Chapter Text
Sometimes life had a way of kicking you while you were down. My heart had just been broken by Touko, so I decided to visit some family on the other side of Japan. I had a non-stop train ride there but it was thirteen hours long. I chose this because leaving late at night after staying up late the night before would allow me to sleep through most of it. My whole plan was ruined when I got to my seat, however. The train was completely filled up, and the few first-class seats were booked solid. The person sitting next to me for the next literal half day was none of than Yuzuki Chie… My first girlfriend.
Lies of the Heart
By: Satashi
“Sayaka…-chan?” Chie looked up at me with those rounded, blue eyes. Her mouth was slightly open, surprise clearly written all over her face. Many things went through my mind at that moment, most of them not very mature. Instead of showing a bad side of myself, I simply began to put my suitcase above us in the storage compartment.
“Hello.” My greeting was simple and to the point. Even after all this time, I still hadn’t forgiven her for what happened in junior high. The way she made me feel so awkward, the slow burn of falling in love with her, and the inevitable end that scarred my heart. After that day at the train station, I thought my farewell to her was solid, both tangibly and in my mind. Despite all that, I still couldn’t escape my past.
“Are you… going to Hokkaido as well?”
“Yes.” Taking the aisle seat, I rubbed my eyes gently. Since I was going to be sleeping, I had chosen to go with my glasses for the trip there.
The tension between us seemed to be divided into different causes. On my side, I felt annoyed more than anything. Having to deal with this again, being forced next to her for so many hours… Everything about this was annoying. From the way she looked, I could tell that it was more uncomfortable for her. Chie seemed nervous, scared even. Her eyes were darting from the floor to me and back again. “You,” Her words fumbled but I still looked sideways at her. “…Look a lot older.”
“Because I am.” I had matured quite a bit since back then. My time with Touko, the years on the student council, and the awkward as hell friendship with Yuu… All of it shaped me into a new version of myself. Just as I had changed to try and match her those few years ago, now I had changed to be away from her.
“I…see.” Her hand twitched, gripping the hem of her shirt. “Uhm,” again I looked at her. “How… are you?”
Her words were really hesitant, but she was trying. It was me who was holding the grudge and I could tell it. If I wanted this train ride to be tolerable, I needed to move on. My eyes closed for a moment while I gathered myself. I was better than this. “I’m okay. Just needed some time for myself so I decided to take a trip.”
“Not…” Again, she hesitated. Chie’s eyes were looking around again as she tried to think about what to say. From what I remember of our time together, she didn’t normally think too much before speaking. She was almost childish in a way, much different than the woman next to me that was judging her words. “Not with your girlfriend?”
“Oh?” I spoke the word before I could stop myself. I knew she was referring to Touko, and right now that was a very sore subject with me. “Are you recognizing that I’m a lesbian?” My eyebrow arched at her, lips in a half smirk. My kouhai Yuu had once told me that my words and expressions could be downright acidic at times. Ever since, I had tried to make sure not to let that side show through… But right now, I was letting it flow. “If you must know, it didn’t work out. Not because we’re both women, but because she had fallen in love with another girl. I support them.”
Chie looked both hurt and regretful at the same time. “I see… Sorry I touched on a sore spot.” The way she was completely unfazed by my retort made me start to feel a little bit guilty. Hadn’t I just thought that I was better than this? Clearly, I needed to reconsider.
“You didn’t know. Its fine.” There was no way I could endure this for thirteen hours.
“Sayaka-chan,” Chie looked at me head on this time, eyes meeting mine. “I’m sorry.”
“This again? Senpai, I-”
“No,” she cut me off. I would have been a little upset at the rude gesture, but the way she was looking at me made me want to give her a chance to explain herself. “I’m sorry I said those things to you. At the station.” It looked like she wanted to say more but she chose to instead look away. Chie’s bottom lip was quivering ever so slightly and she licked it to calm herself down some. “I… was going through some hard times. I’m sorry.”
I didn’t expect this. Chie? To the point? I guess she matured a little over her time as well. “Accepted.” Her head turned to me yet again. “I accept your apology,” I added onto it so she would understand. She had apologized for what she had done, and I acknowledged it. Forgiveness was still a step away, but this helped ease the anger in my heart.
