CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
神人
Shinjin
"Amu," I plied, hauling a dry-cleaning bag into the second-floor senior dormitory. "The lorry's here for our blouses. How long are you going do mope?"
Around her, girls were pulling on stockings or fixing obis, determined to make the most of our one day off a fortnight. I contemplated writing an open letter to Japan's prominent psychologists, inviting them to come and observe Seiyo Academy's schoolwide case of cabin fever after a mere seven days of confinement.
I sat down on the end of the bed. Amu pulled her sticky cheek from the open magazine open on her covers. I didn't appreciate this, as the magazine was mine.
"You're nod even reading it," I coughed.
"I-I am!"
"Whad craft do they show you how do make on page twelve?" I was still congested, much to everyone's mirth.
"A–"
"Wrong," I yanked it out from under her. "Come do the baths with Yaya and me. I need do clear by lungs."
She sighed. "Is Nadeshiko coming?"
That would be a complication, I thought dryly.
"How should I know?" I said, but I did know. "She has dance. Or sobething. I dunno."
When we went to go tell Yaya our plan, we found her with a hairpin in her mouth, trying to pin her hair into a coiffure.
"Wooow!" Amu said, putting on a brave smile. "Yaya, you look so cute!"
Yaya twirled for us. The sleeves of her kimono fanned out around her like wings.
"Fanks!" she whistled through the mouthful of pins.
"Is the Emperor hibself exbecting you for luncheon?" I was disgruntled at the wrench in my plans.
"No, Papa," Yaya said. She turned in a circle, dropping pins everywhere. "He and my Aunty are taking me up to Kobe for the day to eat in a city restaurant. Winter is the perfect time for sukiyaki, don't you think?"
"Musd be nice," I grumbled.
Yaya looked up at me with piercing eyes.
"Will you help me?"
My annoyance melted to guilt. Like they had done with me before the ball, we helped secure her hair at the base of her neck. She hadn't bothered with a hot iron, which was a blessing: I had visions of her frying her forehead off.
"There!" said Amu, leaning back to inspect her handiwork.
"Loogs nice," I sniffed.
"Just nice?" Yaya frowned and touched her hair.
Amu and I looked at each other. I picked up the red ribbon she tied her pigtails with, looping it through a lock of hair and tying it behind her ear.
"Now id's perfect," I said.
It was funny how two people could walk together, longing for someone else. Nadeshiko had gone where I could not reach. Utau was in Manchukuo by now if she knew what was good for her. Yaya was only gone for the day, but it felt as though she was slipping away too.
I linked my arm through Amu's. "Say the gods really are out to do us in, like Nadeshiko-san thinks."
I pointed to the northwestern hills, where a path snaked up to the forest thicket where the shrine nestled. It was dedicated to Hachiman, much to Seiyo Academy's pique. A martial god of warriors could not be prayed to for love and luck on exams.
"You believe that?" Amu shoulder-checked as though Hachiman was breathing down our necks. "She said it herself, she was just being superstitious!"
"Bud say they were," I insisted, sniffling. "If typhoid can'd kill us, whad will? A stampede? Thing about how many Kichiga-senseis they'd need to habe galloping all ad once."
Amu laughed, and the sun darkened. Behind us, a shadow loomed amid a clattering racket.
The sun killer was Hotori Tadase himself. He sat astride a magnificent white horse, hair glinting like brushed metal.
"Hinamori-san, Mashiro-san," he bowed on horseback, which looked ridiculous. I smirked against my better instinct. "Good morning."
I coughed.
"Hotori-san!" said Amu, trying to look both eager and disinterested at the same time. "I guess it is."
While Hotori re-adjusted his reins, I saw Amu hit herself. Without his usual throng of adoring girls, he looked smaller, more awkward.
"Where are you two headed today?" he asked politely, nudging the horse with his booted heel. The horse clip-clopped alongside us, making the noise of ten women each shaking a barrel of empty silkmoth cocoons. Remembering the horse of my nightmare, I shrunk away. This forced Amu to stand next to Hotori's leg, which I could tell was too much for her.
