by Marian Tee
Please.
I’m sorry.
I didn’t know.
But in the end, all I can do is choke his name out---
“Yuki.”
And somehow, it’s enough.
“You know.” His voice is flat.
You know. Two words. Such simple words, and yet all the painful things it encompasses is too much for any heart to bear---
“Don’t you?”
Swallowing hard, I force myself to answer because it’s what he deserves. “Yes,” I whisper. “I know.”
Yes, I know you set the whole thing up with Elizabeth.
Yes, I know you didn’t betray me because you were tired of me.
Yes, I know you have always loved me – and I was too weak for that love.
“How?’
“My mom told Lace…”
“And Lace told you?” He gives me a humorless smile when I nod jerkily in response. “I’m surprised. She was always very protective of you.”
I shake my head. “It’s different now.” The look on his face says he doesn’t believe me, and I can’t even make myself blame him. “T-that’s why I’m here now. I want to talk. I want to---”
“Ruin your life over me again?”
Yuki’s savage tone makes me flinch, but more than that, it’s the look in his eyes that tears me apart. It’s telling me he believes every word, believes that he had ruined my life---
And I can’t bear it.
“You didn’t ruin my life!” I don’t care if it’s years too late to realize this, years too late for him to care that I know the truth, but I need him to believe this. “You c-could never ruin my life. You’re the one who makes it better---”
But my words only make him laugh, and it’s the most painful sound in the world. It’s as if he doesn’t make himself laugh, he’d end up breaking---
And the sight of a broken god is heartbreaking.
“Can we please talk---”
“What for? Closure?” he jeers. “Because if that’s what you came for, you should know closure’s fucking overrated.”
“I just---”
But Yuki doesn’t even let me finish. “Knowing the truth doesn’t change the past. Nothing can.” His tone turns vicious. “So if that’s all you came for, then you wasted both our time.” The way he looks at me, the way he speaks---
He may be right when he says that knowing can’t change the past, but it can change something else.
If I didn’t know what I know now, his cruelty would have simply made me leave.
If I didn’t know what I know now, I’d never have seen beyond his mask, never have realized that everything he’s doing to hurt me…is ripping him apart.
Oh God.
It’s happening again.
People hurting themselves because they love me---
My fists clench against my sides.
But I can change that, too, can’t I?
When Yuki starts to speak again, I shake my head, stammering, “N-no more.” I force myself to meet his gaze again. “You can keep acting like an arse, but it w-won’t make me leave.”
“A masochist now, are you?” Yuki sneers.
But I just keep shaking my head. “No m-matter what you say, I won’t leave---”
“If words won’t work, then how about I bring another girl and fuck her in front of you again?”
My head jerks up, and I feel my face losing blood when he smiles like he meant every word.
“Is that enough to make you leave?”
I watch him reach for his phone, and I tell myself it’s just an act. That he’s only being cruel for my sake---
“Stick around for the show then.”
Yuki starts scrolling on his screen, and I remind myself feverishly that it’s all an act. It always is.
“You know I’ve never had any trouble with people watching me---”
But when he switches the call to loudspeaker, and I hear a girl’s voice answer from the other end of the line, I realize there are things that will always hurt even if you know it’s done out of love.
“Stop.”
Yuki’s face hardens.
The girl on the phone is still talking. “Moshi moshi? Alexei?”
His lips start to move, and my eyes close.
I can do this.
A lone tear rolls down on my cheek.
I can do this.
“Fuck.”
My eyes fly open just in time to see Yuki throw the phone against the wall in a loud thud.
“Y-Yuki---”
“Shut up.” His voice is low and violent. Another tear rolls down my cheek, and he curses anew. “Damn you. Damn you. DAMN YOU.” But he’s saying the words like he’s the one who’s damned, and when he speaks again---
“Why can’t you just leave?”
I realize it’s true.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
His voice has become dull, the violence of earlier nothing but a sham---
“You’re supposed to be half a world away.”
And now, all that’s left is pain, the kind you’ve lived for so long you end up taking it with you in your dreams and waking up next to it in bed.
“Safe.”
That last word is a perfect summary of his pain, and it’s poison. He thinks I’m not safe now – because I’m with him?
The realization makes me sick to the guts. “Y-Yuki…” So many words are clogging my throat, but it’s only his name I seem capable of uttering, and I have to swallow several times just to be barely coherent. “It’s n-not like that. N-never.” I look at him helplessly, and suddenly all I can say ---
All I want to say ---
All I should have said from the very start ---
“I love you,” I choke out.
An appalling silence screams between us, urging me to take the words back, but I can’t. I won’t. Not ever again.
“I s-still love you---”
Yuki lets out a hollow laugh, and my words falter. “Why can’t you see it?” The cruelty, the harshness – it’s all gone from Yuki’s voice now, just when I realize I’m better off with them. Anything is better than this tone of a beaten-up god.
“Your love is exactly the problem here.”
I don’t say a word. I can’t. I’m terrified I’m going to be even weaker than before if I do.
“I will never want your love again.”
