None of them are mine, and none of the money in my bank account comes from
this.
21/9: I realised I'd forgotten the image song at the beginning of this!
****
DANCING
PART 3
'ONE DAY'
****
This morning, I rub my sleepy eyes again, Then say spiritedly: "smile!" It seems my head remains in a dream While I brush my teeth.
I wish on a falling star That I can use magic.
Sometimes my tears flow Because it's all so frustrating. We're not alone in our world. But even I have my yearnings like everyone else. If I remain barefoot, I'll definitely be all right!
~ Be All Right, Konishi Hiroko
****
Hikari woke to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and apple muffins. Takeru had obviously gotten up early and done some baking before he went for his usual, early-morning run. His side of the bed was empty with only creases in the sheets to mark where he had been. She smiled as she noticed her arms were wrapped around her husband's pillow. Whenever he left before she woke and he often did, he always slipped his pillow into her arms for some sweet Takeru reason of his own. He had never explained it and she had never asked, but she guessed it was because he never wanted her to wake up and think she was alone.
Too warm and lazy to climb out of bed, she decided breakfast could be put on hold for a few minutes. Thursday was the only day on which she got to lie in in the mornings. The rest of the week, she had early lectures or the morning shift at the photo studio. It felt so good to lie under cotton sheets with the quiet pitter-patter of rain outside the window and the clean smell of home-baked muffins filling the apartment. She only wished that Takeru wasn't so very conscientious about jogging every morning, despite the weather.
She buried her head in his pillow, breathing in his scent of clean soap and lemon shampoo and the indefinable sweetness that was entirely his own. It was one of the many things she loved about him, like the way his eyes were a darker blue in the early morning; or the way he looked directly at her in the stands every time he made a basket; or the way he was incapable of seeing the evil in anyone; or the way he still spoke with an accent that was not-quite-Tokyo; or the way he would lie on his side and just watch her after they had made love; or the way he would kiss her eyelids or the tip of her nose or her bellybutton while they did. . . . (1)
She pushed the pillow firmly away from her and rolled onto her back with a sigh, spreading out her arms wide on either side of her. It was probably better if she didn't let her mind go there. Takeru's backpack was missing from its place behind the door and his basketball kit was no longer draped over the back of the chair. He had an early class with his jerk of a creative writing teacher, so he was probably going to shower at the courts and head straight to it. To make matters worse, he had his elementary school coaching all afternoon and she was working late at the studio that night. All in all, she thought she had better think pure thoughts.
Her eyes went to the cell phone resting next to her husband's side of the bed. Phoning Miyako would be almost better than a cold shower. She could just see the way the conversation would run. As always, Miyako would be the injured victim, the concerned friend who had spoken out because she was worried about her and who had been blasted for her troubles. She had not meant to imply that Hikari should not have married Takeru. She had not meant to suggest that her life would have been better without him. And so on. Ultimately, it would end up with Miyako crying, while Hikari tried desperately to comfort her. And their argument would become all Hikari's fault. She simply didn't have the energy to go through that this morning.
Besides, she wasn't sure if she were ready to forgive Miyako. She might have lightly dismissed the argument when she had been talking with Takeru the other day, but she could never have told him what her friend had said. He would have been too hurt by it. Oh, he would have smiled and made a joke about it, but his blue eyes would have been dark with pain. For all his outward confidence and optimism, there would always be a five year-old part of Takaishi Takeru standing at the door of his apartment and watching his father and brother walk away from him never to return. There would always be a part of him that feared she too did not love him enough and that she too would disappear one day like the morning light.
Even she battled to handle what Miyako had said, and she was used to her friend's interrogations. While she had been standing behind her tripod at the wedding, taking pictures of the new couple smiling at each other, she had not been able to stop thinking about what her friend had said to her. The question had kept repeating itself in her head, demanding an answer: "I know you say you're happy, but don't you sometimes wish you hadn't gotten married?" What if Miyako had been right? What if all her friends and family had been right?