“Yuzuki-san?” A voice I didn’t recognize came and my seat buddy raised her hand.
“Present!” The answer was formal and short, something I wouldn’t have expected her to do.
“School trip?” I asked curiously. She wasn’t in uniform so it was a bit disconcerting.
With a nod, she answered. “Yes, we can dress casually if we want to… I thought I’d try it.” That reply was more like the Chie that I knew from before. “I was told to be more expressive.”
“You were plenty expressive back then,” I noted. The train intercom came on at that point, giving details about the location and the stops along the way. Luckily, my ticket was a straight shot so I didn’t need to swap trains at all. There would be a few moments every couple of hours to exchange passengers, but I planned to be dreaming by then.
“Things… Changed in high school.” Soft hands rubbed together before her. “I… No, you don’t want to hear that.” She was right, I didn’t. “But now… I think I’m ready to be normal again.”
That word hit me. A snarl almost made it to my lips before I was able to repress it with my usual stellar expression. “Ah.” It was meant to cut the conversation, but she once again shook her head at me.
“No, not like that… I don’t think you’re… abnormal, Sayaka-chan.” She leaned forward to make it clear that she wanted me to look at her. “Liking girls is… Is…” I noticed she was licking her lips again, her leg starting to bounce up and down rapidly. “Is okay.” Now she leaned back and looked out the window. “It’s okay…”
Her words felt like they were being directed to someone else rather than me. “It is,” I agreed… Maybe a little more firmly than I should have. The train started to move and I sighed. There was no turning back now. I was with her for the next half day.
“Did you bring a book?” Chie took the opportunity to change the topic, suddenly looking a little more energetic.
“Of course I did. My kouhai runs a bookstore with her family so she always recommends them to me.
“Oh? A kouhai?” Chie shifted so she could face me more, signaling she wanted to pursue this conversation for much longer than I had anticipated. “Tell me about her?”
“Why are you interested in my kouhai?” I suddenly felt protective of Yuu. Not that we were great friends or anything, but she was Touko’s girlfriend and that meant a lot to me. “She’s a pain in the butt.”
“But you visit her store a lot?”
She called me out. “We have similar interest, that’s all.” What I said wasn’t a lie. We both liked Touko, and we both enjoyed books… Come to think of it, Yuu always gave me her family discount even though she knew I was rich. I never really cared before, but now that I was thinking on it, she had always been trying to treat me like a friend… I guess Touko really did have a good eye for women. Maybe I could learn from her.
“What book did you bring? Remember when we exchanged them back then?” Her hands quickly began to root through her purse so she could pull out a novel. It was a mystery, of course.
“I remember.” Truthfully, I didn’t like the style of books she chose at the time. Now, however, I was drawn to them. I enjoyed the feeling of piecing things together, looking for hidden clues in subtext of words. I’ve heard people say that when the big reveal of a mystery hit you, your reaction shows how you read the book. If you were shocked, you missed everything. If you were satisfied, you caught most of it. Most of all, if you smile in satisfaction that you were right, then you truly experienced it. “Right now, I’m reading The Ties that Bind Us. You probably haven’t heard of it.”
“Oh, the mystery? About the bondage club murder?” My eyes widened slightly at her words. “I’ve read it, it’s really good. Where are you at in it?”
This was new. The book was highly sexual and a bit graphic at points. It was even focusing on a lesbian couple. “I’m at the part where they take the train.”
“Ah!” Chie nodded at me. She had that look on her face. The one where I knew she wanted to discuss it with me but couldn’t. I had seen that expression many times in junior high. We fed each other books constantly, going through sometimes two a week. Even though I forced myself to read her recommendations at first, near the end I was excited just to share her experiences.
I felt a stab of nostalgic pain in my heart and I turned away from her. I didn’t want to see that look. All it brought was painful memories of a younger and more gullible version of myself. Chie leaned towards me again, face now concerned. “Sayaka-chan? Are you okay? You look sad?”
Sad? Don’t you know what regret looks like? My eyes met hers again when I turned back. She was so close that our noses were almost touching. Both of us looked down, a flash of our past together overtaking our present. Thin lips. Chapstick. The water fountain and cold wind. “I need to go for a moment.” I quickly stood, moving over to the end of the car where the toilet was.