The words shred me into ribbons, but it’s the look on his face that sends more tears rushing down my cheeks.
“Goddammit.”
Every drop is agonizingly scalding, every drop making me pay for being so selfish---
“Don’t do this again. Please.” The defeat in his tone makes me cry harder. “Please just forget you saw me. Please just fucking go.”
His words take everything out of me, and I wrap my arms around myself, hoping it would be enough.
But it’s not.
I want to leave him, if only for his sake, but I don’t know if I can.
I remember the words he had whispered when he had rescued me.
Breathe for me.
I remember the words that his heart had whispered with it---
I love you.
And it’s those words that I’m seeing on his face.
It’s a lovely sight, the loveliest sight, but it also makes me weep because in those eyes I also see that it’s not enough. It’s not right. He loves me, and I love him, but how can I keep loving him if it’s what’s making him fall apart?
“Yuki.” I can’t seem to stop saying his name now. “I just---”
“No. It’s your turn to listen now.” His voice is polite. It’s classic Yuki building walls around him. I’ve seen him do it countless times when Sascha talks to him the way a mother shouldn’t ever talk to her son. And now he’s doing it with me because…I guess…I’m hurting him the way Sascha did.
“If you came here to hear me confirm what you learned about Elizabeth and me then – yes. You’re right. I did set everything u
p just to make you leave me.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes, and it’s another classic. It’s Yuki wearing a mask, not wanting people to see the real him. And I guess now…I’m one of those people, too.
“Perhaps like all ex-girlfriends, you also want to know if you have a reason to be ever jealous of her? And to answer that, it’s no. Actually, it’s never. You never had any reason to be jealous of anyone because I only saw you. And when I planned for you to walk in on us---”
“Please stop.” I can’t bear the way he’s talking, but when I try to cover my ears, he stalks towards me and wrenches my arms back to my sides.
“Listen until the end,” Yuki snarls. “This is what you came for, isn’t it?”
I shake my head wildly. “No. It’s not---”
He cuts me off, saying blandly, “Now where was I? Ah, that night with Elizabeth, I had to get myself drunk just to kiss her.”
“Please---” Does he think I don’t see how every word is hurting him more than me?
“And when you left, I threw up like a fucking girl because I couldn’t bear the taste of another woman’s pussy on my mouth---”
“STOP IT!”
“Why should I?” This time, he looks at me with eyes that no longer even try to hide anything, and in it, all I see is emptiness. “Isn’t this what you wanted to hear? That it was all a fucking setup? So why won’t you want to listen---”
“Because it’s hurting you,” I choke out. Every word he spoke was like a knife he used to stab his own heart. He had loved me, and it was because he had loved me that he had forced himself to bear another woman’s touch. He had loved me so, so much that he had given me the only reason that could make me leave, even if it meant destroying his soul.
He had loved me---
“You’re doing it again.” Yuki’s words are made threadbare by pain, and I suck my breath. “I told you about how I ate another woman’s pussy and here you are, concerned about what it’s making me feel.”
Ah.
“So what will it take to make you leave? Perhaps the truth?”
Yuki cups my chin.
“I love you, senpai.”
His head lowers.
“The words are yours, will always be yours.”
Our mouths touch; the fight goes out of me---
“But I can’t let you stay with me.”
He lifts his head.
“I love you too much to see you ruin yourself over me. So please…”
He steps back.
“Get the fuck out of my life.”
Word of the Day: KWSK
An abbreviation for the Japanese word ‘kuwashiku’ (detail)
In text language, this means ‘more details, please.’
A. A. A. A. A. B. A. A.
Since I’m used to seeing only one letter on my test papers, the sudden intrusion of a new one is sharply disconcerting. I can’t help staring at it, wondering if maybe I’m seeing things.
“What’s that?” Jason comes out of his study to join me at the dining room and peers over my shoulder. “Midterms?”
I nod.
He straightens with a smile. “Good job, hon.”
I smile back, but inside I’m thinking he’s exactly right. I did a good job – not a great one. I need all As if I want the last slot at the student exchange program the state’s educational department is offering. Which reminds me---
The application papers are a little crumpled when I finally pull them out of my bag, and my chest squeezes in anxiety. I hear Japanese locals can be very meticulous when it comes to reviewing submissions. What if they turn me down because my papers have ugly little creases here and there?
Jumping to my feet, I decide not to leave anything to chance.
Kelly catches me on my way to the laundry and raises a brow. “This is new.”
“Very funny, Mom.” But I don’t really blame her for being surprised. The last time I tried washing my own clothes – and that was only because I didn’t have time to get to the cleaners and get my cosplay kimono dry-cleaned in time for an anime convention – it had ended very badly, with dark streaks staining the floral patterns of my costume because I had accidentally tossed a black dress in the washer with it.
“I’m going to iron these.” I show her my application papers.
“Oh. What you’re looking for isn’t in the laundry room. I stored the iron in the tool closet at the back of the house.”
“Got it. Thanks, Mom.” I’m about to turn when she calls my name. “What is it?”
