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Picture Credits: screengrab
Till Our Lives Burn Out
Chapter 5- Modi Vivendi
(Part 3b)
… “No one is famous where I come from.”
“Where do you come from?”
“Miss Meioh,” he said, in a way that suggested he had no intention of rehashing that, “I would be deeply sorry to have offended you in any way. Have I?”
“No,” she said, lowering her eyes. “The more I think about y- … it, nothing is … right. You do not make sense to me.”
“Well, that’s ... understandable. I don’t make sense to myself, either.”
“Evasive. Do you think someone as observant as I has no cause to think you strange?”
His expression softened, and then for a moment became incredibly wistful.
“No, I’m just … kind of surprised that someone … that you care.”
“Are you rich?”
“No. I could always go back home, and be … quite well taken care of there, but I would consider that a failure on my part. I choose instead to travel, and make my way wherever I go by hard work and excellence.”
“I am not ungrateful,” she said sincerely, “but why have you asked so little money for Hotaru’s education? You can not have managed trips to the dolphin park, student produced videos, and cloisonné materials on what we have paid you.”
“In some cases, I’ve called in some favors. In others, I was willing to foot the bill myself. Those are things I might have done for my own recreation anyway. However, you have a point, and I guess I should have made this clearer, Miss Meioh. I considered it an honor to teach Hotaru, even something for which I should have paid you. I … care for Hotaru very much, and also I wanted to help … you.”
She considered that for a moment.
“How old are you?”
“32.”
“Impossible. Even if you were a prodigy, no one can have the repertoire of talents you have in just three decades.”
“I suppose. So what do you surmise from that?”
“That you are a either a singular genius or you are older than you look.”
“Maybe I had very good, very persistent teachers,” he said, “maybe even the best ever, and maybe in my case there was no where to go but up.”
“That would have taken even longer. Besides that, one might think a polymath such as you would be better known?”
“Perhaps I prefer to working behind the scenes, in small ways, rather than big ones. People always think that big things are how history happens. In fact, the big things are made up of whole lot of little things done well, or done poorly. Or not at all.”
Setsuna’s eyes narrowed. “I am not a snob, Mister Kuryakin …”
“Miss Meioh,” he interrupted, “I am very sorry if you thought I was implying such a thing. I was not.” ‘Why is she so touchy?’
“Apology accepted,” she said after a pregnant pause. “I, too, am making my way as best I can …”
“I … know that about you. I’d say your best is pretty good, and I admire you for it. Deeply.”
“… thank you,” she said, with just a tiny hint of a smile, and then reached into her hair, and began twirling an unruly lock with her finger. “… but to continue, I am not rich either, though my part in the house I share with Haruka and Michiru is paid for. However, I firmly believe that everything finds its … level.”
“I see. Miss Meioh, what did you think of my lecture?”
“Well,” she said, waxing pedantic. Kuryakin listened to what she had to say, but as she did so, he couldn’t help but notice the beauty of her melodious alto voice that somehow managed to be smooth and husky at the same time: a lush, decorous voice that, in spite of the condescension in it, sounded even better in person than it did on the phone. She listed her objections to his lecture, and her main argument was that history is driven by ‘singularities’, people of transcendent genius or ability who appear at appointed times.
“You have some special insight into the future, do you?”
“Perhaps,” she said, almost playfully.
“In other words, you believe in Destiny, with a capital ‘D’.”
“I suppose so.”
“We’re not that far apart on the idea of ‘singularities,’ really, but I also say that the highest does not stand without the lowest, and instead of Destiny, I, with certain qualifications, believe in free will. There are differing ideas of what’s important and what constitutes a ‘singularity’, Miss Meioh. I believe there is nothing more important than what I do for the ordinary people of whom ‘Destiny’ knows little or nothing. What you call Destiny I call Tragedy. With a capital ‘T’.”
“Do you teach such things to Hotaru?”
