Mob had never liked being stared at.
She pulled her cover up tightly around herself. It was too hot for this. Okinawa in the summer was worst than Tokyo in the summer or even Osaka in the summer. This was better than Tokyo or Osaka, though. Tokyo had a bunch more places that Shimazaki knew but also he was kind of sad there since everyone he knew was dead. This was better than Osaka, too, since Dad's mean witch girlfriend lived there and also that was where Minegishi's parents had lived and been mean to them. Okinawa may have been hot but it was still a place where nothing bad had happened.
Nothing that Mob knew, anyway.
Bad things happened everywhere, even on really pretty beaches where the water was clear and the sand was white. Even on days when the sky was bright and there were barely any clouds. Even on days when you didn't have to worry about anything other than making sandcastles with your friend who was also your boyfriend but who was also nice to you so even though your feelings were really confusing you were still at the beach and that meant that you supposed to not worry about anything else other than doing beachy things and-and not…not a whole bunch of stuff that…that didn't even matter.
Like when you got stared at.
"Are you going to finish your shaved ice?" asked Shimazaki as he finished off the last of his. Lemon, the best kind. Mob got watermelon, he could smell it from here, and yes it was the lesser of the shaved ices but it didn't deserve to melt into soup right there on the beach. That was just a complete waste of shaved ice, and as everyone knew it was a crime to waste shaved ice.
Especially not on a day as hot as this one.
He was from Tokyo, he knew the heat well…well he thought he had. Okinawa was an entirely different kind of heat. He had never felt humidity like this in his life. It was like the humidity forced the sunlight to cling to him or…or something. Like the sweat was glue and sunlight was glitter. Something that he couldn't sense but certainly could feel…or maybe that was just all the sand. Had hadn't gone this undressed to a beach in forever, he hadn't gone to any beach at all in forever. God, Mob sure knew how to pick these trips. Aside from the heat it was perfect. The smell of the ocean, the feel of the sand in his hand, the company he was with….this was a good day.
The only thing that could have made it better would have been saving her shaved ice from certain death.
"You…you can have it." said Mob. She held it out to him. Sunlight glinted right into her eyes as she leaned forward. He was wearing sunglasses, the big kind that looked funny and wrapped all the way around. She didn't know if it was ok to ask him about them or not. She didn't want him to think that she was making fun of him…even though that would have made things easier. If he stopped liking her and then their relationship was over and it wouldn't have been her fault…not all the way.
That was never going to happen.
She didn't like being mean to people. She felt bad all the time, why would she have wanted someone else to feel this way? She felt like….like no matter what she did it was wrong. She wanted to be happy and…and the things that made her happy were wrong. She didn't even know what made her happy. She was hot so she thought that some shaved ice would have made her happy but it hadn't helped. She hadn't felt happy in so long…the last thing she wanted to do was spread this unhappy feeling to Shimazaki.
Even if it would have made him leave her alone.
"Thanks, Mob. Love you." Said Shimazaki as he took her shaved ice from her. He threw his head back and downed it….not his best moment. He hissed his way through a brain freeze. Ok, that hadn't been smart. It hadn't all been shaved ice soup….fuck…worth it. Still worth it. Though maybe he should have waited. It wasn't like Mob would have taken it back or anything.
She wasn't like that.
"Are you ok?" asked Mob. She was kind of glad he had a brain freeze. It saved her from having to think, again, if it was ok for her not to say it back. She knew that she should have said it back, That was what girlfriends did, but she didn't know elip she she didn't know if she wanted to be his girlfriend. It had been OK at first when he had just been kissing her, but now... Now things were different.
She looked down at the sand.
This was a good place to look, She figured. When she looked at him she thought about him and when she thought about him... while she didn't know what to think when she thought about him. It wasn't that same Doki Doki feeling... She knew that feeling... This was a whole new thing that she just…should not think about. She didn't want to think about this at all. She kind of wished she had found a different beach, one with fewer foreigners, one where people actually cared about tattoos. You couldn't shell tattoos on the beach. People were weird like that. She didn't see why people dislike tattoos so much, They were actually kind of cool. Really nice to look at. Not that you spent a lot of time looking.
They were just nice, that was all, nothing else.
"Just a little brain freeze, nothing I won't live through, nothing you can't help me through." said Shimazaki as he leaned in. It took her a minute to get it, that he wanted her to kiss him, or maybe she had to think about it…but what was there to think about? Aside from the fact that they were out in public…well he didn't give a fuck about that. He was shirtless in public, at this point any extra stares were just frosting. He didn't mind the attention but Mob did. He had no idea why, of course, but he didn't know why Mob felt a lot of the ways she felt. She was like a human Rubik's Cube but a lot more fun….