I locked myself in and leaned against the wall of the tiny room. ‘I don’t need this,’ I thought the words in my head over and over again. Seeing Chie, talking about the past, opening old wounds while my current ones were still fresh… This trip to get away was turning into hell for me. I should have just left the moment I saw her. I should have bitten the price of the ticket and skipped out. It wasn’t like I would even notice it. In fact, maybe I should just get off at the first stop, take a different train back home… I could call Yuu and test out this new friendship of ours by venting to her…
The door jiggled and I heard a frustrated sigh from the other side. “Great, occupied.” A girl’s voice huffed out.
“We can just wait,” a male voice came up next. “No one will notice we both left.”
I groaned. Of course horny teenagers would want to use the bathroom to make out. I only had a few kisses in my life, all but one belonging to the woman in the car waiting for me to return. The other one, that I received on my neck, was buried under water and the scent of chlorine. As I reached for the latch to retreat, the female voice came up again. “Christ, I hope it isn’t Yuzuki. If she’s bawling her eyes out again, we’ll have to go back to our seats before we get in.”
“Yuzuki?” The male’s words voiced my thoughts. “Wait, isn’t that the psycho? The one who has to go to therapy?”
“Yeah, that’s her. I heard her once before in the bathroom, crying like a baby and whimpering something about being ‘normal’ or some shit. Freaked me out, I tell you. She’s a lot of things, but normal isn’t one of them.”
I flipped the latch and opened the door. The couple looked at me for a moment and then averted their eyes. Taking a few steps away, I let them both go into the bathroom behind me. A part of me wanted to scold them, to tell them that a school trip wasn’t the place for that kind of thing… But it wasn’t my school, and I wasn’t on their council. Leaving them behind, I carried myself back to my seat and sat down.
Chie smiled, her eyes lighting up when they gazed at me. It would be so easy to ask her about what I heard, to see what was going on in her life. With just a few words I could tear into her and rip out secrets and pain like what she caused me back then. I almost wanted to, but just like in my novels, there was subtext to consider. Just because I knew what happened in my past doesn’t mean I know what happened in hers. For her classmates to say such things, maybe I had a mystery on my hands as well. The main question was: Did I care enough to pursue it?
Well, I had thirteen hours to spare.
“Sayaka-chan.” The way she said my name was steadily changing. It started with confusion, then regret, fear, uncertainty, and now acceptance. “If you get motion sick or anything, I have medicine for that.”
“Thank you, I’m fine.” Chie was acting the same way she was when we first met. A little aloof, a little shy, and very confusing. Back then I didn’t know she liked me, or even that I was interested in girls. All I understood was that she was different. Looking at the situation from the outside, I was better equipped this time. I had experience as well as a few years to mature. “Did you ever join a club?”
My senpai tilted her head. “Didn’t we talk about this before?” Being thrown off a little from that reply, I simply shook my head. Last time I asked that question, she wasn’t interested. She told me that she didn’t remember the conversations we had and felt indifferent to them. Picking it apart, I could tell there was something more to it. “I didn’t join a club. After school I needed to either go home or call my parents to let them know where and who I was with.” She looked uncomfortable and swapped the topic back in my direction. “What about you?”
“Student council. Vice president.” I said the words with pride. After all, I had been there to support the woman I was in love with. “I am thinking about running for president for my third year.”
“That’s just like you,” Chie looked impressed with me. “You always did give everything your all.” I did, until I met her. The first time I let my grades slip and the second time I lied to my parents, both because of her. I wonder if she even knew how much I changed to fall in love with her? Now I only dedicated myself to things that I knew would be important. “That is the kindness that I remember.”
My eyes narrowed. You had stomped on that kindness, Senpai. She must have seen my reaction because she turned away from me and faced forward once more. “I’m not a kind girl,” I informed her. “If you knew what I did the past few months, you wouldn’t say that.”
“What did you do?” She sounded honestly interested.
“I fell in love with a woman and tried to take her from the girl I knew she was in love with before they got together.” My eyes sought out hers. Go ahead, Senpai. Judge me.
“…Love will make you do things that you normally wouldn’t.” Instead of spite, I got comfort. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“We never were good at talking.” This time the blame was partially on me. I could talk with Yuu for hours, and I didn’t even like the girl. Looking back, there were many things that Chie and I could have spoken about, we just didn’t try hard enough.
