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Chapter 1
With a frustrated sigh I crumple the piece of paper up and toss it into the corner of the room, where it falls on top of a pile of similar pieces. Sliding another sheet in front of me I pick up my pen, chewing the lid as I decide what to write.
- Dear Shiccha-
No, I don’t think that’s really appropriate anymore. The piece of paper joins the rest on the floor. Resting my head in my hands, I think about the past few weeks, and how so much could go wrong that I can’t even write a letter to my best friend. The girl I love. The student council as it was was disbanded after graduation, we all said our goodbyes with a wave of hands and forced smiles. Hisao gave me his phone number, hastily scribbled down on a piece of paper, while Shicchan couldn’t even look me in the eyes, signing stiffly about how she would miss me, and how we would all meet up again soon.
And so it was on that sunny day, just outside the big wrought iron gates and tall buildings that had been our school, our social space, our homes, we walked in three directions, never looking back. Shizune was headed off to Law School to become a big shot lawyer, someone her dad could be proud of, despite everything that he thought was wrong with her. She’d probably end up working for his company in one way or another, or maybe even her uncle’s if she had a falling out with Jigoro big enough to warrant getting him that pissed off.
Hisao was still kind of unsure about his future, although he said he was heading off to university to study one of the sciences, his last few days at Yamaku were like he was already dead. Unresponsive, uncaring about his health…I hope he doesn’t hate me for the comment I dropped to his parents when they picked him up from Yamaku, telling them in my sing song voice that was so painful to use.
‘Hi Mr and Mrs Nakai! Make sure Hisao takes all his medicine properly, he can be neglectful of his health if he gets carried away!’
They had both laughed at that along with me, but I hope they picked up the seriousness underneath my tone, or maybe I just planted some seed of doubt in their minds that would keep them attentive. And then, with a wave goodbye, Hisao left my life too, leaving me outside on the pavement, trailing my big pink suitcase behind me as I walked to the bus stop down the road.
After a short bus journey into the city I boarded a train, and sped off on the worst 10 hours of my life. Those ten hours spent in a cramped train compartment with nothing to distract myself, nothing to stop myself thinking about the past three years spent at that place, the place which I’d just left, leaving my only friends behind too. I wanted to believe more than anything that I would see them again, that we would have our reunions like we always talked about, but I’m not so sure anymore.
‘Shiina!’ a voice shouts up the stairs, startling me from me recollections. ‘Your dinner’s getting cold!’
‘Coming Mum!’ I shout back down, wiping my eyes with the back of my hands. Standing up from my desk I walk towards the door, pausing when I pass by the mirror on my wall. Wiping away any remaining moisture around my eyes, I give my other self a big smile, not surprised to see that it’s just a shadow of what it once was. And even that wasn’t always genuine.
‘Oh, there you are!’ My mother greets me as I round the corner, ‘I thought you’d got lost on your way down, as you haven’t been home in so long after all.’
Sitting down at the table I notice that there are only two places set. ‘Mum, isn’t dad eating with us tonight?’ I ask, looking at the clock on the wall. He should be home from work by now. I don’t have many memories of my father; he wasn’t around much when I was growing up. He was an office manager, so he always left for work early in the morning and then didn’t get back until late at night, often too tired to do anything more than mutter a few sentences to his daughter.
So dad bought the money in, while mum raised me basically single handedly. She’d take me to school, walking hand in hand down the road, and then when I got home she’d help me with homework and make the dinner, always making time in the evening to read me a story or watch a movie with me, cuddling me close and twirling my hair around her fingers.
I guess that was a convenient enough arrangement at the time, it wasn’t like my mum could find a job that was as high paying as dad’s is, and somebody had to look after me. When I grew up to an age where I could be self-sufficient, however, mum thought it was too late in her life to go looking for a job, with no qualifications or skills she instead stayed at home playing a housewife, an arrangement dad never seemed too disappointed with.
Looking up from her dinner opposite me, mum places her chopsticks shakily down into her bowl. ‘Shiina…your father is…he’s just working late tonight, okay?’ she says quickly, turning back to her dinner. Well that clears that up, it wouldn’t be anywhere near the first family meal he’s missed, but something about the way she said it is bugging me…
‘I made your favourite dessert, wait right here!’ She says enthusiastically, collecting all the bowls up and rushing back to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a plate in either hand.
