I want to return
from reincarnation's spin covered in dirt and
buds. I want to be unabased, audacious, to gobble
space, to blush deeper each day in the sun, knowing
I'll end up in an eager mouth.
"In my next life let me be a tomato" by Natasha Rao
And the dearest love in all the world
Is waiting somewhere for me.
"The Sweetest Sounds" by Richard Rogers
What were you like when you were a little wilder?
"Wilder Days" by Morgan Wade
Mimi can count on a single hand everyone she's ever loved, and still have fingers left over.
Her father, naturally, takes the list. Doting and affectionate, Keisuke had never allowed her to believe herself less than anything or anyone else in his life, Satoe included. Freelancing helped with the over abundance of time and attention he spent on her, the steadfast attendant of every one of her community plays and ballet rehearsals, shepherding her to countless after school activities with sour candy rounds or chocolate squares or flavored ice always in hand, laboring over homework assignments or binging bad television into the wee hours of the night, single handedly keeping Mimi from the concept of loneliness for as long as he could, so help him G–d.
When work did eat up his time, especially when she was very young, he'd bring her with him more often than not, teaching her all about sound mixing at his recording studio and, when she was still little enough, holding her up to look out the train windows when they'd take their time riding the Yurikamome home. Put her singalong hums and baby giggles on so many remixed background tracks for the rock and metal bands on his roster that Mimi was, in essence, Keisuke's signature sound. The kind of love that's hard to top.
Taichi almost had, and probably still doesn't know it. Mimi won't talk about it with many people, a fairly uncharacteristic response for her. Not exactly embarrassed, because she doesn't much tolerate such base feelings. It's more that it had all been so juvenile, and silly, and weird, her odd, secret infatuation rooted in what in hindsight was likely a latent attachment to the bonds forged in shared childhood trauma, arriving late to the idea that the goofy boy whose mouth landed him in as much trouble as hers had grown into the kind of man you think about a little too long on lonely nights.
She blames this now on the fact that he did occupy a lot of those nights, her most dependable wingman on endless bar crawls, nursing shared drinks while bemoaning their stupid work schedules and the lack of time either of them had for relationships. Somewhere in the middle of all this she caught on to how pretty his warm brown eyes were in dim bar lighting, how safe and secure his large palm felt along the small of her back when he'd usher her ahead on crowded East Village sidewalks, how electric it was to have someone so magnetic and destined for greatness look at you like the looking at you itself was the the best part of his day.
She began wearing tighter skirts and lacier blouses on the worryingly fewer nights they had left to hang out, his foreign service appointment coming to an end soon, but Taichi had only stared back with blank incomprehension when—frustrated by his lack of attention to the fact that she was a grown woman now, with grown talents—she told him to just take her home already or they'd lose their chance to be something more. Didn't speak to him for nearly four weeks after he'd replied that she was a very nice girl and they'd always be friends and also did she really not realize he's basically been out his entire life? So in addition to being a fairly awkward and nonsensical one-sided crush, it also was not her best moment as a friend.
Better moments had been with Michael, who she had loved so much she'd moved in with him after just six months, despite swearing she'd never allow herself to be that kind of girl. She's always liked her independence, and especially liked that Michael'd liked it, too, performing without a hint of begrudging insincerity the role of devoted partner and biggest fan at the opening of her first pop-up shop, and then the second, and then the online retailer. Gave her notes on presentation pitches only when asked, learned her mother's craziest recipes to make for her if a pitch went badly, took care of household chores most days even though he worked two jobs for the majority of their relationship, supremely unthreatened by not being the breadwinner.
Michael made loving him very easy for Mimi, and the ordinary routine that marked their time together seemed not complacent but the sort of sure thing you build a real life around. The relief of being known so thoroughly by another person you also happened to like independently of who they were when they were with you was the kind of rare pleasure she still wishes for all her friends. But she also knew, going in, that what Michael wanted most was to be someone's father. He'd become an uncle and then a godparent twice and then an uncle again in the early course of their relationship, and it kept getting harder to avoid the question. Three years in was the first time they talked it out with real seriousness, the second at five. He never really pushed her, openly guilted her, or asked her to consider his feelings more, but she knew what this was costing him. After eight years, they agreed it was over.
