Uno
Everything stilled for a millisecond, the murmurs around us, the clanking of porcelain and the wailing of tea kettle; it all stilled.
The knitted scarf around my neck was suffocating. No, everything felt suffocating as the man before me—my blind date—opened his mouth to utter out something, something that could either mend or break this dwindling situation.
"I haven't come to Miyagi in years. It's been awhile since I've breathed in the calmness of the forest and the trees. I miss it; I truly do." His tone was an oxymoron; tender and curt, like the gaze that reflected over his olive eyes.
Parched could have described my mouth as I parted my lips.
I hadn't spoken in what felt like months, but had truly been minutes. His stern gaze stealing the words that danced over the tip of my tongue and the seam of my cherry lips.
"You're not missing much. Sure, the trees are nice to see and breath in, but that's the only thing they're worth for. Elsewhere sounds better than here in any circumstance." The waitress swiveled by our table, pouring tea into my cup as a dust of scarlet evaded her
pearly skin.
She liked him, my blind date, and she couldn't make it any more obvious as she pressed her breasts together with her elbows while she poured the boiling substance, her growing cleavage fruitless as he paid no avail to her pity attempts.
"But it's not like I can get out of here. My father owns a grocery store downtown that I can't possibly leave to pursue my own bitter dreams. Well, if there's one thing I like about this place is the scenery. It's plenty of food for thought." CLANK! By accident, my spoon dropped to the floor, the provocative waitress bending down in such a lewd manner in front of my date that it was obscene to my round and mature eyes.
A sour smile curved the corner of my rosy lips, my date nodding as he grabbed the spoon for her with an impassive look to his bleak, brown eyes.
"Thank you!" The waitress straightened out the ruffles in her black skirt, chagrin invading
her composure as she sauntered back to the kitchen.
"Perhaps I am biased because I grew up around here." I hummed and crossed my legs. He wasn't cheerful with his words, and I seemed to prefer that over saccharine words. The intention was what mattered, and he made a point out of it. "Also, my name is Ushijima Wakatoshi." His name was as refined as his stature, my hand reaching his as I shook his hand in affirmation.
"Chiba Luna," I said. "I would prefer if you called me Luna, though. Mostly everyone calls me that." He nodded, placing a few packets of sugar across the table, on my
side.
"So, Ushijima, what do you do?" A spark of something foreign danced over Ushijima's eyes, animation instilling itself in his limbs as he straightened his posture out, his emotional borders slowly loosening beneath my gaze.
"I'm a professional volleyball player," he explained, never failing to regain my attention. "I've been playing since I was seven, when my father taught me." He radiated confidence and I couldn't tell if that was either a good or a bad thing.
"That's good to hear." I ripped open the sugar packets, sprinkling my tea with sugar then stirring it together. "I used to play volleyball back in high school." Ushijima practically lunged forward, his forehead a few inches away from mine as interest finally leaked in his ever so blank face.
"Why did you quit? Also, what was your position?" I brought my cup of tea to my lips, blowing a soft breeze over the scalding liquid as it scorched the tip of my tongue.
"Reality caught up and I realized that my club activities were only temporary." I lied, discarding my lies on a bed of nondescript stories that my mind tirelessly made up in an effort to shield the volatile shards of my past that lay in the heart of it all. "I was a liberó." He nodded; drinking from his glass of water as his gaze uncomfortably roamed my figure.
"I predicted that. Your stature is short, tiny even." Ushijima's words were refreshing to say the least. Blunt people always had a way of things, a truthful perspective that could either pierce or stabilize with the simple roll of a tongue. I respected that, partly because I lacked that, my own burst of individuality.
"Five-foot one is not tiny." I objected as the café began to brim, the squeals and giggles of children disrupting the indistinct atmosphere in a positive way. "Perhaps six-foot five is gigantic." His eyebrows lifted in a cute manner as his lips unconsciously jutted out into a pout.
I could see now why the airhead of a waitress practically threw herself at him not too long ago. "My height is common among most high-level athletes. See, if you would have pursued volleyball, you wouldn't find it so odd." I couldn't suppress the chuckle that left my chest, my eyes closing as I shook my head in sweetened disagreement.
I hadn't joked like that in a while. A long while. "A liberó playing at the professional level with only two years of experience? That seems awfully unfair to those that have been dedicated to volleyball for their entire life, like you, Ushijima-san." I laughed, intertwining my fingers together in hopes of gathering warmth. My hands had always been so cold, like small bundles of ice.
