Tres
"Oi, you've been staring at that pot for the past hour or so. Do you intend on buying it?"
Ushijima turned, his olivine eyes meeting mine while the icy flakes of winter's final bite gnawed in, accompanied with the flowery tang of spring.
It was an ever changing period of time, when winter shifted to spring and the plants awoke from their slumber to quake the earth and grow colorful petals along their thin, brown arms.
Ushijima ran a hand under his sharp jaw, most likely thinking, it was difficult to properly appraise the emotions that he withheld. He was like a crystal ball, anyone could see it and interpret it to their desire, but the truth that swirled within it was unbeknownst to the eyes of the beholder.
"I suppose. It's a good fit, after all. It could fit the majority of my small flowers in my balcony." He recalled, eyeing the price tag with tentative eyes. "I like the style as well; messy and colorful with haphazard strokes. I like that." He reached his index finger, tracing the dried drips of brown paint that were glued onto the ceramic material, pressing hard enough to smudge copper on his tan skin.
I hummed, my mind galaxies away as the edge of a new semester—a new year—soared above my idle self, already ready to swallow my body as a whole, tarnishing my olive skin with the welts of my growing fears and doubts.
Leave it all behind. Leave. It. All. Behind. I exhaled, a spritz of a tulip's breath tickling my nostrils and eliciting a sneeze from my nose.
Ushijima pivoted his back slightly, to the left, and he faced me, as if he were waiting for my approval.
Why would he need my approval when it came to simplistic decisions such as this? "Take it, if you want. If not, leave it. Don't just buy it to accumulate dust and break. That'd be fruitless and cruel to any flower dying to have a home." I muttered, biting the inside of my cheek when I repeated the sentence in my mind.
Perhaps I am that flower dying for a home? Dying for the acceptance of the flowers and soil surrounding my shriveling body. Perhaps I am everything that I had dreaded to be. Whether it be a florist, a student, or even a bloody maniac; I dread it all, every last drip of my putrid life that was sour to the very brim of my existence.
"I am still taking it. They might not have it in stock when I come back next month." Ushijima came to a conclusion, effortlessly hoisting the heavy planting pot with his arms embedded with years of volleyball training and labor.
"Yeah, they'd never wait that long." I reminded, trailing after him like a siren, silently hoping to grasp onto the life that he effortlessly radiated. I needed that spur of life, that spur that lightened every inch of my life, whether it be the past, present, or the unpredictable future. "But it's a bargain. A cheap price for a cheap pot. I'd buy it, too, if I had the money." I whisked, Ushijima sweeping his gaze over his shoulder to acknowledge my useless banter.
"I can give it to you if you want." I stilled, my rosy lips thinning to mirror the string of permanent crimson that stained my cheeks. I'd always have red cheeks, since I was a baby, and I was glad that Ushijima hadn't pointed it out just yet, unlike the rest of the people in this strictly uniformed country. Maybe he saw it as something innovative, something that betrayed the xenophobia that had plagued the land of the rising sun for years on end. It didn't matter, it made blushing much easier to question, and for that I was glad.
"I have too many pots in my apartment. My parent's think that my backyard is the perfect place to hoard all of their half-broken and horribly painted pots and vases." The edge of my fingernail scraped the skin of my cheek, my mind a mile ahead of everything as the cashier proceeded to check out the plot, my eyes glued to the reddish-brown color. "Anyway, I wouldn't have enough time to plant anymore flowers with the coming semester. It's my final one before I graduate."
"I thought you said that you barely started working on your degree." The cashier rolled in a wagon that lay beside the register, placing the pot atop of the dusty metal.
"I already had my degree back in Mexico." I explained, the old lady handling the cash register sighing out a smile. "The thing is that here, in another country, they don't transfer the credits. So, I had to do my basics all over again. What a bore, huh?" I hid the bite in my tone, exhaling when a single dust of ice speckled over my cheeks, right next to my beauty mark.
A beauty mark was splattered beneath the curve of my lashes and round eyes, glimmering in all of its foreign and unprecedented glory, like a messy masterpiece.
I'm a messy masterpiece. "If you find solace in what you're doing, then it will never be boring." Ushijima said, dragging the cart behind him while the old woman from the cash register leaned over the countertop, watching us to make sure we wouldn't take her screeching cart. "I'll never be bored of volleyball, it's a part of me, like the blood that courses through my veins, and the passion has already immersed itself with my essence."
