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Other than her name, Lloyd didn’t know much about Harumi.
For the sake of stifling politics and an ever-spreading division in Ninjago City, a sudden, out of the blue marriage announcement kept citizens aligned and peace abounding.
Lloyd didn’t know how to feel and didn’t have a choice anyways, so Lloyd didn’t think too heavily on it, regarding the forced arrangement as another dutiful responsibility to tend to as the virtuous green ninja. And on the other side of the negotiation, Harumi — the youthful, graceful, beautiful princess — wore a mild and fine look about it also, boring her placid eyes into Lloyd amid the whole transaction, keeping silent.
Even on the day of their wedding — the palace packed to an overwhelming full — when Lloyd lifts the veil over, baring Harumi’s bride-ridden face to himself: there's that constant, branding eyes of temperance and poise — nearly dead and empty — yet compliant for all appearances.
They say their ‘I do’s robotically, without a touch of realness or a reciprocal heart-pounding flutter through weak chests, and kiss quickly over an obligated reason.
Since then, newlywed and fastened together in sickness and in health, until death parts them; their contact has been strictly short and distant. Sharp notices within the same room; trying conversations left brief on Harumi’s end; quietful dinners and intentful focusing on the stuffed plate before them. They don’t talk much, or at all, and Lloyd doesn’t know anything about Harumi.
For weeks on end, silence perpetually haunts the bedroom. The nighttime shade widens the hushed effort, coating the room grayish dark and dull. Harumi keeps a closeted routine: humming a wistful tune, brushing her hair at the vanity furniture, losing herself to the reflection of her impassive complexion, and ignores Lloyd throughout it all.
Lloyd understood the reason for the detachedness, agreeing their situation to be rather unpreferred. Initiating grounds of respectful space, Lloyd sleeps on the floor each night, right below from the bed in which Harumi lays – keeping the side to herself and back against the open air. In spite of the awkward, tongue-tied tension, Lloyd’s dives headstrong and flexible to their new titles — husband and wife, a strange thing to chew on — laying flat out against the hard carpet and waiting for slumber to pass.
On a random night, unusually sparked by boldness, “Will you brush my hair for me?” said Harumi – a certain coddling sweetness that’s approachable. Through the vanity mirror, she looks at Lloyd all amiably, holding the hairbrush up for him.
From what Lloyd has gathered in their little time, Harumi’s not one to start a conversation unless required of her. In their bedroom, nothing is ever required of her; treating it as the only safe zone where she can let loose, drop the forged faces of deference, lack the bother of everything, and freely display herself as quietly somber. Lloyd knows, however, at this moment, Harumi is putting on a face.
After a confused delay, Lloyd agrees: taking the hairbrush and starting at the bottom ends, carefully working his long way up. Minor tangles and light frizz, “How are you?” asks Lloyd, a simple, casual opener.
“I’m fine,” said Harumi, blankly just to answer. If she actually was fine, Lloyd wouldn’t actually know because Harumi isn’t one to say if she actually wasn’t. When Lloyd finishes brushing, Harumi’s filled with a turn of liveliness at the mirror, and gets up from a brunt of satisfaction. Over to the bed, she sits on her knees and pats down on the mattress. Still with a face, “It’s not fair, is it? You’ve been sleeping on the floor for me.”
“It’s nothing,” said Lloyd, moved to sit with her after the implying gesture and a still, hesitant second.
“No, it’s not nothing. It must be really hard,” Harumi insists, disregarding his polite surety. Rather frisky and really unexpectedly: Harumi grabs onto his shoulders, digging her fingers and meticulously massaging tight muscles. “Poor Lloyd,” her voice strikingly heavy in a flirt, but obviously phony through the over toned romantic drag, “So many responsibilities! A ninja. A husband. Possibly soon, at this rate — the next emperor. I can’t imagine the feeling of being forced upon with all these burdens.”
Lloyd can trace the insincerity of her running concerns. “Princess,” he starts, finding his breath and letting his thoughts catch up in between the kneading, “I can tell you haven’t been happy lately.” Another thing Lloyd had noted — especially in the flashes of her holding her royal parent’s hands — since sharing a ring, Harumi’s not one to touch unless there’s something to be gained. Unintentionally, Lloyd sinks back into her care — the pressure hitting the exact tense points of his own tangles, and it’s slightly lulling. He fights to stay awake, though, with one eye opened, “I know this isn’t what you wanted, and I wouldn’t want it this way either and—”
Harumi thrusts Lloyd leveled down on the bed, and he looks up wide-eyed at her upside down, real face: a burrowing glower that’s shadowed and he traces it even better. “What do you know about what I want?” and fingernails penetrate through clothes to skin to the near point of bone and Lloyd doesn’t know what to do. In a match of endurance, Harumi must have been weak or Lloyd strong because her grip loosens when she doesn’t feel the gratification she thought this would bring, and, giving up with a sigh, lets go of Lloyd.