"Oh, we were just... um... bath," Amu said, ogling his thigh. Thankfully, Hotori was an adept translator of babble.
"It's nice to relax and get warm, isn't it?" said Hotori.
"Id is," I said, just to egg him on.
"Yeah!" said Amu, in a broad commoner's accent I thought she had lost. "It's alright, I guess."
This was dull. I watched the glimmering coat of the horse. At first, I thought it ivory, but up close, the horse hairs were a pale beige. Its satiny coat rippled under its trotting limbs, wrapped tightly round each leg.
"Beautiful, isn't he?" Hotori-san said, noticing me eyeing the horse. "Cremello."
"Is that his name?" Amu asked tentatively. The horse tossed its mane, and her courage vaporized.
"No," he laughed. "That's his coat colour. May I give you a ride down the hill?"
He said it gallantly, but I wasn't convinced. The horse regarded us snootily through his pale eyelashes, reminding me of Yamabuki Sāya.
"O-oh, we couldn't," Amu said, trying not to betray her delight. "You're probably in a hurry."
I muttered in her ear, "Id looks as though the horse is about do start bragging about ids father's promotion."
Amu turned her laugh into a hacking cough.
"Nonsense," he said, with Count Hotori's exact inflection. "I was going into town anyway."
When Hotori Tadase proffered his hand to lift her up into the stirrup, I was sure she was going to swoon over. I picked at my cuticles as he waffled horsey instructions to her, guiding her hands around his waist.
"You next, Mashiro-san," he said kindly but less interested. "Kiseki can handle three."
I was about to inform Hotori Tadase that I would walk, thank-you, before realizing how pathetic I would look, trotting to keep up with them. Swallowing my doubt, I grabbed Amu's hand before Hotori could offer.
Thus, I found myself clinging to Amu, who clung to Hotori, who clung to the reigns. I knew nothing about beasts of burden, but it was my impression that the stallion was a blustery poorly-trained sort. It jolted down the hill at more of a canter than a leisurely trot. As the one seated under its haunches, I winced every time its bones bounced me up and down.
Amu, perched comfortably on the dip in its back, was hanging off Tadase's every word.
"I was sorry to hear about Hoshina-san," he said sympathetically. His face looked genuinely remorseful, as though she had died. "Is there any news?"
When I thought about Utau stepping onto a steamship and pulling away from the coastline, holding a wide-brimmed hat to her head, I felt lighter. I wished I had an older brother to run away with.
"No," said Amu, face drooping as quickly as she had smiled. I glared at Hotori. "They haven't found anything else. I can only hope that means they're safe…"
Hotori's eyes softened when he looked at her, like Nadeshiko's often did. They were surrounded by fragile pink skin, giving him the look of a prey animal.
"I am certain she'll be found," he said comfortingly. "The military police in Manchuko are good at their jobs."
"The– military police?" Amu said, horrified. "Surely they haven't done anything wrong?"
I pulled Amu closer to me, frowning. Hotori swallowed, and he looked ahead.
"They've stolen quite a bit of money from their new father, you know," he said, in a low voice. "No doubt corrupted into doing so by her brother. I know she wouldn't do it of her own accord. Nonetheless, something must be done."
Amu gasped. I pressed my lips together.
"My father has a personal interest in the case," he said, the picture of pale-lashed mourning. "Before her mother remarried, our families were close. We would have taken care of her. The way things have turned out is... disappointing."
Kiseki lumbered down the hill and directly into the road like he owned it. I prayed for swift death. Hotori's family reminded me of his father, the newly-minted Count.
"I believe congratulations are in order," I said, staring through him. The effect was slightly lost with a stuffy nose.
Hotori Tadase sat up on his horse and looked at me properly for the first time.
"How did you know?" he said. "We thought we were discreet."
Hotori Tadase was kind but dense. I didn't know how he thought he'd keep an Emperor's decree a secret for long, no matter how far from the capital we were.