“That can change now.”
“Can it, though?” She had my house number for almost a year and I still had to hunt her down to get her cellphone number. Come to think of it, back then she didn’t even give it to me, I had to save her number after she called the first time.
“If you want it to.” Chie took her phone from her purse. “Do you have the same number?” I nodded, not expecting her to still have it. I had deleted her contact information the same day she dumped me and never looked back. “Then, if I remember correctly…” Tapping on her phone, she wrote a short message and hit send. To my surprise, my phone buzzed.
“You… remembered my number?”
Blue eyes looked down. “I had to… my dad made me delete all my contacts.”
“What?” I was still confused. This didn’t make any sense… Even if she changed how she felt later on, she didn’t care enough back then to even speak to me often. Come to think on it… “Why did you have to delete your contacts?” Silence answered me. Instead of like before, when it was awkward and stressful, now it was worrisome. “What are you not telling me, Senpai?”
“You don’t have to call me that anymore,” she answered instead. “We don’t go to the same school, and you have always acted more mature than me, Sayaka-chan.”
In the past, I had refused to call her by her first name and -san because I thought it made us sound even less than friendly when we were supposed to be more. Judging by how we were now… “Don’t avoid the question, Chie-san.”
“The -san isn’t needed.”
This girl… was she blackmailing me to get my answer? I took a breath to calm myself before trying once more. I wanted to get to the bottom of this, and I wasn’t about to let her make me stumble over this. Not again. “Chie.”
“Yes, Sayaka?”
That was more uncomfortable than it should have been. “Why did you have to delete your contacts? And while we’re on it, why did you memorize mine?”
“…Can I tell you later? It’s personal and…” Her eyes looked around. Even though we were first class, there were still people all around us. “I promise.”
I didn’t trust her, but the way she said it made me give in. We fell into a silence that ended up with us both starting to mess around on our phones. As promised, I sent Touko a message letting her know that I was okay and on my way. After that, I messaged Yuu with a promise to vent to her later. I got a hugging emote from her almost immediately in return.
Chie’s message was still there on my list, marked as unread, next to a string of numbers. I would have to do it eventually, so I tapped on it to bring up the friend request on Line. A moment later and her profile was saved to my phone, bringing up a notification to rename it. Part of me wanted to just name it ‘Senpai’ like I did last time, but in the end I settled on her full name, Yuzuki Chie, and it was filtered under the ‘C’ list on my contacts.
The girl’s phone buzzed in her hands and I watched from the corner of my eye to see her reaction. To my surprise, she looked like she was about to cry. Her eyes closed and she tenderly brought her phone to her chest, as if hugging it. Honestly, I had no idea how I should feel in this situation, so I just chose to look away.
Time started to ebb by for us. The first hour was gone pretty fast thanks to our talking and the second was finally ending as well. Eleven more hours left. Despite liking to sit down at home, being on a train was still less comfortable. The first-class seats helped, but the atmosphere was still oppressing. Wisps of conversation, laughter, snoring, it all blended together into a white noise of annoyance. I wish Touko would respond to me at the very least.
As if on cue, my phone buzzed in my palms. I couldn’t hide the excitement while turning on my screen but was soon faced with a message from Chie. “Would you like a snack?” I read it aloud before looking over at her. The girl was smiling, holding out a stick of pocky. “You could just ask, you know.”
“That’s not as fun.” Waving the stick at me, I felt a small smile tug at my lips. Touko did that as well, and I found it strangely endearing. “Say ahhhhh?”
“No way.” I denied her request. “I don’t do things like that.”
“Come on, it’s not like we’re playing the pocky game or anything.” The tactic of comparing it to something much worse would probably work on other people, but I was hardly that gullible. Instead, I turned back to my phone to scroll through my messages once more. “Where is that curious and excitable Sayaka that I knew? She would have leaned in for it.”
My acid tongue almost showed itself once more. The words died on my lips when I saw the look she was giving me. It wasn’t teasing, nor condescending… It was hopeful. I almost growled at her. She was seriously pushing it now. If I was going to give much more without getting some answers in return, I was going to end this game. “Fine.” I leaned over and took it from her hand with my mouth, both accepting her request while also denying her the pleasure of feeding it to me.
