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"Such a funny thing for me to try to explain
How I'm feeling and my pride is the one to blame"
-Beyonce, Crazy In Love
It happened one soft summer night. Ai laid on her side on her futon, covers thrown aside to let in what cool air there was, in that floaty no-man's land between consciousness and sleep. At that moment, or some other, she couldn't be sure, a soft hand landed on her shoulder and Junko's voice lit up the darkness, or rather what she said did.
"I love you, Ai."
There it was: the one thing every girl dreamed of hearing from someone who thought she was asleep.
Ai's eyes flew open. The confusion over what just happened amalgamated with the disorientation of being dragged full awake, and the black room spun around her. She tried to wrestle open her mouth to say "I love you, too" (how hard could it be? It wasn't untrue) but she couldn't and eventually stuttered downward into light fitful slumber.
Junko realized she loved Ai about a week before this happened. They were having breakfast. Something the two of them had in common with each other and with no one else in Franchouchou was that they were very early risers. This meant they had the dim grey kitchen to themselves.
Junko was reading the newspaper (she had thought she'd have a lot of catching up to do, but judging by things in America, the Soviet Union – oh wait, it was just Russia now – and North Korea, she didn't have a whole lot). She dropped the top half of the paper to look at Ai.
Ai left her mark on the 2000s idol industry. She was the famous and beloved leader of the group Iron Frill. Talented, smart, pretty. But right now she was Junko's girlfriend, and her hair was a disheveled bedhead that corkscrewed off her scalp. Jam from her toast dotted her face which she furrowed in the usual grumpy scowl she wore this early in the morning. The contrast struck Junko as deliciously funny, but that alone wasn't what got her to laugh as hard as she did. In time the rest of Franchouchou would get up and by then Ai would be clean and awake. This Ai was a side of her only Junko would get to see. There were other sides of her only she would get to see, and she wanted to see them. Because she loved her.
Junko burst out in giggles.
Ai paused over her next bite of toast and looked at her. "What?"
Junko brought the paper back up and hid behind it, still giggling. "What," she asked. Oh, Ai. I love you.
"What's so funny?"
"Nothing, nothing." Junko took a few deep breaths to compose herself. If she kept laughing Ai would likely get mad. She dropped the paper again. "You have jam on your face."
"Oh." Ai scrubbed at both her cheeks, then returned to frowning over her toast.
Don't laugh, Junko reminded herself again. She'll get mad. Because she doesn't know. She doesn't know that I love her. Mission failed; she got the giggles again. The girl I love has terrible bedhead. The giggles crescendoed into full-on laughter.
"Seriously, what are you laughing at? Oh, like you've never gotten jam on your face?"
The thing about realizing you love your girlfriend is that everything she does makes you happier than you ever thought possible.
Take the following Sunday for instance. Every week that day Franchouchou did chores. Late that morning Junko headed towards their bedroom to do her bit. When she opened the door, however, she found the futons gone.
She blinked – then heard a thumping sound coming from the balcony.
When she went out there she found Ai striking the futons hung on a clothes-line with a dust-beater. Thump!
"Ai..." she said softly, a silly grin pulling at her face. When the other girl turned to look at her she reflexively added, "–san.
"I thought it was my turn to do the futons?"
"Yeah," Ai said, turning back towards them, "but it's cool."
Never ever had Junko known such kindness. Would anybody else do such a thing for her?
"Oh, Ai-san." Her hand had come up to her mouth, as if afraid everything she was feeling would come spilling out of it. "I luh–" and she stopped herself in time.
The Japanese term for "I love you" in this context is aishiteru, so she supposed to Ai it sounded like she had called her name twice and that was why she had stopped beating the futons and turned towards her again.
I can't tell her I love her yet, Junko thought, taking her hand off her mouth and stepping closer to Ai, but I can do the next best thing.
She brought a hand to her cheek, feeling soft warmth there, and slipped her lips along Ai's mouth. They had been going out for close to eight months now (a turtle-crawl pace for a relationship for sure, but hey, they had time, it wasn't like they were gonna die or anything), and Junko had not only gotten less nervous about kissing but had even taken the initiative from time to time.
There was a momentary expression of gentle affection on Ai's face before she retreated to her old tough facade.