"That's funny," I said. It wasn't. "General Yamabuki seebs to be telling anyone who can listen."
Hotori's ears went pink. "Ah," he said, stealing look at Amu. "Well, that… that can't be helped, I suppose."
I seemed to have shaken his confidence. It was the only thing I was ever good at. Hotori was the third man I had met who did not view me as the nexus of his attentions. I welcomed the anonymity with open arms.
The moment the horse stopped, I slid off its shiny back in a hurry. But Amu and Hotori dawdled, saying such extended goodbyes that pressed the limits of incredulity. I stood there, tapping my foot.
"I'm going in," I coughed at Amu, nodding at the bath house curtains. I veered away from Hotori's horse, who was pawing the dirt and continuing to snort as though giving us a manifesto. "Join whenever."
They both spluttered behind me. There, I thought, satisfied. Birds of a feather flock together. If they wanted to speak so badly, they could.
I gave the attendant my coins, received my wooden ticket, and walked through alone. I made myself at home in one of the washing alcoves. I was almost done when Amu burst in, face flushed.
"Good heavens," I said. I was mid-way through combing out my hair and scouring three weeks' worth of typhoid grime out of it. "At least take your clothes off."
Amu looked at me, eyes wild. "Wha?"
I pointed to her shoes, standing on damp tatami flooring, and her tights, already splattered with washing-water.
"Oh…"
She packed her clothes away into a cubby-hole, gazing into its depths. It was like Amu to space out at the remotest inconvenience, so I wiped my wet bangs off my forehead and continued my laborious brushing. By the time Amu finished in her stupor, I had finally, finally detangled my hair.
I stepped into the bath and inhaled the waves of steam rolling off the water, taking the first painless cough in a month. Bliss. Like I did in the bath in the dormitory, I sank in up to my nose, watching Amu from over the water like a crocodile.
"Get in," I said, resurfacing. "It doesn't take that long."
"I'm coming," Amu said, wrapping her towel around her hair. I felt a pang of affection. Ridiculous.
It was only us and a few grandmothers at that time of day, at the opposite end of the sunken square in the middle of the floor. I felt along my body, feeling every rib, with a grimace.
"You've put some of your weight back on," said Amu, eyeing me enviously. It took a minute to realise she meant my chest, not anywhere else.
"What does it matter? People only look at my face anyway."
I put my hands on either side of my face and stretched them back towards my ears, opening my mouth in a stretchy leer at Amu. She swatted a bit of water at me, snorting. On the other end of the bath, two elderly women clucked with disapproval, and Amu fell self-consciously silent.
"This is for relaxing," I mock-admonished her. "How dare you mimic the Hotori-sama's noble horse in the bath?"
Her smile vanished at the mention of Hotori, and I grimaced at the joke's poor landing.
"Tough crowd?" I said unhappily, hands sloshing back into the water.
"No," she whispered. "What do you… what do you think of Hotori-kun?"
I was uncannily reminded of the poem, and her insistence on what I thought. Amu could not make decisions on her own. If she were a Queen, she would be the sort to rely almost unilaterally on the decision of a counsel.
"He is a man," I said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
I made another face, gagging.
"Gentle," I inhaled through my cleared sinuses. "Sensible. Fair. But without meaning to, he puts people in difficult positions. Demanding, though he pretends he isn't."
I thought of the relationship he had with Nadeshiko and wondered what she'd say. The way she catered and fussed over him annoyed me deeply. That should be me— me!
"Is there any man you think highly of? At all?" Amu said, bewildered.
"Yes," I said.
I regretted it almost instantly. I punished myself by dunking my head under water. Forget him, I chanted, blowing bubbles to the surface. Forget him. You cannot banish him from your room, but you can banish him from your mind.
When I surfaced, Amu was three centimetres from my face.
"Who?"
"Is yours Hotori?" I asked bluntly. Amu looked away, biting her lip.
