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“What’s this, Tomocchi?” said one of the girls, eating a rice cracker loudly and looking over Tomoko’s shoulder. “Oooooooh, a love letter? You bad, bad girl.”
“Shut it, you’re jealous your ugly mug never got you a letter.” the girl retorted, gulping her bottle of Calpis Water before closing her teeth on her cigarette again. “Her calligraphy is so damn cute, I can’t read shit.”
“Are you into chicks, Tomocchi?” asked another who was flipping through a girl magazine.
“ ‘Course not.” Tomoko said, concentrated, between her teeth, breathing puffs of smoke. Their homeroom teacher would go apeshit if he discovered they were smoking again on the roof. “Even if I was, you ain’t my type.”
“Screw you. As if I ever want some bitch pining after me.” the reading girl replied, tossing a hard candy at the other.
“What’s written?” asked a third, who was also smoking.
“‘Ooooooh, Higashikata-senpai! I want you so much! Come behind the gym to ravish me, oooooh!’” the cracker eating one said dramatically, fanning herself with her hand while pretending to faint.
The four girls laughed hard.
“Is this what is written?!” the smoking one asked, serious.
“ ‘Course not, dumbass! I was messing with Tomocchi here.”
“God, I hope it was really just you messing with me and not being subliminal!” Tomoko said, slipping the letter into her bra along her hidden pack of cigarettes.
“Go to hell, Tomoko.” she ate another cracker. “Y’know who wrote this?”
“No idea. It’s not signed.” Tomoko stretched her hand to get a cracker but received a slap. “Ow! What the hell, gimme one! You’re eating all of them!”
“Why don’t you just throw this letter away already, Tomocchi?” the other smoking girl asked, blowing the smoke.
“Yeah, toss it out already.”
“No, go to hell. Someone gave it to me, I’ll keep it, even if is some puppy love letter. Memories from our youth, isn’t it what the teacher always say?”
“Screw the teacher.” the smoking one said, distracted.
“Screw the teacher, huuuuuh?” said an angry male voice.
“Shit, it’s him!”
“What I told you about smoking, you delinquents?!” he shouted at them.
While the teacher scolded loudly the four kneeling older girls, she walked down the roof stairs, careful to not be seen by any of them. She felt giddy, embarrassed, with a great urge to cry.
Graduation was coming for the third year students and she still couldn’t bring herself to confess to Tomoko.
Even if she had courage enough to write the letter she didn’t have it in her to say it in person.
She knew the older wouldn’t want to have anything with a middleschooler.
Moreover a girl one.
She slipped out of the high school section before someone caught her and walked aimless until she bumped against a classmate.
“What happened, Sugimoto?” the boy asked her with an expression of indifference on his face, like he didn’t really care what she was going through.
“It’s nothing, Kira-kun, sorry.” she said, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands, before whispering to herself. “I’m just a coward.”
“What’s wrong? You look so down.” the woman called.
Reimi shifted a little in place.
Tomoko was still beautiful but after the years that passed she became more mature, intelligent, strong, even gentle.
And she finally had the nerve to talk to her after the older came back from Tokyo.
But Tomoko had a kid.
And was in love with the father of her baby.
Her chest felt tight.
She didn’t confess and probably never will.
The girl sighed, squeezing the little boy in her arms, eliciting some complaints from him.
“Reimi-chan, I don’t think Rohan-chan wants all this attention you’re giving to him.” the woman chuckled when the kid tried to push her face away with his little hands.
Sighing again, she put the boy on the wooden floor of Tomoko’s baby’s room. He ran to the cradle, trying to hide from her behind the bars.
“Leave me alone!”
“Rohan-chaaaaan…!” she cried, reaching out to him dramatically. “Will you leave your big sis suffering alone?”
“I will!” he exclaimed, inflexible, sticking his tongue out.
“Now, now, don’t be this harsh with her, Rohan-chan. Boys shouldn’t make girls cry.” Tomoko said smiling while the boy looked a little embarrassed by his actions after being scolded by the woman.
“S-Sorry.” he said, awkward, frowning.
“Better. I want you and Josuke to grow up and be good boys who protect girls.” the woman said, putting her baby in the cradle under the attentive look of the little kid.
“When is Josuke going to grow up?! I wanna play with him!” he asked, interested.
“It will take a while.” she smiled, amused by the boy, who furrowed his brows, offended.
“Why don’t you grow up already, dummy?” he asked annoyed to the excited baby, who gave him in turn a toothless smile, which berated the older boy. “Don’t show me your gums, uggo!”
“Rohan-chan!” Reimi exclaimed again, this time horrified, while the woman just laughed.
“I’m gonna draw Josuke’s uggo face!” he exclaimed, showing his sketchbook and crayons. “I will show him how uggo he was when he grow up.”
Tomoko just kept laughing while the teenage girl looked from the boy to the woman in dismay.
“I’m so sorry, Tomoko-senpai! I already told him to not be rude!” she apologized, covering her face with her hands and bowing the most she could while the woman just looked at the scene, amused. “Rohan-chan, say you’re sorry now!”
“No!”
“Rohan-chaaaaaan…!” she whined, mortified.