"Are you cold?" Ushijima was undoing the buttons of his coat, sliding it off his broad shoulders to place it on the table. He wore a grey hoodie underneath all of his heavy outerwear, the taut material persisting to prove more of his masculinity as it clung to his skin, his firm muscles much more distinct beneath the café's tawny light.
"My hands are just cold. It's probably a curse, eh?" My statement was not meant to be taken literal, but as he reached his hands out and grabbed mine, my heart snapped and the strings of my strength tore at the hand of his tactless ways.
This man, sitting in front of me, he's something else. I thought, unclasping my hands from his and wiping them down on my lap, my bottom snug between my teeth. I could still feel the lingering warmth of his hands on my skin. I couldn't focus on anything else. His touch was so foreign, yet so comforting. It frightened me. But at the same time, I missed it, even if the contact had only lasted for a few mere seconds. It felt oddly ethereal, like the breath of an angel that had barely awaken from the comforting hands of God himself.
Dios mio… "So, what made you come to this date, Luna?" I raised my head, my obsidian crystals colliding against his olive hues and my heart hastened, not used to the race of a crush.
"My friend, Chiasa, must have met with your, err, teammate beforehand. They liked each other, I suppose, and they figured that we'd like each other as well for reasons beyond us." I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear, folding my hands. "She mentioned that you and I were alike. Well, enlighten me then, Ushijima."
He wasn't taken aback by my request, for he simply nodded, sipping from his cup of unsweetened green tea. "Well, I barely have any free time, but when I do, I garden." He revealed.
"Garden?" I lifted an eyebrow when he hummed. "How can such a broad thing such as yourself nurse a bed of tulips that can barely fit in your hand?"
"Size does not matter, but the care that you put into caring for plants does." I don't think he was trying to object because when I boggled at his answer, he shrugged.
Funny. Real funny match that you got me, Chiasa… "And you?"
"I paint, or at least I try." I said, resting my palm under my chin, my gaze aimless as the sounds of tea kettles wailing and rushed chatter weighed over my shoulders, overwhelming my fragile state. "I'm trying to get my degree in biological sciences. Hopefully, it's a success."
"You're not so sure about that." I heard him say and my eyes met his. I could feel it. He was analyzing me. Then came the question I dreaded. "Why?" Ushijima inquired, his inquisitive eyes boring into my black pools of obscurity and I gulped, tasting the fruitiness of my chagrin.
"Well, I haven't gone to school in a long time and my history with Kanji is not so great." I admitted.
"I see. Well, why haven't you gone to school in a while? Where were you before that?" Ushijima asked and the corner of my lips curled into a grin. Wasn't he just bubbling with questions?
"I don't think we're close enough to discuss that just yet, Ushijima-san." I swirled the pad of my finger around my cup, the heat forming little droplets of water around the ceramic cup. "What about you? I shouldn't be taking up all of our sweet time explaining my lackluster life."
"What is it that you'd like to know about me?" I looked at him, charting out every inch of his skin and memorizing it briefly. He was a sight that was rare to see, and even rarer to touch. God, I wouldn't mind another touch, but I'd be testing the heavens if I dared myself any further. He felt oddly sublime, the roughness of his skin comforting and the lowness of his voice soft to the static evading my ears.
"What makes you jump out of bed every morning? What motivates you to continue on with the mundane and dreary routine that is life?" I asked, genuinely curious with what the broad and seemingly scary man before me had under his sleeve. Looks could be deceiving, after all.
The waitress came again, at the most convenient of moments, and she placed a plate of small sandwiches cut diagonally without the crust between Ushijima and I.
He didn't look up at her nor did he notice the salacious intent that colored her sleet eyes. "Well, I play volleyball. That is my life." Volleyball idiot, that what his correct definition. Volleyball idiot. I had heard that term before, a term that was used to define those that fell in love with sport and became a part of it. Not that I had ever become a Volleyball Idiot, but I had seen the process firsthand. It was always nice to see players, especially younglings, fall in love with something that would never turn back on them, at least for a while. Not immediately.
Without saying a word to his response, I swooped my hand in and mindlessly picked up a sandwich. I nibbled on the greens, my eyes widening when the shrill cry of a baby—a newborn—cut through the atmosphere, a cry leaving my lips, my past disorienting my vision and reality.