"Forget him," I repeated. "You heard Yamabuki. He's a Count. You are the daughter of a photographer. Your parents would want someone for you who shared your values. Even if he'd have you…"
I cut myself off, alarmed. Amu's eyes were filling with tears. Why was I saying these things? The girl in the water's reflection was red-cheeked and wild. She shouted my deepest fears back at me:
Even if he'd have you, how could you let him settle for a manipulative woman like you!
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "Forget I said anything."
"No." Amu shook her head. "You're right."
"I think love is a moral failing," I said. "What the Hell do I know? Go ask Nadeshiko."
Amu turned to me, bangs escaping her towel and sticking to her forehead. She was lovely, I thought miserably.
"You'll be honest with me," Amu said urgently. "That's why I'm asking you. Would you… would you be a man's mistress? If it was presented to you?"
The grandmothers in the corner were pretending not to be eavesdropping. All I could do was sit in the bath, up to my chin with water, and stare at her in horror.
I ought to have known. I never imagined this quickly.
"If he was rich enough," I said.
Amu, who thought everyone dreamt of getting married, looked at me with despair. "Why?"
The grandmothers were leaning forward, hanging off our every word. They caught me glaring and pretended to look the other way. The girl in the bathwater's reflection was pink-cheeked, soft looking, but I knew better.
"Can you honestly say that I would make a good wife?"
"Rima, that's not fair, you're so pretty…"
"Yes," I said, blandly. "And cold-hearted, unsympathetic, averse to hard labor and disobedient."
Amu was ready to protest. I held up a hand. My voice softened. "But I'm not like you, Amu. You like to make others happy. Don't you think you deserve a certain future?"
"You believe Hotori-kun isn't reliable?"
"We all answer to a man until we die," I countered. "Do you want yours in writing, or based on his whim?"
I rose from the bath, shedding water. If only there was a better answer, for both Amu and Hotori's sake. He was gentle. Kind. Undependable. Though I was young, I understood. We didn't marry for love; we married for a guarantee.
And in life, there are few guarantees.
The clouds rolled in as we exited the baths, more relaxed and subdued than when we went in. I wondered if Yaya would be back soon. How very like the whims of the Yuiki family to snatch her away from school for a joy-ride, though we were mere days from going home!
"Are you going to say yes?"
Amu pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Don't," she begged. "Ask me about something else. Please."
I trailed my hand along the cloth opening of a storefront, the side of a lantern, a notched wooden fence-post. "Fine. Are you going home for New Year's?"
The last time we had walked through here, it had been lined with booths and lights, people and drums. I thought wistfully of how much could change between seasons.
"Yeah," she said, faintly smiling. "Ami's really excited. She won't stop talking about things she wants to show me when I come home. Are you?"
I nodded. New Year's Eve was quiet at the Mashiro house. The factory girls returned home to their hometowns, the overseer to his. The corporate world shut down for a precious three days. With no work to throw herself into, my mother would turn her attention to the household, and me by extension.
It was not my favourite holiday.
We circled back up towards Seiyo Hill, approaching the tall gate marking the town shrine.
"Let's go up," said Amu, suddenly.
"To bray do Hachiman?" I scoffed, blowing my nose into my handkerchief. "Do you need thad much helb with archery?"
"Noooo… I just… he's supposed to be a protector, isn't he?"
I was probably ritually unclean from bronchitis. The air stilled to a supernatural silence as we passed under the wooden gate and onto the packed earth, as though spirits occupied every square inch of space. Atheistically, I knew the the real reason was the cypress and pine, walling out exterior sounds.
Out of respect for Amu's supposing, I rinsed my hands in the fountain, but stubbornly refused to bow. My pleas to Orihime and Hikoboshi had fallen on deaf ears. I could not fathom why the other gods would have better hearing.
Amu rang the bell weakly but clapped her hands with certainty I envied. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, and I wondered what a girl like Amu wanted protection from. Hotori's idiotic advances? The wrath of Sāya? Or perhaps just a prosperous harvest, a netful of fish?
