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The train ran merrily along the tracks. Nanami was looking out the window, and Kozue, beside her, was reading some book on music theory.
“You know, I thought for a second I saw that kid in this car,” Kozue said suddenly.
“That kid?”
“Yeah, what was his name? That younger kid that you made your servant or whatever, back when we were at school.”
“Tsuwabuki?”
“Yeah, that must have been it. I thought that was him over there, see?” Kozue pointed at a young guy sitting a few rows down from them. His hair color was vaguely similar to Tsuwabuki’s, but the similarities ended there.
“He looks nothing like him,” Nanami said.
“Yeah, that’s why I said I thought it for a second. Do you think he’d recognize you if it was him?”
“Maybe? I haven’t talked to him in a long time. I think he lives in Kyushu now.” After thinking for a bit, she added, “Honestly, maybe it’s for the best that I haven’t.”
“Well, I haven’t really kept up with anyone from school,” Kozue said with a shrug. “Apart from you and Miki, I mean. Which is a bit unexpected. If you asked me, like, ten, twelve years ago, who of the people I know I thought I would still talk to as a grownup, I wouldn’t have guessed you. Uh, no offense, obviously.”
“I suppose we are a bit of an unlikely twosome,” Nanami mused.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kozue replied, stretching in her seat and stifling a yawn. “It does make sense when you think about it. We’re the same age, went to the same school. We’re both opinionated, and both annoying, and both too stubborn for our own good. Both absolutely kicking ass at this ‘adult life’ thing.”
“Even if it might appear differently to an unenlightened observer.”
“Exactly,” she nodded. Then, there suddenly was a malicious glint in her eye. “And, of course, the big thing: we both spent a huge chunk of our lives lusting after our respective brothers.”
Nanami recoiled, her face convulsing in a grimace. Her hand flew out before she had even fully processed the words, but Kozue’s body moved swiftly and gracefully, evading her. As Nanami observed that movement — the shoulders, the back, that wrist, wary of being grabbed — something inside her felt cold and prickly. Then, in a moment, it passed.
Kozue threw her head back and laughed, looking completely relaxed now. “Oh wow, what was that?” she asked.
“Don’t say that kind of shit to me,” Nanami said sullenly. She realized, of course, that this serious tone was never a winning strategy against Kozue. “Just don’t talk to me about that. Next time, I’ll… I won’t go easy.” She felt ridiculous saying that last part, but Kozue met her gaze, and there seemed to be some understanding in it. Then, the corners of Kozue’s mouth went up.
“Psht… Like you could ever take me.”
Nanami chuckled, acknowledging the invitation to move on. “Effortlessly,” she said.
“Here’s some free advice, don’t try and intimidate the person who saw you fight a turnstile and lose.”
Nanami instinctively wanted to protest that the turnstile fight had been conducted in a state of extreme inebriation and was not reflective of her overall abilities as a fighter, but that went against the spirit of the game. The proper response would be to match Kozue’s tone. So she raised her chin, and replied, “Fine words for one who can’t walk up a flight of stairs without heaving like she’s about to die.”
Kozue silently laughed and nodded in appreciation.
“One of these days, Kiryuu, you and I are going to have to settle this the old-fashioned way.”
Nanami didn’t like being called by her surname, but Kozue, for her willfulness and various other faults and virtues, was allowed the one-of-a-kind privilege of calling her whatever she felt like.
“Ready whenever you are.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Kozue purred.
Nanami frowned, not really knowing why. Silly, all of this, she thought to herself. She sighed and turned to look in the window, and at that moment, Kozue spoke again.
“It’s all in the past for you anyway, isn’t it?”
It took Nanami a couple seconds to understand what she meant. But before she could get angry about Kozue bringing the topic up right after she’d told her not to, something else occurred to her.
“What do you mean, ‘for you’?”
“Huh?” Kozue sounded confused, though you could never tell when her confusion was genuine.
“What do you mean, ‘for you’? It’s not over for you?”
“What..? Oh…” There was a long pause. “No, yeah. It is, it is.”
Nanami sighed. She didn’t like this, but she didn’t know what else she could say at the moment.
“If you say so,” she muttered, then turned back towards the window.
