6: June in the Garden
The birds fled from me,
and night swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.
—Pablo Neruda, Body of a Woman
It is the first day of June, and you know what that means.
Mitsuru stops to talk to you before you can step inside the school. As she talks on, you muse how funny it is that a person can be so wrong about something they've built their life around. Oh, she's expecting an answer, so you give a toned down, 'I agree', less cheery because it seems to be Shadow-related.
She tells you that Akihiko told her to tell you that there might be a new recruit. You wonder when the time will come that you will not need Mitsuru in the middle.
-.-.-
It seems like a day of breakdowns, because Yukari complains about being creeped out by the rumors and Shu has a moment of crippling panic when he thinks about other people talking about him the way they're talking about Fuuka. As if anybody would want to talk about Shu—not many people in your class is distinguished, but Shu is perhaps the one who fits into all stereotypical categories. He can't start rumors if he tried.
After school, after school is what you've been looking forward to all fucking day, twirling your pen between your thumb and your index finger like the world champion of pen-twirling, supporting your head with your left arm propped up but your head slipping down anyway, tapping your foot to Girl With One Eye, not even bothering to cover your stream of yawns that brings on other yawns throughout the room, and still answering the question right for Junpei (who doesn't know that Kundera is Czech?).
But the bell rings, and you loiter at your desk for a few minutes, leisurely packing up as if your heart isn't beating in what seems like years (but really one, single year, because that's all you have).
You saunter out of the classroom, flashing Shu a bright smile, and head to the first floor hallway, where voila, Akihiko was standing there, examining the posters along the walls.
"Hi, senpai," you greet cheerily, because you know he appreciates your happy-go-lucky demeanor, and because his side profile never fails to draw a smile out of you.
He seems startled momentarily, before quickly composing himself and returning your smile, albeit much more demure, "Hello."
"Heading home?" you ask, hitching the strap of your bag further up your shoulder.
He nodded.
You wait four seconds for him to issue an invitation, and then sigh internally—this is one of the shyer Akihikos, apparently. No matter, you know how to deal with every single one of them, you think, as you tip your head to one side innocently and ask, "Wanna go together?"
He seems hesitant, "I was going to stop by to grab a bite on my way…"
"Perfect," you beam at him, "I'm starving myself!"
He blushes, and takes a short moment to find a way to say, "Er, I'm not sure if this is the sort of establishment that you'll enjoy…"
You wave a hand at him dismissively, "Nonsense, I trust your good judgment. Now let's go!"
In fact, you do like Hagakure Ramen, even if it is slightly too hyped and always too crowded. The experience of the Japanese ramen shop was something unique alright, and while the pork soup base was tasty, you dislike the lack of space. And it is still too early to bump into Akihiko too often. There is a process, and that is what most of his fan girls miss.
He orders before actually asking you, but again, you sincerely like their house special ramen in silky tonkotsu soup, and you won't complain if he orders it with extra noodles. You also order the double pork belly buns, not to be outdone in the eating department. You don't order the ahi tuna and avocado tartare that you like because, let's face it, Akihiko isn't a tartare kind of guy.
How unfortunate, but give and take.
An eating Akihiko was a happy Akihiko, and as he slurps his noodles, he lectures you on the importance of physique and fitness.
"… physical strength is everything…"
You know this speech by heart now, and you bow your head down into your soup before wryly smiling. He has no idea: you are currently strong enough to obliterate this entire ramen shop off the face of the planet. Sure, you might be getting a little lazy with the laps and the spinning this cycle, but you still had your youthful slimness.
Not that, you know, you will ever lose it.
Before your thoughts sour completely, Akihiko breaks your inner chatter with a small exclaim of surprise.
"Oh wow," he says, genuinely surprised. "Amazing; you actually managed to polish that entire bowl off."
You shrug and think on how easy it is to impress him nowadays.
"Ah, but that barely hit the spot!" he complained, feeling at home to talk about his appetite now that it is apparent you share his enormous demand for food. "Oh I know this nice grill nearby, you up for going there?"