Beyond the bell, inside the oratory, a figure kneeled at the feet of the faded banners. Amu and I exchanged a confused look. I walked around the donation box and up the stairs.
The ramrod back and ponytail came into view, framed by the open doors of the shrine. I knew the back of Nadeshiko's head like my own reflection. The thought gave me only despair.
"Rima, what are y–" Amu hissed, coming up behind me.
My heart stopped. I yanked Amu by the arm around the side of the veranda, leading her behind a wooden pillar supporting the roof.
"Shhh!" I whispered, but this was easier said than done. My inflamed airways were screaming for mercy. I tried to clear my throat against my muffler without making a sound.
Through the crisscrossing slats of wood enclosing the oratory, I could catch square inches of her face. If his mouth hadn't been moving, I might have thought he was a wax figure of a bodhisattva in repose. In profile, Nagihiko's breath turned to mist in front of his closed eyes. He was sitting seiza, hands clasped together around something that clinked. I couldn't tell if he was play-acting a man or a woman today– the wool overcoat was dark, but the kimono was the colour of figs.
Only he and the gods heard the words he mouthed. I stared because I could do nothing else. Why?
What were my friends demanding from their tutelar that was so inaccessible to me? I pressed my lips together and ran my nails down the wood grain, following the grooves in the blind hope that they would lead me to confluence. How long had he been kneeling there? Was he so worried about epidemics and stupid fortunes that he had gone to appeal a god? Stupid, maddeningly sweet Nagihiko, who cared enough to appeal to divine justice on my behalf. My cheek rested against the wood, lolling to the side.
I turned to Amu with my questions, but Amu beat me to it. She was already staring at me with jubilation. How could she be happy at a time like this?
"I've been an idiot," she whispered, with a look of wonder.
"Yes, always," I whispered back. "But we like you anyway."
"You've liked her this whole time," Amu said, breathless. She looked from Nadeshiko's clasped hands to mine, clutching the front of my coat just over my heart.
I dropped my hand hastily. Over our heads, the prayer bell tolled. I backed away until I hit the wooden pillar. My left. My right. Nadeshiko was still lost in prayer, and I was lost in Hell.
"You're being noisy!" I hissed, erupting in hives. I wondered if Hachiman was punishing me for wiping my bronchitis germs all over the fountain, or I was just blushing.
"You like a woman," Amu said with wonder. I scratched at my neck with both hands. Itchy! Itchy!
"Of course. Of course! That's why you weren't interested in Fuyuki-kun, or any of the others. That's why you don't want to marry! I was so stupid! How did I not notice my two best friends–"
"Am I your best friend?" I interrupted, still flushing. "Really?"
Wood clattered within the shrine. Her answer would have to wait. I shoved Amu off the veranda with both hands.
"Wh-GAH!?" Amu squawked, hitting the long grass and rolling. I dove after her, crawling into an azalea thicket like a soldier under fire.
"He's going do hear you!" I sneezed, azalea branches clawing at my hair. Amu seemed to not care if the entire city heard her.
"But Rima!" She had reached the apex of realisation, coasting. "I can–"
"No," I coughed through a mouthful of leaves. I did not trust myself to resist Amu bringing what I wanted within tantalizing reach. If Amu followed her heart and gave me a shred of a chance, I would throw everything away. I would disobey my mother, drain my family coffers, shame my line, ruin my pride.
I clawed a chunk of my hair free, wheezing painfully through my raw airway. "If you meddle in by bersonal affairs, I'll neber forgibe you. I'll but frogs in your bed."
Amu's delight turned to horror. I spat out a leaf and crawled on the dirt floor, picking up my purse.
"I habe made a mind to ignore it," I said stiffly.
Amu continued to gawk at me. The National Frog Choir was playing its reunion concert.
"But yourself in by position. I won'd burden–"
Amu nodded at a point over my shoulder.
"Whad."
