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“Hanayagi-sama... cleaning the dishes?!”
Kaoruko tears her eyes off dishes and foams in favor of the platter-sized eyes of her attendant. Her mouth hangs low and lower by passing nanosecond, as if she’s encountered the Reaper and all his darlings. Is this finding that much of a shock?
A stretched eternity uneventfully passes. “Yes,” Kaoruko replies and she drags her eyes back to the dishes she’s doing. The foams glove her hands in an unfamiliar manner that she’s grown accustomed to, after all, Seisho’s dormitory doesn’t come with attendants, and she can only push Futaba around so much (it is unfortunate that Futaba has a free will of her own).
Her attendant—Kasai-han—circles an arc around her dish-washing form. “You learned how to wash the dishes?!”
“But of course! It is a task so easy, I only had to look it up on the internet. Five minutes well spent.”
Kasai hovers closer, then makes a round of calm claps. “Two years in Seisho has truly changed you as a person, Hanayagi-sama...”
Kaoruko rinses the last plate, taking a glance of admiration at the now sleek surface. It makes a squeak that rhymes satisfication into her. “Mm-hm. Seisho has groomed me into an independent individual!”
“Back then, you’d make Futaba-han do all the work for you, but look at you now!”
Drying her hands with the towel Kasai-san has provided, Kaoruko slips into a quick mulling. Admittedly, she’s aware that the years spent in Seisho wouldn’t matter much to her future as the successor of the Hanayagi family’s dance, tradition, the family dojo and everything else that comes in-between. Theater play is a realm she has no need to get knee-deep into as it has little bearings to the traditional dance she’s halfway mastered.
But.
Seisho did drive her into looking up how to wash the dishes on the internet, at the very least.
“Are you still on your quest of conquering the world with Futaba-han?”
She was eleven and stupid when she ran around the dojo telling everyone she came across that she and Futaba will own the world one day, and at the time, everyone just had to stupidly play along with her antics. Futaba, too that time, tolerated her enough to play along with her blueprints of a new world order she’s hatched with pencil and paper. Stupidly loyal Futaba who followed her to Seisho despite knowing she’d get roadrolled by the awful standards of the theatrical world.
Has Futaba reaped the benefit of her time in Seisho?
She will ask Futaba this, later.
And Futaba will definitely angle her eyebrows and say, since when do you care?
And she will nudge Futaba lightly, and then she will fish the answer out of Futaba.
“Kasai-han, who’s instructing in the dojo today?”
Kasai puts away the towel. She has her back facing Kaoruko. “Isurugi-han is filling in for Oonuma-han. Futaba-han will also come along to help her. I’m told that Futaba-han has gotten good in dancing! Her time in Seisho has truly paid off!”
“Ah, I see.”
“Hanayagi-sama, why are you taking the chicken out of the fridge? And the eggs, and the vegetables—“
“I’m preparing meals for Isurugi-han and Futaba-han. It’s going to be lunch time by the time they’re done with the first session, correct?”
“Ha,”
“Mm?”
“Hanayagi-sama... cooking?!”
Isurugi Goro’s butsudan is a simple, yet sturdy wooden cabinet shrine with a sufficent array of sacred relics and potteries, adorning its masterwork of dark brown framing. His portrait in black picture frame is nestled in most center, his half-grin photographed more than half a decade back then. It’s been almost seven years since his passing.
Futaba places the offering at 8 AM, sharp. The homemade fish soup his father so much loved. Then next up is the ritual and Futaba moves on autopilot, handling the incense burners with utmost precision. Seven years is a long time.
At her late father’s halfway grin, Futaba constructs today’s morning talk. “Mom is subbing for Oonuma-san today, so we’ll be leaving soon.”
She runs a thumb along the surface of the household shrine. The light duvet of dust clings onto her thumb, leaving a track at its wake. Futaba mentally notes to properly clean it later in the afternoon.
“School has been great. I—I’m still lacking a lot, but I’m catching up. Not by a jog, I still need to sprint but... things are progressing better for me.”
Sometimes she’d wonder what her dad would say about her taking on the world of theatrics. Sometimes...