“You can ask her anytime what I have taught her,” he replied. “I would be surprised to find out that you haven’t asked her before now. I have taught her the set curriculum someone of her abilities ought to know according to the standards set by MEXT. However, Hotaru is a unique person with a very sharp mind and, at times, an insatiable curiosity. To someone of her abilities, there comes a time where it is pointless to make her regurgitate facts, names and dates all day. I teach by induction anyway and sooner or later, she’ll ask ‘why did Julius Caesar cross the Rubicon? Why did Genghis Khan invade China? Why did Hitler kill the Jews?’ It gets a bit dicey when she starts asking things like ‘why did Japan invade Manchuria?’ As you saw, -and thanks for coming to my little talk, by the way- I have very definite ideas about such events, and since I don’t want to frustrate her inquisitiveness –she asks so earnestly, you see? How can I refuse?- I tell her what I think. I’m very careful to state ‘since you asked, this is what I think’, and make sure to give countervailing points of view, like yours, and of course, let her know these are not things she’ll be tested on.”
She eyed him warily, but with a hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth.
“What have you concluded concerning Hotaru?”
“Since you asked, this is what I think,” he said with a smile. “Hotaru is psychic. She is, isn’t she, Miss Meioh?”
Setsuna looked a bit petulant, but then said softly, “yes, she is.”
“You can vouch for the accuracy of her … seeings?”
Setsuna pursed her lips, annoyed.
“Yes. And do not ask me anything further about that.”
“Yes, ma’am. So then, what I have concluded about Hotaru is she has seen something that is too much for her to bear. The most logical assumption is that it deals with a person or persons about whom she cares very much. However, I suspect it’s one person, for reasons I’ll explain in a minute. Something terrible is going to happen to this person. Perhaps it is her ‘soul friend,’ perhaps one of The Kittens, or … perhaps it’s you, Miss Meioh. She coped with it by dissociative amnesia. In her case, there was an accompanying cataleptic freeze up.”
“I see. Surely, Miyuki could have told us that. I wonder why she didn’t.”
“Y’know, I too have wondered why, exactly, Mi-chan thought I was the one to help you, and I think I am beginning to understand.”
“Oh?”
“I assume you know about her brother, Shiro?”
“Yes.”
“How much do you know?”
“I know that she feels you essentially ‘saved his life’.”
“Really?” he said, looking surprised. “That’s … very kind of her to say. A bit melodramatic, maybe, but …”
“She did not mean that metaphorically. She was quite sure of it.”
“I see,” he said with a wistful smile. “Did she ever tell you what, exactly, had been troubling him?”
“No.”
Kuryakin thought for a minute, then said, “Well, at the risk of offending against professionalism I think I can tell you this much. He had the same problem that Hotaru has, anxiety generative foreseeings leading to an existential crisis of sorts. I think Miss Mayamura saw in Hotaru the same thing that was happening with her brother, and that is why she urged me to take the job if you called, and why she suggested you call me. She thinks very highly of you, y’know?”
“And I think very highly of her. So, Hotaru is having terrible visions. At the risk of violating my own rule about allowing you too much understanding of our personal lives, I will tell you that Hotaru has had a very difficult life, and more than a few traumatic moments.”
“Thank you for volunteering that, Miss Meioh, but that’s not the problem. This isn’t about something in her past, but about something in the future. The question is why does she wish to forget what she is seeing? What is the nature of this thing that is going to happen to someone she loves and why is it so troubling to her? If it was just something like an accident or some such, she would remember that because she would want to remember and warn that person. She is seeing something at once so awful and so insoluble in nature, she wants to forget it. It’s the insolubility that’s the problem here, just like it was with Shiro Mayamura. He didn’t see any way out of the future that he- plausibly enough given his assumptions- saw so clearly. I have been subtly trying to encourage her that no problem is that unsolvable and give her hope and the confidence to find a way through it. Now, as you know, there is this look that comes over her now and then, which I, for want of a better term, call The Cold Look …”
“I see,” said Setsuna interrupted tersely. She looked almost visibly angry now. “You’ve seen that have you?”