Mimi could have cursed her younger self for leaving her nowhere to go, shared flat full of everything that reminded her of the them she'd given up. Admittedly not acting like herself, she hid in her company's offices the day he moved out, and then checked into a hotel. When Sora found out she hadn't gone home in over two weeks, she dropped everything two whole oceans away and came to see her, a solidly ride-or-die move that had Mimi falling in love all over again, the sort of crash and burn that reminded her of those years in between the others when Sora'd come by her pop-up shop or phone her for hours or send her sweet care packages or linger after a too-long embrace, and leave her wondering what on earth had taken her so long to wake up to her again.
There had been one time, Sora fresh off a breakup of her own with someone practical and kind and real and Mimi's head stuck up in the clouds over some not-real actor or singer or dancer or whoever had been the big thing to fantasize about then, when she'd invited Mimi to her mother's dinner for the Takenouchi school's newest class of apprentices. Dressing up in refined styles well beyond their tastes, playing at being grown ups, giggling until they were crying from laughter in each other's arms on Sora's bedroom floor—Mimi's still sort of disappointed it didn't go further than a handful of eager kisses and curious heavy petting, though they did make out a lot more after that, over the years. A part of Mimi knows she'd always been infatuated with her beguiling, natural elegance shining through a fiery exterior that others, and often Sora herself, didn't always see. Mimi could. It was so obvious, how exceptional she was. There didn't seem to be anything Sora couldn't do.
Well, one thing, maybe, because Sora hated flying, still does, and even so she'd made the sacrifice and got on the plane, that worried and that devoted. The folklore of it all melted Mimi nearly down to the bone, overcome and in wondrous awe of how Sora could so easily whip a heart into frenzy and not even be aware of it, instead spending the first day of their time together just full bodied nauseated from the particularly bad turbulence that had cursed her long haul flight. Mimi cuddled her, rubbed her shoulders and back and ankles all night, cooing little praises and compliments to show her gratitude and admiration, then bought her a pregnancy test from the corner drugstore the next morning. Yamato's own ride-or-die instincts activated after that phone call, flying the same two oceans just to accompany his girlfriend home, holding his protective hands so reverently around Sora's waist as he helped her into their airport taxi that Mimi finally checked out of her hotel room to see if she could face what was left of her life.
Turns out, she could not.
Instead, she sleeps with Jou.
The thing about having sex with a friend is the invisible line it draws irrevocably between you. Sometimes the line is one never to be crossed again, or one you'd wished you had crossed so much earlier. Some lines are very thin, or almost immediately forgotten, and if not then remembered only to laugh it off or accept that you were simply different people at the time; others are thick and unavoidable, tripping you over and over until someone does something about it, either bad or good. Sometimes you draw it a few more times, and sometimes you try your best to undraw it as thoroughly as possible so you can keep the friendship. Sometimes you don't get to keep anything.
There aren't any lines between them, or none she put down herself. As far as she's concerned, she and Jou are a package deal. They'd never gone to the same school, hadn't lived in the same city since they were children, and only have that one oddly shaped circle of friends in common, and even so Mimi simply does not know where she ends and Jou begins. She once told him they've probably been switching off reincarnating into each other's bodies for millennia by now, and he asked her to please watch better television.
He has on some sensible documentary about the darkest nights on earth airing from the living room set now, scenes cut from thermal imaging cameras tracking wildlife roaming moonlit landscapes in saturated silver tones, but neither of them are watching any longer, preoccupied by his mouth pressed right over the warm center of her body as he pulls out the kind of orgasm she truly had no idea she was capable of feeling, much less feel like this, an overwhelming flood of pleasure lighting up every neural pathway and most likely resetting them, too.