“Oh. Me and Kaoruko are still on our global conquest… thing. We’ll start with Kyoto. Maybe when Kaoruko starts lazing less.”
Her father did ask her a lot about the master plan. Seven years later, they’re both still muscling up the stupid oath their much stupider past selves made, signed with imaginary invisible ink.
“Dad, I’m getting too serious with this whole theater business. I’m still wondering if I’m even making the right choice, but,”
Her late father with the half-way grin and black training gi wordlessly half-grins at her.
“But… I think, the stage promises growth. I get to stand on the same height as the others, from Karen to Tendou, and we better ourselves every passing day. And—and together with Kaoruko, we’ll grow big enough to overtake the world and stuff.”
What would her father’s response be?
“Futaba,”
She finds her mother leaning against the doorjamb with their go-to rucksack for their training gi’s and the necessities slung on the left shoulder. Her helmet is half-assedly tucked in one hand. And it is apparent that her mother has been watching from the back with the forbearance of a living relative.
“Might be just my eyes but – did you grow bigger?”
Futaba hurls a light chortle as she stands up. “Lies. I didn’t grow, not even an inch. I’ve checked, okay.”
“Hmmm. I swear you did.”
“You’re getting old, mom.”
“I’m sure Goro would agree.”
Futaba sags sideway as she laxly grabs her own helmet from the coffee table to the side. “Dad is bad with the details.”
The casual mention of her dad used to hurt, but seven years have passed. Any lingering regrets have dulled, frictionless against them. The occasional longing remains, her mother has her teaching schedule, and Futaba used to have Kaoruko and the classes, which somewhere along the way had begotten into Kaoruko and Claudine and Karen and Banana and Mahiru and Hoshimi and Tendou and Hikari. She’s been failing to grow even an inch, but at the very least, her social networking has grown by a cobweb.
“You sure you want to come along? It’s your winter break. You can stay at home, I’m giving you the free pass.”
She strolls past her mother, putting the helmet on and clicking it into an audible lock. “It’s kinda unlike you to skip on a free ride.”
“Someone got cockier ever since the Hanayagi family got them a cool bike!”
Futaba only hums a long one in response, thankful that the helmet does a good job at masking her irrevocable grin as she steps out of the house for the gingerly parked Hanayagi-bought motorcycle. Then, she hears her mother from inside the house,
“You grew, didn’t you?”
“I told you…”
“You did,” and in a much smaller (softer) voice, “yes, you did,”
“…and this one time, we bonded over how European patisseries are supposed to be much coarser in the tongue. If we are speaking about authenticity, that is. This was the first time I had a talk with Hikari that lasted longer than four exchanges.”
“A peculiar person! It’s rare of you to befriend someone so quiet.”
“Yes. But in truth, I think beneath all that, she‘s kind of similar to Tendou Maya. Socially inept. But they’re definitely born for the stage. À vrai dire, it makes me quite envious.”
“Oh, but you too were born for the stage also.”
“They’re on another level. You’ll see it when you see them.”
“You can’t be a fair judge to your own self.” Her father reclines back to his chair, sipping on his double-espresso. His go-to order in their go-to café stop in their drive back from Seisho. Claudine first questioned his predilection for the double-espresso during her first ever ride back home from Seisho and her father elaborated his adult need for the kick only espresso can supply.
The piano and drum beats track backs their elongated silence. Occasional punches of laughter from a group of three that sit three tables away. The chiming bell that denotes them of the door opening and closing.
Claudine sips on her Americano. A total wallflower at the subject of self-worth.
“Self-evaluation is a thing, you know.”
“Yes, and everyone needs to evaluate themselves every now and then, but, most people are overly critical to themselves.”
“And—“
“And you’re most people,”
Her father calls over a waiter and a lean man in his 20’s wends to their table in the quickest gait. His movement reeks of someone with less than a week of total experience in the very much laid-back café. With the menu splayed out, his father rains him questions about the Moroccan brew currently promoted and the man does his best with the three paragraphs promotional material he probably had to go over ten times in the morning. When her father settles for his usual, Claudine hides her chuckle-snort by looking at the bustling street outside.