A hell of a lot more fun.
"I…um…." Said Mob as she pulled back. She could feel Shimazaki staring at her, it was like he was looking her up and down. It felt weird…but that was ok. What was one more person staring at her?
"You think that we should try for another tower? Or do you think it's going to come apart like the last one?" asked Shimazaki. Mob's voice was doing that thing again, like she was uncertain or something. But what did she have to be uncertain about? They were just hanging out on the beach. Mob was always worried, even when they were on vacation. They just need to have fun, that was all, and what could be more fun than making sandcastles? Well digging sand pits, putting blankets over those pits, and then watching people fall into them...that was always fun...also, throwing seaweed had people was fun...dumping crabs over their heads was fun….throwing rocks at people was always fan... There was a lot of fun to be had at the beach.
Mob just didn't like that kind of fun, that was all.
"I think that…that I used too much water last time. I don't know, I haven't made sandcastles since I was a kid." Said Mob
"Yeah, it has been a while…hey! You want do dig some holes instead?" asked Shimazaki
"Why would we do that?" asked Mob
"Because it's funny to watch people trip in them." Said Shimazaki
"Um…that sounds like maybe more of a you and Sho thing." Said Mob
"Well Sho isn't here right now, and anyway he's too busy doing whatever it is he does with Fukuda. Mob, I swear to God, your kid had better be more fun than Sho grew up to be." Said Shimazaki
"My kid…but I'm not…am I?" asked Mob, her hand going to her stomach. She didn't feel any different, She knew she would have felt different. She had seen enough pregnant people on TV to know that she would have felt different. Her stomach would have been bigger, She would have been throwing up, She would have been eating weird foods... things like that. She didn't know what she even wanted right now. She knew she wanted Shoko, or Shigeo, but she didn't want that person which Shimazaki. Even though they had done... all the things... she still just couldn't stop thinking about him as her friend.
She didn't want him as a boyfriend, she didn't want any boyfriend.
What was the point? When you had a boyfriend, even if you got married and he became your husband, you still had to spend all of your time worrying about when he was going to leave. Worrying about when he was going to stop loving you. That was what happened when you loved someone, it just always ended like that. Even your parents could stop loving you. Your kids, though, they never stopped loving you. Not even when you were mean to them and…and told you that you hated them…or left them while they were asleep….no matter what your parents did to you, it would never be enough to make you stop loving them.
She wanted that, someone who would love her no matter what, but not with Shimazaki. It would have been too weird.
"Not that I can tell and I know I've been smarter than that. I mean I think you're great but, you know, we've talked about this." said Shimazaki. He did not want to have this conversation again., There was no change in his mind, and the last thing he needed was her changing her mind. It just wasn't a good idea. He wanted a kid, but he wanted a kid with Toshi, and Mob was not Toshi. Mob was great, he loved her, but Toshi was Toshi. He didn't know what he would do if Mob was starting to get jealous. He didn't want to think about this. He wanted to think about... he wanted to think about literally anything other than Mob being jealousy of Toshi and upsetting the delicate balance that was this relationship. He didn't have time for jealousy, not his own and not anyone else is, and he was already jealous enough on his own as it was…he was jealous of everyone…and he hated it. Mob didn't need to feel this way too.
"We have but um…." Said Mob. Sometimes babies just happened. Mom had told her when she was little that she and Sho had been surprises. Mukai had been a surprise to. Shoko would have been a surprise if Mob had been lucky…but she wasn't so lucky…and she didn't know if it would have been luck if she and Shimazaki wound up with a Shoko or a Shigeo. She liked him but as a friend and it was one thing to do…this stuff…with someone but it was another to have a baby with them.
She was starting to sound like Minegishi.
But maybe they had a point. They had said that you weren't supposed to have a baby until you were absolutely ready for one. Mob knew that she would have been ready if he had been someone else. She didn't know how she felt about him yet and she felt weird when she thought about it. That wasn't a good start for a baby. It would have been better if Shoko's dad had been someone she never had to see again. That way she wouldn't have any feelings, weird or otherwise, and she wouldn't have had to spend the rest of her life waiting for Shoko's dad to leave her, too. She would have been able to just enjoy being a mom to Shoko, or Shigeo, without any worries at all. She could just take care of Shoko and everyone else would have helped, too, and then Shoko would have had a really big family of people who loved her for who she was and who could never, ever, leave her.
It would have been perfect…it was going to be perfect…she just had to figure out how to make it perfect.