***
The cityscape outside eventually gave way to monotonous farmland. Nanami, feeling a little tired, turned away from it again. Kozue was munching on a candy bar she’d pulled out of her backpack.
“Want one?” she asked when she noticed Nanami staring.
“I’d rather have a proper meal when we get there.”
Kozue shrugged.
“You’d do better to try and eat properly, too, you know,” Nanami went on. Another shrug followed. “Your diet is what, twenty percent candy and convenience store snacks?”
“Twenty percent is not so high,” Kozue mumbled.
“Perhaps not, but seeing as how the other eighty is mostly coffee and cigarettes… Well, what is there to say? You know I’m right.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”
“And don’t talk with your mouth full. What are you, five?”
Kozue rolled her eyes, but kept chewing silently.
“How roma-a-antic, Nanami-sama-a-a,” she said, singsong, after finally finishing the candy bar. “You talk to all your girlfriends this way?”
“You know there haven’t been any before you,” Nanami replied with a frown. Even now, the word “girlfriend” still felt somehow off to her. That was not to say she was unhappy with Kozue, or ashamed of being with her. But there was always a sense of unease that she could not manage to get rid of. Thinking of herself and Kozue as girlfriends, no matter how happy and proud it made her feel, the idea inevitably came to mind of that word hanging on her like an ill-fitting dress. She was much to prideful to admit any of this to anyone, least of all to Kozue, but small treacherous movements of the face still broke through every now and again.
“So what then, you think it’s okay to talk like this to your darling, precious, beloved, first and only girlfriend, is that it, Nanami-sama?” Kozue punctuated each word with a little playful shove.
“Stop it.” Nanami pushed her arm away. “I’ve told you before, haven’t I? If we are girlfriends, I want it to be serious. Not this… play-acting of yours.”
“Alright then!” Kozue grinned, and then leaned over and kissed Nanami on the lips. “What about that, was that play-acting?”
Nanami didn’t know, which was infuriating. She crossed her arms and tilted her head noncommittally.
“How about now?” Kozue said, and followed up with another kiss, deeper and longer this time. “I can keep going, you know.”
Nanami was forced to admit defeat. “Come on, we’re on a train,” she said weakly, with a shy smile, and put her hand on Kozue’s. “I get it. I meant what I said, though. I want to be serious with you.”
“We’re serious,” Kozue replied, clasping Nanami’s hand. “Doesn’t mean we don’t get to have our fun, too.”
“Sure.”
“And if it’s fun for me to tease you, that’s okay, just like it’s okay if it’s fun for you to make a fuss over how I eat.”
“I don’t do it for fun!”
“Whatever you say, my lovely.” Kozue gently patted her hand, then curled up in her seat and closed her eyes. “Think I’m gonna nap for a bit.”
And, indeed, in a couple of seconds she was sleeping.
Nanami sighed. It was true, she didn’t pick on Kozue’s eating habits for fun. She did it for the normal, boring reasons — because she cared about her and wanted her to be healthy. But this concern, though genuine, never fit to well in Nanami’s mind. She hated what it made of her. She didn’t want to be Kozue’s mother, and she knew a mother was the last thing Kozue needed.
Nanami and Kozue had both cut off ties with their parents — at approximately the same time, as it happens, almost a year before they’d gotten together. But if Nanami had spent a long time planning out her independent life beforehand, in Kozue’s case, everything happened rather suddenly and shambolically. So, Nanami had plenty to fall back on once her family ceased to be a part of her life; Kozue, not so much. When the two of them met for the first time since graduation, Kozue had been couchsurfing for a few months. She’d dropped out of university and was juggling three part-time jobs, each of which paid like dirt.
Now both of them were back on their feet, but even with them living together and sharing expenses, the memory was still there of the time when Nanami was the one who had money, and Kozue had nothing. Nanami didn’t like to be reminded of it. She had no problem sharing with Kozue, she was only ever happy to help her with anything she could; but she hated the assumption of superiority that came with it. She wanted for her and Kozue to be equals, but somehow, the only modes of behavior that came to her mind were ones that cast her as the carer, the one in charge, the responsible one, the big sister, the mother. She didn’t want that, and she tried so desperately to avoid it, but all her attempts only made her confused.