“Uh, yes,” he said, looking a bit puzzled. “Miss Meioh, you seem to be getting very angry with me.”
“I am angry because you did not tell me of seeing Hotaru in that particular state.”
“But Miss Meioh, I did tell you, twice. Once during the phone call on the day of her first lesson - her first occurrence, and once a few weeks ago, of which I informed you, again by phone. Don’t you remember?”
Setsuna did not remember that until the very moment he said it, and looked a bit stunned at this failure of her memory. He had indeed told her all about that on the very day of both occurrences.
“You are correct,” she said, suddenly contrite and bewildered. “I am not sure why I had forgotten that.”
“Maybe you’re having a little dissociative problem yourself?” he ventured playfully, but there was a serious speculation behind it.
‘That was unnecessary’ her expression said, but at least she wasn’t looking so angry now.
“All that’s really needed now,” he continued, shaking her from her torpor, “is for you, or the Kittens, or both, to talk to her, and find out what it is she is seeing. She’s so very proper, and in a way, it may be something she … needs permission to remember, as it were. Assuming it truly does concern someone she loves, deep down she wants it to come out, and to warn the person in danger.”
“Assuming all this is correct,” Setsuna said, “what is your best guess as to who is in danger?”
Kuryakin thought very hard about that. He had better reasons than he could admit for what he was about to say, and he did not want to answer.
“You.”
Setsuna looked angry again, but only for a moment.
“Why me?”
Kuryakin was thinking fast. He could not reveal the main reason he felt Setsuna was the one ‘in danger.’
“Hotaru is terribly obedient. She adores you to no end. The idea of something bringing her into conflict with you would, I think, be sufficiently traumatic to cause the behaviors we’ve seen.”
Setsuna seemed to soften, but only a little.
“What else have you discerned about Hotaru in your time together?”
“I know that, in some fashion, she has aged faster than usual, at least mentally. Whatever the reasons, she is far more intellectually mature than she is emotionally and socially mature, so there is a dissonance in her personality that will be there until she matures as a person. Any problems arising from this have been kept in check by you and the Kittens, until recently, anyway. You really have done a great job of raising her, better perhaps than you realize, if I may be so bold. Another thing I have thus figured out: I think that she is something … unique – one of your singularities, perhaps?- and at times she is terrified by what she is. She lacks the experience to handle such an internal conflict. She loves you all very much, and you keep her ‘steady.’ But she needs to get out more. She needs more friends, more contact with people.”
“Well, it does seem as if you have completed that part of your obligation to us. I am very impressed really. “
“Thank you, Miss Meioh,” said Kuryakin, who wasn’t quite thinking of it that way. She sounded … dismissive, like she did that night at the hospital, and he had to admit the thought was a little painful to him. “So,” he continued, “as I said, what you must do is talk to her about what she is seeing, and help her to bring it out.”
“We shall.”
“Good, and I shall get her through her finals with flying colors. So then,” he said, looking as if he were about to leave.
“Mister Kuryakin, I am not finished with you yet.”
“Oh. It sounded like you were,” he said as he sat back down.
“There is something very odd about you and I am not leaving here without some satisfaction on the matter.”
“You really want to know the whole truth about me? Everything?”
She nodded, her expression firm and expectant. He sighed, looked very thoughtful, and then said, very smoothly, “Very well, Miss Meioh. I’ll make you an offer. Let me finish with Hotaru. And then, once I have fulfilled all of my obligation to you, I will tell you anything you wish to know about me.”
“Anything?”
“Anything. The good, the bad, the mundane, the fantastic, anything.”
“I have your word?”
“I have said it; therefore, you have my word.”
She looked appraisingly askance at him, then smiled a little and nodded her head.
“Very well.”
He smiled at her, and sincerely hoped she would take him up on that offer. There were many, many things he wanted to tell her, and perhaps she had just given him an opening of sorts at some future date. Again, he rose to leave.