"I just meant in the future…or now, if you're into that guy that's been staring at you." Said Shimazaki motioning to the kid who'd been staring at Mob for the past half hour. From what he could sense that guy was either really short or Mob's age. She should have gone for it, they were on vacation, and Shimazaki…well he was only human. He needed rest the same as everyone else.
"A lot of people are staring at me…everyone." Said Mob as she tucked her head down low. Not low enough that she was turtling into her coverup but pretty close. Ever since she had sat down she had just been able to feel hundreds of eyes on her…or maybe she had been feeling this way even before she got here. Sometimes it just felt like everything she did was being watched and scrutinized and…and it was hard sometimes….
"No, just that one guy. He's pretty damn focused on you. Everyone else is staring at me." Said Shimazaki
"At you? Why would they be staring at you?" asked Mob. Why would anyone have been staring at him when she was the one who had stolen or…or borrow…or whatever her best friend's boyfriend. When she was the one who was doing exactly what everyone had been accusing her of doing for years. Why would anyone have even noticed Shimazaki sitting right next to her?
"Because I'm covered in tattoos, because my girlfriend is twenty years younger than man, because I've been told I'm incredibly good looking, and also because every so often I've been throwing sand at people." Said Shimazaki
"But I haven't seen you-" said Mob
"I do it when you're not looking, obviously. I know how you don't like that kind of shit." Said Shimazaki
"Then why do you keep doing it?" asked Mob. He had said before that he only wanted to make her happy but also he was acting like this…she didn't get him sometimes…most of the time. She wondered if that would have been enough to have a fight…a fight bad enough that they would have gone back to being just friends…if that was even possible. It might not have been. She shouldn't have been thinking selfish thoughts like this anyway. Not after he'd told her he loved her. Not after he'd listened to her. Not after he'd done all the things she liked…it wouldn't have been fair to him.
It would have been downright mean.
"Because I think it's funny and it's not like I can be anybody but myself so…." Said Shimazaki with a wave of his hand. He didn't think that she was trying to change him…he didn't know what he would have done if she'd tried to change him. He was himself, he didn't want to be anyone else, and he didn't want to try. He could be a better version of himself but there were some things that were just…himself. Like his love of random, wanton, violence.
"I guess….I wish that I could be someone else." Said Mob. She wished, sometimes, that she could have been someone normal. Someone with a mom and a dad and a little brother and sister and just…someone who didn't have to worry about anything but going to school and having friends and living a fun life. Or maybe she wished that she was someone older, someone who was as old as she felt, someone who was so old that they didn't care what other people thought. Minegishi said that everyone gets to that age at some point. Whatever age that was she wanted to be it. Or maybe she wanted to be someone younger. Maybe she wanted to be someone Mukai's age. Maybe she wanted to be someone who was so small that all she had to worry about was playing all day…she used to be that small…she could barely remember it but she used to be that small. Or maybe she wanted to be someone…someone else entirely. Maybe she wanted to be a boy. When you were a boy then nobody got mad at you for growing up. Nobody got mad at you for wanting to wear makeup or color your hair because boys didn't do those things usually. Nobody talked about how they could see your breasts through your shirt, too, since boys didn't usually have those and if they did then nobody cared. When you were a girl it felt like everyone just…they all had something to say about your body. How it looked, what you put on it, what you did with it…boys were so lucky. Even if you had tattoos on every free inch of skin you had they still didn't stare at you as much as they did if you had breasts.
"Why? You're amazing." Said Shimazaki
"Because I just…I feel bad all the time. I bad for doing this with you and I feel bad for being myself and I feel bad for making my Dad hate me and-" said Mob
"So what you're saying is, you feel bad for the way other people make you feel." Said Shimazaki. You didn't get it. He really didn't get it. He absolutely didn't get it. Life was too short to sit there worrying about what other people thought about you. You were who you were and the sooner you came to terms with it the better. To be human was to be the way you came factory sealed. People were just afraid to be human, he figured, that was why they pretended to be people they weren't. Not even better versions of themselves just….different people entirely. It was weird and a waste of time and…
And he wasn't going to lose Mob to that kind of thinking.
"Yes…that's right." Said Mob. He really was. When she didn't think about it then she felt…not fine but not bad. Sort of like being in a bath that was just a little too hot or a little too cold. It was noticeable but not awful. When she just….was herself, it was easier. Like when she was in the middle of….doing stuff…or when she was really drunk or really stoned and she couldn't think about anything other than how she felt…
It was too bad you couldn't smoke on the beach.