She remembered her brother's reaction when she had told him they were engaged. Taichi had remained silent for a long time, his gaze fixed on her face, then he had rubbed a hand over his eyes and said: "You're still young, Hikari. You should be focussing on having fun and on getting your degree. You shouldn't have to worry about the sort of responsibilities that come with marriage. Besides, if Takeru is serious enough about you to want to marry you, he'll still be there for you once you've gotten your life together." At the time, she had been so furious with Taichi that she hadn't been able to speak. She had just snatched up her bag and stormed out of his apartment. Now, with a bank balance that hovered around zero and a drawer of bills that had to be paid and a job that she hated, she was starting to wonder if he had been so wrong.
Hikari began to shiver, rolling onto her side and pulling the blankets closer around her. She didn't want to have these thoughts. She wanted everything to be safe and certain, like it had been when they were children or during the first few weeks of marriage before daily life had spoilt their honeymoon bliss. And she didn't want to imagine a life without Takeru. She had known him for thirteen years, and dated him for half of those. Almost everything she knew about love or sex, she had discovered with him. It would be like waking up in the morning and finding the sun had dropped out of the sky. It would be impossible, ridiculous, wrong. Worst of all, it would hurt Takeru in a way she did not want to contemplate. If she left him, if she asked him for a divorce . . .
"Don't even think that, Takaishi Hikari. You love him and you are not going to leave him like everyone else in his life has," she told herself firmly, pretending a resoluteness she did not feel, "Instead, you're going to get out of bed, get dressed and eat the breakfast your too-sweet-for-his-own- good husband made for you. And you're never going to have these thoughts again."
Pushing the blankets away from her, she climbed out of bed and padded across the floor to their chest-of-drawers. She bent to open the bottom one, hesitating over what to wear before pulling out a pair of black jeans and a pink vest. She straightened and turned to the mirror to check how it looked against her. In it, she saw a thin, tired-looking woman in a crumpled, linen blouse and mismatched underwear. Her hair was ruffled around her, and there were soft, purple smudges beneath her eyes.
With an effort, Hikari smiled at herself and said: "It'll be all right. I know it will."
***
"You need to phone Hikari tonight and apologise," Daisuke told Miyako, as he added a sandwich and apple to his tray and moved along the line to pay the cashier. He looked around himself for a free table where they could sit. There was one right by the door - overstuffed, slightly battered couches surrounding a low coffee table - and he quickly made for it before anyone else could take it. He set down his tray and leapt easily over the side of one of the sofas, wriggling to get comfortable, long legs spilling over the armrest.
Miyako took a seat opposite him, perching on the edge and placing her own salad in front of her. She made a face at him, "I can't believe you're still on her side, Daisuke, after everything that's happened."
"I'm not on her side," he objected, "I'm . . . I'm giving you my totally fair and unbiased opinion."
Knowingly, "Riiiiight. Because you're totally fair and unbiased when it comes to Takaishi Hikari."
Daisuke winced at the name. When it came to Hikari's marriage, there was a dull, sick feeling inside of him that no amount of argument or pretence could erase. There were times when he almost forgot it - when he was playing soccer or when he was clowning around with his friends - but it was never gone completely. A part of him always wondered what it would be like if she were applauding his goals, laughing at his jokes, standing by his side, just as another part of him always knew she never would be. The loss of her was a constant, nagging pain, like a wound that would not quite heal but continued aching long after the injury. It had been there since the day he had found out that she was engaged.
She had come to his dormitory room one frosty, winter evening to give him the news. She had been radiant, her cheeks flushed pink with cold and her hair was dusted with ice-glitter. What was she doing out on a night like this, he had thought, what was so important it could not wait for the morning? For a moment, his heart had beaten faster and he had wondered if she had come to tell him she loved him, but then he had seen the glitter of silver on her finger and had known. To his surprise, he had felt no pain - that had come later, while he was lying alone in bed and thinking they were probably together at that moment. He had not known that the instant of heartbreak could be so painless. Hikari hadn't said anything, but had put her arms around him and had pulled her to him. She had smelt of snow, and her hair had been damp. It had been a strange experience, holding her for the first time and knowing that she would never be his to hold again.