“Kuryakin-san?”
“Yes, Miss Meioh?”
“Those … sideburns?” she said, with the slightly pained voice and expression of a person purposively offering someone a breath mint.
“Yes?”
“Do you ever … shave … those off?”
“No, I don’t,” he said, eyeing her strangely.
“Perhaps you should.”
His ‘Oh really?’ expression was full of amusement. He stroked his chin thoughtfully, then chuckled and said, “I’ll make you another deal, Miss Meioh. I suppose they do look a bit funny. I grew them when I was … younger, and trying to impress, but later, I found reason to keep them. Should you ever have occasion to find out what that reason was …” and then he got very close to her and with a playfully wicked look in his eye, “and I truly hope you do- if you still want me to shave them off, I will. Ja, Carabella.”
He walked away with a very satisfied expression, and she was left with the very strong impression that she should have slapped him.
Till Our Lives Burn Out
Chapter 5- Modi Vivendi
(Part 4a)
5f. Final Trajectories
“He caught you? How did that happen?” Haruka asked, astonished.
“That is what I wish to determine,” Setsuna said, with an angry, even crazed, glower. She came home in what, for her, amounted to a tizzy. She was calm enough during their discussion and even found herself enjoying it at times, the same way she did when they talked on the phone. It had ended strangely, but that wasn’t what set off the aftermath. Kuryakin had paid for the tea, and left, glancing back at her through the window as he did. Strangely and for the briefest moment, she felt a strong desire to go with him. Just to take a walk. With him. Something in her quickly banished that idea, and by the time she’d made her way back to Haruka’s car, she was convinced that this morning had been an even bigger disaster than it was, and that it was all his fault. After a few minutes of driving faster than she ought through Tokyo, she had almost convinced herself he was the one who had been tailing her this morning. The thought did cross her mind that she was acting as if the man could do no right: He was charming? He must be up to something. He was erudite? He must be showing off. He was concerned about Hotaru? Pft. He said she was the cause of Hotaru’s problem. He must be trying to steal her. That comment about his sideburns? God only knows what that was about. He was the one in the wrong, and like an arrested criminal, anything he did or said was used in evidence against him. Then she snapped out of it and got down to the real issue. How had he seen past her concealment aura? How had he seen her, period? He was never once looking directly at her. And why had she forgotten to ask him how he’d seen her? She could never quite make a conversation with him go the way she wanted. It was maddening.
“You must have made a mista ...” the word died an appropriate death on Haruka’s tongue. Setsuna Meioh didn’t make mistakes, especially when it pertained to the concerns of the Sailor Senshi.
“So now,” said Michiru airily, “because he caught you, you’re even more suspicious.”
“Yes.”
“There is a term for this, Setsuna.”
“Yes, positive feedback loop.”
“No,” Haruka chuckled, “compulsive / obsessive paranoia. It’s either that or …”
“Or what?”
Haruka looked at Michiru. ‘She really doesn’t know.’
“Setsuna,” Michiru ventured, “our concealment powers mean that … well …”
“Yes?” said the tall, dark skinned woman, still with a wild look in her eye.
“… well, that he couldn’t have seen you,” Haruka jumped in, with a bit of a smirk, “unless you wanted to be seen.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Oh … nothing,” Haruka said, with a knowing glance at Michiru as if they were sharing some inside humor. Setsuna looked nonplussed, turned and walked away, sure that her friends had to be joking about something.
“Yare, yare,” Haruka quietly muttered to a smirking Michiru as she shook her head.
