by Kayla Morgan
“So. You’re dating?” Emily asked.
“Yup! We just got together this weekend!”
Akio and Emily looked at each other. Finally. Some answers!
“It was so romantic!” Michi swooned. “I was taking a stroll late Saturday night, because I couldn’t sleep.”
Because you screamed at your roommate like a psycho and went around slamming doors.
Not that she was bitter or anything.
“All I wanted was a little late-night snack, but then it started raining! And, of course, I hadn’t brought my umbrella since I hadn’t expected to be out for very long. So I’m running through the street, soaking wet, when I slip in a puddle! And before I hit the ground, Lucas comes from out of nowhere and catches me, pulling me into his embrace, and whispers, ‘Est-ce que ḉa va, beau?’”
The other three blinked.
“Oh right!” Michi continued, realizing none of them rest of them spoke any French. “I mean he asked, ‘Are you okay, beautiful?’. And after that, it’s been nothing but bliss ever since! Right, baby?” She bent back her head so that she could gaze adoringly into Lucas’ face.
Their gushy-lovesick feelings were drowning Emily even though she was on the other side of the table. It was not a pleasant feeling. She did her best not to gag.
Lucas looked like he was confused what Michi had been blathering on about. Michi had mentioned before that Lucas was still being tutored in Japanese on the side.
Although the lessons didn’t seem like they were sticking very well.
Lucas scrunched up his chiseled face in concentration and replied in weak, broken Japanese, “Uh..hai. That is very the best.”
Yikes.
But Michi, on the other hand, just continued to stare lovingly up at him. Akio didn’t look like he was stomaching the whole thing very well either, which made her even more worried about poor Hamada’s heart.
“Well Michi-chan, it sure is nice to have you back,” Akio replied. But he sounded like he believed his statement about as much as Emily felt it. She was glad to see Michi again...but not under circumstances like this.
Lucas bent down and whispered something in French in Michi’s ear. “Oh sorry, babe! Lucas said I forgot to introduce all of you to him! Lucas, these are my friends, Kenzou Akio—”
Akio nodded. “Domo.”
“—Johnson Emily, she’s my roommate from America—”
Emily smiled and let out a not-very-believable “Hajimemashite”.
“—and…Hamada Haruto.”
Hamada bowed slightly in their direction, but never said a word. Never looked up from his tray. His dark-red hair hung down limply, hiding his gaze from everyone else.
Emily cringed. Double yikes.
“And I’ve told you all about Lucas before, but I’m sure you will be getting to know him even better now!”
Despite the fact that he still hadn’t taken in a word of what was being said, Lucas smiled at everyone at the table as if he couldn’t wait to get to know his new best friends.
Emily could wait. She could wait for a good long while.
But no one looked like they wanted to wait more than Hamada, who now looked enviously at the food on his plate, as if he wished he could also be quickly dissolved into blissful nothingness.
The rest of the meal went about as well as Emily expected it to go. It was a constant dance of trying not to stare too deeply at Hamada’s obvious depression or at Michi and Lucas’s sickening love-glances. Luckily, the latter two mostly just talked to each other in French, so the other three were left in much needed silence.
But as the meal wrapped up, Emily knew someone needed to ask the dreaded question on everyone’s mind. She didn’t want to, but she seemed to be the only one with enough courage at the table today. “So Mii-chan,” she offered, “will you and Lucas be joining us for dinner?”
“Unfortunately no! Lucas is taking me out to dinner and a movie tonight! Isn’t that romantic?”
“Mhmm,” Emily half-heartedly replied, “well enjoy yourself!”
Michi thanked them and then said a final goodbye before whisking Lucas off to the rest of their classes.
Emily and Akio both slowly looked over at Hamada.
“Hamada-kun?” Emily whispered.
He looked up from his tray. The pain in his eyes made Emily’s want to instantly fill up with tears, and she detested crying in public. “I really, really don’t want to talk about it.”