"Jeez. You shouldn't be so easy to please. That'll make people take advantage of you."
"You're just such a kind person, Ai-san."
"I'm not." Ai's blush deepened and she hit the futons harder. "This is normal."
"And I'm saying you're kind because you think doing favors is normal." I love you.
Ai lowered the dust-beater along with her head. Junko couldn't see her face, but she could see her ears. They were bright red. There was a chance Ai wouldn't be doing such favors again for a long time, but it was worth it.
The kissing as a replacement for saying "I love you" carried on. It happened so frequently that Ai noticed.
"You sure are kissing me a lot these days," she said after another one of Junko's non-verbal expressions of l'amour.
"Do you not like it?"
Ai started, blushed, and her eyes twitched upward. "It's not that I don't like it." She looked away and rubbed at her cheek, as if trying to clean the blushing away. She looked back. "It's just unusual. I'm, like, wondering what's going on."
She probably already knows, Junko thought. It's probably okay to tell her. Probably. She brought her hand to her neck. Her heartbeat was a warm hammer in her throat.
She wound up not saying it then. Even though she knew she loved Ai she still needed more time to think about what love was (and oh wasn't that ironic, considering how many songs she sang about it back in the day, Jack Kerouac said the only truth was music, meaning those Konno Junko golden oldies may as well have been silence to their artist). This wasn't something to be taken lightly. Their first kiss hadn't been; it had been halting and nervous, on the balcony after Ai asked Junko out. She had asked Junko out and she had kissed her; Junko wasn't sure if her pride as the legendary Shouwa idol could take it if Ai beat her to saying the L word first.
She tried rehearsing it in front of the bathroom mirror, but stopped because saying "I love you" to her reflection seemed kind of weird.
By the end of the week she had grown impatient with herself and the whole situation. So, that night, still unable to sleep, she turned to Ai, put her hand on her back, and said it. As the words left her mouth a thought came to her: What if she's awake? And rather than fear, Junko felt a kind of nervous ecstasy at the thought.
She turned on her back and closed her eyes. A fantasy was playing in her head. In it Ai came in the kitchen as tousled and messy as she was every morning. "So I heard it through the grapevine that you love me," she said.
Junko's mouth dried out. She longed for a glass of water.
"Yes," imaginary Junko said without a voice break or a stutter. "Do you love me?"
"Yes. God, yes." Ai walked up to her. "You really had me wondering, you know, so here's a little payback." And she leaned close in.
This was a terrible fantasy. It was a great one. Junko wanted it to never end. She kicked at the covers of her futon. Ai was next to her fighting the sleep that stubbornly closed in, but Junko was on cloud nine, a million miles away, her mouth waxing and waning with Ai's (I know a thing about lovers, her '81 hit went, lovers want the moon), her hands coming up to touch the dark blue fire of her hair.
Sakura wasn't the only person to notice Ai's unusual behavior the next day, but she was the only one to try and do something about it… at first, anyway. And well, okay, she noticed more than just how Ai acted. There was how she looked, too. Sakura had never seen her with so little oomph in her.
"Ai-chan, got a moment?"
Ai stopped and slowly turned around. She had a purple Prada hooked under each eye.
This was after their morning meeting with Kotarou and they were on their way to change for practice. Usually Ai led this procession. Today, she was center of the line at best. The usual hang-behinds – Tae, Yugiri, and Saki – filed past. The lattermost of the three paused and looked over her shoulder at them. Sakura nodded and said, "We'll be there in a few minutes."
When they were gone Sakura asked in a low voice, "You okay?"
Ai blinked slowly. "Yeah. I'm great. Fabulous."
"Well, forgive me for saying this, but you don't look so fabulous."
"Excuse you. I am beautiful. My mom told me so everyday."
"My mom told me I was beautiful enough to get any job I wanted so why didn't I get off my ass and find one."
They were quiet. Ai went to the window and leaned her head against it. She had slept a little, then woke in the middle of the night. She never got back to sleep. Her head was full of what Junko said and what she should do about it. And to cap it all off, it looked like it was going to storm today. God damn it.
"God damn it all," she whispered.
"It's okay to not be okay."