It had been almost as strange as discovering he had been the first one she had chosen to tell. He still couldn't understand why it had been him, and not her parents or her brother.
"That was below the belt, Miyako."
"I'm sorry," Miyako plucked at her skirt, not meeting his eyes, "You didn't deserve that. I know how you feel about . . . about it."
"It would be easier if Takeru were a real bastard, y'know," he exhaled deeply, "If he cheated on her, or drank away all their money, or hit her, or. . . God, I don't know. I'd never want Hikari to be in that sort of a marriage, to be with someone who hurt her like that, but it would mean I had some right to be angry at him for being with her. It would give me some reason other than stupid jealousy to be pissed with him," his hands tightened into fists in his lap, and then loosened, "But he isn't. He's a great guy, who really loves her and who would give up everything he's got just to see her smile. Once I caught him buying flowers, and asked him what he was celebrating. He looked kinda sheepish and evaded the question for - like - minutes, but I eventually got an answer out of him. He was buying them because they'd been married for thirty-seven days. Not a month, six months or any other special anniversary, but thirty-seven days! That's the sort of guy Takeru is. And he makes her happy. Being with him makes her happy. You can see that as well as I can, which is why I think you should apologise to her."
Daisuke picked up his apple and bit into it in a pretence of nonchalance. He could feel his hands shaking. It was hard to talk about them, hard to accept the irreversible fact of their marriage. Before, he had always been in with a chance - there had always been a chance, no matter how slender, that Hikari would have a change of heart and realise that she had loved him the entire time. It was for that reason that he had written her Valentine's Cards and saved all his money for her presents and learnt how to play basketball. Now, she wore Takeru's ring on her finger, and his chances had shrunk to the same bright, cold zero.
Miyako stared at him for a long while, a strange expression on her mobile face, then she slowly nodded her head.
"You're right, Dai. Maybe I should apologise to her for what I said. If you don't mind, we'll stop by their apartment tomorrow before the dance . . . . "
***
Twenty thousand yen. (2)
Even considering it was all the money Takeru had in the world - after his share of that month's food and rent had been subtracted - it seemed like a lot. The wad of notes was satisfyingly thick in his hands, as he removed it from the ATM. It was the money that he had saved yen by painful yen out of the small salary he was paid for coaching basketball at Odaiba Elementary School. He had planned to go to America on it to attend a training camp in Los Angeles. His coach had suggested it to him, saying he should go if he were at all serious about playing professional basketball, and had told him that the University would pay three-quarters of the cost for him. It had taken him months to raise enough to cover his part of the deal, and here he was planning to blow it in a single morning on a single purchase. It was a good thing he knew Hikari was worth it.
He opened his wallet to put away the notes, and smiled when he saw the picture of his wife that he kept in it. It was a good photograph of her, dating from one of the few occasions he had been able to part her from her beloved camera for long enough to take her picture. It had been at the party Taichi and Sora had thrown to celebrate their second anniversary, he remembered. She had been laughing with her brother - her face was turned slightly away from the camera and her smile was genuine and unselfconscious. The warm candlelight had made her skin golden, so that it seemed she glowed with some inner light. She had been so mad with him when she had heard the shutter click. For a photographer, Hikari had a strange hatred of being on the other side of the lens.
He snapped the wallet shut and put it back in his pocket. He knew he didn't have time to spend admiring her photograph, as easy as it would have been to do. He checked his watch, and grimaced. He had about an hour before his next class, and a twenty-minute walk to get to it. It wasn't much time to plan an evening that would make Hikari forget about the unpaid bills and the leaky sink and the assignments due the next day; that would wipe the tiredness from her eyes. He hoped he could manage it.