In the first weeks of December, the weather began to turn cold, and the lack of time and her other worries prevented Setsuna from any further investigation of Hotaru’s tutor. The crack up with her mentoring professor had some real consequences after all. She had decided to see how it played out, and see if he could regain her admiration as a teacher, but on her last test, he had graded some of her essay rather harshly. She sought a second opinion from Dr. Genda, and found out he had talked to her present mentor about Setsuna out of a sense academic protocol. Nothing explicit had been said, but Dr. Genda was no fool, and neither was he blind; Setsuna was a very pretty woman and he’d been around the academic professor-student relations block enough times to guess what might have happened. He apologized to Setsuna, saying he had not understood just how touchy the situation was. He did agree at once to be her mentor, so some good had resulted. He also agreed that she had a case. Her essay was fine, and so falling out was going to be an issue. She would have to weigh the effects this might have on her academic career and whether she ought to bring up the unethical conduct of her now former mentor with the Ethics Board. That would be very difficult, since his reputation as a theoretical physicist made him one of the brightest stars in K.O. University’s sterling academic constellation. She decided against it, for now, but she did not like how chaotic her well-ordered civilian life had become. She longed for the predictable stability it once had and prayed for its return.
At the beginning of the second week of December, the three adults finally informed Hotaru of what she had halfway surmised. Next April, she would be going to Funabashi Academy with Haruka and Michiru on a full scholarship, if she passed her finals. She seemed indifferent and then quietly asked if it might be possible to continue studying with Mister Kuryakin until April, and mentioned that he offered, in passing, to do it for free. Setsuna didn’t like this at all, but Haruka seemed merely indifferent, and Michiru looked as though that was worth considering, if it was a serious offer.
‘If I pass my finals, hmmm?’ Hotaru mused as she went upstairs to wash for dinner.
The Friday before finals, Hotaru’s teacher took her to the art room first thing, where they spent the next two hours firing the cloisonné vase. The rest of the day was spent reviewing. That weekend, he polished and electroplated the vase for her, and when she came in Monday, she held the finished product in her hands. She spent several minutes gazing with justifiable pride at it. Then they wrapped it up for the journey home. The review that day was interrupted only by lunch and a short walk in the nearby park. The Kittens arrived promptly at 4:30. Hotaru wrapped her arms around the box to carry the vase carefully to the car, while Kuryakin brought the rest of her things. He said a few words to Hotaru about how pleased he was with the review, and how confident he was that she would succeed on Wednesday and Thursday. Michiru took Mister Kuryakin aside, and asked quietly about the offer of some free supplemental tutoring, and he said he might be able to do that, but that first Hotaru needed to get through the next few days, and they could talk about it after that. Haruka seemed to be in a hurry and they left without further ado.
“So Hotaru,” asked Michiru, as they headed down Highway 1 to Route 409 and the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line. “How do feel about the upcoming finals?”
“Fine,” she said.
“What’s in the box?” asked Haruka.
“Oh, nothing much,” she said, in the way that meant there was very much something in the box, but that it was a surprise of some sort.
“I see,” said Michiru, and Hotaru looked at her, and then to the box again. Haruka and Michiru talked for a bit about their plans for the upcoming week. There was a recital Michiru needed to attend, and she wanted Haruka to come with her. Haruka suggested they go to dinner somewhere before the recital and make an evening of it. Michiru agreed. They reached the Aqua-Line, and descended into the tunnel. After a few kilometers, Haruka talked about how she would have to do some racing week-end after this, mainly breaking in and testing some new engines for her sponsor, Toyota. She also mentioned she might get to star in a commercial for them – no speaking involved, just looking cool behind the wheel. Michiru looked very impressed nonetheless.
“How exciting. Hotaru, did you hear that?” she said looking over her shoulder at the Littlest Senshi. “Hotaru?”
Hotaru had not heard. She was staring at the box in her lap and looking tearful.
“Hotaru, what’s wrong?” asked Michiru. Haruka looked into the rear view mirror in time to see Hotaru wipe her eyes, trying to pretend nothing was wrong.
“Oh, nothing. I’m just … I … I …”
“Haruka, pull over,” Michiru commanded. Haruka pulled off onto the side of the tunnel road. Michiru got into the back seat and Hotaru explained in hushed whispers while they headed home.
