The Art of Us

by Hilaria Alexander

  I checked my phone. It was barely 5 a.m., but some of the subways and trains were running already. The next day, we would be leaving on our trip across Japan.

  We and the other mourners—friends of Rika and Hiroyuki, musicians, and fellow artists—all dispersed outside. A few other people, sleepy and hungover like us, stumbled along the street.

  I looked up at Amos, and then stared at our fingers laced together.

  A strange feeling wrapped around my heart.

  Longing.

  I was longing for Amos, even though he was right there in front of me. Suddenly, the fear of losing him got stronger than anything else.

  I was afraid he’d slip away, just like the months we’d spent there.

  I was afraid he’d slip out of my life the same way Rika had. I still couldn’t accept the truth.

  From time to time, I asked myself how it could be true that she was really gone. I had asked myself that question so many times during the last few days.

  She was gone. Rika was gone. Her art was the only thing left.

  An image of her smiling on a drunken night came to mind, and I found myself smiling, despite the pain solidifying in my chest.

  The ache her memory caused was excruciatingly similar to the one I’d felt when I lost Maggie.

  A sob rose in my throat. I pressed my lips together to hold it back, and the ache turned into tears, welling in my eyes. I blinked them away and found Amos staring at me, mouth tight in concern. I wanted to bury my face in his chest and burst into tears, but it was not the time or place.

  “Ready to go?” he asked, his voice deep and comforting, and I replied with a nod. I turned around to find Hiroyuki speaking to one of his and Rika’s friends.

  “Hiroyuki-san…ima kaette mo ii no?” I asked him if he was ready to go back home in rather slurry speech. I was a bit groggier than I’d thought.

  He turned around, looked my way, and gave me a nod.

  He said goodbye to his friend then walked toward us.

  Hiroyuki looked down for a moment before glancing hesitantly at Amos and me.

  “Ne, Rena-san, chotto gomenne…but I’m going back home now.”

  As soon as he said the words and looked at me sheepishly with his dark-brown melancholic eyes, I wanted to cry again.

  I pursed my lips and nodded vigorously, holding back the tears.

  He wanted to go back to their real home.

  “Of course, of course,” I repeated. “Zenzen dayjoubu desu.”

  “I-I have already taken my things from the house. Soredewa, koreha sayonara desu,” he said, bowing slightly in our direction. This was goodbye.

  We both bowed too, a bit stiffly, taken aback by the fact that he’d already made preparations to leave the house where we’d spent the last year.

  “I’m going to miss you, man,” Amos said, stretching his hand out. Hiroyuki shook it enthusiastically, the somber expression on his face turning into a sweet smile.

  “You too, man. You too.”

  “You’re a badass guitar player,” Amos said.

  “Dameda,” Hiroyuki replied, waving his hand dismissively. Not true, he’d said.

  “Hontodesu,” I chimed in. It was the truth. He was a great guitar player. He had sacrificed the last few years to take care of Rika, and I wondered if sometime soon he’d feel ready to start touring again. In my heart, I hoped one day I’d be able to see him again, but how could I be sure? It very well might have been my last time.

  I shouldn’t have done it, but in that moment, I refused to care.

  I crossed the boundaries of Japanese common decency and flung my arms around Hiroyuki, hugging him and taking him by surprise. He stiffened at first, but a moment later he accepted my embrace, patting me gently on the back.

  “Hontoni arigatou gozaimashita.” I was speaking from the heart. I was really thankful for him. Hiroyuki had been such a welcome presence even when the project had been the most difficult thing I’d ever worked on.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied, dragging his R in that way Japanese people do when they speak English.

  I pulled back and bowed again. From the corner of my eye, I could see him bowing again too. He raised a hand to wave goodbye to us, and with one of his charming smiles, he departed.

  Amos wrapped an arm around me, and we walked to the station without saying a word. We pulled out our train cards and swiped them through the machine. We made our way to the platform just as the recorded announcement warned us that the train was about to arrive and that we should not cross the yellow line. A gust of wind blew across the station, and my hair spread across my face.

  Before I could get my hands out of the pockets of my jacket to fix it, Amos reached down and brushed the strands away.

  When the curtain of hair covering my face had been removed, I could see his eyes crinkling up at the corners, and that smile of his I loved so much made an appearance.

  The ache I had felt in my chest all night thinking of Rika started to dissipate, replaced by a blossoming hope.

  My personal life hadn’t been so great until him, but maybe now things were going to be different for me…for us.

  He leaned down and kissed my lips softly, right there on the train platform.

  In front of everyone.

  I couldn’t say no to his kiss, ever, and right then, I didn’t care who saw us.

  His kiss was the cure for every heartache. I was addicted to it, had been since the very first time.

  I needed it as much as I needed air.

  “You are so bad this morning,” I whispered against his lips as my eyes met those of a few nearby passengers. He pulled back and laughed softly, his eyes brimming with a renewed amusement.

  The train arrived, and the doors opened. I listened to every word coming through the speakers, knowing that soon I wouldn’t get to hear them every day anymore.

  I knew that just like I had when I’d returned to the US, I was going to miss it.