Kozue, for her part, never really seemed to be bothered by what weighed so heavily on Nanami. She playfully protested when Nanami scolded her for eating junk food or smoking too much, but she didn’t look genuinely hurt. It was hard, very hard, to really get to Kozue. And that unnerved Nanami.
That’s right, that’s what you’ve always been worried about, isn’t it? a bitter thought bubbled up inside her. You understand, don’t you, why you keep trying to put yourself in charge of her, though you claim to hate yourself for it? She’s resilient, and she’s headstrong, and the world cannot keep her down. Do you know why you planned your separation from your parents like a general plans a campaign, and she didn’t? Because she never needed to. You helped her when she was penniless, but she would have survived without your help. You must control her because you know, you know very well that if she ever decides to leave you, she will have no trouble doing it.
Nanami bit into her lower lip hard. “Shut up!” she whispered at herself furiously. “Shut up, shut up, fucking shut up! I’m not like that!” She shook for some moments, crying silently and tearlessly; then, catching herself in a panic, turned to her right. But Kozue was still fast asleep.
For a long time, she sat, gazing straight ahead, not really looking at anything, trying her hardest not to think.
***
The sun had already set by the time Kozue woke up, and Nanami had calmed down somewhat. Kozue stretched, and yawned, and looked around.
“What time is it now?” she asked.
“About half an hour until we arrive,” Nanami said, glancing at her watch.
“Cool. I gotta pee now, be right back.” She leaned over and planted yet another kiss on Nanami’s mouth before disappearing towards the end of the car.
Nanami followed her with her eyes and sighed wistfully. Her mind was still stuck on the same subjects as before, but now, after having had some time to cool off, it was not so inclined to despair anymore. The thoughts were not painless, but there was a pleasantness about them.
Whenever she thought about Kozue, about what she was like — her wildness, her guts, her utter shamelessness, how she did whatever she liked and went wherever she pleased and treated people exactly how they deserved — it often pricked Nanami somehow, though she couldn’t say why. Yet these were, undoubtedly, the things she loved about Kozue. All the hurt they caused her was also laden with that love.
She imagined that a faint but unmistakable smile must have had settled on her face, but when Kozue came back from the bathroom, she greeted her with, “Whoa, hey, you’re gloomy. Everything alright?”
“Oh? No, I’m fine, I’m fine.”
“You sure?” Kozue asked, leaping into her seat.
“Sure. Actually, I was thinking mostly happy thoughts, even if it didn’t look that way.”
“Really now? What kind of happy thoughts get your face looking like that?”
“Just… that I’m glad I got to know you, and to be with you. I may not always know what to do with this relationship that we’ve gone and put ourself in, but it’s never been anything but a good thing. I want it to continue, I want to go on living by your side, for as long as we can, but even just what I’ve gotten so far is already so much. It sounds disgustingly corny now that I say it out loud, and I absolutely never intend to say anything like that again, so I hope you’ve enjoyed this one instance of candor.”
Kozue blinked, and made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a hiss.
“Hey, tell me something,” she said after a while. “When you were a kid, have you ever fantasized about faking your own death?”
Nanami, only slightly taken aback by the change of subject, considered. She didn’t like remembering her early childhood, and, even if the memories had not been so unpleasant, it would still have been fairly difficult to recall every single thing she ever thought about back then.
“Faking my own death?”
“Yeah, you know, and then all your family and friends… Actually, did you have friends as a kid? I always imagined your childhood as more of a, you know, The Secret Garden sort of deal.”
What a Kozue question it was. Not many other people — certainly not among those Nanami knew — could ask it with a straight face and pay no thought at all to the unabashed rudeness. From anyone else, Nanami could only take it as an insult, but she knew well enough to understand that, when Kozue wanted to insult someone, she simply said what she meant.
“The girl from The Secret Garden had friends,” Nanami protested. Needless to say, she didn’t feel like addressing the substance of the question.
“Her cousin and their servants. I don’t think it can really qualify as a friendship when the other person doesn’t get a choice whether to be there or not.”
“I suppose.”
They were silent for a few moments. Seeing that Nanami wasn’t going to talk about the friends she may or may not had had as a child, Kozue went on.
“Anyway, have you fantasized about it? Faking your death and then hiding somewhere and seeing what all of your friends and family had to say about you, now that you’re dead?”