And with that, he picked up his tray and left.
Emily settled down on her bed. The stack of manga and drawing books would be plenty of fuel to keep her busy until Michi came home. If lunch was any indication of how the rest of the school year was going to go, she couldn’t just sit back and watch poor Hamada be destroyed like that. She had to talk to Michi.
Tonight.
Even if the thought of confrontation did make her nerves fizzle all over.
Michi finally rolled in around three in the morning. She was still humming to herself, but this time with more of a drunken slur than usual. She blinked at the harsh light of Emily’s bedside lamp.
“Bestie! What are you doing up?” she purred.
“I have to talk to you, Michi.” Emily set down her book and slid off her bed.
Michi stumbled right past her. “Nooo. That sounds like no fun, Emi. I’m just going to get ready for bed.”
Arms crossed, she blocked Michi’s entrance to their bathroom. “No, Michi. We are doing this. Now.”
“Ugh. Fiiiiinnnne. What do you want?” She swiped her disheveled hair out of her face with a hard yet glossy glare.
It made Emily want to run. Hide back under her covers. But she had to do this. For Hamada.
“What the hell is going on with you, Michi? You and Hamada have both completely shut down after whatever happened last week. And then—”
“I told you I don’t want to talk about that!”
“Shut up for a minute!” Emily barked. “I am not done! And then you disappear for like an entire freaking week with no explanation! I was really worried about you! You call me your ‘bestie’, but I am fairly certain that this is not how ‘besties’ are supposed to act. And to top it all off, today you come waltzing in with this giant, brainless buffoon that you claim to be head-over-heels in love with!”
“He’s not brainless!”
Emily scoffed. “He’s been in Japan for almost four months, Michi. He should be able to understand at least basic Japanese!”
“He is a slow learner!” Michi protested. Her arms folded in on themselves so tightly that it looked like she was trying to fold herself in half. “We can’t all be language geniuses like you, Miss Perfect!”
Now Emily was pissed. “That is so not the point here! You’ve been all over my crush on Akio. To the point where you tricked us into going on a first date last weekend! Thanks a whole lot for that fiasco by the way. But you just never happened to mention Lucas to me at all after that initial introduction? And now you’re super in love with him and dating in perfect bliss?”
Michi threw her hands up. “That’s what this comes down to? You’re pissed that I didn’t tell you about Lucas?”
“No.” Emily took a step closer. “What this comes down to is Hamada.”
That got her attention. Michi squirmed away from Emily and she walked to the other side of the room, avoiding any eye contact at all. “What about him?”
“Come on, Michi!” Emily practically growled. “You can’t be that much of an idiot. You’re the one who told me about how guys are always falling for you! Hamada likes you! Really likes you! He’s probably been in love with you all term. You can’t tell me that you didn’t notice. It’s so obvious even I noticed!”
Michi still wasn’t looking at her. Her thin frame looked even smaller in the shadows of the bedside lamp. Emily felt a twinge of guilt. Maybe she had been too hard on her.
But then Michi spun around and the 180 she did on Emily wasn’t just physical. “I don’t know what you expect me
to do about the fact that Hamada went and fell in love with me. That’s not my fault! Hamada can go ahead and be in love with me, but that’s not me. That’s not my plan. I’m not looking for someone to fall in love with. When you love someone, you get hurt. Even if you don’t break up. Even if you have a long and happy marriage, there is always a chance that you’re eventually left without them. And I just can’t live like that.” Tears filled her eyes, and she choked out the words, “I can’t go through it again.”
Dread sucker punched her in the gut. “This is about your mom,” Emily phrased carefully, “isn’t it?”
“You’re not close to your parents, so you have no idea what it’s like. When Mom passed away last year, I promised myself to never be in that position again. To lose someone that you love with all your heart. And...and if you had seen Dad back then.” Michi roughly shoved away some of the tears that had started falling. “I’m not letting that happen to me. And if you considered yourself to be my friend, for even a second, then you would leave me alone about the whole thing and be glad that I’m happy!”