“You always did like strawberry pocky, didn’t you?” The words made me realize exactly what I was eating. How did she remember that when she couldn’t even remember the conversations we had? Come to think of it, she knew I had asked her about clubs as well as remembered my phone number.
I knew I was looking at her in an odd way by the confused expression on her face. “Wait…” I shook my head at her, pulling the pocky from my mouth so I could speak properly. “You… Lied to me, didn’t you?”
“What do you mean?” She hadn’t been expecting something like that.
“When we were falling apart, when I found you at the school gates, the last few phone calls we had… Each time you said you didn’t remember things. You brushed off my comments like you weren’t interested and yet you still remembered my favorite candy. You remembered the books I read, my phone number, the conversations we had!” I was getting more and more upset as I went on. My voice was rising as well, calling attention to us and making the rest of the chatter die down while they turned to see what the commotion was.
“S-Sayaka, it’s… complicated.” Chie looked around nervously, her shoulder length hair swishing as her head turned. I hated beating around the bush, and she had led me along for far too long.
“No, I want to hear it. Tell me truth for once.” I was seething now, gripping the armrest of my seat hard. I didn’t recall feeling this upset since… well, since we broke up. Back then, for the first time in my life, I wanted to hit something to vent my anger. Now that I was older, I almost wanted to hit her to make myself feel better. This wasn’t something casual, this was an event that put me on the path to realizing I was a lesbian. This was what shaped me, what made me choose a different high school, what made me meet Touko, what made me who I was. “Start talking.”
“I have to go for a moment.” Chie slid by me quickly, almost running to the bathroom. I half expected a stewardess to come check in on us but, luckily, I was spared the trouble. The time I waited for her to return had to be at least thirty minutes. I had started checking the clock after a while to keep track.
My senpai finally came back a little while after the half hour mark. I allowed her back to her seat and she tentatively shifted before me to get there. If she tried to cover the fact that she was crying, she did a poor job of it. The carefully placed makeup on her face was now gone, probably scrubbed off to hide the runs in it. On top of that, her eyes were red and puffy. The conversation from before came back to my mind, the one about Chie crying in the bathroom for long periods of time. Maybe I was being too hard on her.
“Better now?” I asked of her softly without making eye contact.
“…Yeah.”
“Are you lying to me again?”
“…Yeah.”
“…Well, if we’re going to learn how to talk to each other, we have to start somewhere.”
Chie almost reached for my hand. I saw her flinch back and rub her palms together instead, trying to make it look like she hadn’t moved for me. “I promise. Once people start going to sleep.”
I didn’t want to wait, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to be that mean to her. She was trying, and I was shoving it back on her. Although I felt justified, there was a line between having baggage and just flat out being a bitch. “Okay, I can wait. When you’re ready, okay?”
“Sayaka…” Her hand moved once again before she scratched her cheek. “Uhm… Tell me something?”
“What?”
“Anything.” The word was vague, as if she were just seeking comfort in my voice. “Just… please keep talking. I’m scared that you might disappear if I don’t keep contact with you.”
This woman was even more confusing than Touko, and that was saying something. My book closed and I felt a small sigh leaving my lips. “Okay. We take turns, and you have to ask questions too.” It was something I’ve done with classmates in some of my courses at school. When we had to break into groups at the start of a year, it was generally an event the teacher made us do. “You go first.”
The look on Chie’s face made me feel as if she was just handed a bouquet of roses. “Okay, uhm,” She was searching for words and I could almost feel that her usual self was starting to return. We had dated for a year, so I had come to learn how she acted when not stressed. “Sayaka, have you dated anyone else since we split?”
My love life. Figures. Still, I had made an offer so I had to follow through with it. I didn’t want Senpai to think that I was only half hearted with my words. “No. I fell in love with a girl named Touko. She is the one I mentioned earlier. Touko was the one I was with when we met at the station a while back. We were going on a date that day, but her heart belonged to my kouhai Yuu. I confessed to Touko, but she turned me down honestly with tears in her eyes. Right now, we love each other, but it isn’t a romantic kind of love… At least not on her side. That’s why I’m taking this trip, to get a grip on myself.”
