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The water in the bathtub was getting cold.
It was on nights like these, when the loneliness of Tokyo was too much to bear, Tsukimi sat still in the bathwater until she was shivering and her lips were blue.
She wished desperately to feel the neon glow of a pool—large, deep, and empty, free of chatter and noise. The water would feel heavy underneath her, surrounding her—a security blanket she could call upon whenever she needed it. She would be so light in comparison—she couldn’t possibly sink, even if she tried, even if she desperately wanted to.
Sometimes she wanted to.
Tsukimi never had the chance to learn how to swim. At public pools, she would feel endless pairs of eyes on her, always watching. Even as a child, she was incredibly aware of the judgement being laid upon her, god, how it sunk into her skin and settled into her pores like a vicious disease. It didn’t feel like small knives or paper cuts, but rather poison seeping in beneath the surface. It was slow, as it always was, but soon it would begin to burn and Tsukimi would feel desperate and hot, and her legs would begin to shake. So, she would tug at her swimsuit uncomfortably and let her pudgy legs dangle in—let the water kiss her feet—but that was all she could handle before retreating back behind the thick door of the changing room.
It’s different in her dreams. It was in her dreams where she could float with ease—her arms outstretched like an angel’s wings—and the warmth of the heated water enveloped her soul and it felt all too similar to the safety of her mother’s arms.
Perhaps it was obvious, but the loss of her mother sent panic through Tsukimi every time things got bad, most notably when the camaraderie between the women of Amamizukan wasn’t enough to numb the pain that was always present in the very core of her being.
An otaku girl, stuck out like a sore thumb in the most populated city in the world, going nowhere and becoming nothing. Frizzy-haired, bushy-browed, four-eyed, chubby Tsukimi Kurashita. Microscopic in the world, hell, even in Tokyo, yet still an obvious waste of a life.
The thought of how disappointed her mother would be with her made her feel the deepest shame of all, but Tsukimi felt defeated. From the moment she was born, her fate was set in stone. She would never amount to anything. Even the silly achievement of being beautiful was painfully unattainable. The features she inherited from her mother didn’t look right on her—as if they were warped and unkindly pulled apart, snatched out of her hands like candy before a dentist appointment.
So, she let herself become absorbed in her daydreams. She had one in particular, based on a memory of when her mother took her to a jellyfish aquarium. When anxiety struck—whether it was when Tsukimi was squished between two men on the subway and their hands wandered a bit too much, or when she was being jostled along the crowded streets—her mind switched.
Because if she just focused on them, on the dancing jellyfish on the other side of the glass, she wouldn’t have to think about the bad things.
She could think of her mom’s hand warm against her back, the cool surface of the glass, the blushing pink of the jellyfish that were always out of her reach. Tsukimi’s heart floated up into her throat like those bobbing jellies, and choked her until she cried.
And here, in the cold bath water, she could feel the warmth of that blue pool. Below her were the jellyfish—lacy and white, like a bride’s pearly wedding dress—one that she’d never feel against her own skin. Her nose broke the surface, and she opened her eyes to nothing.