Deeper Meaning (Part 5)
That night Shige doesn’t get a wink of sleep. He tries; forces himself to keep his eyes shut; tosses and turns trying to find a comfortable position, but it’s no use. He keeps hearing Ryo’s broken voice ringing in his ears. He keeps seeing Ryo, downcast and defeated, behind his eyelids. When Koyama wakes up at 7:30am, Shige’s sitting at his desk, staring at a stack of books: every single one Ryo had ever told him to buy.
“I take it you broke up with him?” Koyama asks.
Shige wants to hit him again, because of course they didn’t break up because they weren’t ever dating to begin with, but somehow he ends up crying against Koyama’s shoulder instead.
Shige takes a sick day from classes, mostly because he knows he’ll never be able to focus. He spends the day re-reading a few of the books on his desk. It makes him feel like crying again, but he can’t think of anything else to do. Around 4:00pm, Aya visits to check on him. She rests her hand against Shige’s forehead to see if he has a fever (he doesn’t), and then she asks if he wants her to stay and keep him company. It should probably be comforting, but it just makes Shige feel like retching.
He can’t look at her, for some reason. He keeps seeing Ryo’s face instead of hers, keeps imagining Ryo’s hand carding through his hair, keeps hearing Ryo’s voice laced with concern. He tells her he wants to be alone so he can rest, and she nods understandingly. She tells him to call if he needs anything, and then she leaves. Shige recognizes the feeling that washes through him as relief. He’s relieved she left. He feels like throwing up again.
The sleeplessness continues on into the second night, and the third. Shige can’t focus in class, can’t remember anything that he’s already supposed to know, can’t look Aya in the eye, and most of all can’t stop thinking about Ryo.
“Maybe you should go see him,” Koyama suggests on the fourth morning as Shige blearily stumbles out of bed.
“Don’t be stupid,” Shige replies, pretending like he hasn’t been dying to do just that from the very moment he left Ryo’s apartment, “What am I supposed to do? Knock on his door and say, hey Ryo, guess what? I can’t seem to stop thinking about you?” he sighs heavily, “It’s just not that simple, Kei.”
“Shige, you can’t sleep, you barely eat. When was the last time you could look Aya in the eyes?” Koyama snaps impatiently, and that alone is enough to catch Shige’s attention. Koyama never gets annoyed or exasperated with anyone, “Don’t you think it’s time to stop pretending like you can just walk away from what you feel for Ryo?”
“What’s that supposed to…” but the look on Koyama’s face stops Shige mid-sentence.
Koyama’s fixing him with a look that clearly says the answer is right in front of him, and he’s just refusing to see it. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Which it probably is, Shige thinks ten minutes later as he’s speeding down the road to Ryo’s apartment. Love probably is the easiest thing in the world to understand, and only someone as completely and totally oblivious as Shige could manage to screw it up like this. After running two red lights and what is possibly the worst parking job of his life, Shige finds himself doubled over and breathless outside Ryo’s door, finger hovering nervously over the bell, but still not quite courageous enough to ring it. He closes his eyes and thinks of Ryo, thinks of comfortable weekend mornings spent sipping cheap instant coffee and laughing over grammatical mistakes, remembers Ryo’s hunched figure leaning against a brick wall blowing puffs of grey smoke into the air, feels chapped lips and warm skin pressed against his cheek. He pushes the bell.
It’s a full five minutes of agonizing torture before the door opens. Shige’s prepared to immediately fall to his knees and beg forgiveness or a second chance or really anything that Ryo’s ready to give him. He’s ready to spout sonnets and rhymes and love confessions until Ryo is forced to accept his words, forced to believe them over his previous actions. But Shige is stopped short when the door finally swings open and he sees, not Ryo, but Yamashita looking, or maybe glaring, at him from the doorframe.
“What do you want?” Yamashita asks, and Shige knows for sure now that he isn’t welcome.
“Is Ryo here?” Shige asks, “I need to talk to him.”
“No,” is the reply.
“No?” Shige repeats, but he isn’t about to be pushed away by an over-protective friend, “Look I know I probably don’t deserve to see him, but I really need to tell him that I…”
“It’s not that,” Yamashita interrupts, “Ryo’s really not here. He moved back home to Osaka. Said he needed to settle some family issues. He left yesterday afternoon.”
Shige takes a deep breath, not wanting to believe, wishing that it was all a lie or a joke, and that Ryo would jump out from behind the door and laugh at him for being so gullible.
“He’s gone,” Shige mumbles, “But I never…I wanted to…,” he takes a second to compose himself, and looks Yamashita right in the eyes, “Do you know where I can reach him? It’s…important.”
Something minute changes in Yamashita’s face, and it’s with obvious tinges of sympathy and pity that he says he has no idea where Ryo went or when (if) he’s coming back.
Shige nods dejectedly, murmurs a thanks, and bows to Yamashita, but internally his head is spinning. Too late, he thinks as he trudges down the apartment stairs. Too late, he thinks as he opens the door and a cool breeze rustles his hair. Too late, he whispers as he sits alone in his car, disconnected dial tone in his ear, hoping, wishing, praying that this wasn’t really the ending, that there were pages still to come.
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