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“Mashima submitted a resignation to leave the karuta club,” the Emperess explained, clinically direct as always, but still managing to sound kindly, as she handed the script back to Chihaya with her small correction. “He said he wants to focus on studying for entrance exams.”
The words reverberated through Chihaya as if they were echoing through a deep cavern. She felt strangely distant from the piece of paper in her hands. Maybe she was the one at the bottom of the well, looking up at the world around her. She was alone in that cavern. The words were endlessly bouncing around with only her to hear them, but with each bounce they changed until it sounded like “this is your fault, this is your fault”.
The next voice she heard was an introduction being called out from the speakers. “…the club that leads the school in its balance of academics and athletics…” that was her cue. She would be speaking to the new students next.
She looked to the audience. The students out there, some of them could be the club’s future. She had a job to do. She had practiced, she had prepared. She still wanted to go out and try to reach them. She brushed off Nishida and Tsutomu, despite their offer to take over. They had decided on a plan from the beginning that didn’t even include Taichi. His disappearance didn’t change anything.
She stepped up and took the microphone.
“We’re the competitive karuta club!” she said as cheerfully as she could manage. “He just described us as academic and athletic, but if anything I’d say we’re a bit lacking on the academic side…”
The audience laughed agreeably at her joke.
She moved on, explaining the basics but using the words they had carefully agreed on to make the game sound as exciting as possible. Something they hoped would inspire a new core of players to join and give the team a future.
She followed along the script, inviting the new students to join their six-person team… six people.
It wasn’t right. Her eyes prickled with tears and it hurt.
It felt so, so wrong.
What was she doing, trying to get students to join a team when Taichi wasn’t on it. He had been there next to her from the beginning. It wasn’t her team, it was their team. She always wanted to be together with him. Surely, if she could inspire new students, she could say something to him? The others could do this job, they had all worked on this together. But Taichi – Taichi leaving was her fault.
She was gone in a flash.
The others could handle it. She left the microphone. She didn’t see Kana-chan stepping forward to pick up the microphone despite her blurry eyes, to pick up the pieces Chihaya had abandoned. Didn’t see the tears in the other’s eyes as they tried to continue on with out her. She didn’t worry about them. She trusted in them to figure it out. She had something more important to do.
Taichi couldn’t have gotten far, could he? She was fast. She raced down the path they took toward home, every step of it familiar. She blessed the hakama for being easy to move in, though the sandals slowed her down some. It just meant she had to press on harder. She felt like this was her only chance. She had to reach him. Had to tell him that she wanted him there with her.
She pushed harder, moved faster. Was this what they had been jogging together for, all this time?
Finally, she found him. She saw his fluffy hair, the folds of his sweater, the familiar set of his back as he trudged along the road.
She was so close. “Taichi!” she yelled, reaching for him. She reached too soon, fingers first clasping at air, but she kept reaching. “Taichi! Don’t!” The tears started to obscure his shape, taking him from her.
Her fingers finally anchored in the solid warmth of his sweater. She pulled too hard and found that it wasn’t the steadfast moorage she had thought, the sweater warped and slipped away from him. “Don’t do it! Don’t quit the club!” She clung harder. “Don’t do it, Taichi!” She couldn’t touch him, couldn’t feel his heart through the knit, but maybe if she called out to him loud enough, he’d hear her.
He had stopped. That was good. He wasn’t running away from her, from the club, anymore.
She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.
It was all she could do to cling to him as she tried to pull her sobbing breaths together.
He steadied underneath her, turned toward her. That steadied her.
Like the tides pulling the sand underneath her feet, suddenly he was in motion. The arm she had clung to dropped, wheeling her forward and in turn he grabbed the sleeve of her kimono, pulling her ever on. The strain of the cloth across her back was like an embrace, but completely bereft of warmth. The only thing keeping her from falling flat against him was her hand, no longer tangled in his sweater but just there, like a fender, keeping them apart.
She felt a tug at the back of her neck as his fingers tangled in her hair, guiding her head towards him.
She felt it, barely. The barest hint of his breath, his soft lips against hers, perfectly, gently slotting together. It was warm. And then it was gone.
Like the tides roll out, he was slipping away.
She couldn’t let that happen, didn’t want to.
Her fingers grasped at anything and everything, moving until she caught the loosened loop of his tie, the edge of his hair, the back of his head. She pulled him back to her, their mouths crashing together like the tide breaking against a cliff. There was nothing gentle about it, this time. There were teeth, and tears, and it hurt. But Chihaya held him there until he stopped sliding out from under her, until he stopped running.
She kissed him deeply, with all her desperate need of him, and hoped he’d understand.
Eventually, she had to breathe. She pressed her forehead to his as they both caught their breath.
“Taichi,” she said softly. “Don’t leave us.”
He froze. She could feel him start to edge away again and she grew stubborn. She held firm, holding him by the back of the head, by the loop of his tie.
“Chihaya,” he said. It sounded like “let me go”.
“Taichi,” she pleaded with him. “I love you. I love what we’ve built together. I love building with you. Don’t leave me alone with what’s left.”
Taichi sighed so loud and so long that she thought it would go on forever. “Chihaya.” It was a reprimand this time. “I built it for you. It’s yours now. Not mine.”
Chihaya crushed him to her, dragging her face past his to bury her tears in his neck. How could he mean it? How could he say it? They had worked so hard together. They had made friends together. She wasn’t reaching him. “Don’t say that. Didn’t you have fun?”
Taichi tried again to push her away. “Chihaya, you have all these things. You have karuta, and the club, and… Arata…” he sighed. “What room is there in your heart for me?”
Chihaya gulped. “It’s not that – I’m greedy, Taichi. You know that.” She sniffed into his shoulder. “I love karuta, I love our club. I love you, too!”
Taichi sighed, pulling her closer. That was better. She settled contentedly into his arms, steadying herself on his shoulder. “And would you still love me if I didn’t play karuta?” he muttered, so softly she couldn’t quite catch it, wouldn’t process it until hours later. He pulled her close, and then held her back, meeting her gaze.
“And Arata?”
She couldn’t do it, couldn’t answer this directly. Her eyes dropped, staring past his shoulder, seeing again the boy bowing to her, offering a beautiful future together. She was greedy. She wanted that, too.
Taichi pushed her back further. “It’s not enough for me.”
Chihaya bit her lip, tears flooding again. She held onto him, as if maybe keeping him there would keep him from walking off with a piece of her heart. She was offering it to him, but to him, it wasn’t enough.
Taichi wrapped his hands around her fingers, gently loosening them. “I’m greedy too, you know. I don’t want to share you with karuta and the club and Arata most of all. I don’t love Arata. I don’t love karuta. I have to fight them for you, for your attention, your time. I’m tired.” He pulled himself free of her, dropping her hands before them. “I’m tired and the cards… the cards have gone black for me.”
She reached for him again, but he stepped back. She curled her fingers into fists, and let him. How could she fix it? He had been by her side for so long, and she still hadn’t known. He didn’t care for Arata? He didn’t care for karuta? How could he possibly say that? Arata was their dear childhood friend. He had gone with her to see him. How could she have missed such a problem? Had she asked too much of him? What did he want from her?
She was greedy. She wanted him to be happy, too.
He wasn’t happy by her side. So, she watched him walk away.
She pressed her fists to her chest. She knew a lot of things now. She blinked away her tears. She had a lot to think on as well. She was too greedy to leave it at that, she was going to try again. She wanted him by her side, and she wanted him to be happy. But until she knew what could make that happen, she felt that at least, at least, she could send a small piece of her heart with him.