You may not remember the time you let me go first. Or the time you dropped back to tell me it wasn't that far to go. Or the time you waited at the crosswords for me to catch up. You may not remember any of those, but I do and this is what I have to say to you:
It's not the first time she does something this stupid, and amidst the regret she knows it's not the last. It is not very stupid after all. But this is: the fiery indestructible hubris still intact; nothing could happen, not while it is this time: 6PM, the skies are darkening and nobody waits along the streets. The buses are gone and he is in Vienna and the rest in England, Luxembourg. Sweden. Holland, all train rides away and somehow this is near – her two-hour-drive proximity to the station and whatever the hell additional hours it took. Her time was finite and they were burning through it rather quickly, but the seconds were still prolonged and dragged out enough to fill each of them with substance.
Neither drunk nor high, but somehow this was much worse, strange happiness too elusive to catch physical symptoms of. There isn't a lot of logic in this.
x
Another time, she doesn't do anything stupid at all. It is deeply and empathetically sensible, which is slightly unnerving. This time she fully recognizes that it is not the end. It is not a competition that brings her many revelations, and this is three years after the concours of Seisou, now scaled off to become small and insignificant in the distance. Now, she has a portfolio and a good reputation. Now, this is what she is: She is Hino Kahoko, and she is twenty. She walks briskly because there's a long road to go and many meandering turns to get there. She now eats French food. She is considered a miracle. She has also, now, lost the competition.
This is she, slumped in her dressing room, almost still smiling. There is still a lot to do, still a lot to go, and she is very cold. The taffeta dress starts from the dip beneath her clavicles, and it doesn't touch her shoulders. Her acceptance comes from somewhere deep in the recesses of her soul, which makes her feel not quite herself. If she is as she knows, then she'd be more insecure; the victor's pain is the runner up's regret, and the joyful bitterness of everyone after, and she cannot feel this. She is young and beautiful. She knows this, that the attention is gathering; because months of rushing has developed a quick metabolism, that her hair has darkened and grown natural and thick, her skin clear and cheekbones high. She understands her own vanity, but more so understands her own beauty—the same mystery of bones and eyelash that the media loves. Kahoko will be unmistakably right about this; the victor's bespectacled countenance is soon forgotten. Not yet now, but she will prevail. It is for sure. It is very cold.
She doesn't call him, but spends an hour waxing poetic to a distant friend.
Shimizu Keiichi hears about her along the grapevine but waits until the performances are aired online. Yunoki, too, distinctly recalls the Kahoko character in high school. Yunoki smiles. She deserves second place, be as that may. These are the people still involved, loosely associated under the business. There are no more gatherings, little teasing and smaller contact still. This situation is not victorious – not contenders in the first place, their relationships are negated in a weird, undeveloped space. They will watch her on TV. These are the videos that show her passion, and more importantly a striking beauty. People believe that they hear a lot more things when emotionally involved with ethereally closed eyes. Though the vessel is husk-empty – she plays earnestly, with emotion and now technique. It consumes her, and she thinks perhaps that the stage is only place where she feels anything acutely anymore.
After that there is a blur of parties and media events that peak and trough, a tangle of exorbitantly loaned dresses, the empty lull of champagne. She briefly performs on the piano to wow, and gets a lot of attention. This finishes running its course, she returns to her rented room. The house in its entirety is full of warmth. The two children are glad to see her back. She has a meal with the landlord's family. She has another one with Austin, later, this man who she likes and who likes her. It is a fairly simple liking, hardly worth mentioning (since simpler things have been overcomplicated). It is spaghetti and yogurt, and then pizza and iced tea. While competing she ate bread between practice and performances. Waking and sleeping were almost the same: sore and full of the violin. Neither meal following her return fully nourishes her.
When all these finally get wind to him, he is still in Vienna and quite near, really, when you consider the vastness of our small planet. He doesn't call her either, nor does he show up breathless and concerned on her doorstep. The thought surfaces as a joke. He doesn't follow through.
This is a story of actions, which have never held much meaning. The pair are not together, insofar that the laws governing physics determined that bodies are full of repelling electrons, but also because each were so full of themselves. These are the humans; the debris of a crumbled empire. They are the stardust and soot of a pocket of the universe, full of years of personal pasts, the infinite potential of tomorrows, juggling relationships while maintaining grudges and distastes. These are the salt statues, elemental and basic. Too occupied to soak up the presence of the other.
Them being the way they are, it still works out (it's astounding, the ways humans find). Either way, no one knows how these fluctuating variables affect them, not really.
Here are the variables when he addresses this loss to her. It is long after the event has transpired. She has stopped holding Austin's hand after embarrassingly emotional complications have ensued. Or, more simply, it has been seven months and they sit side by side on the bench outside the train station. So many comings and goings that it is hard to decide who is leaving whom anymore, and even harder to see if they have ever came and met.
"The Juilliard people hate me," she is saying. This was both self-deprecating and self-aggrandizing, for many of them had entered prestige whilst under seven and she had only began a couple of years earlier. By this point she has ousted many in competitions, won enough that the loss doesn't draw attention to itself by smarting anymore. Enough details have emerged to allow her the luxury of speaking freely to Tsukimori.
"Not just Juilliard," he reminds her—he, of course, knows about this, of how accompanying orchestras stared and mentally appraised their abilities with distaste.
"Oh, stop it, you." It is sarcastic. "You're freaking me out." Which is, of course, untrue. She has had to get used to it. In the end she just rode it out, retching backstage, crying, slipping up, the entire package.
And this is all that is said about it, a quiet affirmation. This is why an hour later, she feels betrayed. She is kissed, parting formalities exchanged, and then the train glides away, chuffing unpleasantly into the distance. He has never liked the sound of the train horns – discordant, off-tune notes to his perfect-pitch ears. She doesn't either, but for an entirely different set of reasons. She doesn't wait long enough to crumble – she is silly this way—and so hears the guilt and doubt in his call. She hangs up too soon and cries for too long.