That night, the lone occupant of Juku-PK watched as a smoke ring ascended into the air and dissipated. He was not a smoker – a terrible, poisonous habit - but on rare occasions, he would get out that box of Cuban cigars someone had given him long ago, light one up and take a few puffs, just to honor the gift. It reminded him of the time he had briefly attended a South American university to do research on some private theories of his. He had met and endeared himself to some great people. He had helped a few of them too. The person who gave him the cigars, a British expat now living in Belize, said he had not even begun to repay the debt he owed for a huge –even life endangering, so the man had thought - favor Kuryakin had done for him. That was a fine, happy time. Peter Kuryakin was not a naturally happy person. He once was, when he was young, but that was long ago, and now his was a learned happiness, and painfully so. It was real, though.
And realistic.
That realism was forcing a blunt, unequivocal, tacit confession out of him now:
I am in love with Setsuna Meioh.
Madly.
Deliriously.
‘So bad it hurts’ in love.
The most obvious clue? The utter disruption of his sleep. He couldn’t pin down exactly when it started happening, but within two weeks of tutoring Hotaru, the only way he could get one -and only one- decent night’s sleep was to see or talk to Setsuna Meioh, if only for a few minutes. After they’d had tea together the day he caught her tailing him, he went home at once, and got a solid eighteen hours of sleep. He nearly revealed himself the day of the second trip to the Dolphinarium. When Miss Kaioh said, “we’ll be ready…” the evening before, his heart nearly jumped out of his chest. He was sure it meant that the Kittens would be joining him and Hotaru on their journey to the Dolphinarium, though he had expected they would drive down themselves in Tomboy Kitten’s Ferrari. From that moment on, he was praying that Setsuna Meioh would come too, and maybe ride with him and Hotaru. Even if she didn’t, he thought he might contrive to see her at the end of the day, so he made sure he had everything he needed just in case. When that phone call about Miss Meioh staying late at K.O. came, his well-crafted wall of emotional inscrutability was stressed to the breaking point. If he had shown his honest reaction, Hotaru and The Kittens would have either seen a grown man cry or a kind one use a vocabulary he almost never employed. That she was staying late to have dinner with one of her professors was nice little twist of the knife, forgotten only when Hotaru had surprised him with that parting comment about how it was too bad that Setsuna had to stay late at school. How many times since had he wanted to ask Hotaru if there was anything going on there? He could not, and it nearly drove him mad, until Hotaru, bless her, let him off the hook a few days later by casually mentioning that Setsuna occasionally did that when deep into research or writing papers. It suggested that she wouldn’t make too big a deal out of it, and he was too grateful to hear this to wonder much about whether Hotaru knew how he felt.
There were others clues just as obvious. From the moment he met “that unbelievable woman,” he found himself doing the goofiest things. Letting her drive them to Tokyo a few months ago gave him the chance to admire her eyes in the rear view mirror while she was preoccupied with the traffic and the road. Her smooth, darker skin so contrasted with the white of her eyes that their shape stood out, commanding immediate attention. They were exquisitely elliptical, but could round out when expressing emotion, except for anger where they became narrowed slits even more beautifully tapered. Never was the saying “beautiful when you’re angry” more in force. Her lashes were full - naturally, it appeared- and her upper eyelids tapered exquisitely into a soft but striking and dramatic curve at the outer eye. She shaded her eyelids with a light lavender color, using so little it was almost unnoticeable and utterly natural. The deep garnet color of her irises was like a fine Burgundy the merest draught of which threatened to collapse him like a house of cards. Too, he caught shifting light that glinted emerald when it struck her lustrous, silken hair and wondered how long it was without the bun. His sunglasses had made it impossible to see exactly what he was looking at, but he wondered if Hotaru might have come close to figuring out what he was doing. She had glanced back at him a few times, and he had not caught it right away, so she must have known that even though he appeared to be looking straight ahead, he was looking somewhere else.