"Yeah. Thanks, Oprah." Ai heaved in a big breath. "Junko told me she loved me."
Sakura gasped and squealed. "Oh, Ai-chan, that's wonderful!"
"She said it to me when she thought I was sleeping."
"Oh." Sakura's cheery grin fell. "Wanna talk about it?"
Ai snorted and shrugged. "It speaks for itself."
"I guess. It's very – oh, how do I say this – it's very Junko-ish."
"That idiot."
"Do you love her?"
Ai blushed. "I do. I just – this is not how I wanted our first 'I love you' to be like." They were leaning against the windowsill with their backs to the window. Ai threw a glance at the clouds outside. "How did yours go? Have you said it yet?"
"Mm-hmm. Saki-chan seemed to be having a bad day, so I thought it'd cheer her up."
Ai didn't say so, but she thought that was a wee bit vapid. "I love you" – your first anyway – wasn't supposed to be something to get you through the day. You wanted that, you drank coffee. "I love you" was supposed to be climactic, the peak of Mt. Everest, an emotional orgasm if not so physical. Normally Ai would have told Sakura that her first "I love you" with Saki wasn't romantic at all, but she was too exhausted. That plus the weather were throwing her off her game. The hallway had darkened. She looked out the window again.
"Don't worry," Sakura said. "I checked the radar. The worst of it's supposed to be south of us."
"I'd rather we didn't have any of it, worst of otherwise."
"Yeah, but like, what can you do? We don't live in a perfect world." Then Sakura's face brightened and she dropped her fist in her palm. "I got it! Think of it like this: Junko-chan doesn't know you know she said it, right?"
"Yeah, probably."
"So you can pretend it never happened, and like, the ball can be in your court, and you can tell Junko-chan 'I love you' the way you want to!"
"Yeah..." Ai finally looked away from the window and at her. "Yeah. You're right."
"Right? It's a flawless plan!"
"But this situation still sucks!" Ai dropped to a squat and brought digging hands to her head.
"I heard something about sucking, so I guess I showed up just in time!" Saki came sauntering over in her practice outfit. She looked at Ai. "What's eatin' her?"
Junko-chan, Sakura mouthed.
Saki nodded slowly. "I understand, Ai. I do. Just don't use an up-and-down motion too fast or you might drive her wild in a bad way – ow!"
Ai, still squatting, shot her fist out. It connected under Saki's knee, right on the silly zone, and the blonde girl fell on it like a suitor proposing marriage.
"Aaaaaaooooh! Christ on a cross! Are you looking for an ass-beating?" Sakura helped her up and, testing her leg, Saki said, "Okay, sorry 'bout earlier. Seriously, what's wrong? I'll help."
Ai only grumbled.
Sakura, feeling like a tattletale but knowing this would get to Saki anyway, said, "Junko-chan told Ai-chan she loves her."
Saki looked at Ai incredulously, then threw her hands up and rolled her eyes in a burlesque fashion. "Oh my fucking God. Ai! You are the only person I know who can take something as joyous and wonderful as saying 'I love you' and turn it into a problem! Of all the Mizuno Ai's in the world you're the Mizuno Ai-est!"
The clouds piled higher, as if by meteorological growth spurt, and the sky darkened. It was noon, but you would've needed your high beams to be able to see anything in front of you if you were driving. Oddly enough, the grey clouds seemed to add some color to the equally grey mansion; walls and furniture took on a mysterious green-blue glow. To the west thunder boomed. Both Sakura and the Doppler radar's predictions had been off; there was a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for the area.
By the time Franchouchou's break time rolled around rain was drumming heavily on the roof and lightning tore the sky asunder.
Ai sat on the floor, shivering back to the window, while Junko sat nearby with a hand on her shoulder.
"It can't hit you when you're indoors," she said softly.
"I know."
"Unless you're on a landline," Lily said knowledgeably. "I read that somewhere once."
"Yes, that's right," Ai said, trying to keep her voice light and approving. One way or another lightning finds a way.
Junko gave her shoulder a pat. "I need to use the washroom. Will you be–"
"Yeah. Go."
But as she left it occurred to Ai that this would be the soonest possible moment they'd probably get to be alone. So she rose – thunder behind her forcing her back down momentarily – and followed her out into the hall.