It was with that intention in mind that Takeru was walking around the mall, searching for a shop, when he saw it. Bright as a flame in the window of the boutique, the red dress could have been designed expressly for Hikari. Its rich colour would bring out the warmth of her copper-dusky skin and its simple cut would show off her slight, graceful figure to its best advantage. He tilted his head to measure it - it looked about her size as well. He was decided. It didn't matter how much it cost. As far as he was concerned, it had been hers from the moment it had been sewn.
Pushing open the door to a silvery jingle of chimes, he walked up to the counter. The saleswoman looked up from her fashion magazine and peered at him from behind black-rimmed glasses. She had an expression of mild surprise on her face, evidently unused to male customers coming into her store, "May I help you, sir?"
"Yes, you can," he said without hesitation, "I'll take the dress in the window."
***
TO BE CONTINUED
***
NOTES:
(1) Takeru's seiyuu is from Hiroshima, and he does speak Japanese with a noticable accent, bearing in mind that standard Japanese tends to be Tokyo Japanese. Listen to the way he says 'Taichi' as 'Taiki', if you need an example. I've seen people claim that's the standard pronuncation of Taichi's name, but it isn't.
While I'm thinking of pronunciation, everyone knows how to say his surname? I was ill advisedly watching the dub the other day, and they kept saying it wrong. It was almost as annoying as the way they say Takato's name in Tamers. Anyway, for your reference, it's more or less said "Tuh-kai-shh."
(2) Twenty thousand yen may sound a lot, but one yen is pretty much comparable to one cent. Tokyo's clothing stores are also notoriously expensive. I was reading an article about Bubble Juniors in my Sunday paper, and a pair of lime-green jeans was about Y8800 or R800! Of course, that's haute couture and the author of the article noted that as an exorbitant price to pay, but that should give you some guide.
To pre-empt the obvious question, Bubble Juniors are the daughters of women who lived through Japan's economic boom or 'bubble' in the 1980's, and who now are eager to pass on their passion for shopping and clothes to their teenage daughters. They spend huge amounts of money on designer wardrobes for them as a result. I think Mimi is a Bubble Junior. ^.^
***
Simon says "Click the review button!"
21/9: I realised I'd forgotten the image song at the beginning of this!
****
DANCING
PART 3
'ONE DAY'
****
This morning, I rub my sleepy eyes again, Then say spiritedly: "smile!" It seems my head remains in a dream While I brush my teeth.
I wish on a falling star That I can use magic.
Sometimes my tears flow Because it's all so frustrating. We're not alone in our world. But even I have my yearnings like everyone else. If I remain barefoot, I'll definitely be all right!
~ Be All Right, Konishi Hiroko
****
Hikari woke to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and apple muffins. Takeru had obviously gotten up early and done some baking before he went for his usual, early-morning run. His side of the bed was empty with only creases in the sheets to mark where he had been. She smiled as she noticed her arms were wrapped around her husband's pillow. Whenever he left before she woke and he often did, he always slipped his pillow into her arms for some sweet Takeru reason of his own. He had never explained it and she had never asked, but she guessed it was because he never wanted her to wake up and think she was alone.
Too warm and lazy to climb out of bed, she decided breakfast could be put on hold for a few minutes. Thursday was the only day on which she got to lie in in the mornings. The rest of the week, she had early lectures or the morning shift at the photo studio. It felt so good to lie under cotton sheets with the quiet pitter-patter of rain outside the window and the clean smell of home-baked muffins filling the apartment. She only wished that Takeru wasn't so very conscientious about jogging every morning, despite the weather.
She buried her head in his pillow, breathing in his scent of clean soap and lemon shampoo and the indefinable sweetness that was entirely his own. It was one of the many things she loved about him, like the way his eyes were a darker blue in the early morning; or the way he looked directly at her in the stands every time he made a basket; or the way he was incapable of seeing the evil in anyone; or the way he still spoke with an accent that was not-quite-Tokyo; or the way he would lie on his side and just watch her after they had made love; or the way he would kiss her eyelids or the tip of her nose or her bellybutton while they did. . . . (1)
She pushed the pillow firmly away from her and rolled onto her back with a sigh, spreading out her arms wide on either side of her. It was probably better if she didn't let her mind go there. Takeru's backpack was missing from its place behind the door and his basketball kit was no longer draped over the back of the chair. He had an early class with his jerk of a creative writing teacher, so he was probably going to shower at the courts and head straight to it. To make matters worse, he had his elementary school coaching all afternoon and she was working late at the studio that night. All in all, she thought she had better think pure thoughts.