I took my bottom lip in between my teeth, my nose scrunching. "You see, I don't have that—passion—I lack a great deal of that." I drawled, "Maybe that's why my life is utter shit." I shook off the excess snow that had piled on the rear end of Ushijima small car, eyes planted on the glare that my black boots emanated.
"You're bothered," Ushijima stated, already listing off an index that correctly described my mood at the moment. "That's why you cursed. You sound so ugly when you do."
"That's the point of cursing." I said, sliding my small and shivering hands in my pockets as we returned the cart. "To relieve yourself of everything bad, ugly, and vulgar. That's the premise behind cursing, and it's a good stress reliever, too."
"There are plenty of other ways to relieve stress." He countered, handing the old woman back the handle to her cart and trailing back to the car, where I leaned my back against the icy windshield. "If you weren't such a pessimist, you would find them."
"Okay, Dad," rolling my eyes, I crossed my arms over my chest and wiggled inside of the car, the sleekness of the leather rubbing against the matrix of my olive skin and rising a valley of goosebumps over my flesh.
"I'm not your father, Luna."
I couldn't breathe. My cheeks and lips puckered out, like a blowfish, as I slapped my cold hands against my tepid skin, a futile attempt to ease the chortles that poured out of my raspy mouth.
Was this guy serious? "Oh my god…" My cheeks were as ripe as a slice of fresh meat, dripping with strings of pink chagrin and forgotten timidness. "You have to be joking. You better be joking."
Ushijima stabbed the car into ignition, his face colored with the grey hue of confusion. "I'm not. What is there to joke about?"
I lost my mind.
By the time the howls and snorts of laughter ceased, my chest trembled from the force of my giggles, the strain of my smile, and the clench of my jaw that held it all together, like the glue that seemed to dissolve into the ivory hue of my brittle bones.
It's good to laugh. I haven't laughed like this in what, a year and a half? This goddamn disease of mine. "You're salivating, Luna." Ushijima pointed out, figuring that if he couldn't pinpoint my offense, he might as well point out silliness of my actions. My reckless and childish actions. Oh, how I hadn't been childish in a long time.
"Sorry," quickly, I wiped the excess drool from the corner of my mouth, grimacing at the string of clarity. "I'm sorry, it's just… I've never met someone like you. Someone so innocent yet so scary-looking. I'm intrigued, really. You're a head-snapping kind of person, Ushijima-kun."
"Thank you, Luna." Was all he said, the heater barely warming up to defrost the thin, frosty parties that were my hands.
I rested my palm under my chin as we drove across the wet, black asphalt.
A group of children played around in yesterday's snow, giggling and smiling when one of them—the shortest one—slipped and skated over the icy sidewalk. They all laughed, but their eyes softened when a stream of tears ran down the small child's cherub face.
That's me: the hopeless one. "What's the address?"
"You turn to the street to the left and it's I have to insert a street. It's in the countryside so we should be nearby." I said, my eyes moving away from the impish activities that the children partook in and to the road that stood before me that was black and boring.
Like my life. "I see," Ushijima said and I hummed, fiddling with my slender fingers.
He raised the volume up and a fruity melody of music flooded our ears, my feet subconsciously tapping along with the ornate rhythm that the violin and cello exuded.
I always had a thing for classical music. "Sorry for the inconvenience today. I don't have a car and I forgot my rail card at the shop." I began, the edge of my fingers folding the thin papers that were sewed into the spine of the textbook in my hand. An Introduction to Biology plastered in big, black font in front of the 900-page textbook. "And walking wasn't an option. I should have just locked myself in my freezer if I did."
I can never do anything by myself. "You're not an inconvenience." Ushijima said and stayed silent from the on. The car bumped, the asphalt jeered by last night's frost and years of abuse. I bit my lip; nobody would ever care about the streets or the towns that lacked a name, like me.
Inútil. The scarf around my neck—one that was maroon colored and had been knitted from my own shaky hands—suddenly felt tight. Like the day of my first date in this country. Like the day that I found out about my big secret. Like the day—like the day that my entire life changed. It all felt suffocating, paralyzingly, and absolutely toxic.
This was it. These were the effects of my disease. "I hope that the—"Ushijima couldn't finish his sentence, for another car zipped right in from the left, like a boxer shooting an uppercut, and nearly hit us.