"You will never see me turn down food," you say.
He nods once, then seems to grow concerned as he asks, "Wait, you're not just trying to be friendly, are you? I won't be offended if you're actually full. It doesn't look like you can eat more…"
You drum your fingers on the sticky tabletop, the dark red tips clicking against the wood clearly. He is gentlemanly—or at least when he remembers to be—but god, you wish he'd stop treating you like such a baby already. "I'm fine," you say, clipping your voice so it doesn't sound too snappish, "I'd love some grilled octopus right now." You actually are salivating over grilled lamb kidneys—oh the charred fat layer covering tender strips of kidney, with just a touch of cumin to cover the taste of cheap mutton!—but you decide that it sounds too gauche.
Akihiko considers this and then concedes.
He brings you into some shoddy back alley after weaving through the mall strip, to a place dimly lit, with houses on each side that were low and half dilapidated, commissioned during a real estate boom and abandoned at the first sign of a recession. Now they were homes to various sketchy businesses and warehouses. At the end of the alley, however, there was a smoky venue, with a thin blue fabric hanging in the doorway as a makeshift door.
You follow Akihiko inside, and immediately you can see his shoulders drooping and the tension melting away from his neck.
If you don't know any better, you would think that Akihiko is a junkie and this is where he gets his fix. But you do know him well (despite what he thinks now), and so you just shake your head fondly at his affinity for cheap street food and addiction to protein.
How in the world does he stay friends with Mitsuru for so long? She must frown with great intensity whenever he walks near her, with the way the charcoal grill smoke stays in hair.
Oh well, you sit down, and gorge on the delicious lamb kidneys discreetly.
You are completely nauseated after five sticks of kidneys, ten of lamb cubes, two of chicken cartilage, and two more chicken wings. You can almost feel the chewed up meat mingling with bits of noodles, swimming in a sea of soup and stomach acid. Ugh, that thought alone is enough to make your throat constrict.
Akihiko, the madman, decides that he needs a jog after all this meat, and you let him go ahead. There is no way in hell that you are moving beyond necessity.
You've never really liked running anyway. It has always been an amateur attempt to get to know Akihiko. But you don't need it anymore.
-.-.-
When did you become Ghostbusters, you think as you faithfully tag along on Yukari's little fervent quest to prove that the ghost rumor is just a fraud. You know that it's just the Shadows acting out, and soon you'll have to go and find Fuuka, but for now you enjoy the flustered glow on Yukari's cheeks.
Come Friday night, she gathers everybody in a show of show and tell. You give her all the answers that she wants to hear, and nod along to her plan to go check the place out.
Oh the back alley of Tatsumi Port Island, what a charming place!—said no one ever.
Still, you end up going the next night, despite a thinly veiled warning from Akihiko. He holds your gaze slightly longer than the other two, you think, but you defiantly look back.
The trouble you run into had felt incredibly dangerous and unnerving the first time, but looking back on it (looking at it right now), it's just a bunch of older high school teenagers who are trying to act tough. There is nothing more natural and pathetic than this.
Shinjiro steps in, and tells you about Fuuka. His eyes a downward, frowning line, half hidden beneath the rim of his beanie hat, a gray that seems only trick of a light the way he gazes at things, as if there was nothing to gaze at. His trench coat was wrapped tightly about him as always, a doubled-breasted burgundy that you imagine he picked up from a thrift shop and never let go, like everything else he owns.
You've always almost fallen in love with Shinji. It would be so simple, the easiest thing you've done in your life. His eyes follow you, steadfast, secretive, accepting the hardest and most elusive edges of you. He's never wanted to fix you, the way that Aki does, but you don't want him to, not the way you want Aki to.
But that is to come. Right now, the drama ensues. Shinjiro talks crap about Akihiko, warning the three of you, shooting a gloomy (but perplexed) glance at you, as if he can't figure out why he wants to look at you. Later, Akihiko also reprimands your foolhardiness, but with a misfit sort of pride—you've always liked how Akihiko supports stupid things, if they seem to be innocently just and brave, as if things in life can be fixed with just those two things.
