Unless my rich uncle buys me Toei for Christmas, I
don’t think I’ll be owning Digimon anytime soon.
This is the penultimate part. There’s a brief
epilogue to come.
And I’m really curious . . . . Did the book\play
end in the same way as this does?
DANCING
PART 5
LIFE AS A FAIRYTALE
Later, in a little while, in the middle of the gentle rain,
cover up my pain.
My weakness will be washed away,
since I will begin to run.
~ Yasashii Ame, Araki Kae
I wonder at what a short time ago it was -
the injuries that came to an end
every time that you were near
when I shone far.
There were eerie fissures -
many sad incidents, but how many were they?
Now, I understand.
I watched intently, you were there and they ended.
Your eyes were very beautiful -
I watched, and I changed.
The sky served as your eyes,
but your own eyes were always sensing things.
They were the reflection of memory.
~ Reflection, Araki Kae (and, yes, she is obviously singing about Takeru in this one. :P)
“Give me three seconds to
throw on my tux and we can go,” Takeru called as he kicked off his sneakers at
the door and walked through to the living room in his socks. He frowned when no
response came from Hikari. She didn’t have to work Fridays and all her classes
on the day were morning ones, so she should have been home hours ago. Their
apartment was dark and quiet; the helium balloons he had bought bobbed silently
in the gloom. He batted a silver one away from him as it drifted past, “Are you
home, Hikari-chan?”
There was still no reply
from her.
He ran a hand through his
shower-damp hair, breathing deeply and collecting himself. He had to be
sensible about this. There was no point in jumping to the worst possible conclusion.
In all likelihood, Hikari had gone straight to the university’s LAN to work on
her photographs without stopping by their apartment, without discovering the
surprise he had planned for her. She would come home later that night and they
would laugh about the confusion.
However, the white note
cards lying on the table showed that up for the self-deception it was. In his
thick, black writing, they spelt out his invitation: Odotte hoshii desu ka? Do you want to dance? Only Hikari could have removed them from their balloons and
arranged them in the correct order. All the clever theories in the world could
not deny the simple facts of the matter: she had read his message, and had left
for the LAN anyway, if that was indeed where she had gone.
He sank heavily into their
overstuffed sofa. She was probably avoiding him in her discomfort over what had
happened that morning. He couldn’t blame her; he had also felt pretty awkward
when she had come through to breakfast. As much as he had tried to forget them
and carry on as if she had said nothing, her words had hurt him. They still
kept coming into his mind, bringing with them the same sharp pain, the same
strange fear.
After they had had sex
that morning, she had fallen into a light and disturbed sleep, but he not been
able to follow her example. Instead, he had lain awake and thought about life
without Yagami Hikari. There would be no more of her familiar clutter around
their bedroom - her robe over the chair, her photographs on the floor, her
make-up on the dressing table. There would be no more of her surprise attacks
with her camera in which she delighted in catching him at the worst conceivable
times. There would be no more of her spontaneous picnics where she would spread
a blanket on the lounge floor and make endless, horrible sandwiches for them.
There would be no more Sunday mornings when she would lie with her head on his
lap and listen to him read her his stories. There would be no more sleepy
midnight conversations when she returned home late from work and wasn’t quite
ready to fall asleep. Life without her would be very cold and empty.
His eyes went to the
photograph on the mantelpiece. It had been taken at their wedding - not the
official, posed one that they had sent to all their friends and relatives, but
one that Sora had snapped while they weren’t looking. It showed him and her
sitting together in the garden of the hotel at which they had had their
reception. Her head was resting on his shoulder, his arm was around her. They
looked so innocent and so happy, as if they truly believed that all the days
ahead of them would be happy ones.
The question she hadn’t
answered returned to him with painful inevitability - did she regret marrying
him? If she could go back to that evening when he had smiled at her and asked
her to marry him, would she have changed her mind and said ‘no’ to him? Since
she couldn’t, was she planning to divorce him?
He sighed. Maybe life was
like a song that returned to the same chorus every time. Maybe he and Yamato
couldn’t avoid making the same mistakes and paying for them in the same way as
their parents had. He knew his brother’s marriage to Yuu was falling apart
rapidly. He had seen it when he and Hikari visited them for Christmas. The old,
hard look had returned to Yamato’s eyes, and Yuu had never stopped smiling once
in their presence. He had heard her crying at night, though, when she had
thought they were asleep.
“Maybe we’re just
terminally screwed up when it comes to love,” he thought, “If I can’t make it
work with Hikari, then I can’t make it work with anyone . . . .”
The back of his neck
prickled at the thought. When had his marriage been reduced to proving that he
succeed where his parents had failed, that he wasn’t as dysfunctional as his
childhood had been?