This, she convinces herself, is the real reason she bursts into tears after coming on his fingers, not the fact that Michael'd left behind a canned coffee drink in the fridge, and that the lone sight of this solitary monument to what was left of her life had driven her not to self-examination and healthy coping mechanisms but instead right onto the next available aisle seat to where Jou was on fellowship. But Jou, being Jou, still panics at her crying, kneeling between her legs on the living room rug with her back arched over his leather sofa and her ankles hanging off his muscled shoulders, staring frozen up at her as he mentally collapses into spiraling despair for having been the cause of tears he hasn't yet realized are simply the physical response to her breaking apart so good she loses full functionality.
Mimi stirs out of her comedown only when he begins threatening to call Satoe if she doesn't show more signs of life. Senses returning at a snail's pace, she wipes off her tear-streaked cheeks and manages to tell him through a dazed voice that there are, by her current count, far better uses for his mouth than talking to her mother, which predictably goes right over his head, as he protests about how much he likes his twice monthly phone chats with Satoe, and why shouldn't he talk to his best friend's parents, and did her mother say something to her, and how sorry he was for offending, and if he should try to pencil in a visit next time he's in Odaiba to smooth things over. Mimi answers all this by squeezing her thighs along his sideburns to coax him into another round, find something even better to pull out of her next, finish her off for good. Determined to have the heartbreak fucked out of her.
Disappointingly, Jou makes her come only one more time after that, and frustratingly only with his tongue again, because he's scheduled to be on-call for the rest of the night, and in fact for the majority of her spontaneous visit, too. But as she watches him getting changed into his scrubs, comb his hair back, clean his glasses with surgical precision, transforming into his day job of a well-rounded, modestly comfortable, respectable contribution to society, she makes sure she's looking right into his steel grey eyes reflected in the bathroom mirror when she tells him she's going to cancel her return ticket.
"Okay," because the only predictable thing about Mimi's plans is that they change.
She frowns, arms crossed over her towel-wrapped chest, her hair still in a wet twist over her shoulder from their shared shower, which he'd done for her while she returned the favor from their session on the sofa by letting him come down her throat. Only once, though, because she actually doesn't enjoy giving head all that much, and, knowing this, he's always been considerate enough to make it quick. The last gentleman of his generation, most likely. "Do you not want me to stay?"
"Well, I think you should do what you need to do." A prudent response, if a little stiffly delivered, like he knows that the things she needs to do at the moment would most surely make him late to work. Jou likes to be helpful, but not always to his detriment.
Mimi trails after him out of the bathroom, the bedroom, the living room, and finally to the front door. "I think I need a break."
Jou smiles then, nodding at her. "Take a break. You deserve that." If they both know this isn't exactly true, neither of them give it away. Or maybe he really does believe this, has no reason to think otherwise. As honest as they'd always been with each other, she keeps certain things in the dark, knows he does, too. There should be a healthy sense of mystery in every meaningful friendship. In theirs, though, she's always felt he's kept his cards closer.
Pulls herself up on her toes to kiss his cheek. He smells like eucalyptus and sandalwood, the body wash she'd bought him as a gift once when they were much younger, and he'd used ever since. "See you in the morning."
"Get some rest," like he's giving her a prescription, doctor's orders. Closes the door as she waves, then opens it again to her still staring at the place he'd been. Fixes her the sternest warning, because he means business now. "And don't eat my prawn crisps."
Mimi dries off, puts on the emerald green Fleur du Mal ouvert thong she's mildly touched he's held onto after all this time and one of his old medical school sweatshirts that falls nearly down to her knees, then settles back on the sofa with the duvet she'd dragged off his bed and his largest mixing bowl filled to the brim with salted popcorn, chocolate-covered peanuts, and the entire bag of prawn crisps. She sends off a few work emails off her phone, then tries to watch some more of the nature-at-night documentary, but finds the idea that the world actually does simply roll along its merry way while she's sleeping too disturbing to comprehend.
