Talking Things Out
A few months ago:
"Chapped Lip Jun absolutely rattled me." Sadayo Kawakami said during a school assembly when the student body of Shujin Academy couldn't stop talking about the film 'Chapped Lip Jun', "It's without doubt the scariest thing ever put to film, and just knowing that nuclear annihilation could happen at any given moment just scares me to death. I mean, I have so many regrets."
"Well you've got only so much time to fix them, Kawakami-sama," One of the students said.
"In that case let me start by telling you all what I do for a second job when I'm not here," Kawakami said, taking a deep breath before loudly stating, "I work as a maid for Victoria under the name of Becky! And I'm in love with Yamato Hashimoto!"
"Uh, isn't Yamato Hashimoto one of the janitors here?" Yuuki Mishima was heard asking.
"Yes he is but I don't care!" Kawakami said, feeling emotional, "I'm shouting it as loud as I can! I love you Yamato! Are you out there?"
Everyone remained silent, waiting for some kind of response, but mostly they were just taken aback by how emotional Kawakami had become.
"Okay I guess not," Kawakami said, realizing her crush isn't in the gym, "You're probably unclogging a toilet. Oh well."
Present Day
Sadayo Kawakami remembered that embarrassing moment as though it were only yesterday. While trying to have an assembly to calm the student body of Shujin Academy down after watching the controversial, war propaganda film 'Chapped Lip Jun' (Barefoot Gen), she ended up freaking out and not only confessing about her second job at the Maid Cafe, but she also confessed her crush on the academy's head janitor, Yamato Hashimoto.
Yamato was a kind man about the same age as Kawakami. He was lanky and had a well kept, short beard on his face. That beard, to Kawakami anyway, was the thing about Yamato that she loved the most. Beards to her symbolized masculinity, and she often fantasized about stroking his face and feeling the hairs of his chin caress her palm. Yamato was also a reserved man who never bothered anyone and always kept to himself.
The teacher's crush on the janitor started when she walked into the teacher's lounge to find him cleaning the tables in there. The two of them were the only ones there and when she entered the room, she heard him humming a song by famous 60s rock band, The Where (The Who). She immediately recognized the song as Papa O'Malley (Baba O'Riley), as her father was a huge fan of 60s and 70s rock music, meaning she heard a lot of it growing up, and before either of them knew it they were talking over a pot of coffee and quizzing each other on 60s and 70s music.
The two of them hit it off so well that they ended up attending many concerts held by these bands whenever they'd visit one of Tokyo's clubs or concert halls. It wasn't meant to be anything romantic, but Kawakami found that the more concerts she attended with Yamato, and the more time she spent with him, the harder she was falling for him.
Kawakami liked hanging out with Yamato so much that she organized meet ups with him every Friday for lunch at Cafe Leblanc. There, the two of them would talk and get to know more about each other as people.
Yamato learned that Kawakami became a teacher because her mother was one in the town where she grew up in, Nara. Kawakami looked up to her mother and wanted to follow in her footsteps, so she went to college, studying abroad in New York, and got her teaching degree.
Meanwhile, Kawakami learned that Yamato was a high school dropout who had to dropout to take care of his sick father who he lived with, and his mom died when he was only eight years old. After dropping out, Yamato took up odd jobs around Tokyo to make ends meet and to support his father. After his father died, Yamato moved into an apartment not far from Shujin Academy, and he quickly picked up a job as a janitor for said academy.
Kawakami also learned through these 'lunch dates' that Yamato liked to fish on the weekends to take his mind off the stresses of life, and it was at that point when Kawakami mentioned how her father would take her fishing on the weekends to spend some father-daughter time since he was always working. Yamato mentioned how he and her should go out and go fishing one day. Unfortunately, their lives were so busy that they barely had time to plan something like that.
Throughout their lunches together, however, Kawakami was always reluctant to tell Yamato about her second job as a maid for the service 'Victoria'. She wasn't too sure how he'd react to this news as he's so used to seeing the professional and intelligent side of her rather than the bubbly and 'moe' side of her known as Becky.
