CHAPTER EIGHT: THE EVERLASTING SIGN
Disclaimer: References to "The Things You Are to Me" and "The Secret Garden" are intended for entertainment only. I am not making any profit from the references. All rights to "The Things You Are to Me" and its lyrics belong to Rolf Loveland and Brendan Graham.
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The thick, obnoxious scent of shrine incense hung in the air.
Akane and Nabiki stood side by side, dressed in traditional formal attire, in the heat of the early August sun. Akane wore a pink silk kimono patterned with purple irises and white sakura complimented by a deep royal blue obi. Nabiki's kimono was equally striking with its royal blue silk body adorned with soft pink orchids and a vibrant fuschia obi.
In unison, the sisters clapped their hands three times, bowed their heads, and prayed in silence — or at least Akane did. Nabiki, for her part, simply went through the old outward motions their mother had taught them. She was here merely to humor Akane, who had asked for her sister's company when she went to make her formal offering for good luck.
"Please, Oneechan," Akane entreatied when she called Nabiki earlier in the week. "I don't think anyone else would go with me if I asked."
"Anyone else," of course, meant Kasumi and their father. After the engagement ended, a fragile truce of resigned civility had eventually been established between the two camps in their family. Akane was probably right though. Asking Kasumi or their father still seemed a little far-fetched.
"I think Mom would be happy if we went together," Akane added, acknowledging Nabiki's bitter disdain for the very Providence which had taken their mother from them. Predictably, however, Akane's clever invocation of their mother's memory crushed the last remnants of Nabiki's will to resist.
Now, however, the old adage about no good deed ever going unpunished replayed repeatedly in Nabiki's head as she stood beside her sister on the temple grounds.
As a concession, Akane proposed going to Ōtori Jinja. She did not mean the famous grand shrine in Asakusa with the same name, but rather the small, humble one in Meguro that happened to be walking distance from Komaba.
However, Akane still insisted on being completely formal about everything. Consequently, Nabiki ended up coerced to desiccate out into her beautified bondage wrap while fighting not to break down in a fit of coughs as she endured inhaling the cloud of potential carcinogens swirling around her.
The way even modern formal kimonos still inherently restricted movement, leaving a girl looking like a helpless flower, grated heavily on her nerves. Even owning a kimono had been a bitter, begrudging concession to the pragmatic realization that there were still occasions when an ambitious girl wanting to advance her own agendas could not escape wearing one, even in 21st century Japan. She rued the day she had made the mistake of casually complaining to Akane about needing to own such a piece of clothing.
"Thank you, Oneechan. It… it means a lot to me that you're here to believe in me," Akane said after she finished praying, cutting into Nabiki's thoughts. Gratefully, Akane wrapped her arms around Nabiki and buried her tear-streaked face in the sleeve of the older girl's kimono.
Sheepishly, Nabiki felt the balloon of rage within her pop as she saw her sister's misty eyes. Outwardly, however, she simply gave Akane a curt nod of acknowledgement and, in clipped, restrained staccato tones reiterated her confidence in Akane and that their mother would have been proud. She did not have much more she could say without lying.
Well, maybe she had one other thing.
Everyone in the know understood that Ranma would not come tonight for Akane's sendoff party or even to Narita tomorrow — nor should he. However, he had given Nabiki one final message to convey to Akane.
"He also wishes you well."
Akane and Ranma, despite the end of their engagement, remained on surprisingly friendly terms. Akane made no secret of the fact that he remained important to her and that still seeing him around from time to time made her happy. Hearing about the new things he had been up to put her mind at ease.
At the start of Summer, he began teaching martial arts classes at various gyms around Setagaya and in neighboring Suginami ward as well as Meguro. He also took a job at a coffee shop near one of the Suginami gyms, which happened to be in the neighborhood around the Asagaya College of Art and Design. She went to see him there once. He made her a decent latte with some surprisingly good latte art.
He mentioned that he had recently started to explore the art of manga sketching, much to Akane's surprise. She did not quite grasp his explanation for this new hobby, other than his mention that he had been spending time with art students from the college. Nevertheless, he appeared content. Akane asked if she could read one of his manga stories someday, which seemed to make both of them happy.
"Thank you," Akane told her sister. "For helping Ranma to understand. For being his friend."
"Of course." Nabiki replied with a smirk. "Don't worry. I've already added it to your tab."
Akane chuckled knowingly before turning serious again. "I'll miss you, Oneechan. Please check up on him every now and then."
After a brief detour to Komaba to liberate themselves of their kimonos, the sisters rendezvoused with a small group of friends at a karaoke hall located on the outskirts of Nerima and Setagaya. Yuka and Sayuri came as did Daisuke and Hiroshi. A few other recent Furinkan graduates from Akane's class, but whose names Nabiki never bothered to learn, also came.