“You know, it barely hit me some days ago… why you order something so strong during our stops.”
“Hmmm.”
Claudine doesn’t meet her father’s eyes. Instead, she finds entertainment in a man crossing the street holding the hand of his tiny daughter. “You need it to stay awake as I cycle through my Seisho stories.”
“How attentive!”
“Do I make a boring company?”
His order comes and for a while, there’s a pause on their conversation. Claudine knits her fingers taut on the table. When the waitress sails further away, her father has a playful grin on. “I have to stay the most awake to take in everything, you know. The café is so lax it makes me doozy, but all your stories need the fairest of documentation.” He taps a finger at his temple. “I listen and I remember. I keep track of your progress.”
“How so?”
“Back then, the Tendou girl took up all of your stories. These days, I got more and more names. The mischievous Kaoruko. The determined Futaba. The ever bright Karen. Nana who seems to counsel everyone’s teenage problems. That’s how I know the Claudine in front me isn’t the Claudine of yesterday. Stage girls seek to better themselves every day, correct? Count me in as your most dedicated spectator.”
“Juste arrête, That’s kind of embarrassing, papa…”
Her father pinks into laughter. “And that’s how I am the fairest of judge.”
Initially, Junna made a silent pact to dorm through the breaks until she graduates. The idea is that – she wants to show her parents that she’s become something. To show them that she’s living out of the choice she made herself.
At least, that’s her gallant reasoning she’s used to cover the pettiness within. The ideal outcome for her would be one where she’d get to spite her parents for trying so hard to rack her into the world of science, far away from the glimmers of the stage that she’s always loved. She’d rectify their views, and they’d be sorry. That would be ideal.
Until Nana coaxed her into going home with her for the winter break. Nana persuaded her with the promise of foods, warm blankets, and a wholesome, accepting family that “would definitely, receptively, without-failing-ly, find her cute”. Junna considered the bargain fair. Advantageous, even. The first two offers hooked her in, and then she was on the deal.
At the expense of an afternoon visit to her house first.
And—Nana slyly didn’t tell her this. Nana’s parents had picked them up from Seisho, and conveniently, Junna dozed off for most of the ride. When she woke up to, she was in an all-familiar neighborhood and it was far too late to ring up the police and accuse the whole car of kidnapping.
So here she is, in the doorstep of the Hoshimi household’s two-story housing with an ever-smiling Nana beside her as her confidant. The elder Daiba wait in their parked car, saying that they will come inside once Junna and Nana are in.
“Stop sulking, Junna-chan. We talk, have some food, then leave! How does that sound?”
“An unprompted visit. Without telling me first.”
“It’s not like you’re on a big scuffle with your parents! You guys still phone each other.”
“Yeah—yeah but, like… How do I put it?”
“Pride?”
“Yes. Pride.”
“Wanna make a script first?” Nana offers, grinning very much playfully.
“No. I—I’ll get back to you later, by the way.”
“Hmmm. You’re not the type to pull a revenge on anyone.”
“Implying that I tend to forget?”
“You forgive. Junna-chan is nice like that.”
“I’ll have to fix that trait of mine.”
“Junna-chan is so scary… put that energy into ringing the bell instead, will you?”
She brings a hand up to push her glasses. The pair sagged down a bit when she had her nervous fit of looking at every direction but Nana and the door in front of her. “Wait in the car with your parents.”
“You sure you don’t want my emotional support?”
Junna bites her lip. Mulling. “You know what…”
Nana pushes the bell. It dings a nanosecond after.
“Nana!”
She hears footsteps of constant rhythm. Whoever getting the door is probably expecting a packet sent to their home. Or a neighbor looking to borrow a wrench.
The door creaks open in a half-arc to reveal her mother, eyes droopy burdened by afternoon drowsiness. Then the surprise comes over her.
“Um,” all the mental script backspaced, Junna tries a backup plan, “hello, mom, um,”
“Junna?” She opens the door wider. The surprise hasn’t dissipated off her complexion. “I thought you wouldn’t be coming home this break, too,”
“This—to the right is, um, Daiba Nana, my—“
“—girlfriend—“
“—friend.”
