by Tria, Jay E.
“Yep. Definitely needs a rewrite. Do you love me?” Jill repeated, his voice and raw lyrics echoing in her ears.
“I close my eyes and it’s your face I see/You say you love me in this good dream.” Kim stopped singing, a frown between his eyebrows. “I’m trying to work to a chorus with ‘I love you forever’ stuck in there somewhere but I can’t seem to get it in there without sounding cheesy. Maybe after breakfast.”
“That will do for now.”
Jill pushed her body against his, his bare skin warm and welcoming. She closed her eyes, taking her turn to start a scene with a kiss.
Awake
Early morning the sun is streaming
Tear my pillows, mess up my sheets
Whisper questions you know the answer to
You spin to fill the space in between
When my world spins out of line
Making up seems hard to do
Early evening, your tears are falling
But I promise to return to you
Someday I will find my way to you
I close my eyes and it’s your face I see
You say you love me in this good dream
Your breath on my ear pulls me out of sleep
And it’s a good way to start the morning (Kim, unfinished)
May 11, Monday, midnight
Jill ran down the stairs, two steps at a time. She turned around to see Shinta easily behind her. He gave her a small secret smile, his long fingers landing on her shoulders, sparking shivers down her arms. They landed on the last step together.
Kim was standing alone on the landing.
“Can we talk?” he said to Jill, his eyes darting to Shinta beside her. “In private.”
Shinta returned Kim’s gaze with a small nod. “That would be a challenge in this racket, but try the ground floor terrace. Should be a good spot.”
He pointed to the terrace through the glass doors, just below where Shinta’s own terrace upstairs would be. Shinta gave Jill’s shoulder a small squeeze, smiled, and was gone.
Jill led the way through the crowd, pushed the glass doors open and slid outside. She leaned on the railing, Kim a few feet away from her.
She looked at his drawn face. The shadows burned under his eyes were not there yet when she last saw him, and she had seen him up close.
“How’s your mom?” she began, fiddling with her fingers.
“Steely. The biopsy is next week.”
“I’ll pray for her.” Her heart locked, feeling deeply for his mother, and for Kim too. “Please tell her I think of her.”
Kim nodded, straightening his back from where he stood. “I’m sorry,” he said after a second. “About that night. I shouldn’t have…Well I realize I shouldn’t have done many things. And that list would be quite long and would cover about seven years.”
Jill ached to take his hand, but she knew she shouldn’t. She crossed her arms to lock out the impulse.
“I’m sorry too.” Kim jolted his head, looking confused at her words. “I’m not very good with breakups,” she explained. “I haven’t had many.”
Kim chuckled, the sound coming out hoarse. “Me too. This relationship thing should come with a manual.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Jill cried, and soon they were both laughing.
“Why did we break up again?” Kim asked.
“We got older,” she said simply. Her heart choked at her own words, but it was true. When you get older, you get to know yourself a little bit more, and you understand a bit better what (and who) works in your life. And who doesn’t anymore. “Yeah. That’s it, I think.”
“But we did good, didn’t we?” Kim said lightly.
Jill wanted a good cry, right here and now. Not because his words were painful, but because they were the truth. “We did good,” she agreed, smiling instead.
“I hereby release you,” Kim said.
“You already have. It’s been two months, and…” Her voice faltered. Jill realized she had not been keeping accurate count in the past few weeks. There had been too many distractions.
She looked up at Kim, into his deep frank eyes. They said it took 21 days to form a habit. What more if you had loved someone for seven years? It just so happened that Kim was the brave one to take the first step and break the wheel.
“It’s been almost three months but it feels like decades,” she murmured, then strongly, added, “Now you just have to start looking me in the eye and stop being an asshole.”
Kim chuckled, titling his head. After a moment, he pulled his lips into a stiff line and spoke again.
“Choose well when you replace me. He must be taller than me, more handsome, and filthy stinking rich. And he must not like the All American Rejects.”
“More handsome?” Jill cocked one eyebrow.
Kim hit her shoulder lightly with a fist. “We both know you think I’m hot.”
Jill let out a short laugh, the sound dying quickly. “Where am I supposed to find such a caricature of the perfect man?”
She watched as Kim looked through the glass doors. Miki turned his head to them, as if hearing his name called out loud.
“Oh he’s out there somewhere. He’s not me.”
Shinta had turned towards them too, tipping his beer bottle in Kim’s direction. Shinta caught Jill’s gaze, a corner of his full lips turning up, sending her heart racing. She lowered her head, unwilling and unable to deal with more than one boy at once. She pivoted and looked out at the small garden, at the line of cars, both beaten up and new, double parked outside the professor’s house.
“Aren’t you hurt at all by what you’re telling me? By even a tiny little bit?” She turned back to Kim.
He was nodding back to the two boys. “If it’s Miki, I would need you to kill me first,” he said flatly.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Kim smiled at her. “Friends?”
“No, no, not the cliché!”
“I’m sorry.” Kim hung his head, but he was stifling a laugh.
Jill glared at him. “You didn’t just say that.”