Other than the faded dim of chamber lights, Harumi’s mostly washed in bedtime watercolors that smear away at the edges of his sight. Very unreserved to her husband, Harumi speaks softly, almost painfully at the corner of her shoulder blade, “You’re right about one thing, though. I’m not happy.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lloyd, quick with an urge to uplift her melancholic mood.
“Don’t apologize,” said Harumi, furrowing her eyebrows. “You’re just making it worse.”
Sorry, Lloyd wishes to say once more badly; wishes to relieve the way discomfort takes over the empty spaces in the bed that he can’t fill; wishes desperately with all that he has to make Harumi feel a switch better and happier, but Lloyd stops himself and shrinks back to his own tough version of a bed on the ground.
When silence buckles like every other night, Lloyd — driven attentively — breaks the cycle: “What do you want?” asks Lloyd.
He’s settled in the assumption that Harumi had already dozed off, peacefully out and asleep when nothing happens, but there’s a rash shuffling in the sheets and a squeak of an uneven shift of weight. Overlooking from the bedframe at Lloyd, Harumi says, and it’s her genuine voice of desire, “I want to go on a date.”
At a cozy restaurant: cushioned booths and steaming appetizer plates and yellow-tinted lanterns — Harumi wears a face.
Freshly wedded and considerably quite famous throughout Ninjago, every drama-starved citizen eagerly craves the juicy scoops of their married-life, and all the heat and romance and secrets! Seated at their own secluded table at the corner, the revolving stares of green-ninja-fangirls and at-the-ready reporters inflict Harumi’s composure sternly upright and insufferably pretending expression of polished grace.
What Harumi is able to keep to herself and what Lloyd notices as a hidden manner — the lifeless, lackluster woe buried in the utter blackness of her pupils, a thing far from other’s detection. Harumi does it so easily, so effortlessly like she’s been performing it her entire constricted life.
“This is my first date ever,” Harumi breathes out, and there’s a bit of piqued excitement and nervousness all in one. She discreetly plays with her food, tapping the noodles with her chopsticks.
He ordered the same as her, the sloppy splatter of garlic noodles and vegetables. “I guess I’m taking away your first everythings,” said Lloyd, a light joke to cheer up and hearten her masked dispiritedness and to ease the flooded flush of gazes around the restaurant.
The playing of her food doubles less quietly. “Nothing is ever mine in life,” said Harumi. It didn’t matter what Lloyd would say, Harumi’s face was so fixed in a fabricated design he could not break.
At the halfway mark of their date — ice in flavored drinks melt, watering-down, leftover food lose its enticing hotness, turning cold, and appetite runs out of room, tiring full — Lloyd feels like Harumi isn’t enjoying this; her plate half-finished and looking presumably bored.
Everybody is keeping a close eye at them, and they both feel it down their spine. Lloyd didn’t intend for this to happen and for Harumi to be extended so uncomfortably; he pulls out money on the table, gets up from his seat, and puts out his hand to his confused wife.
“Let’s get out of here?” said Lloyd, and Harumi doesn’t know where else they could go, but she doesn’t want to think too hard about it: taking Lloyd’s hand and freely following him wherever he leads her.
Far from the midnight activities of festive crowds, the bridge canal over streaming waters sound rhythmically fluid and tranquilly pleasing. With just each other, the air smells freshly clean and the wobbly, watery mirroring of her real face glimmers.
“Tell me,” said Harumi, hands on the ledge and head tilted in brimming curiosity, “Who is Lloyd? What makes Lloyd tick? I want to know all about you.”
They start their share and tell: Lloyd’s an only child, so is Harumi, but he discloses knowing the feeling of close, bugging siblings. This was his first date, too, and yes — that was his first kiss, too; Harumi giggles to herself. His favorite thing about being a ninja is helping others — she rolls her eyes at that, calling him such a goody-goody — and least being rigorous training on an empty stomach. He asks her in relation to being a princess — she says royal life has its up and down moments, she carries on nonetheless. Yes, Lloyd has endured rough injuries before, only a few — nothing too serious. So dangerous! Harumi has never broken a bone, but wants to know the feeling. They both like ice cream, but Harumi says she really likes ice cream, more than she thinks Lloyd likes ice cream and he doesn’t bother tussling with her passionate claim: Harumi really likes ice cream!