For Akane and Nabiki, karaoke invoked especially warm and special feelings, being one of the few activities they had regularly done together with Kasumi as kids, at least before Ranma entered their lives. Akane had always been the best among the sisters. On a stage, she exuded a confident, graceful air that was strikingly antithetical to her usual clumsiness and the notoriously short temper she so routinely flashed to mask her sensitive insecurities. Her singing voice was exceptionally beautiful, and she possessed a surprisingly intuitive sense of how to use lighting to her advantage.
Tonight, however, she was simply and utterly sublime.
Nabiki found herself mesmerized, almost even happy for the first time in a long time. Proudly, she mused to herself that her sister truly deserved her chance to grow and shine in a place like New York. For a moment, Nabiki too felt transported to a different time and place entirely unrelated to the secret mess that her life had become since the day she saw "Im Blau" again in Chiyoda.
That was at least until Akane sang that song. It was a mysterious, sonorous ballad in English that talked about the sky as if it were a painting hung out to dry, an image of such a grand design that it would serve as an everlasting sign of all things that a man meant to a woman in… well, a woman with a head messed up by those types of feelings.
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Do ya believe in love?
Here I am losing beauty sleep on a Sunday morning over buttered toast, sunny side up eggs, and bacon trying to sort out your relationship with your fiancée. What do you think?
I think the truth is that ya like sunny side up eggs too when no one else is lookin'. Just like fried chicken….
Asshole.
By now, Nabiki realized that taking Ranma on as a student had been a mistake. She remained adamant with herself, however, that none of this had anything to do with her secret, long-standing attraction to him. For Nabiki, her ability to keep her head high and avoid the baggage of emotional entanglements had always been a point of pride.
Definitely, she found him pleasing to her eyes. She always had ever since she first saw him standing with his father in their genkan when she was just seventeen. She even daydreamed more than once about being held in his arms and how it might feel to have him inside of her.
Nabiki had never felt guilty or ashamed of those desires. Biology was a truth unto itself, and refusing to admit otherwise was simply a waste of time. From the gossip mill around Furinkan, Nabiki was keenly aware that many other girls thought those kinds of things about him too.
In her case, however, she had the advantage of being able to placate her conscience with the knowledge that he was off-limits by definition anyway. That he seemed a little on the dumb side for her tastes had also served as an extra guardrail for quashing the worm trying to work its way into her teenage head.
Now at the age of twenty, however, unfamiliar, nameless emotions crept past her defenses and began messing with her mind. These strange new feelings lacked any of the rosy tint of innocent, lustful teenage curiosity and were far more minascious. To make things worse, those guardrails that she had always relied on in the past, having proved utterly illusory, were no longer there. Before she knew, she found herself helplessly transformed into a confused, fucked up girl whom she could no longer recognize.
Of course, she kept this mess to herself, taking excessive pains to preserve an outward illusion of normalcy around everyone — Kozue, her other friends, the children, and especially Ranma and Akane. They would not understand, and the humiliation would have been unbearable. She could not imagine her reputation ever recovering. Even if his relationship with Akane had officially ended, the shit running through her head still felt weird regardless. More than that, she really did not have time at this point in her life to waste on the stupidity of entanglements like a relationship, especially with someone as much of a chaos magnet as Ranma. Like she said that night over sunny side up eggs, she was going places, and her life was far too busy for that sort of thing — with anyone.
After that day in Chiyoda, the strange mental malaise that had plagued her after creating the water color based on her hand and Ranma's touching over her hand mirror disappeared seemingly overnight. Her muse returned, suddenly speaking to her about rich, inspired lines and bold colors about everything, everywhere.
Between classes, studying, and the rest of her life, Nabiki struggled to keep track of her ideas. She quickly found herself starting more projects than she could finish. Even then, she still created things at a breakneck pace, averaging a painting and a handful of sketches every week for quite a while.
Maybe Ranma's sudden and unexpected desire to learn from her acted as some sort of catalyst for this passionate creative Renaissance, or maybe the two were coincidental and unrelated. She could not tell. Regardless, he began meeting up with her on weekends, usually in Meguro. They would go to coffee shops or pick a spot off the tree-lined walk alongside the canal or at one of the numerous parks in the neighborhood. Sometimes, they also met in Setagaya on afternoons when she went to the Komei School.
Just before Tanabata, she began experimenting with manga-like sketches. Originally, she had been trying to find a way to explain the Star Festival myth to Daigoro, Kumi, Takashi, and William. She casually disclosed the new project to Ranma one day during one of their sessions. He seemed genuinely taken by the idea of telling stories through art. He asked her to teach him this too.