My heart flopped back and forth, trying to regain semblance, as I opened my mouth, releasing soft and short breaths that became ice in the thin air. My skin felt like it was peeling; the intensity of the other driver's velocity leaving me in a quivering state of mind, one where my legs were shaky and my entire body was uneven. It was a knockout, straight to my sensitive heart.
"Sorry! Didn't see you there!" The other driver waved, sweat-dropping when they noticed the shame that Ushijima directed with his eyes alone.
"Be careful. You could have hit us." My eyes were screwed shut and for the second time in my life I felt like a bird; frightened to the point that my heart may burst. I had heard once that birds were so fragile that they could explode and that's exactly how I felt; glassy and volatile and gripping onto the ripping strands of my sanity.
Not again… I'm sure that my cheeks challenged the hue that the leaves were starting to shed, my fingers shaky and my skin welting. I had once gone through hell and back, three years ago, and now here I was, tasting the sweltering heat of the Devil's smile on my tongue, my chest and mind a minefield that was waiting to explode. That's what I was—a battle between life and death—with both sides losing terribly and my body quaking at the time-stilling revelation that struck a chord of chaos within me. I was the collateral damage.
I opened my eyes, my vision distorted and static filling my ears until I heard my predicament.
"She didn't make it." I opened my eyes once again, hoping that this was all a nightmare and sighing out in relief when the icy road greeted my sore eyes.
Fucking flashbacks… "Why did you rent all of these textbooks when you've covered most of the material already?" Ushijima asked with a voice as deep as the seas miles away and as velvety as the buds that swirled inside of a rose.
I cleared my throat, glad that neither my tongue nor my throat was lost in the terrifying ordeal. Only my sanity was diminished, but that was no surprise.
"I learned my material in Spanish, not Japanese. I want to become a biology teacher someday, Ushijima. I have to be an expert at everything that I teach." I said, the weight of the three textbooks in my lap heavy and unsettling.
Half of my statement was true. It was true, the fact that I did wanted to pursue biology, but not as a teacher. However, when the locusts of time and misfortune came and devoured the grains of my golden hope, the idea dissolved in the midst of the famine and before I knew it, it had starved my striving potential and drive. That's what it has taken—my hope—and, despite of everyone else's praises, my dreams seemed light years away; vanishing in the nothingness that was the sky.
He steered the car elsewhere, a kilometer dividing my anxious self with my home, my safeguard. "You look shaken up. What's wrong?" Ushijima inquired, eyes not straying from the road.
He was like a robot, never failing and never expressing the world that swirled within him. He was too perfect. "N-Nothing. It's just… it's been awhile since I've been in such close proximity with death before. A short yet long while." I admitted, my mind tracing the brief altercation that the car before us presented not too long ago.
It mirrored the same altercation that I had experienced three years ago, but the results were different and a lot less murky than the present. "Don't exaggerate. We weren't close to death at all." Ushijima said, his calloused hands molding with the steering wheel as we drove over slippery streets.
"Maybe," I said aloud, my thoughts pouring out from my mind and mouth garrulously, like music. "Maybe I am exaggerating, but it sure as hell felt like it."
"To you but not to me," he stated, already parked in front of my cozy, one-bedroom-and-bathroom flat.
Okasan's old house. His eyes shifted from the keys in my hands and the cold breaths that left my lips, the lingering scent of melon pan from earlier riddling my breath. "Don't immerse yourself in doltish thought. It was nice spending time with you."
"Likewise," I opened the car door, slipping away from the warmth of his small car and raising my hand to wave. "Don't lose your tongue while you're at it."
"My tongue is right here and while I'm at what?" My lips pursed, my cheeks red and hot from the depression of my amusement and infancy.
God, he was so unintentionally funny. "Nothing. Nothing at all." I dismissed, turning my back to open my front door. "And yeah-yeah, see you later, too, Ushijima!"
I opened the door to my empty living room, the hardwood floor creaking under my touch and the house caving into my presence, like a parasite.
It was black, pitch to be precise, and the shutters were strewn shut. The waft of cotton balls was in the air as I traipsed around a nest of old magazines, swearing when a glob of paint splattered under my black boots.
Stagnation, an effect of my crippling depression and a pain-in-the-ass whenever someone was simply trying to get to bed. Maybe that was the point of it, to not let me in bed and reflect over my sorrows. Maybe it all had a purpose.
Sure, keep on thinking that and you may become a poet. Alas, my body tumbled across the bedroom, resting over the homemade canvass of my handmade quilt.
