"Ok!" Mizuki jabbed her chopstick toward the drawings Emi had. "Should we attach the apron or not?" Emi stared at Mizuki with shock and horror.
"Attached!" Emi snarled. "Always. The bottom's fine but the top has to be attached. What the hell? It's like I don't know you!"
"Don't take that tone with me, Emi," Mizuki warned her. "You think you know maids? You don't know maids!"
"What are you two, some kind of maid otakus? What the hell?" I muttered, shaking my head.
"Oh, we'll have words," Emi threatened her, ignoring me completely. "I've got books at home. Old books. With pictures. I know how the outfit's supposed to be."
"Well said," Mizuki raised her chopstick in surrender. "Attached at the top it is." The pair went back to poring over the drawings while Saki and I stared on dead eyed. Aria had not joined us. Not that I expected her to. Oddly enough, she had also not joined Daishi's little knot of wretches, either. She had spread her lunch on the desk in front of her and munched placidly. Not that I was watching, of course.
This hurts, I thought as I shifted the food I'd brought in my bento listlessly from one side of the box to another. The numbness from last night had completely worn off leaving me alternating between a dull ache and stabbing pains of betrayal and regret. Had I caused this?
If I had just accepted her feelings without being a crybaby about everything would she be eating with us right now? Would we be laughing and talking? Would we, maybe, even be secretly holding hands under the table? If I hadn't been so intractable would things have been different or was she already seeing Daishi and decided after yesterday to make things official? What ifs, if onlys and maybes were all I had, I supposed. A weight had descended on the room and I was being crushed. A sudden need to escape filled me with an anxiety I couldn't shake. I had to get away.
"I need something to drink," I muttered, standing up quickly and heading toward the door. As soon as I stepped through the door and into the wide, oddly colored hallway I felt a little better. The weight pressing down on my lungs seemed to lessen and my eyes stopped watering. Were they tears? I didn't think so. I took a deep breath finally and straightened, making my way toward the cafeteria.
"Kasumi-senpai!" Saki called to me, hurrying to catch up. I smiled half-heartedly at her, my smile as the muscles maneuvered into it seemed alien and fake. "I'd like to buy a drink also. Can I come with you?"
Sure," I mumbled.
"I'm sorry the conversation didn't go well," Saki finally said as we turned the corner toward the cafeteria.
"Ah, her dating Daishi, you mean?" Of course, she'd heard about them dating. In a school our size it would be unnatural if she hadn't. Social media hadn't replaced small town gossip, it had enhanced the gossip and made it instantaneous and monstrous. Saki nodded miserably. "Yeah, well, I guess it was only natural."
Maybe that was the part that bothered me the most about the whole situation. Not that she was dating him, but the fact it all seemed to feel so natural. He was an asshole, but he was a popular asshole. He was relatively athletic, rich, and well-connected. Everything I wasn't. Not to mention the main difference that he had a penis, and I didn't. How did other lesbians (since it was clear at this point, I was, in fact, a lesbian) deal with this insecurity?
You had all the normal anxieties associated with a relationship to contend with: Does she love me? Am I good enough? Am I too cruel to her? Too kind? Too sweet? Not sweet enough? Then on top of all of that what if she wants children? What if I do? No matter how hard I worked I could never provide a "normal" relationship. I could never satisfy my parents' or hers' desire for grandchildren. Not to mention everything in society seemed geared toward a couple with a penis and a vagina being the norm. Every commercial on TV showed a happy, healthy nuclear family with a husband and wife and two kids and a dog and cat. None of which I could provide.
How did those girls I saw on TV cope with that pressure? How could they stay together in the face of that hurricane? Adoption might have been an option, except the government wouldn't let a lesbian couple adopt a child, would they? I had no idea. I didn't imagine they would. A lesbian couple couldn't get married or share insurance or even go to the hospital to be with their partner if they were hurt or sick. Japan may have been many things, but the one thing it most certainly was not was a welcoming place to be gay.
The saying was "love conquers all", but with so many obstacles erected against us, how did lesbian couples stay together? Maybe we weren't meant to, I thought miserably. Maybe we were meant to flit from one night stand to one night stand like butterflies, hiding behind lies to co-workers and family about being too busy for a boyfriend. Maybe we swallowed our natural needs and strove to live a life with a husband, choking down our wants and closing our eyes while doing our "wifely duty" and just waiting for it to end so we could go into the bathroom and cry ourselves to numbness again.
If that's the way it was done, I would simply not bother. My brother would most likely have enough children to more than make up for my lack. My parents would pressure me because that's the way they were, but once I left Tottori I wouldn't be coming back, that much was certain. Besides, I was already enough of a disappointment to them that a lack of children and husband would just cement my place as the waste of sperm they already viewed me as. No matter how I looked at it, the deck seemed stacked against me, so I guess I couldn't really blame Aria for folding. Especially with as difficult as I'd made things.