“That’s from some book, too, isn’t it?” Nanami didn’t even pretend to make an effort to remember. “I don’t know. Maybe. Honestly, I must have thought about a lot of different stuff back then; it wouldn’t surprise me if that fantasy, too, had occurred to me.”
“If it did, it would have been something like… Oh, and then they’ll realize how much they miss me, and how unfair they’ve been to me, and how wrong they were to treat me like that, and they’ll cry and ask me to forgive them… Right? Along those lines?”
Nanami met Kozue’s curious stare.
“Perhaps.” Nanami thought she had made it clear she didn’t want to talk about her childhood, but she guessed that Kozue had not wanted to talk about her to begin with.
“That’s how it usually goes, I think, for most people.” Kozue said.
“But not for you?”
“That’s right!” she replied, her voice cheerful, but no smile on her face. “I thought about it often as a kid. Mostly it happened just after Miki and I stopped playing together. I’d think about how I would run away and make it look like I drowned in a river or something, and then, when everyone would see it, they’d be like, Ah, that child, we always knew she was a stupid, worthless, no good little girl. Just like her to go and die that way! And then, you know, I’d be justified. I’d run away and never look back, and I wouldn’t feel guilty about it.”
“That’s… kind of horrific.” But it was not an unfamiliar way of thinking to Nanami, nor was it hard to understand.
“Well, I guess I got that last part in the end,” Kozue said, smiling and shrugging.
Nanami hesitated for a split second, and then hugged Kozue tightly. Kozue must not have expected it, but soon enough her stiffened frame relaxed in Nanami’s grasp. It was far from the first time Nanami felt that warm tender body in her arms, but there was some sense of wrongness to it. For all that she truly, genuinely cared about Kozue, the thought still wouldn’t leave her that she was doing something wrong, and she became afraid of herself.
Nonetheless, braving the treacherous thoughts, Nanami held onto her girlfriend. Her right hand found its way to Kozue’s hair and stroked it gently, a bit unsure of itself.
It was not particularly comfortable, this train seat embrace, and it was awkward, and it didn’t even feel all that good, but they sat like that for longer than either of them had probably expected, armrest jutting into Nanami’s stomach.
“Did that include Miki?” Nanami asked when they finally broke away from each other.
“Hm?”
“When you thought about your family saying all that shit about you. I can’t really imagine… I mean, I know you two had not been on good terms back then, but I can’t imagine him saying something like that.”
“I can.” Kozue’s voice was calm and matter-of-fact. There was nothing accusatory in it, but Nanami immediately felt like an asshole.
“Fuck, sorry, I didn’t…”
“It’s cool,” Kozue said. “There were times when I wished he would run away with me, and there were also times when I understood that he wouldn’t. They weren’t, you know, sequential. They just came and went.”
“And in the end he didn’t, right? Run away with you, I mean.”
“Nope. He moved to a different country and he still talks to them all the time. I’ve stayed here, and, well,” she waved her arm at nothing in particular. “I don’t really have a problem with it. I mean, I have no reason to. He’s his own person. If he wants to stay in touch with those fuckers, that’s his business.”
Nanami nodded, saying nothing.
“What you asked about earlier… I guess I lied,” Kozue said. “About it being over for me, you know, with the feelings I had for Miki. I guess I lied just now, too. I’ve never really gotten over it. I know rationally that I should just move on, but even if my tell myself that, I just can’t. I chase the thoughts out of my brain, they come back. I want to be back with him again, for me and him to be the same again. I want us two against the world. Sometimes I can say that I don’t want to want it… But that doesn’t make much of a difference. It’s just there, in me. A part of what I am.”
They were silent for a while, then Kozue spoke up again, quietly.
“So, you know… Those thoughts are always with me. I don’t choose them. Being with you, that’s something I can choose. And that,” she suddenly raised her voice joyfully, “was my one instance of candor.”
“It was appreciated,” Nanami said.
Kozue leaned her head on Nanami’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Nanami asked suddenly. “Did you wash your hands after using the bathroom?”
“Ha, wouldn’t you like to know?” Kozue replied, and stuck out her tongue.
And then, just a few minutes after that, the train arrived.