  I was going to miss every bit of it.

  The first time I’d lost Maggie. This time I’d lost Rika.

  But at least I had accomplished one thing: Aiko Uemura and Aiko Matsumoto had gotten their happy ending. As stupid as it might have been, the fact that those two characters were no longer suspended in limbo filled me with incredible joy.

  Working with Rika Ishikawa had been one of the most challenging things I’d ever lived through, but I was happy I had gotten to know her. I felt lucky I’d had a chance to get to know her before she wanted to go.

  Amos led us to two empty seats, and we both slumped down heavily. The doors of the train shut and we started moving. The JR line ran through the very heart of Tokyo, stopping in every single major district. There had been a time—a long time ago—when I could name every single train station on it.

  The sky was tinged with golden tones now, rays of light barely peeking over the horizon. Right before we reached Shibuya, the sun shone bright across the train car, covering every person and everything in an orange-gold glow.

  I had never found sunrises comforting, but right then I felt comforted by the idea of a new beginning.

  Amos’ fingers remained laced with mine, and I leaned my head on his shoulder.

  “Are you ready to go home?” he asked in a low, gravelly voice, leaning closer to me. I hesitated. What did he mean by that? Which home? There in Japan? Back in Portland?

  Were things going to stay the same between us? Would our relationship change?

  The last few months with him had been something entirely new to me, and I didn’t want things to change. Suddenly, the emotions of the last few days caught up with me, drowning me in self-doubt.

  I loved him very much, but was it going to be enough for things to stay the same?

  “Our visas are good for a little longer. Let’s stay. Let’s stay longer than we planned to.” The tone of my voice and the look in my eyes were pleading.

  “Why?” he asked with a frown.

  “I don’t want things to cha
nge,” I said in a voice so low, it came out as a whisper.

  “Nothing’s going to change, Lena.” His voice was firm, but gentle.

  “Amos, I didn’t mean…”

  “Lena, please, stop the nonsense. I don’t know what’s going on in that pretty little head of yours. I know you’ve had a rough few days—we both have—but if there’s something that hasn’t changed through all of this, it’s how much I love you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a sour look. “You should know that.”

  I let out a soft laugh and smiled.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, his mood lighter.

  My smile stretched even bigger across my face.

  “It just so happens that I love you, too—very much.”

  “Good,” he said absent-mindedly, running a finger along my jaw, staring at my lips.

  “Not here,” I whispered, and he seemed to snap out of a trance.

  “How many more stops?” he asked.

  “Too many.”

  “We should have taken a taxi.”

  “I like trains,” I said with an air of defiance.

  “I do too, but I like you better,” he replied, eyes still fixed on my lips, his thumb tracing lazy circles on my hand.

  “I like you, too…so much.”

  “Good, because I want you to be mine…forever, if that’s okay with you.”

  The impulse to get the words I was thinking off my chest was inexplicably strong. I had to tell him everything, everything I’d been holding back.

  “Amos, I love you. You feel like home to me. You have felt like home for a long time, and I know I was a fool for pushing you away years ago. I fought and fought against the notion of you and when I finally realized how much I wanted you, I thought I’d lost my chance—our chance, but now we have it. I love you, and I want you to be my home.”

  He stared at me silently, his eyes full of intent, as if he was about to kiss me again.

  His lips were slightly curved in a smile. Never had a smile made me so nervous.

  “Say something,” I pleaded.

  “Your hair looks insanely beautiful in this light—your whole face does. How many more stops before we can go to bed?” he asked with a wicked look.

  I glanced at the list of stations. “Three more,” I replied, unable to hold back a smile. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “It wasn’t a question,” he replied. My lips formed an O, realizing he was right. I was so tired, it was a miracle I could formulate entire sentences. My eyes fell on his lips, waiting for his reply. He didn’t say anything, though, as if he enjoyed keeping me on my toes.

  Bastard.

  The train stopped and the doors opened.

  “Two stops,” I said with a smug grin.

  He laughed, eyes bright with love and desire. It was in that moment that I realized I didn’t need words to confirm what my own eyes could see.

  It’s so funny how sometimes we are so blind to the things—or people—right in front of us, and we have to take several trips around the sun to get ourselves sorted out.

  “My answer is yes, Lena. You always felt like home to me. Let’s go home.”

  LENA

  “Modern Love” by David Bowie came on, and his name flashed on the screen of my cell phone.

  “I’m in the driveway. I got the Camaro out. Are you ready?”

  “Almost. Be out there in five.”

  “Don’t make me wait any longer, pretty lady.”

  I smiled at his words.

  It had been over a year, and my heart still fluttered the same way whenever he said something sweet in that flirty tone of his.

  “I just need my earrings and my purse.”

  I grabbed them and put them on by the mirror on the fireplace. My eyes fell on the pictures lined up on the mantel.

  There was one with Amos and me holding baby McFly when we’d just gotten back from Tokyo. Violet hated it when I called my goddaughter, Emma, “baby McFly,” but I thought it was so cute. She looked just like Marty, hence the nickname. According to Marty, she’d been named after Emma Frost from X-Men, but Violet insisted the name was for Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione and Belle and was a feminist icon for millions of young girls.