"But how do you feel?" asked Shimazaki
"Right now?" asked Mob
"No, three days ago,….of fucking course right now." Said Shimazaki
"Sweaty." Said Mob after a moment. That was the worst feeling. Sweaty. It was hot here, too hot, and she wished that she could have gone in the water…but if she went in the water then she would have had to take her coverup off and that would have meant that people would have been able to see her and she didn't want that. She had been stared at enough. She didn't want people to look at her and think that she looked too old or too young or like…like they wanted to do all the things with her. She didn't want anyone to look at her in any way at all.
"And?" asked Shimazaki. Well of course she was sweaty, it was like an oven out here. Like a humid oven. He wasn't going to go into the ocean, though, not without her anyway. He didn't trust it. it was way too hard to see in the water…also getting saltwater in his eye sockets was incredibly painful. These sunglasses kept him from getting internal sunburns, not internal salty-ness.
"Kind of…I don't know. When I think about my feelings I think about….about how other people make me feel. About how selfish I am. I think about the things I do and the way I am and sometimes I feel like I'm….like I'm doing something wrong. Like everything I do is wrong. I made you like me and…and me being your girlfriend made Sho not like me anymore and it made Dad hate me-" said Mob
"Your Dad and your brother can feel however they want to feel. You're not in charge of their feelings just like they aren't in charge of yours. Guilt is boring, Mob, and life's too short to be boring." Said Shimazaki
"But…but I really miss them." Said Mob. She hadn't known just how much she would have missed her family until they were all gone. Dad didn't want to so much as talk to her anymore. He said that he didn't hate her, just the person that she was becoming, but that was pretty much the same thing. Sho didn't hate her but he didn't like her and…and anyway she wasn't even allowed to be his friend anymore or Fukuda would tell on her. She was allowed to be friends with Mukai but she didn't know for how long…she didn't know when Fukuda would tell her that she wasn't allowed to be friends with her little sister anymore either.
She knew that day was coming.
"So tell Sho…well you can tell Sho whatever you want to tell him but it's not like he's going to listen…you know what? Tell your Dad that if he has such a problem with you then he needs to go fuck himself." Said Shimazaki
"I don't think that I could say that to my Dad…or anyone." Said Mob. If she was going to start being mean then she would have started with...she wouldn't have started with anyone. Not her dad, not her brother, not Shimazaki, nobody. Not even Fukuda. Mob just wasn't a mean person and she didn't want to be. She knew that she was a Suzuki, she knew that she had come from Dad, and she knew how mean he could be…but just because she had his blood didn't mean that she had to be like him. She was her own person, she was Mob, and right now…right now she needed to be someone better than who she was. She needed to stop thinking about what would have been the easiest way to break Shimazaki's heart.
He had done nothing but love her…and she knew how much it hurt when the person you loved stopped loving you.
"So don't. Come on, you're Mob. You're Suzuki Shigeko. You're powerful, you're incredibly hot, you're nice, and you can do whatever the hell you want. Why do you care so much about being guilty, about what they think? We're at the beach, we're happy, so let's just keep on being happy. We can do whatever we want and we'll be able to keep on doing whatever we want until some work thing comes up so come on, let's have fun." Said Shimazaki
"I…I want that…and yeah! Let's have fun. We can have shaved ice and make sandcastles and collect seashells-" said Mob
"Throw sand at people, get fucked up, take molly and fuck, take coke and walk around…hell, we don't even have to walk. We have planes. We can go anywhere in the whole fucking world. We can spend the rest of our lives, or until something comes up, partying around the world. Beaches….world…we can go wherever we want and so whatever we want. No worries, no guilt, no nothing. Just never ending fun." Said Shimazaki
"Ryou….I would love that." Said Mob. That sounded perfect…if it was possible. Just to let go and have fun. He had a point, she could do whatever she wanted, and what she wanted was to not feel this way. She was on vacation, too, and…and she didn't have to be here. She could have been anywhere…but here was nice. The ocean smelled good and there was shave ice and sand to play in….it was hot, though. She unzipped her coverup. She didn't take it off, she didn't want to, and she could do whatever she wanted….anything she wanted could have been hers….
She wanted Shimazaki to be happy.
She wanted all of her friends to be happy, everyone in the world of course, but she could settle for her friends. He had never done anything but love her, be nice to her, and listen to her. She picked up her sand bucket. They weren't going to be throwing sand at people, your happiness should never have come at someone else's expense, but she could make a sandcastle with him. She used to like this back when she'd been a kid and…and she still did. She still did and this was fun and…and that was what she was going to do. Have fun.
This was going to be really fun day…even if she was being stared at….she tried not to care. Just like Shimazaki had said.