My fingers curled. I had made this before I left home, before everything had gone to hell, and the scent was still there, the scent of cheap perfume. My mother's perfume.
Fuck. I lifted my head, my short black hair a mess over the feather pillows, and the pitter-patter of rain eased the spinning in my head.
Not again. I opened my eyes, my irises blow wide when a figure appeared before me.
Her hair was black, like mine, and her skin was dark, like mine, and her eyes were closed, like mine had been, and she wore this dress. This beige, tunic dress that had ancient stitching and history. This dress that had belonged to the earth, but now belonged to the rich ores of wealth. This dress that reflected all of my blood and history. This dress that my mother wore, and she swore I would wear as well. A dress that highlighted my link, my link with the other world that I was so earnestly trying to forget.
You can never escape your past, it will always come. Always. The figured cupped my face with hands as cold as steel and before I knew it, she was smothering my face with her presence, her toxic presence.
The truth can never be revoked. It will always rise, like the sun, a reminder. My breath had been wrongfully stolen, displaced from my chest and leaving my entire body feeling hollow, missing the life that had once embraced my being.
Is this… could this possibly be it? I gagged, hopeless and helpless to the woman before me that looked so similar to me, to my mother.
Could she be the one that is holding me back? The rosary around my neck snapped, the woman opening her eyes to reveal darkness. The darkness of my sickness. Of my disease.
Why—why now? I gasped, panting for breath and sweating profusely when I woke up from my nightmare.
I tossed around my bed, checking the time to see that it was no later than 19:00.
My eyes were red and hot, like jewels made out of pure magma, and I let the tears of my frustration run down, hoping that it would ease the fire that brewed inside of my ribcage.
I must have drank a bottle of gasoline, or so it felt, because when I raised myself even a small inch, my body dropped like lead.
C'mon, don't do this now. I edged my hips to the left, stilling when a lurch of nausea struck my stomach.
Do I have a fever? The doorbell rang and I cursed, placing a hand on my forehead and biting my lip. Now, how the hell was I going to get out of this damned bed?
I could always yell, but it's not like yelling ever gained any benefit. Knocks shook the front door, the tin roof rustling from the wind and the rain. I sighed, perking up at the sound of a voice, an angelic and motherly voice.
"Luna-chan, are you home? Luna-chan?" Okāsan's voice sang, the knocks of her hand following after and the thought of ringing the doorbell well forgotten.
"I'm home!" I managed out, surprisingly myself when I gained enough strength in my wobbly legs to stand and move. "I-I'm on my way!"
"Okay." I turned the lights on to the living room, night cascading into the house and enhancing the ominous aura that everything emitted.
I opened the door and Okāsan's lithe and sweet self was already crouching down to tend to the bed of red tsubakis that lined the stoop. Her long, black hair was pulled back, as it always was, into a low bun that contrasted with her ivory skin. Her eyes were wrinkled as she smiled, "You've been taking real good care of them. I'm surprised, your father said that he'd expect you not to."
"My father is old and cranky." I shook my head, the frigidness of the early spring air touching my cheeks softly, like the breath of a fallen angel. "He thinks that I can't handle a few plants all by myself? Well, he'll be damned."
"Surely," Okāsan stood from her spot, her body sprouting from the ground to reveal the basket of food beside her left leg. "I didn't mean to intrude on you, Luna-chan—"
"That's exactly why you came: to intrude." I spun, sashaying back inside of the house, forgetting to close the door.
"Luna-chan, please," Okāsan pleaded, closing the door behind her and lagging behind me as I set myself down on the couch, bringing a pillow to my ears. "Please… this isn't healthy. How long ago has it been since you've eaten?"
"And how does that concern you?" I snapped, throwing the plush to the hardwood floor and facing her, my eyes as sharp as obsidian. "You're not even my mother."
That visibly hit Okāsan. Hard. Her pretty, black eyes becoming clear with tears, tears that I had created while the deep lines stretching her milky skin softened. "T-That's not the point! We care—both your father and I—we won't let you live like this anymore."
I rolled my eyes, "Do you think I asked to be this way? Do you think I asked for this shit that composes just about every bit of my life? No, of course not, but we never ask for anything in this world. So, when you or Papa waltz right into my life and try to instill order into something that even I don't understand, how do you expect me to react? Not positively, that's for sure."