“I’m home,” a quiet voice
broke into his thoughts.
In surprise, Takeru looked
up to see Hikari standing in their bedroom door, leaning against its frame with
one arm. She was dressed in a blue peasant blouse with daisies embroidered
around its neck and a faded, denim skirt. She was barefoot, and her one leg was
twined around the other. She was holding a brown envelope in her hand, with
which she was tapping her thigh. She chewed nervously on her bottom lip.
“Why didn’t you say so,
when I called?”
“I-I needed time to think
before I saw you, Takeru,” she said hesitantly, “I needed to think before we
spoke.”
“Why did you need time?
You know you can tell . . . .” he began in confusion, then stopped in
mid-sentence as he realised what she had meant. He felt himself go cold. If she
needed time to think, to choose her words, she could only have one thing to say
to him. He had been dreading it since that morning, but had not thought it
would come so soon. He continued in a flat voice, “I get it. You were trying to
think of a kind way of breaking it to me, but . . . there isn’t one. I should
know. If you want a divorce, Hikari, I
. . . .” he trailed off, his voice choking in his throat, so that he was
unable to finish the sentence. Hot tears rose in his eyes.
“A divorce? Us?” Hikari
repeated, sounding genuinely shocked, “God, no. No, no, Takeru, I . . . .” she
crossed the living-room to come and stand in front of him. She held out the
envelope to him, “Here. You need to have this.”
Not moving to take it from
her, Takeru frowned at the envelope. Manilla and official-looking, it was the
sort used by banks and doctors. A new possibility rushed into his mind. Hikari
was perfectly healthy and been for years, as far as he knew, so she could have
only been to the doctor for one reason alone. He looked back up at her in
excitement and fear, “Are you . . . are you . . . pregnant?”
“Takeru, you know
perfectly well I’m on the Pill,” Hikari stuck out her tongue at him, then
sobered, “No, this is just a cheque for the money you spent on my dress. I had
it refunded. Take it already.”
He stared at her
disbelievingly. He remembered her telling him the other day that she had not
wanted to spend his basketball money on a dress for herself, but had thought
she would change her mind when she saw the one he had bought for her. Maybe it
had not been as perfect for her as he had thought at the time, “You took back
the dress?”
“Yes. And here’s the money
for it.”
“You keep it,” he pushed
her hand gently away from him, “I don’t want it.”
“Nor do I,” she dropped
the envelope onto his lap, before folding her arms across her chest and tilting
her chin defiantly. He had seen the same, determined look on Taichi’s face
hundreds of times, when he had dug in his heels and was prepared for a fight.
He met her stare levelly, deliberately picking up the envelope and setting it
on the cushion next to him. In case she had forgotten, Ishidas could be pretty
stubborn as well.
“I’m not going to get it,
you know,” she said in resolute tones, “It’s your money, and I can’t take it.”
“Well, then it’ll just
have to stay there,” he shrugged, getting to his feet, “What do you want for
dinner? I can do miso soup or
something, if you don’t mind eating a bit late.”
Her forehead crinkled,
“Aren’t we going to talk about this?”
“What more is there to
say? I bought you a dress. You returned it, because you didn’t like it. And now
we have more than the usual amount of change in our sofa. End of story.”
“No, Takeru, I loved the
dress,” she replied quietly, dropping her gaze to her feet, “It was the one I
wanted ever since I saw it.”
Exasperation seeping into
his voice, “Then why’d you return it?”
Hikari let out her breath
with a sharp puff, her head snapping back up to look at him. Her eyes
glittered. There were bright spots of colour on both her cheeks, “Because I
love you more! Because I damn well want you more!”
“And I love you. What
would be so bad about accepting a present from me?”
“It would be selfish! I
know how much the camp in America means to you. I don’t want to be the one
stopping you from . . . from living out your own dreams.”
“It’s just a stupid camp,
Hikari. You’re much more important to me.”
“And it’s just a stupid
dress! You’re much more important to me! Why don’t you get that?” Hikari
shouted. Her hand went to her mouth in an instinctive gesture of shock. Takeru
stared at her, equally stunned, not knowing what to say to her in return. They
had had their share of arguments in their months of marriage, but his wife had
never raised her voice in one of them. He might shout and storm, but her anger
was always chillingly, impeccably polite.
However, oddly enough, her
furious words had broken some subtle tension between them. For the first time
that day, he felt himself relax slightly.
Slowly, she lowered her
hand and continued in a softer voice, “I don’t need a fancy dress to dance,
Takeru-chan. All I need is the right partner, and I’ve found him. If he still
wants me?”
His love for her warm
within him, “You know he does.”