"Pretty neat," he said, handling her unfinished sketch of Ori-Hime and Hiko-Boshi with care, as if it were a precious item. The drawing depicted the two celestial lovers reaching out to each other with their hands touching.
"Why?" she asked, knitting her brows with suspicious curiosity.
"Why what?"
"Why the sudden interest?"
"In?"
"Manga? Telling stories?"
He shrugged and leaned back in his chair as he studied her. "People around me seem to have stories written on their faces worth tellin'. Like my students at the gym or the customers comin' in and outta the coffee shop where I started workin'. Especially people at the shop."
"Hmm," she smirked. "Didn't think you noticed or cared about such things."
"Sure I do. Always have. I already told ya that I just didn't wanna let on before that I do. How do ya think I always win my fights? Musubetsu Kakutou-Ryu's built around takin' anything ya can see and hear and runnin' with it."
Cocky ass.
"Ya also see the world that way, right?" he asked, drawing her out of her thoughts. "Having, not having – same basic idea."
He had a point.
However, much as she enjoyed having Ranma open up to her lately, people like him still needed to be cut down to size every now and then. He seemed a little too intelligent nowadays. A mischievous inspiration suddenly struck her.
"What kind of story do you see on my face?"
"Lookin' for a reason to kill me?" he chuckled.
"I'm not my sister."
"Definitely not. You're the dangerous one."
"Good that we remain clear about that."
They shared knowing grins as the anticipation of what was to come filled the silence. However, Nabiki's impatience grew as she realized that maybe he was hoping she would forget or change her mind. She would make him pay for that.
"Well?" she prodded sweetly, demurely batting her lashes at him while coyly framing her hair and face with her hands. "Or are you too scared of a dangerous little girl like me to say what you really think?"
He squirmed and averted his eyes. "Can ya… can ya stop that? If ya don't think ya can teach me, it's okay. I ain't gonna hold it against ya."
She broke character and laughed, impressed by his little verbal parry. "Not bad, Saotome. I never said I wouldn't teach you. I just want an equitable transaction. Give me something to take to the bank."
"I… I thought I just did."
She frowned and gave him a dismissive wave of her left hand. "Now you're just being stingy. We can barely make a scene out of that. If you want a story, we need something real to work with."
"Fine," he said after mulling something over in his head for a moment. "I'm thinkin' 'bout that stuff ya said 'bout light and all the first time we sat down like this."
She told him that everything a composition made a viewer experience was because of what the light revealed. Colors, lines, shadows, and even Time itself — all of that was defined by when and where the light was. For that reason, he had to first understand the fundamental principles of light before he could create, much less see, anything.
"What about it?"
Of course, she genuinely believed what she told him, and yet something about where he might go with this now suddenly made her feel self-conscious. After all, though she would never admit so to him, she had never seriously tried to teach anything to anyone before other than children. She could not stomach the idea of looking and sounding dumb in front of him of all people.
"Whatcha said's actually a lot like one of the basic lessons of the Art. Maybe the best way to think of it is one of those final fight scenes in old Kurosawa movies. The black and white ones where the guy who gets the sun behind 'im gets the kill, and the one facing the sun gets killed."
She laughed, finally thinking she understood. "You're trying to decide which one of us is which here?"
The smug, confident grin that appeared on his lips caught her off guard. "Naw. I know which one I am. I think you're the one wonderin'."
She frowned. "And?"
"Well, that's my answer to the question ya asked: the story on your face. But like I said, if ya don't think yer good enough to teach me – "
"Fine," Nabiki grumbled, offhandedly wishing to herself that he could go back to being the old dumb, vacuous Ranma of old.
Of course, however, she did not really mean that. Inside, she was beside herself with intrigue over the idea that their arts might share other basic principles, particularly ones related to motion and perspective. Sketching had made her a rather serious long-time student of human anatomy and biomechanics. She would never be a martial artist, but she was still athletic enough in her own right to appreciate the human body's potential as a piece of engineering.
Back when she had still been a student at Furinkan, the attention she had paid to Ranma's fights had been strictly pragmatic and limited only to business. Out of respect for her sister, that had been all Nabiki could allow herself in good conscience. Running betting pools based on his skills became an easy, reliable way to raise money for real agendas like the things she did with the kids in Class 1F.
Now, however, she suddenly found herself unencumbered in her desire to understand more than the difference between who lost or won and the bottom line for her ledger. No frivolous, distracting psychological mind games from hopeless, loud-mouthed opponents. No noisy crowds of spectators. No agendas of profit or narcissistic bravado.
She just wanted to see.
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"Can you show me?" she asked one day.
"Show ya?"
"Yeah. You've been watching me do my thing for some time now. I'd like to see you do yours. Can I watch you practice one day?"