I had said more than I had intended to, but once I started, the words just wouldn’t stop. It felt good to get that out of my system, even if it was to her. Hearing the words in my own voice made it feel more real. It was as if I fully accepted the words when I spoke them. “My turn,” I prevented her from replying. “How about you? Dating, I mean.”
“Is it allowed to ask the same question back?” She pouted a little, feeling as if I had cheated her somehow. “Yes, I have… just not really my choice.”
Had her family been the type to do arranged relationships? It wasn’t common these days, but you never know. “Not your choice?” I asked her to elaborate. Maybe I was unfair, asking her for more information when I didn’t offer any on my own.
“My… Dad… He… was incredibly old fashioned.” I heard the word was and filed it back in my mid for future questioning. “This has to do with what I wanted to talk with you about later.” I must have let my annoyance show because she suddenly looked timid. “But… People are starting to sleep… and we do have a little privacy.”
The first-class section on the train was split into two rows of two seats with an aisle in the middle. The rest of the train was two rows of three seats and pressed a lot closer together. Although it wasn’t really a private room for each set of seats, the backrest was a lot higher and the seats reclined to give a sense of faux privacy. I had to appreciate the design; it was rather practical.
Chie looked at the time on her phone and I did the same. It was almost eleven at night, pushing the three-hour mark. As if on cue, a stewardess began walking through the aisle with a cart. She offered everyone small pillows or head rests as well as thin blankets. They were included in the price of the ticket, regardless if you used them or not, and it was something that I needed. I got cold easily and wanted to sleep as comfortably as I could.
Once we were situated with reclined seats, blankets over our bodies, and resting on a pillow, the atmosphere of the train seemed to shift. The lights were dimmed just a little bit, and the window shades were mostly closed by everyone in the cart. “Uhm,” Chie’s voice pulled my attention to her. She was half whispering now, her voice not carrying far from my ears. “I guess to answer your question: My dad wanted me to date someone, yes. We started my first year of high school.”
Wait a second. Wait just a freaking second here. “Please tell me it was after our breakup.” The silence was enough to answer me. Not only was I dumped, I was cheated on. I wanted to end the game right here and now, to roll over and show my back to this woman. The only thing that made me give her a few more seconds was the look of pain and regret on her face.
“I didn’t want to,” she finally told me. Her eyes were starting to glisten and a blink made a tear roll down between her nose and cheek, vanishing along her upper lip. “He…My dad, I mean, found out we were dating. I started to be too bold, too proud of you…” I noticed it again: the quivering lip, the shaking of her body. Anxiety. My mom suffered from it sometimes, and I knew it wasn’t a pleasant thing to deal with. “Sayaka… He forced me to date him… forced me to be… his version of normal.”
That word again. It was almost as if it was haunting her. “Forced you?” My question came before I even realized it. I was finally getting my answers and I didn’t want to give her a chance to stop, even though I could tell it was hurting her to remember. I wasn’t sure if it was me being mean to her, or if I was honestly seeking closure, but I had to hear more.
“Dad, he…” Licking her lips again, she cleared another tear that she probably thought I didn’t see. “He was… vocal… with how he felt about me being with a woman… At first, I lied to him, told him it was pretend and that it was just something we did at the girl’s school.”
Wait a second. Lied? Pretend? Those were the words she had used on me, but she told them to her father first? “I’m listening,” I whispered back to her when she hesitated for a little longer than usual.
“I thought to myself… That I could hide my relationship with you and make him think I was with the other man that he wanted me to be with. I… cheated on you with him, and… I’m sorry for that, but…” Her eyes cleared just enough to show me that she was being honest with her words. “But it was a fake relationship I was shoved into… You were my partner, not him… And… Then you came to the school gates.”
I felt the realization running through my body. “That was your boyfriend, wasn’t it? The guy you were with?” She nodded meekly in reply. I had missed it. Just like a mystery novel reader, I was now one of the ones who was shocked at the ending. I didn’t see the words between the lines, missed the subtle hints that were dropped to me… Why I always had to call her unless her parents were out, why we couldn’t meet outside school grounds, why she wanted it to be a secret… She was hiding from her father. “When you got bold…” I was whispering my thoughts aloud at this point. “We started talking again… and you…”
“He heard me call you my Sayaka-chan.” Chie broke eye contact. “He didn’t like that… He was vocal about it.”