Her eyes went to the cell phone resting next to her husband's side of the bed. Phoning Miyako would be almost better than a cold shower. She could just see the way the conversation would run. As always, Miyako would be the injured victim, the concerned friend who had spoken out because she was worried about her and who had been blasted for her troubles. She had not meant to imply that Hikari should not have married Takeru. She had not meant to suggest that her life would have been better without him. And so on. Ultimately, it would end up with Miyako crying, while Hikari tried desperately to comfort her. And their argument would become all Hikari's fault. She simply didn't have the energy to go through that this morning.
Besides, she wasn't sure if she were ready to forgive Miyako. She might have lightly dismissed the argument when she had been talking with Takeru the other day, but she could never have told him what her friend had said. He would have been too hurt by it. Oh, he would have smiled and made a joke about it, but his blue eyes would have been dark with pain. For all his outward confidence and optimism, there would always be a five year-old part of Takaishi Takeru standing at the door of his apartment and watching his father and brother walk away from him never to return. There would always be a part of him that feared she too did not love him enough and that she too would disappear one day like the morning light.
Even she battled to handle what Miyako had said, and she was used to her friend's interrogations. While she had been standing behind her tripod at the wedding, taking pictures of the new couple smiling at each other, she had not been able to stop thinking about what her friend had said to her. The question had kept repeating itself in her head, demanding an answer: "I know you say you're happy, but don't you sometimes wish you hadn't gotten married?" What if Miyako had been right? What if all her friends and family had been right?
She remembered her brother's reaction when she had told him they were engaged. Taichi had remained silent for a long time, his gaze fixed on her face, then he had rubbed a hand over his eyes and said: "You're still young, Hikari. You should be focussing on having fun and on getting your degree. You shouldn't have to worry about the sort of responsibilities that come with marriage. Besides, if Takeru is serious enough about you to want to marry you, he'll still be there for you once you've gotten your life together." At the time, she had been so furious with Taichi that she hadn't been able to speak. She had just snatched up her bag and stormed out of his apartment. Now, with a bank balance that hovered around zero and a drawer of bills that had to be paid and a job that she hated, she was starting to wonder if he had been so wrong.
Hikari began to shiver, rolling onto her side and pulling the blankets closer around her. She didn't want to have these thoughts. She wanted everything to be safe and certain, like it had been when they were children or during the first few weeks of marriage before daily life had spoilt their honeymoon bliss. And she didn't want to imagine a life without Takeru. She had known him for thirteen years, and dated him for half of those. Almost everything she knew about love or sex, she had discovered with him. It would be like waking up in the morning and finding the sun had dropped out of the sky. It would be impossible, ridiculous, wrong. Worst of all, it would hurt Takeru in a way she did not want to contemplate. If she left him, if she asked him for a divorce . . .
"Don't even think that, Takaishi Hikari. You love him and you are not going to leave him like everyone else in his life has," she told herself firmly, pretending a resoluteness she did not feel, "Instead, you're going to get out of bed, get dressed and eat the breakfast your too-sweet-for-his-own- good husband made for you. And you're never going to have these thoughts again."
Pushing the blankets away from her, she climbed out of bed and padded across the floor to their chest-of-drawers. She bent to open the bottom one, hesitating over what to wear before pulling out a pair of black jeans and a pink vest. She straightened and turned to the mirror to check how it looked against her. In it, she saw a thin, tired-looking woman in a crumpled, linen blouse and mismatched underwear. Her hair was ruffled around her, and there were soft, purple smudges beneath her eyes.