A twig snapped. Nagihiko stood a stone's throw behind me, clutching his haori shut with one hand. His fist clenched, one foot braced in front of the other. Then he relaxed, and Nadeshiko put a hand over her mouth. Her cheeks puffed up like a blowfish.
It must look idiotic to hear rustling and arguing round the side of a shrine, only to find your horrible roommate's head sticking out from under an azalea and your friend lying face-down on the grass like a corpse.
"Pffffff..."
Amu looked up as Nadeshiko burst with laughter.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she giggled around her fingers, burying her whole face in her gloves. "Are you... are you quite alright?"
"We're fine," I rasped, scrambling to my feet. My head bent back by the chunk of hair ensnared by the bush. Amu tore it free, avoiding everyone's eyes.
"What on earth…" Nadeshiko began.
"We were— foraging!" Amu blurted out, obviously rehearsing excuses while Nadeshiko was laughing at my agony. "For wild vegetables!"
"Do you even care how much wild onions sell for?" I said, mouth twitching.
"But it's winter." Nadeshiko was unable to resist being a know-it-all. She gazed fondly at Amu, loving the way she lied badly. I wanted to hit her.
"It's not embarrassing to say you were visiting the shrine, you know. I was just in there anyhow." Nadeshiko nodded over her shoulder. "You two didn't go to the baths, did you?"
"We did," I said, stretching my answer out to rub the quality time in Nadeshiko's face. "We talked aboud boys and our love lives. Why?"
"Because you've both got dirt on you," Nagihiko said.
I sneered.
"In your hair, also."
"Let be hid her," I said through gritted teeth.
"Rima, no!" Amu held me back by my arms. Nadeshiko pursed her lips and blew on her hands cutely while I struggled in vain against Amu's grip.
"W-well," Amu said, wrestling me into an impressive armlock. "Nadeshiko-san is clearly busy, doing shrine stuff, so I'll just take Rima and go..."
Nadeshiko flinched, looking between the two of us. She had enjoyed uninterrupted invitations into Amu's confidence for six years going on seven. Irony of ironies that my infatuation with her would push her out. Twelve-year-old Rima ought to be dancing for joy. Seventeen-year-old Rima wasn't.
Amu took me to follow my suicidal heart. I didn't resist, frog-marching back to the bells and down the path to the fountain. I coughed again and turned over my shoulder. Nadeshiko cut a lone figure, picking at her own sleeve.
Amu leaned over.
"You could just tell her, you know," said Amu, fast before I could stop her. "I think when a girl speaks from the heart, something beautiful happe..."
I raised my voice.
"Nadeshiko-san!" I shouted across the shrinegrounds, breathy. My voice echoed back at me. San... san... san...
I had seen winter melons with more expression on them.
"Hurry up!" I huffed. "Are you coming? Walking doesn'd reguire choreography."
Amu looked both delighted and confused. I crossed my eyes back at her. You'll never get me alone to matchmake, you meddler!
Nagihiko loped to catch up with us, hands stuffed in his pockets.
"Did something happen?" she said, walking on Amu's side. I pretended not to be hurt. "You two are acting odd."
"I'b sick and dyig," I said, offended. "Every breath I tage outside is agony."
"No," she swatted my fib away. "It's something else."
I wouldn't let Amu arouse Nadeshiko's suspicions further. Whatever the fortune-teller had said in truth or lie, he was a dog. He could chase a secret like a scenthound. He could hear every beat of my heart.
I said, "Hotori asged Amu if she'd be his concubine."
Nadeshiko's smooth face dented. Amu turned grey.
"Rima!" she cried.
I raised my eyebrows.
"So he's getting married," said Nadeshiko.
"Whad gives you thad idea?" I said.
"He wouldn't ask if he wasn't." She tapped her forefinger to her chin. "I wonder..."
Amu waited with bated breath. Nadeshiko gazed across the horizon at the last bloom of silver grass. There was a cold, knifelike quality to the air when I inhaled that made me think snow wouldn't be far away.