Misuru finds out that authorities are (isn't it weird calling trivial people 'authorities' simply because they dictated your grade in school?) covering Fuuka's disappearance up, and the mean-girls-leader basically has a mental breakdown inside the teacher's office.
That night, you guys sneak into the school after dark, and the Dark Hour comes, as it always does.
There's not much to say, really, because you find Fuuka, even though you get separated from Akihiko and Junpei for a while. You're actually glad, because you've yet to been alone with Tarturus. You know you're not meant to—but it's like an old friend by now, or an old cancer, but something familiar and something you know how to handle, even it means death and ugliness, and you get anxious if you get separated from it for too long. The walls seem to even hum along in agreement with you as you go up the floors to find the boys.
And Fuuka. Fuuka is pale-faced as always, her large, sea-green eyes impossibly large, like round emeralds somebody forcibly engraved into her face, because they don't look like they belong there. Poor Fuuka, always alone and trying to do the right thing.
The rest of the story goes like this: girl saves victim, girl defeats bad guys, and girl delivers atonement to the mean-girl. All in a night's time.
-.-.-
You went to the candy store with Bebe, and by the time you get back to the dorm, the top of your forehead is beginning to feel greasy from all the sugar and chemical flavoring that you just ingested. Junpei is sprawling across the floor in front of the PlayStation, and barely looks at you when you close the door.
"Wanna head out later?" he asks while pounding some opponent on Street Fighter.
"Out out?" you clarify.
"Fuck," he curses as the opposing Ryu sends his Chun-li to the ground with an expert grab. "Yeah, yeah."
"Escapade?"
He throws down his controller and turns around, "Where else—whoa, what happened to you?"
"Nothing," you snap at him. It is too soon to tell him about dining with Akihiko—Junpei will think of naughty thoughts, and you really don't want to be the source of his naughty thoughts when you two are going out clubbing. "Gimme half an hour, I need to clean up."
"That you do," he agrees.
You kick him playfully (okay, half playfully) in the shins and head upstairs for a hot shower, hoping to burn off everything you've stuffed yourself with tonight.
Yukari, of course, doesn't want to go. When you go to check in on her, she is still hunched over her laptop, neck straining closer to the screen in a rather unbecoming posture. The girl is really obsessively into this Ghostbusters pet project that she got staffed with.
"You sure?" you ask her again, tugging the hem of your dress down a little.
"Yeah, go ahead," she mumbles.
You wonder when did Yukari become a stay-at-home otaku—she used to be the biggest partier among you three, getting smashed with one Long Island Iced Tea and dancing her perky little ass off.
You shrug and close the door behind you. Junpei is a cheap bastard, but maybe you can wring a drink out of him tonight, without Yukari tossing her hair back and getting some random guy to buy you all rounds.
The entire night, you can feel Mutatsu looking down on the mass of throbbing crowd from his table upstairs, an old fashioned in one hand and an unfiltered Lucky Strike in the other. He is sneering at you, his gaze up and down your body both judging and completely platonic, like how a father might look at his daughter to judge whether she's covered up enough for her prom date. You have almost forgotten about this quirky old man, and you contemplate whether you should say hi and bum a drink off of him.
In the end, you decide against it. You'll wait for a day when Junpei isn't here. Mutatsu wouldn't like Junpei's crassness, and you want to talk to Mutatsu anyway. He is just cynical but funny enough that he comes up with a different set of jokes each cycle. The little miracles, you think, as you gulp down the last of that watery greyhound and swing your hips.
Before you realize, you are pressed against the exterior wall of the club, being kissed to an inch of your life. This one is a smooth talker, and that is how you got into this position. That, and he has those big, round, soulful eyes that you have a thing for. He was at the bar, with his long hair and his drinks shields against the world, and when he looked up to catch the bartender's eyes for a new drink, his eyes were large and tired looking, with heavy lashes and dark circles, light gray pupils that seem to glow in the darkness of the bar. Of course you went up to chat him up, and he told you about how he has a girlfriend and a lover, as many men do, and he destroyed both their lives as much as they destroy his. His name is Vincent, and he was just telling you about his nightmares, some boring crap about two girls, one guy. It is the sort of story that made for grown-up Aesop's fables, the roman à clef that serves as a good moral lesson. You lose interest in him immediately, but before you turned away, he bought you a drink, and this is how you end up thinking succubus your ass as his mouth finds your ear lobe.