“Why not? Why do we need to disappear from each other’s lives? And we don’t really have much of a choice, do we? We work together,” he explained in a rush. “And don’t you dare—I mean, please don’t leave the band. You totally sing better than any of us.”
Jill shook her head, accepting his words as another simple truth of their lives. You don’t really stop loving someone. She smiled as the wise words echoed inside her head. And you do get to keep some things.
“Don’t worry. I remember your very long and detailed plan, and I still believe in it, you know? I believe in you, Kim.”
The chaos inside was winding down as the alcohol disappeared with the potato chips and the grilled meat. Kim kept watch as the crowd in the Mori living room thinned, people probably realizing that a new work day was upon them. Beside him, Jill listened as the music blared on and the engines outside hummed to life.
Kim held out his hand. “Shake on it?”
Jill faced him, this face she had known since she was fourteen. She had grown up with this boy, shared B-sides, long nights, test answers, pajamas, and shawarma with him, a collection of things and moments that changed them both.
Now staring into his solemn eyes, at the smile that was lurking at the corner of his mouth, Jill still knew the face, but no longer the boy behind it. She wished she had realized this earlier. Ignorance was not bliss. Whoever said so was never hit with the truth.
Jill took Kim’s extended hand, and she just had to laugh at the absurdity of it all: lovers to friends, bands that must not be disbanded, and seven years going on forever that ended with a handshake.
May 11, Monday, morning
Jill woke up to a splitting headache that she wished she could blame on a hangover. The yellow sun pierced through her window in sheets of heat. She crawled up from her bed and reached over to the window, pulling the curtains closed. The dark linen tore fro
m the rack and landed in a heap on the floor. The high morning sun was now free to flood her cluttered room.
“Son of a—”
She retreated to her bed and pulled the blanket over her head, roasting under the covers. Her stomach was still full of potato chips, hotdog, and burned marshmallows, while her bladder felt like a small prune. Her body was not in the mood for any morning rituals.
Her phone started blinking, catching her half-open eyes. Shinta’s beautiful face took up all four inches of the screen, smiling the beatific smile of a sinless angel.
What time was it? Why was he calling her this early? Was she supposed to meet him? The scene on the Mori second floor terrace flashed in her head as she racked her sleepy brain, a bright barrage of colors and heat.
“Euuuurnnnnoooooooooo.”
Jill twisted under her blanket, sweating as the memory played back twice in quick succession. Shinta's long thin fingers over her skin, his lips strong and sure on her mouth and many other places, the mounting spiral of heat ending with one word.
His “no” echoed inside her ears, shaky yet whole in his deep husky voice. But he had said something else too.
“Gahhhhhhhhh.”
Jill shot up from her bed, her hair in sweaty tangles. She raked her fingers through the clumps, as more memories came unbidden. There was birthday girl Yuki Mori, and a lady with a blue braid. Son and Nino were there, getting drunk on cocktails of their own creation. Miki was there. She had left him at the buffet table and did not get to talk to him again that night. Kim was there. He had spoken to her at another terrace (the Moris had too many) and had shaken her hand, sealing their goodbye.
Kim’s words jumbled inside her head, juggling like balls in a lottery machine, fast and furious she could no longer make sense of them.
She jumped up, grabbing her laptop from the desk. If her brain insisted on playing back scenes, then she might as well just watch a movie.
***
The movie was the story of two virgins who met on a train. Shinta played a salary-man, overworked and beat up like an old battered car. The leading actress played a college student, smart and bookish but with no employment prospects in sight.
One night, they were on the last trip from Shibuya station. Both were staring at the rumbling floor, immersed in playbacks of their miserable day as the train moved from one station to the next. A drunken man had stumbled on the train car with them, harassing the student with his stink and his slurs. The act sparked the salary-man’s chivalry and the student’s romantic fantasies. They locked eyes, and sparks flew.
The first time they had sex was in a love hotel when they missed the last train some weeks later. The scene in the car—Kim’s special mention—was their third. Jill had kept close count of the times she saw Shinta virtually naked, his character making awkward love to a woman who was just as miserable as he was.
With every kiss, every caress, every frankly sweet exchange, Jill felt a stinging pang just under her ribs, reminding her that she never liked to watch Shinta’s romantic movies. She had to keep telling herself that it was a fictional character that was having all the sex.
He was just acting. Acting. Acting.
Near the end of the movie, the salary-man and the student meet at the train station to catch the last train. A drunken man stumbled between them, breaking their conversation about hope and love. The drunk stood at the edge of the platform, one foot hanging over the tracks. The train was coming. The salary-man rushed to pull the drunk out of harm’s way. Surprised, the drunk grabbed the salary-man’s jacket, and pushed him to meet the train.
Jill grappled with the box of tissues, tearing a sheet and two more to dab the spring of tears from her eyes. She hiccupped as the student fell to her knees, her mouth open in a silent scream.
The last scene showed the girl walking under the sun, in her best suit and on her way to a job interview.