He told her to meet him at a small park up the street from the Komei School later that week after her afternoon session with the kids from Class 1F. As Ranma effortlessly danced through kata after kata, he transformed into an incredible precision-crafted machine. Nabiki found herself mesmerized by his sublime concert of passion, power, speed, and steely-eyed purpose. All that she had been so proud of capturing that time over her hand mirror had just been a sad tease of what now inundated her senses.
The chiseled lines of every flawless moving muscle and tendon in his bare hands, arms, shoulders, and torso sent icy, bone-piercing shivers down her spine and took her breath away. Every single part of his body moved in precise harmony with every other part — a surreal living expression of biological engineering perfection. Such things just should not have been possible in flesh and blood, and no human being had a right to look that beautiful.
This revelation stirred something terrifyingly deep and primal within Nabiki that she never thought possible. His company became a dangerous, self-destructive addiction — that illicit, agonizing secret from which she had been seeking refuge that day when she let Akane drag her to Otori-Jinja. Over and over, Nabiki's haunted mind returned with the sadomasochistic obsession of a guilty criminal to that day in the park and the insufferable agony of the beauty he had revealed to her. She could not sleep, and when she did, she would find herself overcome in dreams of those terrible shivers once again shooting down her spine and the air being sucked out of her lungs.
She knew that she had to step back and find a way to put some distance between herself and Ranma for a while. Her sanity depended on it.
Yet, she could not stop meeting him, studying him, teaching him, watching him grow and reveal ever more bits and pieces of the mystery of himself to her. So, she tried to be mean to him, abusing him with harsh beratements, seeking a justification to be disappointed in him. Even she felt bad about how she treated him.
She should have known, however, that he would simply view her verbal abuse as a part of hard, honest training. After all, that was how his father had taught him. Ranma even seemed to delight in the harsh treatment. He invariably rose to each and every single one of her challenges without complaint, often even exceeding her expectations.
Damn him!
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Na-chan….
She found herself lying face down on a soft, cool surface. A rude breeze rushed over her back, a violation that left her confused and shivering in the darkness. Instinctively, she drew her legs up and curled up into a ball to try to protect herself and keep warm. As she felt the cool skin over her knee caps pressing up against her nipples, however, the horrified realization that she was naked set in. For the first time in a while, she could feel the ghost of the old scar that remained over her left breast itching again.
Na-chan….
She bolted upright and frantically tried to take in her surroundings. A large blood-red moon loomed above in a starless night sky. In the dim infernal light, she made out herself sitting in the middle of a vast field of unmoving wraith-like shadows, countless numbers of them in every direction for as far as her eyes could see. They began to move. At first, she thought that maybe she imagined it. Slowly, however, they began to assemble, trapping her in an ominous, menacing circle.
"Mom!" she screamed into the darkness. "Where are you?!"
You're still far too cynical and rational for your own good….
"Goddammit, Mom! It's not like this is Hamlet or some shit like that! I already said I was sorry! Stop playing around and help me!"
A warm, reassuring breeze suddenly whipped up the air around Nabiki and embraced her. Now, the threatening horde moving in on her was nowhere to be seen. Only the truly bizarre nothingness of a strange Netherworld remained, neither devoid nor filled with anything other than herself and the otherworldly voice in her head.
It's your dream, not mine. You can wake up any time….
Nabiki gave a derisive snort. "You've got to be kidding. If this were really up to me, I definitely wouldn't show up like this!" she shot back, gesturing angrily at her naked body.
Gentle, amused laughter rang out in reply in the ears of Nabiki's mind. Her mother had always had a certain infuriatingly tongue-in-cheek way of teaching things. As a child, Nabiki had derived no small amount of entertainment from watching her mother in action, especially since most of those barbs had been directed at one specific sister who happened to be generally more openly defiant and stubborn than the others. Being on the receiving end of that merciless wit, however, really sucked.
Even you like sunny side up eggs and fried chicken when you think no one's looking…. Oh, canned beers too…?
"DAMMIT, MOM!"
Nabiki woke up in a cold sweat, her pounding heart racing in her ears. She looked down at her body and breathed a sigh of relief at the welcome sight of her familiar blue cotton pajamas. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she also made out the reassuring silhouettes of her desk and chair across from her bed. However, as if to have the last word, a cool breeze swept in, reminding Nabiki that she had forgotten to close the window earlier before drifting off to sleep.
"What do you want from me?!" she bit out in English.
It must be wonderful to feel hands like that on your body. Besides, the road to Hell is more colorful and interesting anyway, isn't it?
Little sinister Heathen you...
No way. No fucking way.
"DAMMIT!" Nabiki screamed as she buried her head under a pillow. "DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT!"