Nevertheless, the two of them really enjoyed their time together, and even Sojiro Sakura, Cafe Lebalnc's owner, once admitted to them that they'd make a cute couple.
But after the assembly she held when everyone watched Chapped Lip Jun, she was thinking that there'd be no chance of him and her ever getting together. She too watched the film the night before the disastrous assembly, meaning she was one of many to be disturbed by what it had to offer. So disturbed in fact that she mentioned two things: Her side gig as a maid, and her crush on Yamato Hashimoto.
Her name spread through the halls of Shujin like a wildfire. If they weren't talking about her job as a maid, then they were definitely teasing her about her crush on the lanky custodian. Sometimes when Kawakami is at her maid job, she'd get calls from some of Shujin's students, and it got to the point when the manager of Victoria had to take extra measures to ensure that Kawakami, and by extension other maids, don't get harassed.
This was easily the most embarrassing time of Kawakami's life, but perhaps worst of all, she never had the courage to face Yamato. Naturally, word about her double life as Becky and her crush on him got to him, and he was surprised when he first heard. Ever since that day, whenever Kawakami saw Yamato in the halls of Shujin, she'd just run passed him and cover her face. A few times it looked like Yamato was going to say something to her, but she'd run off before he could get a word in.
Kawakami was worried that she totally burned the bridge with her crush.
Even now, with school out of session for the summer, as she sits in her apartment all alone and sipping on herbal tea, she's lamenting on how she let her fears get the better of her and made her confess her deepest, darkest secrets.
"What the hell was I thinking," Kawakami thought to herself as she took another sip of tea, "Now I ruined probably my one shot at happiness because fear got the best of me."
As she continued feeling sorry for herself and thinking about 'what would've been' between her and Yamato, she heard her cell phone buzz, meaning she got a message. She grabbed it and saw that she had a message from Yamato Hashimoto himself. It read…
Yamato: Meet me at Chiba Port in one hour so we can talk and have that fishing session we've always talked about.
Kawakami was shocked that Yamato still wanted to talk and hang out with her despite everything that had happened. Not wanting to stand him up, and curious to see what he wants, she changes out of her loungewear and into something more presentable, grabs her fishing pole from her closet, and makes her way to Chiba Port.
Upon making it to the port, she found Yamato sitting on the edge of one of the docks and fishing. She walked up to him and took a seat next to him.
"Yamato?" Kawakami asked.
"Hey, Sadayo," Yamato greeted as he cracked a small smile, "Glad you could make it."
"I'm glad you still want to hang out after everything that's happened," Kawakami said as she set up her fishing pole for some fishing.
"Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about that," Yamato said.
"Look, I didn't mean to say all that stuff," Kawakami said, "It was a heat of the moment thing. I was scared and I just blurted it all out."
"It's okay, Sadayo, I'm not mad," Yamato said, "But I am curious as to why you didn't tell me about your second job."
"Look, it's nothing I'm proud of," Kawakami said as she threw her line out into the water, "I'm a part-time teacher at Shujin and I needed to do something else to make ends meet. I heard that Victoria was hiring, and I already keep a nice household, so I thought it would be perfect. But the reason I was hesitant to tell you about my second job was because part of it involved giving my customers massages."
"Uh, by massages, what do you mean?" Yamato said with a blush and a nervous chuckle.
"Don't worry, Yamato, not those kinds of massages," Kawakami said, "Just back rubs and foot rubs. That kind of stuff."
"Oh," Yamato said.
"Anyway, I didn't want to tell you about my maid job because I guess I was embarrassed," Kawakami continued, "You're so used to seeing me as this smart, professional, no-nonsense woman. But when I become 'Becky', I become all cute and bubbly, and I just become a different person. Also, most of Victoria's clients are men and I didn't want you to either get jealous or think I was that kind of woman. But trust me, once I become full-time I'm going to quit my maid job."