With an effort, Hikari smiled at herself and said: "It'll be all right. I know it will."
***
"You need to phone Hikari tonight and apologise," Daisuke told Miyako, as he added a sandwich and apple to his tray and moved along the line to pay the cashier. He looked around himself for a free table where they could sit. There was one right by the door - overstuffed, slightly battered couches surrounding a low coffee table - and he quickly made for it before anyone else could take it. He set down his tray and leapt easily over the side of one of the sofas, wriggling to get comfortable, long legs spilling over the armrest.
Miyako took a seat opposite him, perching on the edge and placing her own salad in front of her. She made a face at him, "I can't believe you're still on her side, Daisuke, after everything that's happened."
"I'm not on her side," he objected, "I'm . . . I'm giving you my totally fair and unbiased opinion."
Knowingly, "Riiiiight. Because you're totally fair and unbiased when it comes to Takaishi Hikari."
Daisuke winced at the name. When it came to Hikari's marriage, there was a dull, sick feeling inside of him that no amount of argument or pretence could erase. There were times when he almost forgot it - when he was playing soccer or when he was clowning around with his friends - but it was never gone completely. A part of him always wondered what it would be like if she were applauding his goals, laughing at his jokes, standing by his side, just as another part of him always knew she never would be. The loss of her was a constant, nagging pain, like a wound that would not quite heal but continued aching long after the injury. It had been there since the day he had found out that she was engaged.
She had come to his dormitory room one frosty, winter evening to give him the news. She had been radiant, her cheeks flushed pink with cold and her hair was dusted with ice-glitter. What was she doing out on a night like this, he had thought, what was so important it could not wait for the morning? For a moment, his heart had beaten faster and he had wondered if she had come to tell him she loved him, but then he had seen the glitter of silver on her finger and had known. To his surprise, he had felt no pain - that had come later, while he was lying alone in bed and thinking they were probably together at that moment. He had not known that the instant of heartbreak could be so painless. Hikari hadn't said anything, but had put her arms around him and had pulled her to him. She had smelt of snow, and her hair had been damp. It had been a strange experience, holding her for the first time and knowing that she would never be his to hold again.
It had been almost as strange as discovering he had been the first one she had chosen to tell. He still couldn't understand why it had been him, and not her parents or her brother.
"That was below the belt, Miyako."
"I'm sorry," Miyako plucked at her skirt, not meeting his eyes, "You didn't deserve that. I know how you feel about . . . about it."
"It would be easier if Takeru were a real bastard, y'know," he exhaled deeply, "If he cheated on her, or drank away all their money, or hit her, or. . . God, I don't know. I'd never want Hikari to be in that sort of a marriage, to be with someone who hurt her like that, but it would mean I had some right to be angry at him for being with her. It would give me some reason other than stupid jealousy to be pissed with him," his hands tightened into fists in his lap, and then loosened, "But he isn't. He's a great guy, who really loves her and who would give up everything he's got just to see her smile. Once I caught him buying flowers, and asked him what he was celebrating. He looked kinda sheepish and evaded the question for - like - minutes, but I eventually got an answer out of him. He was buying them because they'd been married for thirty-seven days. Not a month, six months or any other special anniversary, but thirty-seven days! That's the sort of guy Takeru is. And he makes her happy. Being with him makes her happy. You can see that as well as I can, which is why I think you should apologise to her."
Daisuke picked up his apple and bit into it in a pretence of nonchalance. He could feel his hands shaking. It was hard to talk about them, hard to accept the irreversible fact of their marriage. Before, he had always been in with a chance - there had always been a chance, no matter how slender, that Hikari would have a change of heart and realise that she had loved him the entire time. It was for that reason that he had written her Valentine's Cards and saved all his money for her presents and learnt how to play basketball. Now, she wore Takeru's ring on her finger, and his chances had shrunk to the same bright, cold zero.
Miyako stared at him for a long while, a strange expression on her mobile face, then she slowly nodded her head.