“Vocal…” Why was she using certain terminology so much? There was something I wasn’t seeing, some clue that was clearly within the words I heard. Chie loved mystery, and the books she loaned to me were always really deep. She gave hints to me that I never saw, and once again I was faced with the chapters I never finished in junior high. There had to be a connection… Normal. Therapy. Crying. Abnormal. Vocal. Was. Forcing.
I felt sick.
“Please…” I whispered to her. My voice was shaking, body quivering in a fear that I had never known before. “Please tell me it isn’t…” Chie looked at me and I saw it in her eyes. That’s what she had tried to tell me. That’s why she apologized at the train station, why she deleted her contacts, why we broke up, why everything ended like it did… She was trying to protect me from being like her. To save me from going through what she was.
I moved to her quickly, arms reaching out to pull her close. It was uncomfortable with the way our seats were, and the arm rest was painfully pushing against my side, but still I hugged her. Chie was shaking, breath gently gasping against my neck as she cried. She was so quiet, giving only whimpers and raspy breathing… How many times did she have to go through this before she learned how to be silent? How many times was she hurt because of me? “Are you safe now?” I finally managed to ask of her once she calmed down a little.
She offered a small nod against me but still needed another few minutes to gather herself enough to pull back and speak. “Mom…” A deep breath steadied her while her tears were wiped with the sleeves of her shirt. “Mom found out… saw him hit me.” Blue eyes looked to my green as if to ask me if I really wanted to hear this. I gave a curt nod and waited for her to go on. “Dad had anger issues, and even got into fights with my mom… When she saw it happening to me, she filed for divorce. The judge sided with us and we got everything in the split… I started going to therapy once a week to work though my issues… and…I want to be normal again… be myself… like who I want to like… because that’s what my normal is.”
Many times in my life, I had taken pride in knowing just what to say. It may come off as arrogant, but I was rather good with words. Now, in the face of my first girlfriend crying to me with topics as deep as this… I was at a loss of what to say. “Chie…”
“I won’t ask you to pretend our past didn’t happen,” her words came over mine, once again starting to hold that small bit of hope in them. “But if you can find it in your heart… will you give a chance to show you that I can be better?”
“Better?” My word was confused. Did she not even realize the complexity of the situation? The amount that she sacrificed for me without even asking for anything in return? She was a victim here, yet she was treating me like I was the only one suffering. We were both cheated, scarred in different ways from the issues she had at home. All the time I was thinking so much about how to change so I could fall in love with her, that I never saw how much she did for me. Oh my, I was an arrogant little brat, wasn’t I?
“I can be a better girlfriend.” Chie reached for my hand once more, this time not stopping herself. Her fingers interlaced mine and her other hand caressed it. “Once more… I love you, Sayaka.” It was just like her to be so straight forward with those words. I guess somethings stayed the same, even after time passes.
“…What?” My mind had hit a speed bump, my thoughts being jarred into a jumbled mess. Her hands stayed on mine, warmth seeping within my body in the midst of a cold train ride through the country. “You don’t know me,” my mind reasoned with her as well as with myself. “I’m different.”
“So am I.” She stayed her course. “How long will you be in Hokkaido?”
“Four days.” It was a holiday at school and most people were preparing for the winter festival anyway, so my absence wouldn’t even be noticed.
“Do you have plans?”
“Only to see my family one day.” Why was I answering these questions when there was a more pressing topic?
“We get to pick what we want to do as a group for our school trip.” Chie held my hands more firmly in hers. “I’m not in a group, so I can go with anyone… they won’t know if I spend it with you.” Suddenly everything started to make sense. “Four days,” Chie’s expression was a mix of determination, anxiety, fear, and hope. “Give me four days to make you love me.”
“Okay.” The word was silent to my own ears, but I knew I had said it. My senpai looked relieved, her body almost melting into the seat she was leaning on. With how hot my body was feeling, I somewhat wondered if I would do the same.
Thirteen hours turned into ninety-six. Chie had less than one hundred hours to make me fall in love with her again. In the past, it took months upon months for me to realize that I was in love… But I was older, and so was she. I wasn’t sure what the next four days would bring me, but I knew that at the end of it, I would finally have closure on this chapter in my life.
Those four days were about to begin.