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I wake up. It’s all white and bright…
under my cheek it’s soft. Smooth fabric. I’m on something soft….
I sit up, suddenly. I look out the window… windows? All around?
This is…. I’m -here-?
I realize I’m naked and I pull the sheets around me. Trying to catch my breath.
I was at the temple with Hajime and then I…
The shadow.
She didn’t end me. She just threw me…. here?
I hear the front door rattle, and an unfamilliar voice. “It’s well-priced to move, and it has a great view…”
Someone’s coming in? Frantic, I grab the sheet and hop off the bed, wincing as I land on my bad ankle. The closet… I open it and squeeze into a back corner. His winter coat hangs there, long, and I cover the rest of myself with the dark sheet.
I shiver and wait as I hear the first voice extoll the virtues of the place, and two other voices complain about it. How the view is on an overcast day. That the kitchen isn’t upgraded, nor the bathroom. And was someone sleeping in the bed? The closet only get a cursory glance, and I’m not noticed as they complain that the owner didn’t install a closet system and the woman in the party make a tired joke about where he shoes will go.
“Didn’t you say that the owner was already gone?”
“He’s in the process. But if this one doesn’t work for you, care to look at a unit a block over? It has a loft bedroom!”
And with a thud and a click, the door finally closes and I’m alone again. I go back to the bed. It doesn’t smell like him. He’s not -here-, at least, not lately. But why am I?
And what is she doing? She’s -there-, with Hajime, with our children, our family. How do I get back?
It’s when I take a shower that I realize that something has changed. There’s a lot of light in there and I notice…
I don’t cast a shadow.
At first I freak out but I’m solid – I even whack myself with a shampoo bottle to check. Wincing… I -am- real. At least that.
I dry off, and dress myself in a t-shirt I find in the back of a drawer, and a pair of bizarre silk boxer shorts still in a gift box, with Harada-san’s name scribbled on the from line on the tag. I don’t know what the joke is with cactus… but they’re rather terrible. At least I’m not naked.
Next, food. The refrigerator contains a pack of ham that is -very- out of date, and the remains of something in a takeout box, and two bottles of beer. In the cabinet, I find some instant noodles… so at least there’s that.
Focus on the realities. Clothes. Food. Don’t worry that that monster who stole your life and your actual shadow, what she’s doing to your children… so I search the apartment. I find, in another drawer, a battered cellphone. It doesn’t turn on, but I eventually find the charger.
While I wait I watch that fishing show he watched the last time. Remembering curling up next to him. Making well-meaning promises… I lean my head back on the sofa.
Maybe… maybe I can’t be what he wants. But I’ve only ever been -me-. I’m a little older, a little sadder, but… was I more open, when we first met? More free? I had so little to lose, once. Even after I fell in love with him, it all felt so ephemeral. Like he could just blow away with the wind, and I’d peek into the Wilderness and find him happy where everyone said he was supposed to be. And then I’d just fade, let my sister have her life… but it didn’t happen that way. That one night, and the morning after… after that I knew, that I would never be the same without him.
It feels stupid to admit, even to myself, that I just want to be happy again. With him. But this version of him makes me feel that maybe he was never happy, that I just carried him along and he didn’t resist. That loving me was really his curse… and if I love him, shouldn’t I let him be free? Give him the ending he wants, and let the man rest for once?
It’s because I know it won’t be an ending. He’ll let me and the girls go, dump me back in Mibu, and stand outside, smoking, -regretting-, and thinking that he let me be free to be happy or something.
When I will never be. But he’ll never know. He’ll just sadly walk away, thinking that he did what he had to do.
I -hate- that ending. It’s one of the two that have haunted me since we got together. Throwing me back at my brother, like I’m a wayward child, and not asking what I’d want if he wasn’t a choice. Consigning me to the life that I ran away from – a ghost in my father’s house, just this time the man I’m mourning isn’t probably actually dead, and I did actually love him. This time I’ll have children, at least for a while.