“How are things with Yuki?” Her voice is quiet and concerned.
“He’s…coping.” I bite my lip. “He tells me things will work out, but…”
Kelly ruffles my head. “You’re worried about him.”
“I never thought his mom could do something so horrible,” I confess shakily. “I get it that she’s no longer happy with Yuki’s dad, but she could’ve just left him.” It would still have broken Akito-san’s heart, but at least it wouldn’t have destroyed him completely. Instead, Sascha proved to me how little I understand the extent in which a person can be evil. She not only ran away with her lover, but she also took all of Akito Himura’s money and sold company secrets that left the board no choice but to fire him.
“How could she have done that, Mom? And what about Yuki? She’s his son, but every time I see them together, all she does is hurt him. Can a mother really care so little for her own child?”
“Oh, hon.” My mom pulls me into her arms. “The fact that you’re asking just shows me how young you are.” Pulling away, she tells me quietly, “Love is always a choice. Everything about it is a choice. Who you love, how much or how little you love, until when – it’s all a choice. Sascha made her choice, a devastatingly cruel one – but she’s not the first woman to do it, and she won’t be the last.”
“I hope Hell chooses to love her then,” I mutter.
“KC!”
I grimace. “Sorry, Mom. But I’m just so angry…and I feel so helpless.” I only have to close my eyes and
Kelly gives my hand a squeeze. “Don’t be. You made a choice, too. You chose to love him and stand by him, and that means a lot to Yuki.”
I know that, but it’s not enough.
It’s not enough.
And as the days pass, the words keep pounding my brain.
It’s not enough.
Timetables start to take over my life, and I find myself counting the minutes I spend on everything I do. I need to find a way to cut my studying time in half and still score an A. I need to find a way to squeeze in another part-time job. I need to…
I need to…
I need to…
There are so many things I need to do, but I just can’t. I’m only eighteen, and no matter how much I want to help Yuki, what’s there for me to do? I can’t help his dad pay off their debts. I can’t stop them from selling their house, can’t stop them from moving back to Japan.
I wish Yuki could tell me what I can do to help, but every time I ask him. he only smiles and kisses me. Don’t worry about me. It’s all he keeps saying, like it’s the only thing he can say without breaking my heart and telling me that there’s nothing I can do.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing
And suddenly I can’t breathe.
The world starts to spin as I fall.
I CAN’T BREATHE.
Dimly, I hear Kelly crying out, but it’s a distant sound, drowned out by the way my lungs are desperately heaving for air. I clutch my throat. I have the most ridiculous urge to puncture a hole in it---
I CAN’T BREATHE.
My dad carries me to the car. Kelly’s sobbing as she pleads for me to breathe.
Oh, Mom. I want to.
But I don’t know what to breathe for anymore when nothing I do is making a difference.
Bookstores are a strange, wonderful sight in Tokyo. Since space is extremely limited in this city, a number of bookstores tend to expand vertically, and that�
�s why you end up with literary skyscrapers rather than bookshops sprawled several blocks wide. Kinokuniya’s branch in South Shinjuku has seven while Junkudo in Ikebukuro and Akihabara’s Shosen Tower have ten each. The one I’m in right now – Book Haven – isn’t as popular and is fairly new. But it does follow the same structure, with each floor dedicated to a particular type of merchandise or genre, and so I don’t have much trouble finding my target.
2nd Floor is the Reference Section, and I immediately start searching for the shelves where the newest I.T. books are. He’s always where the super techie books are, and even though several years have passed since we last visited a bookstore together, my instincts prove me right.
Yuki.
I catch a glimpse of him through the narrow gap of space between the books and its shelves. Just a brief, partial glimpse, but it’s still enough to have my heart ba-thumping like it used to.
He’s in jeans again, but this time matched with a thin checked jacket worn over a white shirt. He has a book in his hands, and his brows are slightly pleated as he reads whatever it is he’s reading. He turns around to walk out of the aisle, and I hurriedly move in parallel, not wanting to lose sight of him.
I hide behind one of the shelves when he pays at the cashier, and I count until five before I deem it safe to start following him again. I check the elevator first, but the display tells me that it’s still on standby. I quickly bend over the rails to check the escalator, but I don’t see him either.
Where could he possibly be?
I whirl around---
Yuki is standing right in front of me, and he does not look happy.
Oh, shite.
It’s been thirty-seven days since I last got this close to him. Not that I’ve been consciously counting. My point is that it’s been a really long time, and every second of it hadn’t been wasted. Because I had done what he asked.
I got out of his life. I also thought things through. And that’s why I’m here.
“Hisashiburi.” My voice comes out a croak.
Yuki’s beautiful face remains unsmiling. “Why are you following me?”
I start to answer, but then I notice the bookstore clerk behind me giving me a suspicious look. It’s obvious he heard what Yuki said just as it’s obvious he thinks I’m stalking Yuki. Turning red, I stammer to the clerk, “Sutōka ja nai.” I’m not a stalker. And honestly, I know Yuki’s the gorgeous one between us, but do I really look that desperate?
