violinist. Traveled all over, played with
people like The Three Tenors and Charlotte Church and even some J-Pop artists,
like the Three Lights." He sighed, and I didn't need to ask to know he was
frowning. "But she quit all of a sudden when she hit eighteen. Said she had
'lost her passion' for the instrument."
My heart skipped a beat. "B-but," I stammered, my hands shaking. My
whole body went cold and clammy. "That's the same reason I gave..."
"...for leaving motocross, I know," finished Okuno for me. Again, he
allowed a heavy sigh to echo across the connection. "I don't want to sound like
a pessimist or some sort of naysayer, Haruka, but I think you'd be better off
not exploring your deja vu. I mean, if she used the same reason you did for
quitting what she loved only a few short weeks after you did..." He paused.
"It's too weird."
I nodded, thanked him, and hung up the phone.
That evening, I sat alone on the window seat in my apartment, staring
out at the slowly setting Tokyo sunshine and the coming nighttime sky. The
steam from my coffee left a mark of fog on the windowpane, the condensation
slight and yet still significant enough to block just a tiny portion of my
sight.
I wondered if there was fog over a portion of my memories, too. For
years, I had struggled with remembering simple little things - where my parents
had died, why I switched schools during my second year of high school, why I
always kept two golden, crescent-moon earrings in my bureau drawer even though
I never wore them. I didn't remember buying a few of the paintings that were
displayed in my apartment, I couldn't recall replacing my car battery three
years earlier even when the mechanic could, I had forgotten why I bought a
pair of blue-black, high-heeled boots. It was unsettling, the little things I
fought to recall and yet NEVER COULD.
With the day's events, I found myself plagued by wonders. Why had that
girl made me feel like a mother? Why had the orchestra teacher made me feel
like a lover? I was certain that the two had nothing in common, not a thing
at all, and yet...
And yet...
I sighed, downed the rest of my coffee, and pulled shut my drapes. "No
use worrying about the things you can't change," I told myself bluntly,
crossing to the kitchen and dumping my cup in the sink. I could wash it, along
with my dinner dishes, in the morning. "I guess I'll just have to live with
it. I'm probably just a candidate for early Alzheimer's or something."
And then, I turned off the light and went to bed.
---
End Chapter I
---