It's not that she's so self-centered as to believe this shared reality can't continue to exist outside of her awareness of it, her empathetic triggers too fine tuned for intentional self-absorption. It's more that admitting as much means that there are things Michael's doing somewhere on this spinning rock now, too, with someone who isn't her, and she has no way of knowing what, or when, or how often. That she's not supposed to know anymore. It doesn't make any sense to her. How do you unknow someone after eight years?
Lowering the volume on the television set, she uses Jou's programmed voice commands to ask Google how long it takes for the body's skin cells to half-life someone else's touch out of them, but of course it's not a rational enough question for the AI search engine. Tells Google to call Koushiro from Jou's home phone so she can ask him instead, and smiles big when he picks up on the first ring. "You don't answer me this fast."
His sigh of defeat is like music to her ears. "Hello, Mimi. How can I help you?"
"Do skin cells have half lives?"
"A lot of things have a half life."
"What's mine?" Fishes out a handful of the salted popcorn, arranges them in a line by most to least weirdest shape on the empty sofa cushion beside her, disregarding the crumbs.
"Your half life?"
"My skin's." Her turn to sigh. "Like, how long do I have to carry him around on me?"
Koushiro takes a long time to answer. "Michael, or Jou?"
Mimi snorts, amused even in spite of her souring mood. "I'm never off Jou."
"Mm." Neither approval or disapproval, more just the acceptance of a fundamental law of nature. "Your next life to swap bodies into and all."
"So you do listen to me!" Beaming with pride, how quickly he's grown up.
"I wasn't aware choice was involved."
Mimi does laugh at that. "I'll keep going until you answer."
"It would take a couple weeks for skin cells to cycle off, at your age."
"Rude."
"We're the same age."
"What have I told you about negative self-talk?"
"I'm comfortable with our age."
She hisses then. "Why are you so aggravating?"
And because he knows she's not behaving quite like herself, he doesn't let her get away with it. Stays right on point. "I'm sorry about Michael."
She shrinks a bit. Disarmed, as intended. "Why would you be sorry, Kou?" Mumbles this into the collar of Jou's sweatshirt, shoulders pinching together as she slouches into herself. The smallest fetal ball. "Everything has a half life."
"Not everything."
She loosens her body after a while, popcorn spilling off the sofa and onto the floor. Ignores the mess, rolls onto her side, staring at the television screen. By now in the documentary, an ocelot has crawled its way up a large tree, hunting an innocent little snakebird, sinking her teeth right into his neck. Mimi feels oddly seen, and awfully alone.
"You know," says Koushiro, with some hesitancy, "you don't always have to run this one direction. We're your friends, too."
Her laugh is a little watery, but she only sounds like she's about to cry, gathering herself up. "Well, there are a few things this direction that are a bit hard to find anywhere else."
"Please—no details." Exhales low over her giggling. Then pauses, thoughtful. "Though that explains a lot."
"Like?"
"He told Takeru he'd met someone, this doctoral candidate, I think. Not the same department, but same university. Maybe it didn't work out." Never seems to the thing he implies, and the thing she hears, for perhaps the first time.
She sits up. Counts back. Stunned. "Oh."
"Takeru said it sounded like he really liked her, but, you know…," and trails off, like he's just then realizing what he's saying, its impact.
"Know what?" Blinks ahead into the empty flat, slowly at first, and then quite quickly.
"You."
Mimi doesn't have a single thought for almost a full minute. Koushiro appears to have about a thousand.
He admits in a very small voice, "I may have spoken out of turn."
She takes a larger breath than is needed, almost chokes on it. "Kou, I'm going to hang up now."
Under normal circumstances, the audible relief in his voice would have made her snort again. "Sure. Yeah."
"Koushiro." Looking at the closed front door, at the place he'd been. "Me?"
There is no hesitation then. A fundamental law of nature. "You."
She sits with her back pinstraight and legs together on the edge of the sofa cushion, fisted palms resting on her knees, and tries to think this through.