Babies. My past. Babies... His olive eyes widened and even the waitress that was too immersed with Ushijima's face stilled.
Ushijima questioned it first, surprisingly. "Is something the matter?" He looked concerned with my outbreak and everything surrounding us, even the vegetal aroma of tea that ways always tranquilizing, snaked around my shoulders, smothering my mouth and stealing my breath from my throat in an instant.
I couldn't speak, opting for my vest, resting behind the oak chair that I was sitting on, and I slung it over my shoulders, closing my eyes.
"I-I didn't mean to do that. I swear." I managed to breath out, wiggling my arms into my jean vest, and tangling my fingers in my short curls when a child screamed out in agony.
Agony, that was consuming me. The agony of my past. The stunning agony of my present. The agony of my dwindling future. It was swallowing my entire being whole, drowning my shattered essence in a pool of anguish and despair.
I opened my eyes, eyes wide and brimmed with fear, like a deer caught in headlights. "I-I can't do this…" I wasn't thinking when I said those words, Ushijima cocking his head to the side in confusion.
"You can't handle what?" I lacked an explanation, swearing when I remembered the bluish pills on the bathroom counter this morning and how I had forgotten to take them.
This was why I was being so reckless and why my past was hitting me, like a goddamn train. "I can't be here anymore. I—I've got to go." I slapped down a few yen, my vision distorted and cloudy, dotted with the suddenness of my illness that poured over my body like a cold bucket of water.
It all felt like a cold bucket of water; unforgiving and shocking.
"At least let me pay and leave your number. I'd like to meet with you more often." Ushijima countered, uncharacteristically placing his hand over mine, the contrast between our sizes vast and absolutely real.
What the hell do you think you're doing? You want nothing with someone like me. "Sure. Here," I pulled out a pen from my shoulder bag, writing my number in his palm and leaving smudges of ink in his calloused skin.
You don't know a single thing about the hell that you intend to tangle yourself in. He read my number, mouthing each syllable, and he nodded, giving the green light to leave as my shoulder bag swung with the ferociousness of my movements.
Be careful. That's what you'll need: care, lots of it. "Bye, Ushijima-san, I didn't mean for things to go this way. I…" How else could I have explained things without exposing the reality of my situation.
The reality that I was drowning in a black pool of my thoughts and pessimism. The reality that my past was catching up with me, like the vines of an overgrown crop, they were rooting me to the ground, to face reality. The reality that although I truly was trying, it wasn't working. My disease had no ailment.
Why the hell did I even bother coming?I should have just ditched. I shook my head, blinking to regain my thought.
Wait, Chiasa would have beheaded me had I not showed up. God, why are her and my parents so adamant in snapping me out of this? This is an independent process, not anything that any one else could fix, or at least that's how it has been. "You don't have to explain yourself. Go home and relax. You look awful." I stilled, stunned by his honesty but a little touched by it as well. If I were under different circumstances, I'd be laughing right about now, but I wasn't. It felt as if I would never be under different circumstances.
But that didn't mean that I couldn't shoot back a bite as well. "Thanks, I'll jot that down for reference." I said, snickering when confusion splattered Ushijima's stoic disposition.
"You're welcome." I could hear him say as I waved out in dismissal, brushing past the café's chiming door to face the smog and ever changing lights of the city.
Waste, that's something I'll never miss. I threw the edge of my scarf behind my shoulder, nuzzling my cheek against the knitted fabric.
But this—I looked over my shoulder, at the café to see the waitress already talking up a storm with Ushijima. He didn't seem interested, though, typing something indecipherable in his phone.
RING! I reached inside of my shoulder bag, the curve of my warm smile reaching the corner of my round eyes.
This I will miss greatly. Hi. His text was so simply yet so endearing, like most things in this world. Simplicity conquered over all.
Hello… I typed back, snapping my flip-phone back to silence as my feet thrummed to the staccato beat of my racing mind.
Socialization and people, that I miss dearly…
THIS IS MY FIRST TAKE AT FAN-FICTION SO BARE WITH ME. I have a lot of hope for this story, and I hope you do, too. Thanks for reading the first chapter and if you enjoyed, give me some feedback with the reviews! xD Thank you so much and have a wonderful day(or evening)~!