"I always thought Hotori-kun and Hoshina-san would end up together, to be honest," Nadeshiko said confidentially.
This was the funniest joke Nadeshiko had ever unintentionally told.
"Do you thing Hotori-kun would prefer to be lightly saudéed or char-broiled before the weddig?" I said, pulling the most exaggerated Kabuki grimace in my arsenal. "So thad Utau can ead him more easily?"
"Rima!"
I looked up at the sky and sneezed. It would have had nothing to do with their suitability for each other, of course. An alliance between a business and the aristocracy was nothing to sneeze at. With Hotori's diplomatic backing, the Hoshina conglomerate would have only grown.
But Utau threw that away the second she cut and run. I was grateful to be the granddaughter of a silk-miller. No matter how violently I disgraced myself, my family's reputation would remain pristine from anonymity. Adopt a son. Damage control. Cover-up.
In the corner of my eye, Nadeshiko's was speaking earnestly to Amu, voice level, hands folded. The fingertips twitched restlessly, as though she longed to wrap them around something.
"... Might consider it, Amu-chan. The world is changing. Should you not be allowed to consider your happiness? And his?"
He could not be serious. I would have never fathomed that a staunch traditionalist would suggest staying single to serve the whims of an imbecile who wished to have his cake and eat it too. I swallowed my tongue, remembering what happened the last time I gave my opinion on mistresses.
"What do you mean, times are changing?" Amu said, sliding her arm through Nagihiko's. As though in perfect sync, they began to stroll in the roaring direction of Ichi River. I followed at a jog, coughing into my hands and waiting for a chance to wipe them on Nagihiko's back.
Nagihiko's sidelock fluttered to settle between their profiles. "There are cases where the sons of mistresses have been legitimized and received inheritances. If you have a child, your position would be secure."
"She's only eighteen," I said, whacking rushes away from me left and right.
"That's just a year short of when my mother got married," Nadeshiko said.
I withheld my commentary on Fujisaki-sensei's morals and wiped my hand on Nadeshiko's back. She wiggled, surprised.
Distracted by marriage, I had failed to remember the children that would follow. I imagined a gurgling mass of flesh hijacking my body for its own parasitic urge to survive, clawing its way out of my womb. I was going to be sick. Maybe I could marry a widower who already had a favourite son. Or pretend to be barren. No— he'd divorce me, and then my mother would be crosser than ever.
"Rima, get back from the river!" Amu called above me. I had stumbled down the sloping banks towards the dull roar of the rapids. Its frenetic course choked on rocks and rushes, foaming in rage wherever it met obstacles. Maybe Nadeshiko was right. The river was angry.
"Is she still sick?" Nadeshiko's dim voice panicked over the wind.
I turned over my shoulder, wrapping my fur stole around my face so nobody could see my expression. Amu and Nadeshiko had their heads together in conference; Amu was looking earnest, Nadeshiko strained, periodically looking at me.
"You ought to g–"
"You're better at it, you go–"
"Fine," I called back, but the river ate my voice.
I wearily climbed back up the bank and into their company, greeted by their petrified faces.
"I feld like I was going to be sick," I said dully.
Nadeshiko paled. "Let's turn back."
"I'm fine."
She turned around anyway, holding Amu's arm to her side. I was a ghost.
"The future is already uncertain." Nadeshiko glanced at me, as though it was my fault that the war was not yet over. "He's a good man and wouldn't hurt a fly. Isn't that what any woman hopes for?"
Like he would know what women hope for.
"Why add uncertaindy do more uncertaindy?" I said into my fur. I sneezed. "And anyway, id means Ami won'd be able do marry at all."
Sisters married in order of seniority. It was only common sense that the younger should not marry before the elder.
"Rima's right," Amu said frantically, but Nadeshiko only pushed harder.
"Hotori-kun knows eligible men of rank. If anything, he will only improve her chances of marrying up."
"And then," I grit, "He will leave her when she is no longer young and pretty."