Dressing up as Napoleon and acting silly in front of a camera was part of it, the sort of fool thing a teenager might do to get a girl’s attention. He had done that for Hotaru too, of course. Making her smile was moral imperative to him by this time, but he wished he could have been there at that little birthday party – oh blessed day, when that woman was born – and seen her laugh at the video, if laugh she had or ever did. He wished he could have seen her expression when she received Hotaru’s superb gift. His amazement at watching Hotaru master the basics of cloisonné so quickly had only grown since she had started work on the vase. She must love Miss Meioh very deeply, and, more than anything else, he had come to love Hotaru by watching her, with knitted brow and determined eyes, slice doggedly through the tedium of a difficult craft. The day of that party was one of the most depressing he’d ever known, and he was shocked to discover he’d become that emotionally involved. He would have paid any sum to be there, but could only be there in spirit. Hotaru had mentioned that they would probably start around three-thirty or four that afternoon. He tried to imagine the doings around the same time that the party was actually happening. The following Monday, he asked Hotaru to tell him about it, hanging on every word as she did. Even if Miss Meioh’s ‘thank you’ note was terse and coldly formal, it was still like a cool drink after hard work on a hot summer’s day, and found its way under his pillow that night, along with that other slip of paper. He was very touched by the piece of cake Hotaru brought him, but when she was done talking about the party, he never felt like such an outsider in all his solitary life.
The saucer that elicited that thank you note came to mind as silliness of a higher order. He worried about the fact that Miss Meioh knew it came from him. He hoped she would not notice the solid platinum wire he used in the cloisonné lattice. It wasn’t likely. She should just assume it was plated, not solid. With the filigree pattern he made on the rim of the under side, it amounted to over a half an ounce, making it worth 100,000 yen on that basis alone. He was not remotely rich, but it was as if he was determined to give back all the money he took for teaching Hotaru – something he loved doing so much by this time that taking money for it threatened to ruin the joy. He did it for Hotaru, but now, as he clearly saw, he also did it out of a deepening desire to do something –anything- for ‘that unbelievable woman.’
There were other things, and the silliest of all was sitting in the fridge. Miss Meioh had taken a bite out of one of the cakes he’d offered her that first day they met. She seemed to like it, but left off without eating any more as they became engrossed in discussing Hotaru. He saved it, just so he could gaze at the impression her teeth had left, even rising, more than once, in the middle of the night to do so. The impression was clearest in the icing, but the cake was spongy and made good cast as well. Her teeth were straight, almost too symmetrical, and made him think of that beautiful, tiny smile of hers. He was quite sure that if that piece of cake had been the last bit of food on this world, he would have defended it against armies, or starved to death rather than eat it. He kept it wrapped in the napkin she’d wiped her mouth with, and also saved the cup from which she drank because it had an impression of her lips in pink lipstick on it. He had not yet been so silly as to actually kiss the cup, but he had come close a few times. As glorious as her eyes were, that was the very first thing he’d noticed about her that day: the glistening of the light on those pink and perfect lips.
He was in an entirely bad way.
‘This shouldn’t be possible, to feel this way anymore,’ he thought. There were, indeed, no stars in his eyes. He was too mature, had seen too much, done too much, been through too much, and yet the merest thought of this woman destabilized his precision mental and emotional gyros in a way that no one had accomplished since long ago. He was not immune or indifferent to the charms of the few opportunities for that sort of thing he’d had here. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what made this one so special, so able to confound him where no one else, not even the pretty and utterly charming Dr. Mizuno, had come close. It wasn’t her beauty, per se. Objectively, he’d met and might have had opportunities with many women just as lovely. Perhaps it was the depth of feeling and strength he sensed in her. It was something of which years of intimacy might not plumb the bottom. And, he was sure, there was a sadness there: a sadness that, determined to bear all things, refused to call to anyone for solace.
And there was that other thing he’d noticed on the first day.
That business about dinner with her professor aside, he was reasonably sure she didn’t have anyone. A woman like that? If she didn’t have someone, it must be because she didn’t want anyone. The idea that she was secretly pining …
(Word Limit Reached)
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