Strangely though, you find yourself trying to remember your first kiss. It didn't mean anything—alright, it had meant something, but it doesn't mean anything now, beyond the way that tentative exploration of sexuality always seems to happen in golden light when you try to remember. Your first kiss was back when you were fourteen, just about halfway through middle school. You can't remember his face very well, but you know that his name was (is? was?) Duroy. You remember, because at the time, you thought it was the most beautiful name you had ever heard.
It wasn't until high school that you learned that it was a reference to something, and it wasn't until your third cycle, when out of frustrated, depressed boredom, you picked up French novels, that you wondered why anybody would name their kid after the morally corrupt protagonist of Bel Ami.
You still can't remember anything about the kiss, mostly because how bloody skillful this Vincent is being with his bloody tongue. You wish Akihiko is half as good—but you never have enough time to become good together.
All of a sudden, you lose your mood, and you push away Vincent.
"What's wrong," he murmurs to you, barely intelligibly, his head still tilted towards you so that his eyes remain dark sockets in the bright moonlight.
"Sorry," you say out of politeness, although the idea of being polite in such a situation is bizarre, "I can't."
There is a flash of something in his eyes, and he nods, "Yeah, I can't either. But god I want to."
You nearly give in to his voice, the pure want in it, to live, live, live because you don't have time again. But then you see his eyes and it is the same round, soulful eyes that draws you in to Akihiko, and you sigh. "Maybe another time," you lie to him.
"Yeah," he agrees, before stumbling back to the bar.
He is lying as well, as you never see him again after that night.
At some point, you must have gotten home and crawled into bed, because the next thing you know, the damned birds outside your window start yipping and wake you up. It is the wrong side of noon—you should not be up before one in the afternoon.
All you can feel is the tight, numb feeling in your throat. You sigh and climb out of bed, and with each move, your head whirls in an unpleasant way.
Advil, you think almost desperately, and try to find your slippers amid the heap on the floor. Damn Mitsuru and her iron fist about any and all drugs—you could really do with something with a little more kick than Advil. Something like Vicodin. You nearly slip on the lacy dress that you don't remember stripping off of yourself. What are you in, then? You reach down your hands to feel your hips—ah, the familiar, soothing terry cloth of your worn teddy-bear pajamas. For a moment, your childhood slips through the headache and the cracks in your lips, and you can feel the warm glow of youth.
Then the moment is over, and you accidentally kick over your pumps and decide that, fuck it, you are going barefoot. The kitchen isn't that far—only two flights down—and if your feet get cold, you probably wouldn't even feel it, in this state.
So you tug at the edges of your pyjama top and try to wrap it around yourself like a shock blanket as you ease open the door (careful, do not wake Mitsuru, or Yukari, and you know, it's nice that Aigis isn't here yet, just for tonight). The floors are wooden, but they're relatively new, and you're relatively old, so you tiptoe around the places where it creaks, and makes your way down with expert precision.
This is practically Ocean's Eleven; except, you know, you are going for some light pills instead of the crown jewel, and you are by yourself. Ocean's One, then. It doesn't have as much a ring, but you aren't witty when you are hung over. Or still drunk.
Good riddance, just how long are these stairs?
That is the last step, and you do not expect that, so you stumble into the hallway and mutter an obscene word under your breath. You are much more creative when your brain is not trying to detach itself from your skull.
You slouch toward the kitchen, and in your state of grouchiness, you fail to notice that the light is on until you are face to face with Akihiko.