“Are you happy?” Emily asked incredulously. “Really? With him?”
“Yes! I found everything that I was looking for! A no-strings-attached relationship with a guy who happens to be rich and super handsome. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”
Emily shook her head and sat down on her bed. “But you don’t love him. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Michi sat on her own bed. “Yeah, well, it also doesn’t make any sense to dress up as a Japanese woman to hide your insecurities as an artist and lie to everyone around you.”
Emily clutched her heart. “Ouch! Michi! What the hell!”
“Well it doesn’t!”
Her mind tried to wrap around what Michi was going through. This was her coping mechanism, just like Emily had hers. “It still sounds sad,” she finally voiced.
Michi stretched out, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “How can it be sad? I’m happy this way, Emi-chan. I promise. See?” She gave her a huge idiotic grin.
“Baka.” Emily laughed. “You’re only happy because you’re drunk.”
“Tispy! Not drunk. There’s a difference!”
“Whatever, weirdo. I’ll support you since you’re supporting me and all of my issues.”
“You’re welcome for that, by the way,” Michi added, still sprawled out on her bed.
“But under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve got to dial it down in front of Hamada-kun. The poor kid is already broken up over this as it is. He doesn’t need you rubbing it in his face every day. So no being all lovey-dovey with your cuddling and whispering French in each other’s ears. Just act like normal people in front of him, okay? For all of our sakes, honestly.”
“Hai, hai, I got it.”
“And there’s one more thing,” Emily added. Then she stood up and kicked Michi in the shin.
“Itai!” Michi shouted. “What the hell was that for?”
“That,” Emily said with a smirk, “is for tricking me into a first date, you jerk.”
chapter ten
July showed up disgustingly humid. Growing up in the Midwest, Emily was used to the cold, but this oppressive heat made her loathe every second she had to be outside of the blessed air-conditioning. She generally kept her wig on at all times, even in the dorm, in case someone was to pop by unexpectedly. But now, she had to take it off as soon as she reached their room and put it by the air-con to dry until her next unfortunate trek outside.
Summer break was only two weeks away and a feeling of desperation was settling in for everyone. Emily thought she was going to enjoy Japan’s trimester system with its long glorious breaks in between, but now she was pretty sure it was just a way to force even more exams and final projects on students.
The only time they had any stress relief was during their brief meals together on weekdays; their weekends were crammed with more studying, artistic editing (or vocabulary memorization for Michi), and an unfortunate number of instant ramen cups.
So when her grandma’s most recent email was attached with four tickets for a week-long vacation to a natural hot spring in Kyoto, Emily practically cried with gratitude.
She slammed them down on the table at their next dinner together, which was, thankfully, Lucas-free so far. True to her word, Michi and Lucas had been acting nothing but platonic at the table for Hamada’s sake, and Hamada was finally starting to smile again. But Emily was hoping to keep Lucas out of this trip. She wanted a week with just the four of them. The original quartet.
“We, my friends, are going on a trip. Three weeks from now, the four of us will be spending seven days and six nights in a luxury ryokan! There’s even restaurants and lounges with TVs on site! We are finally going to get the relaxation we all deserve!”
Michi snatched up the tickets in excitement. “Oh my god! That’s amazing! I love traditional Japanese inns! And this one has natural hot springs? Where’d you get these?”
Emily leaned back in her chair. “Every once in a while having a wealthy family actually comes in handy. Instead of just giving me the usual childhood trauma.”
“I’ll have to double-check with Obaa-chan to make sure she has Fujioka-san to cover my shifts, since it’s the busy season right now at the inn, but it shouldn’t be a problem,” Akio added. He took the tickets from Michi and gazed at them longingly. “Man, I could really use a break. What days will it be again?”
“We head out the day after the trimester ends.”
“I’ve heard of this place,” Hamada said, reading the tickets he had stolen from Akio. “It’s supposed to be really nice.”