The time she and Michael'd had a trial separation, the conflict in the different visions they had of their future hitting what in hindsight had been the beginning of the end. Jou had been away at a colleague's wedding, met her on his doorstep hours after her call, kept his own personal phone (the hospital's beeper always active) off all night. He'd told her the next morning, tangled with her in his sheets on his bedroom floor, she owe'd it to herself to give it one more try, that there was always a solution to be found, a path forward to take.
The time well before she and Michael had started dating exclusively, and she'd fussed about their differences in experiences and cultures and backgrounds, and Jou'd actually refused to turn back on the rabbit vibrator he'd been deliciously both holding against her clit and pressing up all the way inside her until she promised she wouldn't doubt herself or who she deserved, ever again.
The time after he'd had her bent over the company desk at her private offices, and she finally confessed the truth about why she kept ducking Taichi's friendly calls and concerned messages ("How did you know he was out before I did?" "Because he's been sending me Valentine's Day chocolates for years." "He's never made me Valentine's chocolates!" "I think that's why we're having this conversation.") and advised her to get over herself already or she'd lose her chance to patch things up for good.
And the times even before that, her first and since. All the things he'd taught her about her body and her heart, over the years. How he always seemed to be there, or willing to be, leaving things and names behind him. How she let him, running after love in all the real places, wondering when it'd be her turn. His honest smile when he'd reassure her. Soon. It'll be your turn soon.
Mimi uncurls both hands on her knees, fingertips running over the hem of his faded sweatshirt. Guilt isn't the right word for the thing welling up in her chest, but neither is remorse. He'd never been off her.
Trying to stay the rising emotional tide, she jumps to work, starting with the crumby spoils she'd left around the sofa and the living room rug, then digging out the foil packet from the kitchen bin so she can pick out every last one of the prawn crisps from the mixing bowl to put back in the pantry. Runs the vacuum, then the feather duster, then the disinfectant wipes over every surface. Makes sure the home he's always kept open to her is as it was before she'd arrived with all her messy baggage.
The difference is stark, and that thing in her chest wells all the way up past her throat now, looking at how pristine his life is supposed to be. He'd always been so tidy, neat and organized. Kind and dependable, if a bit easy to fluster. A fixed and orderly presence, this rooted constant to her life. What she'd follow as a guide home the day all the stars finally give out, at the world's end.
She shouldn't be doing this to him. She's taken too much.
Calculating how quickly she can rebook a new flight, make her escape before she makes it worse, she has the sweatshirt halfway off her body, head disappeared under the collared neckline, when the door taps open, and she freezes. Remembers the crotchless panties she's wearing when it's too late, luck run out.
"Are you leaving?" Asks her this after needing to clear his throat a couple of times. She'd always looked good in emerald green.
Mimi drops the sweatshirt back down, lets it swallow her up to just above the knee. Has a funny expression on his face, staring at the oversized look of his clothes on her. He's still in his scrubs, the white coat a new if wrinkly addition, like he'd come straight from the campus hospital on one of his mandated breaks, which he had. Carries a plastic bag from the corner bodega in the hand not still wrapped around the doorknob, standing in the entranceway.
She glances at the bag, and he follows her pointed look, a little dazed. "Is that for me?"
Jou opens the handles, drawing out a brand new foil packet. She recognizes the orange color of the brand's signature prawn crisps line of snacks just before her eyes start to blur, fresh tears. "So you don't eat all of m—wait, why are you crying again?" Ready to throw up his hands, admit defeat. Is well known for being able to keep up with her credible weirdness with more success than most, among their friends, but then there are times like these. "What am I getting wrong here?"
"Nothing!" Which highlights the problem all the more.
Turns away, but then he's out of his shoes, bag hitting the hardwood floor in a soft thump, holding her by the wrist. "Tell me what's wrong—I can fix it if you tell me—,"
"Jou," choking over his name, making him even more alarmed, "I'm—I'm the thing—,"
"What thing?"