Okāsan couldn't hold her tongue together to form a sentence, her mouth quivering and her jaw shaky. "Y-Your father and I, we signed you up, for a support group."
That was it. That was the fire that ignited the explosion within me. "What!" A clamor of rage, unsettlement, and resentment rattled my chest. My chest was scorching, fueled and brimmed with the reiterating sting of my frustration. My frustration that left me so helpless, helpless to the pain and suffering that my disease imposed on me. I was so helpless to it all, the breaking of walls and pillars surrounding my frantic body. I was so helpless to madness. "You have no right! I—I hate you…! Who the hell do you think you are! You don't know anything about me!"
"Luna-chan, listen to yourself! You… you are just being mean. Where you ever mean back then?"
"Fuck you!" I raced out of the living room, heading for the bathroom, and slamming the door behind my body, biting my lip when the knocks pounded against the oak surface.
"Neither you nor anybody else knows a damn thing about me!" I yelled, enclosing myself in a ball, a tight ball of my regret.
"Luna-chan, please, just open the door and let me help you." Okāsan begged and my head wobbled, my skin dry and vulnerable to the coldness of the tiles beneath my legs.
"No… You think that this is something that I can switch off at will. No, this isn't a joke. This isn't something that I can control; this is independent. It grows inside of me, clawing and gnawing at my flesh and sanity, and I know that it will burst, and when it does; I won't be saved. Everyone thinks that this is irreversible." My tongue split in half, the past and the present converging and obliterating my identity, an identity that was tarnished by the slashes of society and popular opinion. "Pero no tiene remedio: this has no remedy."
My hands found themselves grappling onto the cold, white edges of the toilet. Bile sifted the contents in my stomach back and forth, a gag already warning me of the lurch that my own turmoil brought.
I wiped my forehead, beads of sweat seeping into the lines of my palm. My black hair stuck to my tacky skin and as Okāsan's knocking slowly went away in my rippling mind, so did the anger that had consumed my entire essence and soul, sorrow replacing it all and leaving my body feeling numb; in need of a prayer to fix it all.
Dios, ayúdame. "I'm going to find the key!" Okāsan announced, done with my childish actions and already miles away.
Everyone was always miles away. My body carved a path for itself. My hand,raising the sleeve of my sweater to reveal the delicious skin of my forearm, opened the cupboard. A shiny razor lay within the wooden arms of the counter, beckoning the hurt and suffered..
No one knows. No one knows a thing about me. I sliced it across my scarred skin, small droplets of red hitting against the tiled floor along with the tears that had unconsciously welled in my eyes and watered the thorns that scraped away at everything inside of me.
I am so alone. The door flew open, Okāsan throwing my body to the floor, the razor out of my hands and across the tiles.
Blood forced it to glare, to remind us all of everything that it brought, and everything that compelled it to exist. "Luna-chan, please…" Okāsan sobbed, her tears hot and heavy and wetting the fabric of my sweater.
Her voice lost its gentleness, panic evading her vocal chords and manipulating them, manipulating them to bend to the yield of my hand.
Such a nuisance you are, making those that love you cry and suffer all because of your own petty thoughts. You are simply a magnet, a magnet of misery. "W-Why?" I asked myself, Okāsan's thin arms tightening around me as all of my sanity dispelled itself from my trembling body. "Why me?"
She didn't say anything, holding me and breathing, breathing out a prayer that was the only familiar thing to me in this country.
"W-W-Why?" I hadn't realized it then, but I was screaming. Imploring. Begging the world to give me an explanation for the breaking of my insides and soul.
"Why…?" It was painful to break a bone, but it was not as painful as breaking a soul. A bone could heal, the heart could not. It could only hope and shrivel, like a dying flower.
Okāsan's breath muffled the weeping that escaped both of our mouths, the pitter-pattern of the rain stilling to fall in tandem with our cries and tears.
I bit my lip, tasting the bitter and broken remains of my shattered sanity.
I HAVEN'T UPDATED FOR SHIT BUT IT IS BC I LITERALLY HAVE BEEN SO BUSY. RIP ME.
HOPE YOU GUYS LIKED THE CHAPTER! BTW, I'M IN THE PROCESS OF REWRITING THE STORY SO THESE DRAFTS MAY NEED TO BE BRUSHED UP. NEVERTHELESS, THANK YOU ALL FOR TAKING THE TIME OUT OF YOUR DAY TO READ AND HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK! 3