Or worse, throwing me at another man, which, I -do not want-. In this… I don’t care if it makes him feel better. He doesn’t get to hand me off to someone else to feel better about the sort of relationship we had, or that new man (or an old man, come back) is supposedly a better man than him or something like that. And he’s probably -still- stand somewhere nearby, smoking and regretting, but with the sad acceptance that he did what was “best” for me.
I look next to me and the phone is charged. It doesn’t seem to be working as a cellphone, there’s no connection… but at least the wi-fi still works here. I go to a shopping app, and I’m a bit amused that he saves his passwords -and- left a working card on there. I didn’t expect that – I really thought he’d have it all locked down. I order things I need – clothes, shoes…
Then I find a food delivery app, and an hour later, I’m having mussels marinara. My favorite food in this world.
It tastes like ashes.
I eat it anyway.
I sit and watch the rain slide down the glass until I feel like I can sleep. My clothes are supposed to be here in the morning. Then… I’ll have to see what sort of help I can find in this world.
Shinoda-san was right. Nobody is coming to rescue me, anymore. Is Hajime pleased to have the shadow-me instead? She’ll do what he wants, she told me often enough. She finally drowned me.
I go to the bed and lie down, scrolling through a music service for a song… I close my eyes.
There ain’t no gold in this river
That I’ve been washin’ my hands in forever
I know there is hope in these waters
But I can’t bring myself to swim
When I am drowning in this silence
Baby, let me in
Go easy on me, baby
I was still a child
Didn’t get the chance to
Feel the world around me
I had no time to choose
What I chose to do
So go easy on me
There ain’t no room for things to change
When we are both so deeply stuck in our ways
You can’t deny how hard I have tried
I changed who I was to put you both first
But now I give up
Go easy on me, baby
I was still a child
Didn’t get the chance to
Feel the world around me
Had no time to choose
What I chose to do
So go easy on me
I had good intentions
And the highest hopes
But I know right now
That probably doesn’t even show
Go easy on me, baby
I was still a child
I didn’t get the chance to
Feel the world around me
I had no time to choose
What I chose to do
So go easy on me
It’s not until after noon that the package arrives, so I’m left pacing around the place, still clad in a t-shirt and the boxer shorts, all morning. I made a packet of instant noodles for a lunch, just to eat. It doesn’t taste any better than my dinner last night, but… I have to eat.
It’s like in Osaka, I have to do what I have to do to stay alive. I have to return home. For as long as it is home. Before I’m filed away…
I wonder what the shadow is doing. Will she scare the children? Or will nobody notice? I try to push out, do what I told that imposter back in Osaka what I did naturally but… nothing happens. I can’t get to anywhere, actually. Not home nor the library or even one of those in-between places.
My head hurts… the pain is almost blinding me, as I stumble to the bed, thinking that if I lay down…
and when I wake up and look at the time on the phone, I realize that I must have passed out. That’s… never happened before, when I tried to be somewhere else. But at least now the place I want to go will be open soon, and I saw on their social media page that tonight was the meetup night for the old gang.
I take a shower, using the toiletries I ordered. I would enjoy smelling like Hajime, using his products… but my evening’s companions are perceptive men. Then dressing in the simple clothes I bought. Underwear. Jeans. Cardigan, t-shirt underneath. Socks. A sturdy bag to carry the things I need. No heels today, just flat boots good for walking and supporting my ankle.
Thankfully I found a spare key to the apartment… under the sofa for some reason. No cash, or cards, so I’ll have to walk to my destination. I try the key once, then lock the door, trying the key again to make sure I can get back in. If I can’t get home tonight… well, if my place is still here, I don’t have any keys or anything else belonging to me. It wasn’t the sort of neighborhood, I recall, where one leaves a key under the doormat.
I set out to Kondou-san’s bar.
(OOC – exit to a new thread for the bar)