“Calm down, Reimi-chan. You talk like he committed high treason. He is not wrong, newborn babies aren’t the most handsome beings, you know?” the woman arranged a pillow for her baby to stay at a certain position, tickling him until he grabbed her finger. “But I bet when he grow up he will be a heartthrob so watch out to not fall for him, you hear, Rohan-chan?” she said, winking at the boy, who only replied with a disgusted face.
“Would never.” Rohan grumbled, drawing with more intensity, probably trying to draw Josuke the mostly ugly he could in retaliation.
Still chuckling, the woman sat on the wooden floor beside the moping girl. It was evident she tried to hide how she was feeling, bantering with the little boy but Tomoko knew better.
“Are you’re still upset about the kiss?”
The teen flinched. She told Tomoko about how her first kiss was, trying to sound nonchalant about it while she in fact felt everything but good. He was rude, aggressive, inconsiderate, shoving his tongue inside her mouth without even caring, looking at her with those dead fish eyes of his even after she slapped him across the face. She felt gross.
“It’s not your fault, Reimi-chan. He didn’t have the right to do it without even asking.”
She felt the woman’s fingers running through her scalp, gentle.
If only her first kiss had been with her instead of Kira Yoshikage...
“How about a date to turn this frown upside down?”
She widened her eyes to the size of saucers.
“D-D-Date?! W-When?!” she stuttered, failing to hide how surprised and eager she was.
Tomoko chuckled. That girl was always so easily excited.
“How about tomorrow? It’s Sunday so you have the day free, right?”
Reimi felt something in her stomach, butterflies or bubbles, she couldn’t precise which it was but it was so strong she had to clamp her mouth shut with her hand, afraid it could escape if she opened it.
“Y-Yes.” she finally said, her eyes still very wide but the corners of her mouth turning up in a very broad and clumsy smile. “Yes! Yes, I do!”
“Then it’s settled.” Tomoko replied, arranging the headband of the very bewildered girl, making her red like a tomato. “I will wait for you at that new cafe, the Deux Magot, at 10 sharp. Don’t be late.”
“I-I won’t! I will be there!” the girl practically shouted but clamped her mouth shut again, afraid of startling the little Josuke.
“Then go home already.” The woman said, bopping the girl’s nose with her finger. “Bath, eat and take a long night of sleep. You don’t want to go to a date with your senpai looking like a zombie, do you?”
“I-I don’t!” she got up and bowed deeply, like it was grated to her the biggest prize of the life lottery. “Thank you so much, senpai! I’ll be there! I’ll be there at 10! No, at 9! No, at 8-!”
“10 o’clock, Reimi-chan.” Tomoko smiled at her, making the girl blush even more if it was possible.
“I-I just don’t want to be late!”
“You won’t be, trust me, I know you. But now you have to go home. This isn’t the time for kids to be out of their houses.”
“Y-Yes, I’m sorry. Let’s get going, Rohan-chan!” she called the little boy who just had finished his masterpiece. “It’s almost your bedtime!”
“Rohan-chan is sleeping at your house tonight?”
“Yes. Kishibe-san were called at an emergency and will come home only tomorrow.”
The woman watched the girl while she put the pair of loafers on the feet of the frowning boy. She was so responsible even with the little boy antagonizing her all the time.
“Take Rohan-chan too then. We can have a double date, you and me, Rohan-chan and Josuke.”
Reimi giggled nervously. She couldn’t help it everytime she heard the word ‘date’.
“I will. See you tomorrow, Tomoko-senpai!” the girl waved, skipping her way out the house with the complaining little boy being practically dragged by hand.
Tomoko waved back, watching the girl walk the street practically dancing with the boy, who was obviously not happy for being swung back and forth by the excited teenager.
Reimi was a simple kid.
She was always on Tomoko’s tail when they were young, admonishing her for doing something wrong, trying to straight her up. It was cute, a brat five years her junior trying to help a known delinquent to not be scolded by the teachers. She knew the girl started using a headband to imitate Tomoko’s style.
She wasn’t subtle at all.
“I hope you grow up to hurt nobody’s feelings, Josuke.” she said, more to herself than to her sound asleep baby.
Hid in a drawer of her writing desk was the now yellowed letter she received years ago a little before she graduated high school, full of drawn hearts and cutesy, almost unintelligible handwriting.
Tomoko always knew who wrote it to her.
“Unlike your horrible mother.”
“Look how beautiful the moon is tonight, Rohan-chan!” she giggled, making a large gesture while she carried the boy on her arms, waltzing their way to her house.
The moon was a thin crescent that evening which forced the moody kid to squint.
“It’s not, I can’t even see it!” Rohan retorted, indignant for the girl lying to him.
But Reimi didn’t care for the kid’s complaints, too happy with the turns of events.
A date with her beloved senpai.
She never confessed in person, afraid of what Tomoko would think of her, laugh at her, feel pity or disgust.
But she didn’t show any of these reactions.
Maybe… Maybe it was finally the time for her to confess?!
She knew she just couldn’t compete with the man Tomoko was in love but her young and full of hope mind didn’t stop whispering to her that “Maybe… Just maybe...”
“What do I do, Rohan-chan?!” she asked excited while he only groaned with her agitation.
She giggled, squeezing her cheek against his to the little one’s dismay.
Everything was perfect.
She just didn’t count on Kira-kun paying her a visit late that night.