Smiling up at him, she
slipped her arms around him and snuggled her head beneath his chin. He
tightened his own arms around her, burying his face in her hair and breathing
in its wild flower scent. Holding her, he felt the hard, cold knot in his chest
dissolve. It was like waking up from a long nightmare to see blue skies and the
sun streaming through the window. . . .
Impulsively, he lifted her
up off the ground and spun around with her. Hikari gave a little yelp of
surprise, her arms going to his neck and her legs wrapping around his waist.
Her dark hair whipped around her and her eyes sparkled, as he turned her in
circles.
“What are you doing?”
Dizzily happy, he asked,
“Takaishi Hikari-san, will you go to the dance with me?”
“Like we are?” she laughed,
looking down at his grey-green poloneck and black jeans, “Takeru! We can’t!”
“Why not?” he paused to
kiss the hollow of her throat, “Who cares about what you’re wearing? You’ll
still be the most amazing, beautiful, wonderful woman there.”
“And I will have the cutest, sweetest partner.
So, why not? Let’s go!” she kissed the tip of his nose, then pulled back
slightly to look at him with a solemn expression on her pretty face, “I’ve been
such an idiot, Takeru-chan. I’ve been an idiot for letting Miyako’s question get
to me. It made me wonder if my life might be better without you, if I’d have
more fun, more money, more free time, more whatever without you. . . .But I’ve
realised that it’s a stupid question. If my life stopped having you in it, none
of that would count, because you’re the person who makes me happy. And, if I
ever had made you think I didn’t want you anymore, I’m sorry. I’m so - ”
“You don’t need to
apologise, love,” he said softly, then placed his mouth on top of hers. She
parted her lips in response, and the kiss deepened. She shifted position in his
arms, unwrapping her legs from his waist, pressing the length of her body
against him. Her feet were still in the air, her toes pointed like a
ballerina’s. He felt warmth spread through him like starshine.
Suddenly, he heard their
apartment’s door bang open behind them. High heels clickety-clacked across the
wooden floor, and Miyako’s voice began to gush, “I’m so, so sorry, Hikari. . .
. .,” she cut off in mid-apology with a gasp, “Oh my god. . . Hikari, who is
making out with Takeru and who is now going to be even more pissed with me
because I walked in on them.”
Takeru’s cheeks were
burning, as he broke away from his wife. He didn’t even want to think how they
must have looked, what she must have thought they were doing. Hikari buried her
head in his shoulder, her own cheeks crimson.
“That’s why you knock,
Miyako,” Daisuke’s voice added weakly, “Hey, you two.”
Takeru heard Hikari give a
muffled, little groan, and guessed the reason. She knew the other boy still
loved her, and tried her best to keep from causing him any more pain than she
already had by her marriage. It was why he had been the first person she had
told about their engagement: she hadn’t wanted him to hear it from one of the
others, and think she had cared so little for him that she not bothered to tell
him herself. He felt no jealousy at that.
Still embarrassed, Takeru
set Hikari on her feet and turned around to greet his friends. Twisting her
chiffon shawl nervously around one hand, Miyako was giving them a sheepish grin.
She was wearing a silvery-blue slip of a dress that sparkled with rhinestones.
Another shimmering arrow of the stones decorated her lilac hair, sweeping it
out from her eyes. Behind her, Daisuke was scuffing the floor with a shiny,
black shoe, an uncomfortable look on his face. He was dressed in a classic
tuxedo, complete with a white rose at his lapel and a black bowtie at his
throat.
“Hey, Daisuke, Miyako,” he
said as naturally as he could manage in the circumstances.
“Hi,” Hikari added,
tugging her skirt back into place, “Can we get a ride with you to the dance? As
you can see, we spent all our money on our party clothes . . . .”
“You aren’t going dressed
in that, Takaishi Hikari!” Miyako exclaimed in horror, her apology evidently
forgotten, “And, Takeru, aren’t you at least going to put on a tux or something
respectable?”
His wife smiled up at him
before she replied, “I don’t know, Miyako. I think we’ll be fine just the way
we are.”
*
NOTES:
·
Before the medical
students begin telling me that women on the Pill can and do get pregnant, I’m
aware of that fact. It’s ALMOST 100% proof against pregnancy, however. Studies
in Sweden show that only 17 pregnancies occurred in 40 million hours of use. (I
so don’t want to know how they got those facts, actually.)
·
A note on the
Japanese suffixes: -chan is obviously very affectionate. However, Takeru and
Hikari are more using it because they’ve grown up together, rather than because
they’re married. –san can more or less be translated ‘Mr’ or ‘Ms’ with the same
degree of politeness as that implies in English. Takeru is obviously being
grandiose there.
*
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