"Some men," Nadeshiko's voice constricted. "Prioritise about other things about a woman!"
"Woah!" Amu shouted.
My retort died in my throat. Amu looked from me to Nadeshiko. "This isn't helping! Why are you fighting?"
Nadeshiko never raised her voice with me. My feet urged me to walk. Where would I go? I could hole myself up in my room. But Nadeshiko would return eventually and the atmosphere would be worse than before. I couldn't leave her alone with Amu, not when Amu knew my feelings and lacked the dishonesty to keep them quiet.
A question plagued me. If Nagihiko was in love with Amu as I suspected, why would he want her to go to Hotori? Against my better instincts, I swelled buoyant with hope against the tide.
I stepped back from Nadeshiko, weaving through the grass. My heel hit a stone.
"I allowed my emotions to carry me away," said Nadeshiko, watching the waving sedge at my feet. "Forgive me."
"I will not," I said.
"Rima," Amu warned me for the third time.
"We both want whatever will make Amu-chan happiest," Nagihiko said, not to me, but to a higher ideal. "Isn't that true?"
"I would rather her be miserable now than wasted later. There's more in life than–"
"Enough!" Amu cried. "There's somebody else!"
A winter chill picked up over the silvery hills. Warmth left us in the wake of the setting sun. Nadeshiko's hair danced loose of her scarf, whipping into her mouth. We stood in a triangle, Nadeshiko and I in opposition over the weeping hypotenuse.
Amu pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket and blew her nose, burying her face into it and inhaling. The embroidered strawberries blew against her chin. Above the forest treetops, the moon was rising.
"You didn'd," I said.
Amu didn't say anything, face still hidden.
Nagihiko turned on me, but his arm reached for Amu, rubbing her shoulder.
"Somebody," he said, sounding like a concerned father, "Had better tell me what Mashiro-san is talking about."
Amu was still hiccupping. Her red eyes met mine, begging.
"It wasn't Utau who asked you do leave for Manchukuo," I murmured.
Nagihiko looked at her. Amu nodded in confirmation. A vision of a red dress rippled before me, and a start of realisation. Lovely Amu, pink-cheeked and frazzled, always uncertain.
"Did you ask him," I said meaningfully, "Why he was at the Diplomat's Ball?"
Nadeshiko didn't make a sound, but the squeak of leather on my left indicated that she was likely making a fist.
"He didn't, didn't say. It wasn't for me, he said, um, but— but wait. Wait! Rima, how do you know?" Her round eyes met mine. "Were you there?"
I found Nagihiko's eyes and begged silent forgiveness. His eyebrows furrowed back, chest rising and falling.
"I wend up there to talk to Yaya," I hesitated. How had I not recognised her? Maybe I always had, but shelved it to the back of my mind, too fearful over General Yamabuki. I coughed.
The handkerchief crumpled up in her fist. Amu reddened to an impressive tint of crimson. It had always been more than an embrace, I supposed. Even if I hadn't realised.
"Are you pregnant?" I asked bluntly.
This was the one question I could have asked her that was worse than the previous, if only because she hadn't even considered it. I could practically feel the race to calculate, the re-evaluation of winter colds.
I caught Nagihiko's eye. He nodded, and together we closed the triangle. We would bury the hatchet until someone kicked it up again.
"I don't know. I don't know!" Amu looked at me desperately as though I had the answer. "I didn't think… I thought… I just wasn't… I was so stupid!"
"You'd know by now," said Nadeshiko. I blinked in surprise. "It's been two months."
Her arm vanished behind Amu's back. A cool hand wound its fingers through mine like a lattice, securing me to the earth. Through all my layers of clothes, my heart was galloping faster than Kiseki's legs could dream of taking him.
Then Nadeshiko pulled our interlocked hands to the small of Amu's back, pressing her forward. It would have been perfection if Amu could vaporise. I shoved the black thought back.
I understood the message: so long as Amu needs us, we are a united front. Lying was what we did best.