Why did anyone care what I did in my life? Why was who I loved or what I did with them or how I felt anyone's damn business but my own? Didn't people have enough problems of their own to focus on without butting into other people's lives? Maybe somewhere else I could be who I really was. Maybe I could love who I wanted without hurting anyone. Was I that broken that society had to have rules designed to protect themselves from me?
"I-It's not natural!" Saki exclaimed, surprising both me and, seemingly, her as well. I glanced over at her and she fidgeted uncomfortably, folding and unfolding her hands nervously. "I mean, it's not natural. Love is natural. Communication is natural. What Aria senpai did isn't natural. You don't give up on someone you love!"
"Didn't you, though?" I asked, realizing almost immediately what I said had to hurt. I am such a bitch, I scolded myself silently. I glanced quickly at Saki and the sad smile curling her lips nearly made me cry.
"No," Saki finally said. "I'm not sure you ever truly give up on the person you love. It can evolve and change but I think love will always be there in some form or another unless it's beaten out of you. Even if it hurts for a long time, maybe even forever, I think it can be a source of strength, too."
"How so?" How in the hell could she be so serene about it? I asked myself. I'm over here losing my mind and moping and even as small as she was, she was strong. I really am a baby.
"I know how short life can be," Saki replied, standing patiently beside me as I reached the vending machine. "Sometimes when everything else is gone, love is all you have to hold on to, and it's the strongest thing ever. It can keep you from giving up. It can keep you from thinking bad thoughts or doing bad things. Heh." She chuckled. "Sometimes it can even help you beat cancer."
"You're far stronger than I am, Saki-chan," I murmured, shaking my head.
"That's not true, senpai," Saki smiled once more, a smile to light the dark corners of my mind. "You have strength you don't even know you have, yet. I can tell."
"How?" I asked as my juice box dropped onto the chute.
"We know our own?" Saki asked with a grin.
"I don't feel very strong," I muttered.
"Just be you," Saki shrugged.
"How sage-like young Sakura-chan is!" I teased her as we slowly walked back toward class. Honestly, I was in no hurry to dive back into the pressure chamber the classroom felt like.
"Well, I read a lot," Saki shrugged.
The rest of the day felt like a slog through a bramble marsh. The minutes seemed to tick on forever and always, at the edge of my peripheral vision the bright blonde hair shimmered brightly in the dull light filtering through the window. Although talking to Saki had made me feel much better the gnawing bitterness and confusion still ate away at me. By the time class ended my stomach had knotted up again and I hurried from the classroom toward the shoe lockers, eager to get as far away from school as I possibly could.
I sat down heavily in front of my locker and sighed. This sucked. It just did. Everything about it sucked. I'd agreed to meet Emi and Mizuki but had no desire to do anything but curl up in my blankets and sleep the next month away, cocooned away from the world like a miserable, stupid caterpillar.
"- that American?" A voice sounded on the other side of the lockers said. I'd missed the first part of the conversation but, as there was only one American in school there could be no doubt who they were talking about.
"What about Daishi-kun?" Another girl replied as a locker opened. "What a sleaze! Going out with Midori-senpai and then the American at the same time?"
"I thought he and Midori-senpai broke up?"
"They're always on and off, you know that. They're like oil and water but they're both too stubborn to admit they don't mix well."
"Haha! You talk like you know chemistry!"
"Right? Haha!"
"I bet Midori-senpai's pissed!"
"Hell yeah, she is! She's on the roof right now with the American. I heard Otoha-senpai even brought a baseball bat!" What the fuck? This couldn't be right. Could it?
"Oh my god! Shouldn't someone tell Daishi-kun?"
"Someone did! He just shrugged and was like 'not my problem.'"
"Holy crap! He's gonna let his girlfriend get beaten up? What a total sleaze! Maybe we should tell a teacher?"
"Nah, I don't really like her. Besides, if Midori-senpai finds out we told a teacher, Otoha-senpai's bat could be coming for us next." The locker slammed as I sat there, frozen.
"True. Want to go to karaoke?"
"Sure!"
What do I do? I thought, sitting where I was, shoes in my hands. I knew Daishi was a piece of shit, but I didn't think he was this low. Still…was this really my problem? I mean, she'd made her choice and she should have to live with it. I could tell a teacher, I guess. I doubt Midori-senpai would actually beat her with a bat. Probably. Maybe. Could I really let that happen, though?
"Shit," I hissed with a scowl. What the hell could I do? I glanced at the ceiling then the open door. My heart pounding in my chest I finally put my shoes on and slammed my locker shut. There was only one thing to do. I hefted my backpack onto my shoulder and walked toward the open door. "Fuck it." I finally whispered fiercely. "She's not my problem anymore." I snapped, desperately wanting to believe it.