"You're right, Dai. Maybe I should apologise to her for what I said. If you don't mind, we'll stop by their apartment tomorrow before the dance . . . . "
***
Twenty thousand yen. (2)
Even considering it was all the money Takeru had in the world - after his share of that month's food and rent had been subtracted - it seemed like a lot. The wad of notes was satisfyingly thick in his hands, as he removed it from the ATM. It was the money that he had saved yen by painful yen out of the small salary he was paid for coaching basketball at Odaiba Elementary School. He had planned to go to America on it to attend a training camp in Los Angeles. His coach had suggested it to him, saying he should go if he were at all serious about playing professional basketball, and had told him that the University would pay three-quarters of the cost for him. It had taken him months to raise enough to cover his part of the deal, and here he was planning to blow it in a single morning on a single purchase. It was a good thing he knew Hikari was worth it.
He opened his wallet to put away the notes, and smiled when he saw the picture of his wife that he kept in it. It was a good photograph of her, dating from one of the few occasions he had been able to part her from her beloved camera for long enough to take her picture. It had been at the party Taichi and Sora had thrown to celebrate their second anniversary, he remembered. She had been laughing with her brother - her face was turned slightly away from the camera and her smile was genuine and unselfconscious. The warm candlelight had made her skin golden, so that it seemed she glowed with some inner light. She had been so mad with him when she had heard the shutter click. For a photographer, Hikari had a strange hatred of being on the other side of the lens.
He snapped the wallet shut and put it back in his pocket. He knew he didn't have time to spend admiring her photograph, as easy as it would have been to do. He checked his watch, and grimaced. He had about an hour before his next class, and a twenty-minute walk to get to it. It wasn't much time to plan an evening that would make Hikari forget about the unpaid bills and the leaky sink and the assignments due the next day; that would wipe the tiredness from her eyes. He hoped he could manage it.
It was with that intention in mind that Takeru was walking around the mall, searching for a shop, when he saw it. Bright as a flame in the window of the boutique, the red dress could have been designed expressly for Hikari. Its rich colour would bring out the warmth of her copper-dusky skin and its simple cut would show off her slight, graceful figure to its best advantage. He tilted his head to measure it - it looked about her size as well. He was decided. It didn't matter how much it cost. As far as he was concerned, it had been hers from the moment it had been sewn.
Pushing open the door to a silvery jingle of chimes, he walked up to the counter. The saleswoman looked up from her fashion magazine and peered at him from behind black-rimmed glasses. She had an expression of mild surprise on her face, evidently unused to male customers coming into her store, "May I help you, sir?"
"Yes, you can," he said without hesitation, "I'll take the dress in the window."
***
TO BE CONTINUED
***
NOTES:
(1) Takeru's seiyuu is from Hiroshima, and he does speak Japanese with a noticable accent, bearing in mind that standard Japanese tends to be Tokyo Japanese. Listen to the way he says 'Taichi' as 'Taiki', if you need an example. I've seen people claim that's the standard pronuncation of Taichi's name, but it isn't.
While I'm thinking of pronunciation, everyone knows how to say his surname? I was ill advisedly watching the dub the other day, and they kept saying it wrong. It was almost as annoying as the way they say Takato's name in Tamers. Anyway, for your reference, it's more or less said "Tuh-kai-shh."
(2) Twenty thousand yen may sound a lot, but one yen is pretty much comparable to one cent. Tokyo's clothing stores are also notoriously expensive. I was reading an article about Bubble Juniors in my Sunday paper, and a pair of lime-green jeans was about Y8800 or R800! Of course, that's haute couture and the author of the article noted that as an exorbitant price to pay, but that should give you some guide.
To pre-empt the obvious question, Bubble Juniors are the daughters of women who lived through Japan's economic boom or 'bubble' in the 1980's, and who now are eager to pass on their passion for shopping and clothes to their teenage daughters. They spend huge amounts of money on designer wardrobes for them as a result. I think Mimi is a Bubble Junior. ^.^
***
Simon says "Click the review button!"