How Junna longs to strangle Nana out of consciousness at the moment…
Her mother blinks. Then she walks back in. “I would’ve made a feast if you had told me first…”
For Mahiru, winter break is synonymous with doing payless daycare of her overly active younger siblings. That is, if she’s not helping around with the field. Or, if she’s not helping around with household cleaning. In her 16th years of living, she’s at her topmost fit, and the audition contributed into her learning a thing or two about making the quickest run, the most effective pivots, and the surefire way to dodge her little siblings’ straying dodgeball throws.
Right now, she’s sneaking a break in the living room. The TV is playing her youngest sibling’s favorite anime, the volume set high even though he’s busied with his newly bought heroic action figures. Mahiru doesn’t remember ever buying the set for him, so he must have begged either grandma, or virtually anyone else in the house.
Her two youngest siblings start slow with the toy role-play before everything escalates to hair-pulling. She wasn’t this much of an anarchist when she was a grade-schooler, so it’s definitely not the family’s gene pool’s fault!
“H-hey, no fighting!”
So, five minutes later, they’re seated back for another round of an anime viewing. Mahiru is staying because the youngest’s anime protagonist delusion grandeurs and the second youngest’s bloody temper makes an asinine mix of troubles.
She tries to find solace in her phone, fiddling into the boundless world of Instagram. She posts moderately often, making harmless updates every now and then. Banana, Karen, and Claudine are the select three of ardent posters and it’s always fun to follow through Claudine’s neatly woven story snaps, Karen’s posts of the day’s funny findings, and Nana’s aesthetically pleasing feeds. Junna is the worst poster by far with only three pictures posted since the account’s creation. Two of them scenery snaps.
At the top of her feed is Claudine’s selfie upload. A man is present in the photo and the resemblances tick fast, Mahiru is almost a hundred percent sure that the man is Claudine’s dad.
With a cute compliment constructed in her head, she moves onto the comment section.
“Huh, she’s really pretty. Like, really really.”
Born the jumpiest person in her family, Mahiru yelps and turns around to the second oldest looking over her shoulder. Either he’s learned his stealth, or the audition did nothing to improve her sense of detecting arrivals.
And he has the gall to invite himself into sitting right beside her, flopping down onto the tatami floor in a rustling ruckus, all knocks of the knees against the wood. Mahiru exhales when he rustles closer, invading what’s left of her personal space.
“Who?”
“My classmate… she’s Kuro-chan. Um, Saijou Claudine. She’s part-French.”
He sticks his nose further by manually scrolling through Mahiru’s feed with his own index finger. The wild swing somehow lands him on a group photo uploaded by Nana, taken before they went their separate ways for the winter break. “Everyone is so pretty.”
Pretty girl next to pretty girl next to prettier (Karen) girl next to pretty girl... “Yeah. Everyone there is so pretty…”
“I said everyone. You’re included too.”
She turns the screen away, swatting his meddling index finger along too. “Right,”
And he nudges her (harshly) with an elbow. “You’re sixteen and you still can’t handle compliments!”
Mahiru pushes her brother away with a leg. “Don’t say it anymore! I might believe it!”
“God!” He swats her leg away and she retracts.
And they stare angrily at each other.
Until her youngest sibling starts to rev back into his nonsensical Masked Rider role-play for the fifth time today. The brand new model figures might be the catalysts to the constant summoning of the Masked Rider.
Unrepentant for the kick, Mahiru decides to ask her brother, “Did grandma buy Hiro those? They’re new, right?”
“Uh, no, not grandma. She got him those as birthday presents.”
“She?” Definitely not their parents who have grown weary with Hiro’s outbursts of energy on top of field work.
“Yeah. Her. You know what—she’s helping dad fixing the roof right now. You can catch her in the backyard, I think.” Then, he leaves her eyes for the TV. “Is she applying to be a Tsuzuyaki or what?”
When it finally clicks, Mahiru makes a zigzagging beeline for the backyard, steps haste and her molars gritted trying to contain the shout she’s failing to hold down.
“Suzu-chan!”