‘Ta-daa!’ she says, holding one of them out to me. Taking it, I stare in awe at the strawberry parfait in front of me. It looks…perfect.
‘You remembered after all this time?’ I ask her unbelieving, digging into the tasty sweet.
‘A mother never forgets her children’s favourite food!’ she tells me with a sly wink, ‘And, well…you seem a bit down since you’ve been home…is everything okay?’
Swallowing the bite in my mouth with a big gulp, I turn to look at my mum, calling forward that well-rehearsed smile. ‘Yes, i’ll be okay mum, I’m just missing my old friends is all…’
She looks at me understandingly, nodding her head. ‘Well, you can always invite them out here for a bit if they’re not too busy!’ she tells me, speaking through a mouthful of food. That’s one of the many habits we share.
‘Yeah, maybe…I’d like that.’
Sleep doesn’t come easy that night as I lie in bed, staring up at the ceiling. I never finished writing the letter, despite several more attempts. I suppose the problem is that I simply don’t know what to say. Do I want to tell her that I still love her no matter that and that I want to be with her? Do I want to ask for her forgiveness, to tell her everything that happened and why in the hope that she forgives me? Even if she doesn’t forgive me, maybe her telling me she never wants to see me again will provide the closure I need. Not happy closure, no. But maybe I could move on, I’ve already had to accept she can never love me like I love her, so would it be so hard to accept that she can’t see me as a friend anymore?
Turning over I hold onto my pillow, pulling it tight towards me and curling up beside it. I did this a lot back at Yamaku too, on those days when it felt like I had nothing to live for, nothing to keep me here. I just closed my eyes and cried, hugging whatever was closest to me, be it a pillow, bundled up sheets or a plushie.
Burying my face into the pillow I think about the last few weeks, everything that went wrong when it shouldn’t have done, the time in three young people’s lives where they should be feeling the world was their oysters, instead of feeling trapped in a cage. The lowest point of my life, where I considered jumping off the school roof because I can give nothing back to this world, and I drove apart the two people who mean the most to me. Similar thoughts race through my head as I cling onto the pillow for dear life.
Despite feeling exhausted, sleep doesn’t claim me for a long time.
Walking downstairs in my pyjamas, I stop at the bottom of the steps to stretch my arms out to either side of me, a big yawn escaping my mouth. Hearing movement from within the kitchen I head that way first, unsurprised to see my mother at the stove, fussing about with a variety of saucepans and pots, stains all down the front of her apron.
‘Morning sweetie.’ She says, having heard me pad into the room behind her.
‘Morning.’ I reply, grabbing a glass out of a cupboard and filling it with milk, before making my way to the living room, the smell of all the food cooking in the kitchen having sent an odd twinge through my stomach. Sitting down I grab the TV remote, flicking from one channel to the next to see if there is anything on worth watching. Early morning kids cartoons and chat shows seem to be the bill of the day, and I flick around a bit before settling with a tamer looking chat show, although I’m not really paying much attention to it, it’s not my kinda thing. I don’t need to worry about other people’s problems too.
‘What you watching?’ Mum asks, sitting herself down next to me still in her apron, the cup of coffee in her hand rising to her lips.
‘Oh, nothing really, couldn’t find anyth-‘ my sentence is cut off short when the smell of her coffee reaches my nostrils, seeming to amplify the twitch in my stomach from earlier.
Oh god.
I barely make it to the toilet, bending over it as I lose all the dinner I ate the night before, and then some. It comes in a torrent, leaving me gasping for breath between bursts, while my mum stands behind me sympathetically rubbing my back.
‘Are you okay Shiina?’ she asks me, concerned.
‘Yeah, I guess it must be something I ate.’ I reply to her, the bowl making my voice echo.
‘Oh, well I feel fine; still, it must be that. Tell me when you feel better.’ She says, washing her hands in the sink behind me before leaving the room. As I sit on the floor I contemplate what could have caused this bout of sickness. I haven’t heard of a sickness bug going around, and as mum said – she’s fine, and we’ve been eating all the same food.