"Oh," you say, startled and painfully aware of how utterly unkempt you look. "Akihiko-senpai." You don't think you bothered with makeup remover, so your mascara is probably making you look more like a panda than a doll. Your teddy bear pajamas are from when you were twelve, and show expanses of skin around your wrists and ankles. You also are not wearing a bra, so you tighten your arms around yourself and lick your lips.
No, that is not a 'flirty' lick-your-lips; it is more like a 'shit shit shit uh what do I do now' lick-your-lips.
"What are you doing up?" Akihiko asks you, closing the fridge door. He realizes that the fridge was the only source of light a little too late, and pulls the door open to a sliver again. The light shines upon his face, and makes his cheekbones stand out even more than usual. This is not the place to be noticing that, but you do anyway.
"Uh," you begin eloquently, "just looking for some water." Your voice is hoarser than it should be, and you hope that Akihiko either doesn't notice it, or chalks it up to drowsiness. Actually, you kind of hope that he does notice, because that would mean he is paying attention to your voice. "What are you doing up?" you ask, slipping too easily into a defensive tone.
He lifts his left eyebrow, and although he does not mean to look condescending, he bloody does end up looking like that anyway; and it is so unbelievably hot. "It's six in the morning; this is when I always get up for my morning jog."
A couple of things run through your mind, although none of them make any sense. Morning jog Akihiko means sweaty, out of breath Akihiko. Six in the morning for Jesus's bleeding hairy balls! Water. Water would actually be a pretty good idea right now. Akihiko gets up at the ungodly hour of six to jog? Every morning? Water air water. You couldn't have slept more than an hour, so you got back from Club Escapade at four-ish? You thought you had left early too—it had felt like an early night, at any rate.
You know, that cup of water might really be a good idea now.
You walk forward cautiously, and grab a plastic cup from the dryer rack.
Akihiko turns on the tap for you, and adjusts the water temperature so that it's refreshingly cool but not scalding cold. It's a nice, small gesture that fills you up with warm, bubbly feelings. Except that bubbly means throw-up, so you keep it down.
"Thanks," you mutter through a yawn.
"No problem," he responds politely.
You take a sip of water as the two of you sink into a slightly awkward stalemate.
"You uh," Akihiko scratches the plaster on his face absent-mindedly, "want to come run?"
No. It would be nice to see him in a wifebeater and glistening with sweat, but before she can do that, she will bend over and die. Literally.
"I'm going to Naganaki Shrine, so not too far," he offers.
Is he trying to induce you to go with him? That's very forward of him.
"I usually train in the club room or alone in my own room…" he seems to be uncomfortable with the silence, and keeps on talking about nothing.
You chance a small nod, and ignore the intensified throbbing in the back of your head. "I can come train with you, if you want," you tell him, before adding, "just uh, not today."
"It'd be nice to have a running partner," he nods solemnly.
At this point Akihiko must be just being nice—there's no way he still can't tell that you feel like you're one of those small, reedy spiders that has been whacked with a roll of newspaper, reduced to a black blob of broken legs and smeared blood.
"Yeah, go knock yourself out," you grumble ungratefully.
"It's nice to feel the wind," he breaks through your grouchiness, "and nobody is ever at the shrine around now."
"That's because nobody is up and about, anywhere, at this time," you retort.
"Except you and I."
"Touché," you admit.
"And they have a small park there. With horizontal bars. I'm actually quite good at it," he says proudly.
"You can show me the next time we go," you promise, because clearly he wants to show you.
"Oh, everybody should be able to do it," he says, but the unmistakable straightening of his spine and the bright glint of pride in his eyes say contrary. "I've been doing it since I was kid."
And whoosh, the brightness leaks, and he falls silent.
You know what he's thinking about, but you are far too violated by your hangover to think of anything soothing to say.
"I should get going," he says eventually, "I need to get stronger."
He walks out of the dorm, and you see his silhouette against the light outside—pale morning light melting with the orange of street lamp—like a black cutout with ragged edges. You can smell the summer coming and see the day approaching, for just half a minute, when he turns back to look at you over his shoulder, hesitating like a cat at the doorway, before the door swings close and you are left in darkness again.