“Yeah, it’s one of the only natural hot springs in Kyoto. Everything I read online said it’s supposed to be amazing,” Emily agreed.
“Oh.” Emily felt Akio’s body freeze.
She looked over at him. “What’s wrong, Akio-kun?” He wasn’t looking at anyone and instead was fidgeting with his plate. Pushing his leftover pieces of hamburger steak around on his plate. Rearranging his napkin over and over.
“Aren’t you excited to finally get me out of the city?” Emily teased. “You’re always ragging on me for not going out enough. Now you can drag me to all kinds of new ‘outdoor’ experiences.” She gave him a playful jab with her elbow, but Akio drew away. His easy Akio smile wasn’t there.
“I’m not going,” he stated with finality.
“What?” Emily didn’t understand. She tried to get a good look at him, but he kept scooting away. “But you just said you would!”
“Yeah, well, I thought we were going to be here in Tokyo! I can’t afford to be that far away from Obaa-chan. Especially not for that long!” he shouted. There was a fierceness in his voice that unnerved her. He continued firing angry excuses. “Plus Hanami-chan will be back at the inn full time since she’s on summer break too, and she’s always breaking stuff and forgetting to change the sheets for the customers. It doesn’t make sense for me to go out of town right now. I need to stay home and take care of everyone while the summer session is in full swing. I’m the oldest. It’s the responsible thing to do. I am not going.”
“But what about Fujioka-san?” Michi pointed out feebly. Even she looked nervous from Akio’s sudden outburst. “You said he could most likely cover for you.”
“I have a responsibility to my family,” he barked back. “My grandmother is not getting any younger, and I can’t take any chances that something will happen while I’m gone.”
Michi shrunk back. “Fine, then,” she mumbled. “You don’t have to get so defensive.”
Emily turned to Hamada, sure he would tell Akio off for being such an ass to Michi, but Hamada was giving Akio a sympathetic look, not an angry one.
“Aren’t you going to—?” Emily began to ask Hamada, but he cut her off.
“He doesn’t have to go if he doesn’t want to.”
“What?” Emily asked incredulously.
“If Akio doesn’t want to go, then we can give his ticket to someone else,” Hamada reasoned with a terrifyingly quiet voice. Like he was some kind of guru trying to bring peace back to the table. “Maybe Lucas?”
Now Hamada was inviting Lucas of all people on this trip? What was going on today?
Michi’s eyes lit up. “Could I, Emi-chan? Please?”
Pissed at the whole situation, Emily threw herself back in chair and sighed heavily. “Fine, whatever. Lucas can come. Since apparently some people feel like being giant unreasonable idiots today.”
She regretted the words as soon as they hit the air. Why would she even say such a horrendous thing to him? But, deep down, a little voice knew why.
She wanted to have a fun week with everyone again. To hang out like old times. Shake off the trimester’s stress. They were going to get to relax together, and go eat new foods, and he and she could have gone sight-seeing again, and… Her heart squeezed with ache. She had just wanted him to come with her. She wanted him there.
But the cold glare he was giving her made her wonder if he’d ever want to go with her anywhere ever again.
Akio shoved away from the table and grabbed his tray. “Fine,” he replied with a terrifying calmness. “If that’s how you feel, then I’ll leave. Then you can have your precious idiot-free zone again.”
Emily stared at his retreating figure. Her emotions were swirling so violently that she couldn’t decide which one was going to win— her petty anger, her confusion about the whole situation, or her creeping guilt.
She stabbed her chopsticks into her bowl at her noodles, but she was so lost in her own head that she missed every time.
It was laughable to think now that she had thought that these final two weeks of school couldn’t get any worse. She was already drowning from the waves of studying and projects she had to finish up. But not having Akio in her life was making things unbearable. She had gotten so used to his positive presence in her life. Now, it felt like the warm light inside of her had been doused in water, and she was left to shiver in the cold realities of life.