They ended up staying the night at Junna’s house before bidding a farewell and leaving behind the promise for Junna to go back home after she’s done with her week-long stay at Daiba’s. Nana pinky-promised Junna’s mother to make sure her daughter will be straight-packed back home, far from Seisho’s emptied dormitory.
Then, at 3 PM sharp, she proposes an afternoon tour around the town, and Junna perks up at the promise of stopping by the convenience store for a pudding and jellies raid.
Nana has the track and stops of their casual afternoon walk sketched out in her head. She doesn’t tell Junna any of this, because the best way to ensure a plan is playing out well is by looking like there’s no plan to begin with. And Junna’s reading aptitude is confined to books and documents and dissertations only, leaving her not that much of a people-reader.
And that’s how she leads Junna to the middle school she went to.
Naturally, all the gates are locked tight and the ground is devoid of its hustles and bustles, it’s winter break after all. Less than two years isn’t a long time, and everything presently is a mirror image of how she remembers her school to be. The building in dulled gray, the hands of the clock installed on the centermost building looking ready for the retirement, the gate lacquered in fading dark blue paint.
But she’s not here for the trip down the nightmare lane. Her middle school days aren’t something she’s able to look fondly back.
“Nana,” Junna calls out from beside her, eyes ping-ponging from her, to the school ground, then back at her, “you aren’t thinking of breaking in, are you?”
“Oh, no no, I just wanted to stop by.”
“Good. I won’t have to call the police on you, then.”
Nana coughs a laughter, collects some air, then side-steps closer to Junna until their forearms touch in the most platonic display of non-platonic. “I didn’t come here for the nostalgia. Nothing much to relive, anyway…”
Junna knows about her middle school track record. About the constricting loneliness that gets her hypoxic at times to this day. The lasting fear that takes residence in the back of her mind. It drove Nana to repeat the same year for dozen times. It might drive her to do the unthinkable again.
But—this time she has Junna. And the other girls. She was schooled into realizing that the faux eternity she willingly trapped herself in wasn’t even a temporary solution, but another set of problems hidden under the guise of an answer.
Nana turns to Junna and Junna returns her look with half a confusion.
Junna-chan doesn’t read people well, after all…
Which is great, because the best kind of plan is one that doesn’t look like a plan. This time, she plans to make a single good memory in her middle school. Something good she can look back to.
So, Nana pulls the side of her winter coat up, turning it into a makeshift curtain, obscuring themselves from unsuspecting passerby. Junna looks confused for a second, but she leans in closer, and Junna receives the message and closes her eyes.
A kiss will do.
She finds her parents on sprawled on the sofa, watching some 9 PM program with that super famous MC who makes a loud, impromptu comedian. Karen doesn’t really like his style of jesting, nor the posh bloke styling of his hair or his overtly physical jokes at times, but her mom is fan big enough to attend his lives. And as for her dad, he’s probably there just for the company.
She shores up near the couch, deciding to stop by before she finishes her kitchen trip. “Oh, that idol group is pretty popular lately.”
The guests for his show tonight is an up-and-rising idol group, gaining traction for the mesmerizing hooks in their cheap pop releases.
Her mother curtains a yawn behind a hand. “Idol group episodes aren’t as fun… he holds back towards idol guests.”
“Well, idol fans gonna maul him otherwise,”
“Mm-hmm,”
Her dad pipes up, eyes no longer on the comedian bombarding harmless pokes at the girls’ love life. “Coming down to grab some snacks?”
“Yup. What’s a sleepover without snacks?” Hikari, upstairs, would definitely appreciate the junk-food binging, even if she didn’t ask. It’s winter break. They will give themselves the permit to screw up their weight a little.
Her mom pats the empty space between them, but Karen doesn’t take it. “I’m glad Hikari-chan is back. Remember when you moped for two weeks when she left the country?”
Karen only hums in response.
“You pursued stage acting because of her, right?”
Karen moves into a slight nod. The MC is making a fool out of himself now after the half-Russian member makes fakes a crying. His attempt at damage-control launches a funny caption and multitudes of studio laughter.