Junko's back was to her and the rain-spattered window to her left gave her light hair a quicksilver shine.
"Junko," she called.
The older girl stopped immediately and turned around. It was as if she had been expecting this. And in fact, she had. Soon, she thought, Ai would be saying, "So I heard it through the grapevine that you love me."
Instead Ai said, "Last night I thought I heard you say 'I love you.'"
She stopped and new panic bloomed inside her gut. What if, she thought, Junko never said that and I dreamed it all? God. She would look so stupid if that were the case.
Lightning flashed and thunder clashed. More mockery from God Himself.
"Well? Did you?"
Junko flinched, looked down, back up. "I did."
A blinding light accompanied with what sounded like a bomb explosion shook the mansion. Even Junko jumped at that one. Cheese and crackers, that one was close! Somewhere downtown an ambulance siren whooped.
"Why couldn't you say it to me normally?" Ai yelled from her sanctuary on the floor.
This hit Junko hard in the chest and she almost yelled back, then thought better.
"Are you sure you want to have this conversation right now? It's storming really hard and you seem stressed–"
"I'm just fine!" Ai looked up and flashed a glare at Junko that was a hundred times hotter and more shocking than the lightning. First Sakura, now Junko. She wasn't going to be pitied by everyone while the powers that be laughed at her with thunder. "What I'm not fine with is you saying 'I love you' to my back instead of my face! What are we doing, Junko? What are we to you if you can't say 'I love you' to my face?"
"I…" Junko fell quiet, feeling anger at herself for this and at Ai as well. This was a far cry from how she imagined this conversation going, and that was fine. Ai was mad and acting out, and that was fine too. Their relationship hadn't been without some pissy moments. But it had been without presumption, at least until now.
God grant me patience. It's the lightning talking, not her.
"I take us very seriously, Ai-san. I just wasn't sure if I was ready."
"Do you think I am? But I don't pull that nonsense because I actually do take us seriously!"
"I'd like to see you say a better 'I love you'!"
"I can't, I'm not ready," Ai said in a mewling voice.
Feeling very small, Junko snapped, "Well, you wouldn't be able to in this weather anyway! You look very serious on the floor there!"
Ai looked at her wide-eyed. "Oh, that is low! Lower than your plane went, Frankenstein!"
"Hey, at least lightning brought Frankenstein to life!"
"Fuck you!"
"No, f – frig you, Mizuno Ai!" Tears spilled over her lower eyelids, and that more than the insults or the yelling touched Ai deeply. Despite Junko's timid demeanor she wasn't much of a crier. In fact, Ai couldn't recall a time she had ever seen her cry.
Junko marched over to her and kneeled. They were eye-to-eye.
"You never let me in. You never let me know anything about you, besides what you look like in the morning, and that you sometimes do the sweetest things for me." The crying was coming full now, but she carried on, gasping and hiccuping. "But in spite of that I have to trust in you, in me, and in us that I love you and that I know what I'm doing. I didn't say 'I love you' to your face because that's not something I can just say without being completely certain. And if that's not what taking this relationship seriously is then I don't know what is. I really do not appreciate you using this as some sort of test."
You like to test people, Ai. It was spooky. How often had her mother said that to her as a little kid?
And now that she thought about it Junko had been acting strangely over the last week. Clingier. It wasn't bad. She was a good kisser and it felt good to be held by her. But that was all Ai had thought about it at the time. Now she thought that "I love you" to her back in the dark had been working its way down the pipe for a while. Junko was right and Ai was wrong. She was taking this seriously. She had probably been wrestling with these feelings all week.
"You're my number one," Junko said quietly. The tears had stopped and she rubbed the remains off her cheeks. "Nothing could tear me away from you. Not even your temper and your tendency to overthink things. I'm in this. You dig?"
Ai blinked. "ʻDig'?"
Junko shook her head and waved a hand. "I meant, 'you understand?'"
Thunder crackled overhead. Rain swept hard against the window. Another round.
Ai nodded. "Yeah."
Junko got up and started to walk away, then paused. "I'm sorry about what I said about you and the lightning. That was low." And she took off running.