A nearby street vendor rolls his cart and rings his bell. Being sold — the sweet, icy chant of candied apples, and a sudden hunger flickers on. “Ever tried this?” said Lloyd, hinting to the cart that comes their way.
“No,” said Harumi, a foreign slip of her tongue. “I’m really only supposed to eat food served inside the palace, and they don’t make that kind of stuff.”
Lloyd puts on a funny, shocked face and Harumi tries hard to hold back a pulse in her chest that jumps wildly for him. He buys one for her and one for himself — sharing a stick of the dessert in each hand.
Harumi doesn’t know where to begin, but follows Lloyd’s experienced example; biting at the sugar-coated top until it chips away to the core of the fruit. The mixture of tangy sour yet sweetness underneath a glassed glaze draws her delighted and oh so happy; nothing like this taste at an hour like this in a place right here and with him — Harumi laughs at the way they share looks in between bites and Lloyd, unknowingly, draws closer shoulder to shoulder.
Without thinking it through, and the undercurrent lateness filling him with a sort of reckless confidence, “I like you being my wife,” said Lloyd. “I get to see you in ways other people can’t.” It’s until his words repeat in his mind, hitting him dumb and bashful, “I mean — you know… not in a way that’s like… but as in like…”
“Lloyd…” said Harumi, giving him a look that can mean a hundred different things to him; for instance — a sorrowful realization or an off-track romantic ogle or something else entirely — Lloyd’s waiting to be told otherwise. She tells him over his thoughts, “It would’ve been nice to meet you under different circumstances. I didn’t want to get married this way — without feeling the feelings a girl in love is supposed to feel. It’s like that was taken away from me.”
Harumi has never once taken off her wedding ring, neither has Lloyd. While they may not have had a bud of feelings then and at the time, it has never come to mind to remove the material proof of their bounded situation. Harumi has grown to play with it, though, twisting it around her finger and looking at it with an indiscernible look.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” said Lloyd, softly spoken to lessen the gravity that keeps Harumi balanced. “Anything,” he says wholeheartedly, earnestly, and in the close proximity of her ear, breath chilling, “to make sure you feel like you have everything, and that nothing was a waste or was taken away.”
Lloyd puts his left hand out with Harumi’s: their rings in view together. It wasn’t anything too intricate, rather simple bands of jade and a slim streak of gold subtly there. For a moment, it has a glint of a reflection where Lloyd can trace Harumi’s real face – a gentle, quiet appreciation that’s unraveling, utterly lacking strict perfection, and a little messy.
—
In their bedroom: Harumi says, “You can sleep on the bed,” and adds the thoughtful, friendly assertion, “If you want to.”
The flat floor would always be cold and directly solid to probe red marks and itch bones. Lloyd lifts himself up to see eye to line at the strange waters, the blankets and pillows, and Harumi gives him a shallow look to just get up and on already.
Laying on their side, a few feet apart, and meeting eye to eye silently: Lloyd can outline all her features in clear detail, from low as lips to high as eyebrows, and the focal concentration she has on him — an occupied infatuation — wandering from his own eyes back and forth. Despite the draped window’s dark coloring, Harumi’s bright and open to read; fair skin and plain face, Lloyd loses himself in her.
Without breaking their stare, Harumi shuffles closer, cutting off the distance to feel her forehead on his chest, and after wrapping her free arm around him, feeling his back, “Is this alright?” she says, and he must have answered it immediately, instinctively, convincingly — wrapping back with his arm and curling his fingers at her waist.
With this impulsive, heart-led nearness: Harumi can hear his heartbeat pick up in a pounding pace — loud and strong and deep. “Are you unhappy, too?” Harumi asks, voice meek and faint, almost sleepy, “About our situation?”
Lloyd clears his throat and closes his heavy eyes, readjusting his position more comfortably. He says to the top of her head, very sure and purposeful, yet gradually succumbing to the warmth and sleepiness, “I don’t mind as long as it’s you. I wouldn’t want to be married to anyone else.”
Harumi doesn’t know if Lloyd has already drifted off to sleep because his heart is convinced on beating hard, yet his chest eases into a slow, peaceful breathing pattern. She has to say this now and she will certainly say it again first thing in the morning when they wake up, very glad and so in love, “You make me happy.”