The weekend before had been good. This was what ate at her. She'd promised the Laurents that, when he visited, they'd barely be around. That was the plan, catching up on tourist attractions. She had lived there three years but barely knew the place, aside from its two-hour route to the conservatory, and the corner shops littered along the way.
In fact she'd even written an itinerary meant to capitalize on her limited time. She had cast a glance at it whilst showing Len her room, rented from the Laurents. For the weekend they'd complied – kindly but rather condescendingly, as if it were extraneous – to setting up a makeshift camp bed next to her futon ("It creaks," Lorraine Laurent had remarked with a strange, lingering glance.).
Len stared at it, standing by the doorway, for slightly too long.
"Something wrong? Wondering where all the dark oaks and beiges are?" Those were the color characteristics of his hotel suites, reflective and tirelessly edgy.
"No." He always pauses between words, as though weighing the significance of what came next. "I…am glad to be here."
Oh, details.
For Kahoko, the weight of her entire year's 4-hour sleep cycles, corporate competitions and unlived homes probably crashed upon her. Maybe she was hormonal, but it was most probably both. But she lost track of how her face looked, but she thought that Len probably hadn't gotten it much better either. Now that she knew about him, knew about the demands for accomplished virtuosity and insane work schedules. She knew about the rush between practices, the breakneck speed of competitions, but not for whom she shed though pathetic tears for.
They hugged. The Earth, out of consideration for their minds, put up the pretense of being quiet and expansive. This was the Earth's lulling cry, its gentle reassurance. It was only two in the afternoon. It was only Saturday. There was time still.
How kind of the Earth.
It was six hours later that Kahoko woke up. (Of course she feels betrayed at their parting)
She was tucked into her futon, with a blocked nose, crusty eyes, and irritated mind. She hadn't slept this long in ages, but it so happened at 6 hours was a bad point in her sleep cycle – groggy and annoyed. Shit, she muttered, the curse rasped soundlessly between cracked lips. How attractive – and what a perfect waste of precious time.
Len sat at her desk, reading a book. And this affected her more than his annotating a composition, or reading her notes, or filling in paperwork, would have done – yet she doesn't even know why. It was such a strange sight, something domestic and calm. It wasn't something she had ever experienced (just like how a month later, the first time he'd called her, unscheduled, just to aimlessly ramble), yet achingly familiar for its simplicity. It was so ordinary, so domestic that she should have seen it before. Only she hadn't, which rendered this rather rare.
Déjà vu, she remembered, is the French term for this.
"Shit," she repeated. Her voice was loud enough to be heard, but the batty-witch quality hadn't yet dissipated. Crescendo. "Shit." Again. Forte. "Shit."
"Hey." Slightly startled, slightly amused, but mostly irritated at being torn from his book. He wore glasses today, and briefly, she was struck with an image of him staring down a teenager, an austere reproach on hand – "language" (if only she knew).
"Shit," she repeated for good measure. Just in case he didn't get her horror.
"I'm sorry," he said, rolling his eyes. "You fell asleep."
"Why, did I hurt your feelings? You could have woken me up at any point in between" – she glared back defiantly – "I don't snore."
"I hardly think that this warrants hurt feelings. Also, no, you don't." he conceded.
"I mean I don't find your company boring," she struggled out of the duvet. "Whoops, just answered some questions you didn't think to ask. It's nothing. I'm just tired, I guess. Wait, not exactly tired, it's sort of like a permanent state that I don't really notice anymore? So it's not exactly tiredness but I'm not super energetic, you know?"
He swiveled the chair around in order to stare unnervingly at her for a long while. "Yes," he replied finally. "I wanted to let you sleep."
She understood later that it was a tender, heartwarming moment. In the moment she was eager to divert this understanding, laughingly throwing a pillow at his head and said "because I'm so boring?" – Because she would cry. And she knew it; he probably did too, and their mutual understanding was enough of an agreement. They both pretend the redness of her face is from laughter.
They stay in her room, doing the unimaginable –
Since, it has to be assumed that the Laurents didn't expect them to sit and peel apart tangerines, a gift that an unprepared fan had pressed into his hands at the train station. Even if they had ditched the entire list business (and Lorraine had been fairly certain), this wasn't an activity that had crossed their mind. This was perhaps why the fruit was eaten with such relish. Though they'd both be gone on the actual Thursday, this Thanksgiving, strangely, felt like the most authentic one they'd ever experienced. But maybe it was just their Japanese upbringing. Yes, it was probably that. In fact, the festivities weren't quite in style. They end up next to the futon, her sitting between his legs to share his novel. This was frequently peppered, by a more engaging argument over who had been more overwhelmed at the train station, Len or the seventeen-year-old fan.
"You turned completely white. I thought you're supposed to have a lot of experience?"
"I was caught off-guard," was the protest. "Hey, he was pretty aggressive."
"Yes, because that sharp turnaround was the classic sign of an incoming assault. Get a grip, Len."
And then he had glared back, in the easy, open manner that he was now disposed to. He said – What had he said? He said more, of course he had said more. But she was stupid. They were not, not together. She was too full of herself, caught in the folly of emotional pasts, potential unfoldings and the nuances of her many relationships (with the seventeen year old fan, the train conductor, infinitesimally connected relations occupy a little too much) Too preoccupied, and she has long lost him, perhaps from the moment these words had been uttered.
These conversations are raindrops, the majority of which doesn't fall into marveling hands, but tumble untethered into the concrete void. Beholders know of the rain, but not of the cool spunky splashes of each individual raindrop. They don't see. Neither does she.