“In those precious few weeks, he was next to me. And I think I was happy,” were the girl’s thoughts in a voice over. “We talked about hope, so much that I now remember what it is, how it feels like. He’s not here anymore, but I think I can still be happy.”
Jill’s chest rose and fell as the credits rolled to silence. She pulled out a handful of tissue to stem the flow from her nose.
Beside her the phone rang, Shinta’s smiling face blinking at her. Shinta, not the actor. Shinta the real person, her what-are-you-having-for-breakfast, call-me-if-you-can, time-zone-defying friend who wanted her and claimed that he loved her, was calling again.
Jill hit the reject button and got up to make breakfast.
February 20, Friday, morning
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” was Kim’s good-morning text.
“It’s okay, I understand,” was Jill’s quick reply, thrilled that he finally reached out to her. She rolled out of bed, fully awake now after bursting in and out of sleep all night. Her phone read six o’ clock. Weird. Kim’s up very early.
Jill had not seen much of Kim in the past few weeks. She couldn’t catch him between his classes, and he would disappear soon after gigs, cancelling their dates and even missing ritual dinners with Miki, Son and Nino. Jill stopped picking fights with him for not replying to her texts or calling her, because he even seemed too preoccupied to fight.
Busy with what though? was her next accusing thought. What could he have been doing that he could not include her? Jill thought that sharing a university and a passion with her boyfriend was the easiest way to keep their relationship afloat. Wasn’t distance Relationship Public Enemy Number One?
Well, between trying to pass all his subjects to secure graduation, Kim had been trailing Mars a lot, trying to get a grasp of the business side of this music thing. Kim wanted to manage his own band someday, help a group of kids “make it”. That was part of his long and detailed plan. Jill could not find much interest in that. For now as she did years before, she just really liked writing songs, singing, and playing her guitar, climaxing to the thrill and rush of performing onstage.
“Which explains why he doesn’t include me,” Jill muttered glumly to herself, raking fingers through her tangled hair.
“This is not working anymore,” was his next text.
The text was much longer, but Jill’s tears rained down fast after reading the first line. Although she had been waiting patiently for him, somehow she was also expecting this.
***
They have been driving around the university campus for half an hour now, slipping from the wide street to the off-beaten track they had discovered together in their four years here. The high noon sun was weak against the dark tint of Kim’s car, and they were further protected by the shade of old giant trees that lined the university’s streets.
They were graduating in a month’s time. But today, Kim was already saying goodbye to her.
Jill turned to see tears streaming down his face. Her own eyes were wet, but she had cried racking sobs for hours already since his breakup text. She was so tired, but now she had to be strong.
While waiting for Kim to pick her up at home, she was thinking of a strategy. She wasn’t going to sit numbly the way she did when he first broke up with her. She was going to fight for him. As she sat there in his passenger seat, she was still deciding on her strategy hook—will it be guilt, or sadness, or history?
“It’s not working anymore,” Kim said through sobs.
“You said that already.” Jill spoke bitterly. Anger, it is. “What did I do this time? I hardly saw you enough to pick a fight with you. Besides, aren’t you the one always getting angry at me over some stupid thing or other—?”
“That’s just it. I’m always annoyed at you, it’s so childish.”
“Then stop being a child! We’ve been at this for years now—”
“That’s why we have to stop.” Kim cut through her again. He took a deep breath, eyes on the road, and released the words. “I look at you when you sing, and I just can’t take my eyes off you. You’re the
most beautiful thing in the world. Then when the song is over, I snap out of it, and all the little stupid things get to me again.”
His words, the quiet way he said it, clogged her breathing.
“So now I’m just a girl you’re in a band with?”
“Yes,” Kim said simply, flicking his gaze to her once. “That’s how it has been for a while. For me.”
The tears took a free fall down her face, staining her shirt. “Why?” she demanded, thumping a fist on her seat. “Don’t I support you? I do agree with your plans for the band and I know the business things with Mars are important. You’re free to do all of those as much as you like. I just don’t need to be fucking into them all the time like you are.”
“We care about different things now. Don’t you see?” he said strongly, as if speaking to a slow child.
“Why does that matter?” Jill burst out, furious. “I love you, Kim. I love you. Don’t you love me anymore?”
He took a moment to reply, giving Jill time to wipe her streaming nose. “I do. I always will. But that’s not enough, is it?”
“Shut up.” Jill turned her hazy glare outside at the low ceiling of tree branches and palm-size leaves. Kim’s car was starting another circle around the oval garden in the middle of the school. “I don’t want to hear anymore.”
“We’ve been together since we were fourteen,” Kim’s low voice said beside her. He had stopped crying. “We’ve been with each other nearly every day of our lives since then. Haven’t you had enough of me, too?”
The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility stated that as you consumed more of a good, the satisfaction you got from consumption of that good eventually falls. There would even come a time when your satisfaction decreased as you consumed more.
This was the concept that expanded in Jill’s head at Kim’s words, an economic truth she learned in class semesters ago. Would you look at that? A real life application. I have to tell Miki about this, she thought numbly.