The TV makes an addictive distraction from the urging need to speak out what she’s always wanted to say ever since she’s docked back home. But the courage never sets sail.
Her mother drones on anyway, “And—we were kinda worried, actually, when you auditioned for Seisho. It’s a good school and we thought, maybe you were just in the phase where you wanted to try anything but the science program school life.”
She knows that her parents looked at her like her interests in theater was just a fleeting interest. Her parents know she knows.
At the time, she barely passed the entrance exams. Had it not been for Futaba and her subpar singing (which she had rectified in the past year, being the hard-worker she is), she’d rank dead last.
“How is school?”
“Mmm! I’m doing well enough to look like I’m not flunking.”
“Do you remember your first year in Seisho?”
Karen subtly hears her own breathing. A heavy exhale latched with resignation. “I called home a lot of times…”
“Yeah. Sometimes, you sounded like—“
“Like I wanted to go home,”
“Yeah,”
“I thought I was just wasting your money.”
“Says who?”
Seisho doesn’t cost lightly. And the path of the stage act doesn’t guarantee the most set of future. The brightest stars will only shine brighter outside the confines of Seisho, but she was a mere street lamp compared to the likes of Tendou Maya. Those who rank high prospers on the congealment of pure talents and an even dose of hard work. Those in the tier in-between deals with feeling of never being enough. Stuck in the mediocrity with a faux tinge of pride fueling her to go on. That’s what being a perfectly average person do to you: a perfect snug in the realm of mediocrity and in-between, but is aware enough that there isn’t any place in the food chain that is as perfect for her.
“Says me,” Karen’s lips tug into a smile.
Her parents could’ve stopped her. Told her the reality that unfolds within the glitters of stage acting. But they didn’t.
“I—this spring, will you be coming over to watch the play again?”
“Of course,”
Her mind isn’t ready, but her heart on the gull says full speed ahead. And she turns around to her parents and pushes herself into a deep bow. And she forces it out finally, “Thank you for believing in me who didn’t even believe in myself!”
Dinner in the Tendou household is a mumbled clattering of utensils.
Maya has grown unaccustomed to this conditioned dinner environment. In Seisho, dinner is loud with the most unkempt of talks and gossips and tabletop bickering. The occasional war over food can be entertaining at times when immature insults are ricocheted between each other. It’s a homely feeling, admittedly homelier than her home will ever be.
The dining room feels like it’s the size of a gymnasium with just her and her mother, on autopilot over what’s supposed to be a fine dinner. It tastes like lead on her tongue and suddenly she’s missing even the crude yakisoba Kagura Hikari made when she was on cooking duty, even though at the time, she joined in on the others at making fun of the girls’ severe lack of culinary aptitude.
When did the school start becoming a home for her?
What the hell happened to her own self?
She’s searingly unimpressed with this development. (She’d still take the yakisoba and the sloshes of jokes that punch throughout the dinner any day, though. But she’d never admit this out loud.)
Tonight, she’s grimly aware of the reason why it feels so constricting, moreso than the usual. Being the courier of bad news never feels good, and it’s something that no amount of acting prowess can make easier.
“Mother,” she hears her formalized smile more than she feels it.
“Yes?”
“It’s about the Starlight play this year.” She politely distances the prelude to the actual bad news she’s about to relay. “I won’t be playing the lead.”
She takes sudden interests in her dinner, not meeting her mother’s eyes. Just so she can skip on the weary disappointment. And she half-regrets this – and wishes she can just, dissolve into infinities right then and there.
But it’s too late to step on the brake. “Mother and father don’t have to come, but I’ll definitely secure the lead role next year.”
“Maya,”
Then, she answers almost readily immediately, lips dissembling into that of a frown when she catches her mother smiling at the glass she’s brought up close to her lips. This isn’t the supposed reaction of an actual top star whose daughter underachieved far below the expectations set. She doesn’t expect this outcome at all. This isn’t in the script.
“We’ve cleared the entire Spring from projects. When is the play?”
“But I—“
“But you will be on the stage, correct?”
The constriction unpresses itself from Maya. She feels liberated, and also doubly exhausted.
Maya takes a swig of the water prepared. It tastes like forgiveness.