Crushed in his embrace, which he makes as tight as possible, and then even tighter. Her back to his chest, the top of her head only reaching to his collarbone, temple squished into the physician's badge pinned to the front pocket of his white coat. Hiccups through the jumbled up words, "I think, I think I'm the—I'm holding you back."
He still can't see the problem. Nothing's ever had a more obvious answer. "So then hold me back."
"All our lives?" It shouldn't be this way. It doesn't seem fair.
Jou dips his chin a little, after a pause. His lips to the back of her head, this soft, chaste kiss, so she knows he means it. Not that he'd meant any of the others any less. He's just waited a very long time to mean this one a tiny bit more. "What other life is there?" That I'd ever choose over this the thing he doesn't say aloud, and the thing she hears.
She pulls away, and he lowers his arms. Turns to look at him. Her eyes are still wet, but they're also wide open, because Mimi can count on a single hand everyone she has ever loved, and still have just one finger left over.
He's been studying her in concern, catching onto the slight quiver in her knees, the curled fists she makes at her sides, how deeply she's breathing. "I think you should get some rest."
Mimi lets out a sigh. They'd have to talk about this tomorrow, and the days after. She'd have to sit with this feeling, these dawning realizations. Time would be required, forgiveness sought and not always granted, and not just from each other. An honest accounting of the years they'd circled around one another, and the lines they'd crossed, getting to here. It would not be easy. Neither might it last. He could leave her, too. She could fall out of love. Not everything has a half life.
She holds out her hand. "So then put me to bed."
When he's inside of her it's nothing at all like fullness, or being complete. Mimi doesn't carry around emptiness, waiting for a lover to fill her out into wholeness. If anything, she's been too much all her life. Too flighty, too emotional, too blunt, too loud, too energetic, too needy, too cheerful, too impatient, too empathetic. Overabundant in every manner, jouissance. It's why she gives so much of herself away, to anyone who'll ask and to the ones who hadn't, alike. No, when Jou rolls his hips into hers, one hand anchored over the top of her splayed right thigh, the other under her left knee, stretching her open to lengthen his reach through to the tight warm core of her body, hitting the deepest parts, her nails tearing little half-moons into the skin of his broad back, making pleasurable noises she can't remember ever making with anyone else, hanging his forehead off of hers in base surrender when he comes inside her, not holding a thing back—all Mimi knows is peace, which is how you know the good thing that's finally on its way to you is real, and soon.
He gives himself a minute to catch his breath, muttering a little shyly into the slender column of her neck some apology about his shift break being over, due back until the next, and would she please wait for him until then.
She doesn't know how else to say it, wrapped all the way around and beneath him, stubbornly tightening her grip on his waist when he tries to pull out, softening inside her. "No, not yet."
"Be reasonable," like he's forgotten for a moment who he's speaking to.
"Just another minute." A post-orgasmic clarity that brings only bright, true things into reality. She feels like being too much, because he's always let her. "I deserve another minute with my last finger."
That's what does it. Jou lifts himself onto an elbow, stares down at her, searching for the second head she surely must have grown when he was too lost in the temporary haze of his comedown. "What?"
Giggling, Mimi just presses her lips to the hollow beneath his collarbone, and he squirms, ticklish, finally rolling off. She doesn't let him get far, pouncing in delight at his exasperated sigh, spreading herself across every inch of him until he gives up, sneezing on her when her hair curls around his nose. She doesn't wipe it off, which tells him she's surely crazy, but also makes him a little weak in the head, the idea that he might be worth her crazy, might even like it too much. Holds back a contented sigh when she trails her fingertips over his skin, always in need of contact. Tethered.
It'd be romantic if she didn't open her mouth, or reach down right then to pat at his crotch. "Remember, I get this body in our next life, so take good care of it for me."
"You're so weird," groaning as he tries to push her off, instant regret. Laughing, she cuddles too tight, latching onto him with every one of her fingers and toes.