It’s a mystery, maybe I ate too much parfait last night? That would probably do it.
The rest of the week passes the same as always, hanging out with mum when she has free time, and sitting in my room thinking about my past and where my future’s headed. I still want to teach sign language abroad and it might be good for me to just leave the country all together, but what if mum needs me? I haven’t seen much of dad at all in the last week, and I don’t think things are as simple with them as mum likes to make out, truth be told I’m kind of worried.
Whenever I try and ask mum about it though she just dismisses it, telling me that dad is busy right now so he can’t be home often, but promises me that things are fine between them.
Throughout the week I’ve had a few more bouts of the mysterious sickness, and mum is getting to the point where she’s talking about a visit to the doctor’s if it keeps up. The problem is that I don’t feel ill; I just throw up then feel fine again for the most part.
With all these things to think about it’s not until the Saturday that I realise I was due on my period the day before, although I’m not too worried, it’s not too unusual to be a day or two late on it, and I don’t even really think about it, keeping myself busy helping out around the house, but never getting around to writing that letter to Shizune, or one to Hisao.
Wait…late period…Hisao…surely not? No, I think, shaking my head, Hisao would have used protection when we did that, he was a clever boy. The realisation that I never even thought to ask him about it at the time makes me curse my own stupidity, and I debate going to fish his number out of my bag upstairs.
No, no point in worrying him now. I have to make sure.
‘Mum, I’m going shopping, do you need anything?’ I shout through the house, hoping I’ve kept the worry out of my voice.
‘No thanks honey, I only went the other day. Have fun though!’ she replies from somewhere upstairs.
I’d love to be able to say I have fond memories of these streets I’m walking down now, that this place here is where I would meet my friends, and that place there is where we would stand to gossip about stuff when we got older. But I never had many friends. I don’t know why, but people just never really liked me, even from an early age. Was it because I was always a bit bigger than average? If that is the reason, this is a pretty shallow world we live in.
Then again, if I did have friends here keeping me in place, I might never have gone to Yamaku. I might never have met the love of my life and made a great friend beside her.
I would never have lost them both.
Finally reaching the shops I head for the small chemist near the centre of the town, hoping against hope that nobody recognises me. When I was last here I had long brown hair after all, not the short pink cut I have right now, so it seems unlikely that the few people I did know would recognise me if they saw me.
Making my way down the aisles of the shop I stop in front of a shelf full of pregnancy tests, reaching out hesitantly to grab one, surprised at the high price on the shelf. When I reach the cash register the old man behind it squints at me suspiciously, before putting the small box into a bag and handing me back my change.
Thanking him I hurriedly leave the shop, pushing the bag into the pocket of my trousers and making my way home, thoroughly out of breath before I reach the door.
Entering the house the first thing I notice is the smell of something spicy hanging in the air. ‘Oh Shiina!’ my mum calls, hearing the door shut. ‘I made some curry for dinner, do you want to come and have some?’
‘In a minute mother!’ I reply, making my way at a near run to the bathroom to escape the smell that is threatening to empty my stomach there and then. Once inside I lock the door before sinking to the floor with my back to it, withdrawing the small bag from my pocket. ‘This is it,’ I mutter to myself, carefully lifting the box out with minimal noise and reading the instructions on the box and how to use it, and then how to tell the result.
Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I push myself to my feet and make my way over to the toilet, sliding my pants and underwear down around my ankles and sitting down, opening the box and withdrawing a small plastic tube that I hold down between my legs. As a trickle of urine runs over the stick I lean back and shut my eyes – no going back now.
When I’m finished I stand up from the toilet, placing the stick in my hands gingerly down next to the sink, with the little window facing up. As the minutes flick by I stare at myself in the mirror, hoping against hope that the window remains blank, gladdened with every glance down that’s met by an empty window. That’s much better than-
A small pink line has formed in the window, desperately snatching the box up from the floor I scan through the instructions again, finding the results section.
[If the test returns positive, this will be shown by a pink line in the results window.]
A small sob escapes me as I fall to the floor, the tears streaming down my face splashing onto the floor, test left forgotten for now on the side of the sink.
Hisao…what do I do?