In retrospect, she doesn’t have a home. So, a week before the winter break started, she was dead-set on staying in Seisho, until Karen dragged her to the Aijou household. She was warmly welcomed and it gave her a test-taste of what going home feels like.
“Where do you live now, Hikari-chan?” Karen’s mother asked during dinner. Hikari had to bullshit on an address in London. In a way, it wasn’t fully a lie – it’s where her parents live to this very second. But she’s stayed outside the residence longer than she is there, so it doesn’t really fit the description of a home.
Seisho is starting to be a home for her, but it’s too early when she hasn’t even stayed a full year there. In a year, she will probably pass the number of days she spent there than her supposed home.
The door closes in a final click. Hikari watches Karen stumble over to her futon in light skips, bags of chips in hand in celebration of their first ever winter break sleepover after the long years of push and pull and the long months of freaky magical audition clambers. Karen joins in on the futon, cross-legged. A laptop is on a stand-by before them.
“Prepared a script yet?”
“No,” Hikari rethinks for a second, “actually. I think I might need that.”
“Oh my god, I was only joking. We don’t need a script to talk to your parents!”
“Well, I need.”
“Hikari-chan… just say you miss them.”
Sweat gathers under the collar of her pajamas as Karen is only a click away from dialing her parents through the LINE video call feature. “That’s the thing about it. I don’t.”
“Okay, but we still need to call them! Just to inform them that you’re alive and stuff.”
She thinks her parents know enough. After returning from months of jailing in the underground theatre, her parents booked a fly from The UK for an obligatory check-up of their daughter. The school rushed her to hospital because there were no possible explanations to her disappearance other than kidnapping or mental issues, so the first ever talk shared between her and her parents happened in the embrace of the hospital’s beige walls and was witnessed by the nurse in-charge.
Her parents weren’t furious nor were they particularly emotional. Or maybe Hikari just chose not to delve further into the unreadable expressions in her parents’ face.
“You talked with your parents when they visited, right?”
“I… did.”
For all the two-fifth duration of their visit. The rest was filled with rubbery silence.
“What did you guys talk about?”
“Oh, stuff.”
Her parents gave her a contact to a psychiatrist, because they knew so little about their daughter beside the name they gave to her, that they’d infinitely trust a stranger to handle their daughter better than they will ever be. Hikari never followed their advice.
A fucked up family where all three of them are incompetent in communicating. She knows her parents enough to identify them in a crowd and her parents know her enough to identify her charred corpse. But, she doubts there’s anything more beyond that to their relationship.
Or lack of relationship.
She sighs. Karen places a hand on top of hers.
“You know, I proposed a video call so I can chirp in between the silence.”
“Thank you for your service.”
Karen snorts, then she beams into a bright grin. “I’m gonna call him soon.”
“W, wait.”
“Three,”
“Karen—wait. Why would I need to call them again?”
“Tell them to watch our Starlight play next year?”
“You think they would book a flight from The UK just to watch one play?”
“Their daughter is playing the lead. Why wouldn’t they be?”
“Why would they be?”
The call connects. Karen didn’t even tell her she had clicked on the dial!
And before Hikari could curse Karen for eternity, the call is picked up in two, three rings. The screen loads up into her father’s face. She remembers his facial features enough.
Hikari snakes a tight grip around Karen’s waist. Just in case she’s thinking of leaving her on her own. If they’re going to be stuck on a chokingly awkward conversation with a super important, busybody of a man, at least Karen will be dragged down alongside her.
“Hikari?” Her father’s voice is hoarse from the slightly shaky connection. He looks like he’s tired enough for a month long vacation, that Hikari wonders why he would answer the call in the first place.
Karen’s backing up never comes. Instead, Karen has an expectant look reserved for her. Hikari shuffles through templates of ice-breakers she’s practiced during Karen’s snack raid.
“I—good evening, father. How—how is work?”
There’s static silence first. His father stays unmoving for seconds, to the point Hikari is starting to think that maybe the failing connection is putting their video call on pause.
Then, his father answers. “… work has been well. How are you?”
And from there on, it gets easier.