"I'm not one to get jealous easily, Sadayo," Yamato said, "And you're not the only one who can flip personalities on a dime."
"What do you mean?" Kawakami asked.
"I mean you know me as this kindhearted and reserved individual," Yamato explained, "But when I go out with my friends, and I get a few drinks in me, I'm the life of the party. Always cracking jokes, singing songs, and just being a social butterfly. What I'm saying is that it's okay to have a different side to your personality, as long as it's not a side that'll be harmful to yourself or others. You shouldn't be embarrassed with who you are. Be comfortable in your own skin, Sadayo. Trust me, you'll be a lot happier if you learn to love yourself and don't shake two shits at what other people think."
"Wow, I never thought you'd be so understanding in regards to my second job," Kawakami said.
"Like I said, it takes a lot for me to get jealous," Yamato said, "And besides, I bet you're a total cutie when you're in that maid outfit of yours."
"Well, I'm not one to brag but…yeah," Kawakami said with a blush on her cheeks.
"But now onto the other thing," Yamato continued, "What you said about your crush on me during that assembly, was it true?"
Kawakami stayed silent as she bit her lip. What does she do now? Does she confess her true feelings for Yamato now, or does she lie about the whole thing? She was considering doing the latter when suddenly she heard her father's voice in her head from when she was a child and had to lie about her accidentally breaking her mother's vase.
"Sadayo, if you tell one lie then you're going to have to use another lie to cover up that lie, and another lie to cover up that lie, and you'll soon be lying so much that you won't even know what the truth is anymore."
Kawakami let out a sigh before talking.
"Yes, Yamato, it's true," Kawakami said, "We just have so much in common and I never thought I'd meet someone who had similar taste in music and fishing as I do. You're also one of the most interesting and nicest people I've ever met. You're the reason I wake up in the morning, and recently, I consider a bad day to be a day where I don't see you. To put it simply, I love you Yamato Hashimoto."
There was a moment of silence as Yamato had a stunned look upon his face.
"It's okay if you don't feel the same way about me, Yamato," Kawakami said, taking his silence for rejection.
As she went back to looking out at the ocean, waiting for a bite to catch onto her line, she heard Yamato say this: "I love you too, Sadayo."
Kawakami's heart skipped a beat when she heard him say that. With excitement slowly building within her, she turned to face the lanky janitor who was looking at her with a warm smile on his face.
"What did you say," Kawakami said in almost joyful disbelief.
"You heard me," Yamato said, "I said that I love you too. You're such a sweetheart as well as someone who has her head on straight, unlike some of the other women I've seen. That said, you're also someone who knows how to have fun. You're someone who knows what she wants in life and walks through life with such grace and poise. You're everything I could ever want in a woman, Sadayo."
"You're not just saying that are you?" Kawakami blushed.
"I had no reason to start lying to you before, so why start now?" Yamato said, "What I'm saying is nothing but the truth."
Kawakami was so happy she could burst into tears.
"What do you say, Sadayo," Yamato asked, "As the kids these days say, do you want to go steady with me?"
"Yes, Yamato, yes!" Sadayo cheered.
The two of them looked into each other's eyes and they were about to share a kiss when Kawakami felt a tug on her fishing line.
"Oh, I got a bite!" Kawakami shouted as stood up and started to reel her fish in, "Oh, it's a big one!"
"Let me help you!" Yamato said as he put his fishing line down, went behind Kawakami, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled with her.
After a while, Kawakami landed a huge trout. When she reeled it in however, both she and Yamato fell over backwards and the fish landed on Kawakami. She held the trout in her arms as she and Yamato got up to look at the fish.
"Nice catch, love," Yamato said.
"Thanks," Kawakami smiled as she put the trout away in a cooler that Yamato bought, "Now, where were we?"
And with that, Kawakami and Yamato shared their first kiss.
It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