  My eyes moved to the next picture, and I smiled looking at a photo of a disgruntled me and a smiling Maggie during our second year of college. Next, there was a picture of Amos’ brother, Taylor, when he was stationed in Afghanistan. Although they didn’t look alike, his smile reminded me of Amos’. I looked at a picture of the two of us at the release party in Japan next to another one of me and Rika Ishikawa taken that same night.

  Tonight, I was wearing the same dress I’d worn more than a year before, even though it didn’t fit as well as it had the first time.

  Paz Media and other local comic publishers had gotten together with the Portland Museum of Art and sponsored a retrospective on Ishikawa’s works.

  It was the night of the opening, and I was nervous.

  I knew we were going to be interviewed by the local papers about the retrospective and our contribution to Aiko.

  After Paz Media had published the remaining issues and we’d fulfilled our obligations, Amos and I had turned down interviews with anyone who wanted us to keep talking about Ishikawa’s death and the manga.

  When we’d gotten back from Japan, we felt emotionally drained and ready to start a new phase of our lives.

  We had our work to get back to. We had each other.

  He was my home, and I was his.

  I still remembered how uncertain the future had looked that morning after Rika’s funeral, but I had been worrying in vain.

  If anything had changed between us, it was only for the better.

  We both immersed ourselves in our work and our life together.

  I was about to finish Switch, and in a few months I was going to LA to help out with the show—Switch had just been green-lit by Netflix, and Amira and I were over the moon.

  Amos was still hard at work on In Limbo, although I knew he had projects brewing for at least three different comics.

  One of them was set in Japan.

  We’d moved out of our respective apartments as soon as we found a place we both liked, and we’d been in the house for about eight months now. It was a charming two-bedroom cottage built in the ’40s. The second bedroom had been a studio for the two of us, one we would have to give up soon.

  However small, this house was our happy place.

  I grabbed my purse and turned off the lights.

  I locked the door and turned around, finding my handsome life partner staring at me from the driver’s seat. His smile was contagious and made him look even more beautiful. No one looked as good as he did in a black suit, white shirt, and skinny tie.

  I bit my bottom lip, suddenly wishing we didn’t have to go out and could just stay home.

  Life with Amos so far had been everything I’d thought I would never get in life.

  I craved his companionship as much as I craved him. I’d never thought there would come a time in my life when I felt comfortable and unashamed to admit I had found my other half.

  “You look beautiful,” he said as I opened the passenger door.

  “I’m not so sure. I wanted to wear this dress because of Rika, but it doesn’t fit as well as it did last year. Maybe I should go chang—”

  “Come here,” he said, pulling my hand and forcing me to take a seat in the roaring Camaro. I let out a yelp and glared at him. He grinned, eyes playful, and leaned in to give me a soft kiss. I grabbed his bottom lip between my teeth and bit it gently.

  Pulling back, he gave me a once-over, eyes glistening with love and amusement.

  “Don’t change. Number one, we’re already late, and number two, you look beautiful. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  “I believe you’re biased, Mr. St. Clair,” I replied, unable to contain my smile.

  “Perhaps, but
am I wrong for thinking the woman I love—the woman who’s pregnant with my child—is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen?” he asked, placing a kiss on my lips and a hand on my small, eighteen-weeks-pregnant belly, which I’d managed to fit into the dress. “If so, I don’t want to be right.”

  “I look bloated.”

  “Hush. You look beautiful, and don’t even get me started on your breasts,” he said, ogling me unabashedly.

  I let out a long sigh.

  “Fine. Can we go now?”

  “Are you going to be okay talking about Rika-san after all this time?”

  I nodded and thought about it for a few seconds. From time to time, I couldn’t help getting nostalgic, and ever since I’d discovered I was pregnant, I had been extremely emotional, which I wasn’t a fan of.

  I had been thinking about her a lot lately. I couldn’t help thinking about the way life, love, and death are constantly intertwined, how there’s always something moving us forward, always a light pulling us up even when we’re surrounded by darkness.

  “I will be. I’ll only say good things about her and will make her proud. Plus, I have you by my side. I couldn’t ask for a better life partner. You look very handsome, by the way.” I glanced playfully in his direction and patted his leg. He smiled at me, but didn’t seem to move, or even attempt to put the car into reverse to pull out of the driveway.

  “You want to know what I think?” he asked, a bit hesitant.

  “I always want to know what you think,” I said in a reassuring tone, and he smiled nervously.

  “I personally think life partner has a terrible ring to it.”

  I frowned.

  “Would you prefer baby daddy?”

  He fished for something in the pocket of his jacket.

  “I would prefer fiancé,” he said, presenting me with a simple white gold band with a solitaire diamond.

  I wasn’t someone who’d ever wanted a ring, but I couldn’t deny how stunning this one was, and it was probably the only type of engagement ring I could ever see myself wearing. I didn’t need jewelry to symbolize a promise, because I knew I had this man’s heart, and it was all I ever wanted to possess.

  Still, there was so much beauty and vulnerability in the way he looked at me. My heart started thumping away in my chest, and my eyes danced between the ring and his face.