"Junko–"
But she kept running. She hadn't ignored Ai out of anger (okay, maybe she had just a wee bit) but because the need to use the washroom had become an emergency.
Ai sighed and looked around. She frowned. They had had an audience.
"Dude." Saki shook her head. "Harsh. Way harsh."
The day after Ai's lightning temper and Junko's rain of tears was better weather-wise. Humid, as it so often is after it storms, but all Junko knew from inside was that the sunlight was wonderful to read books by. She was about halfway through Hill House when she heard the front door open and close. Curious, she closed the book around her finger and looked up.
Ai poked her head in the front room, her skin alive with makeup. "Hey, Junko. Busy?"
Junko shook her head. She pawed around in search of a bookmark and found a dusty old Band Aid wrapper. She marked her place, stood, and crossed to the front room entrance. As she approached she noticed Ai's nose and eyes were red and wondered if she hadn't done some crying of her own. And what was with the makeup?
"Did you go out? What for?"
Ai's eyes drifted around, only touching Junko's briefly before skittering away. "I, uh… Well… – here." She thrust both hands forward. In them was a shiny silver-wrapped bouquet of daisies.
Junko's eyebrows went up and her mouth fell open. She pointed to herself.
Blushing intensely, Ai nodded.
She carefully took the bouquet. The wrapping crinkled. "I… My goodness, I don't know what to say."
"Good, 'cause I do." Ai paused, squinted. She dug a handkerchief out of her pocket and barked a sneeze into it. "Uh, I'm sorry about yesterday. I was mean, I was pompous. I shouldn't have said all that about you not being serious and invalidating your feelings. I guess I was all worked up over being told 'I love you,' but that's no excuse." It all came out like something she had rehearsed, but this next part didn't, and her face grew less still and hard. "I never want to hurt you like that again. Because I care about you. And I love you."
"I…" Junko's heart beat an ecstatic tattoo against her ribs. The smell of the daisies. The smell of Ai, faintly smoky and metallic. It was all too much. But she didn't faint, as so many women did in films from her childhood. "I love you, too."
Ai nodded, then giggled nervously. She sneezed again. "Here's something you can know about me: I'm allergic to pollen. Terribly so. I hate spring and summer the most because of it. Especially out here. In Tokyo the pollen was under control but I guess Saga has no sympathy for those with hay fever."
"Oh, Ai, you didn't have to get me flowers."
Ai scratched the back of her head. "Well, I made you cry. And when you make a girl cry you're supposed to do that and say sorry."
Golly, that's old-fashioned, even for me. Junko shook with giggles and sighed. She shifted the daisies to one arm and brought her free hand to the back of Ai's head. The kiss she pulled her into was longer and deeper than the others, and she felt Ai's hands move restlessly on her waist. She kissed her a few more times until Ai grunted quietly. The sound was new, unfamiliar, but intoxicating, and the vibrations Ai's mouth sent to Junko's resonated from the roots of her everpermed hair to her toes and she broke off the kiss, overwhelmed.
The look on Ai's face was also new; not so much gentle affection but intense concentration. She snapped out of it and took to fiddling with the hem of her skirt. "Ah, uh, well, we should find a vase to put those in."
"Yes." As they searched Junko said, "No one's given me flowers before."
"Really? Not even from fans? – Oh, right." During her time in Iron Frill Ai seemed to find flowers in her P.O. Box every day.
They found a vase under the kitchen sink of all places and Ai filled it with water.
"Where'd you get the money for these?" Junko asked.
Ai switched off the tap and looked at her sheepishly. "I, uh, didn't. I stole them."
"No way!"
She nodded. "Told the florist I'd placed an order. When he told me he didn't remember me placing one I started ranting about the manager – isn't it great what the saying 'the customer is God' can do for a zombie? Anyway, he went to the back to look and I grabbed those and ran."
"Wow." Ai had thought Junko would be mad but on the contrary she seemed to be in awe. "I never thought you had it in you."
Ai chuckled humorlessly. "Iron Frill has had its not-so-proud or legal moments. Nina used to distract store clerks so she could steal ice cream."
That Sunday it was Ai's turn to do the laundry. Junko did it for her.
"Gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do"
-Toto, Africa