To Hang on Humming Wire (2/2)
Title: To Hang On Humming Wire
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jun/Ayase Haruka, with a side dish of Sho/Fukiishi Kazue, Nino/Naka Riisa, Aiba/Kitagawa Keiko, and Ohno/Yanagihara Kanako
Word count: 14,693
Summary: AU. Jun and Haruka come from two different worlds.
Part 1
Just like that, the date of her final runway show along with other Bunka Fashion College seniors crawls near. Today, she’s visiting the New National Theatre. Like a dream, The Japan Arts Council is sponsoring this year’s runway show, and Haruka couldn’t be more excited. She walks around the outdoor area, already dreaming about how the setup would look like against the dramatic and modern architecture of the building, wondering how the light will hit the folds and creases of her garments. She feels like her heart is overflowing from excitement.
A random girl approaches her. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but I just had to ask. Where did you get your dress?”
Haruka feels her heart burst with pride. “I made it.” She self-consciously smoothes over her shift dress peppered with appliqués made to look like lilies that she fashioned herself.
“You’re seriously awesome. You need to sell your creations, I’d definitely buy them!”
Haruka muses that this is what it must be like to float on air.
When she’s done doing her ocular, she spots a commotion inside the building. With her curiosity and love for any kind of art, she finds her feet carrying her towards the entrance. A standing poster indicates that a show called “Midsummer: A Revue”, will be premiering the next day. If there isn’t a show today, then why are there so many people milling around? She wonders.
Haruka walks across the majestic hall, where the light seemed to flow in beautifully from the gigantic glass windows, and finds herself entering the main theater. There are many groups of girls clustered together, all watching a man dance by himself on stage. From what it looks like, it’s only a practice session, but with the hushed reverence inside the theater and the classical music playing loud and clear, Haruka could swear that it’s an actual performance.
Her heart pounds, pounds, pounds when she recognizes the dancer’s tousled hair. As if in a trance, she walks towards a spot somewhere in the middle aisle, finding a seat that’s close enough to see better. When she settles in, she is left in no doubt that the dancer is Jun, yet she is so transfixed by the difference. Seeing him in his black leotards is of course unsettling, even though he’s wearing a loose hoodie on top, but it’s the way that he dances and the rich expressions that play about on his face that capture her. He moves as if gravity doesn’t apply to him, his strong legs making inhumanly graceful leaps, his arms, long and tapered. Haruka finds herself thinking that this is his natural state, this is where he is most himself. The look on his face is as far from the indifferent one that Haruka is used to-he looks free and untethered. She can’t stop watching, the other people in the theater disappearing into the background. With a sense of unease and wonder, she feels like she’s intruding on a private moment, an intimate one, yet she can’t take his eyes off of him.
She grapples with the fact that she wants him.
When the music stops, he crouches on the stage to drink from a bottle of water. He calmly surveys the crowd as he sips his water, obviously catching his breath. Haruka sinks on her chair, finally snapping out of her reverie. It would seriously suck to get caught by him.
Too late.
When their eyes meet, he looks taken aback. Haruka could only give an iffy smile and a small wave, feeling quite pathetic. Jun jumps off the stage as if it isn’t at least six feet off the ground. The girls screech in excitement and start to talk among themselves. Haruka could only close her eyes and wish for this moment to be over, because, really, how mortifying. If she could only disappear like a soap bubble!
He is breathless when he reaches her. “You’re here.” It isn’t even a question.
“Yes, I’m here.”
Just like that, he takes her hand and drags her off. Haruka couldn’t even protest, even amidst the curious murmurs from the other spectators, or, as she realizes, Jun’s fans. She lets her head swim around the notion that he has fans, lots of them, when she suddenly finds herself alone in what looks like an empty dressing room.
“You’re here,” Jun repeats, letting her hand go.
Haruka stumbles for the right words. “I was just…I was just checking the outdoor area, we’re doing our graduate fashion show here, did you know? And, well, I saw a lot of people and I was curious, so I took a peek, and, god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude-”
Jun cuts her off and kisses her.
“Jun!” she says, surprised, her voice muffled against his lips as he drops her bare arm gently.
“Sorry-I’m so sorry. I just-” Jun stutters. He looks down, as if in defeat, and plants his two hands on his hips.
Haruka only barely begins to find her voice. “What?” she says dumbly.
He looks up, meeting her eyes with his own brown ones. “I want you. I want you so much.”
And she can’t ever, won’t ever be able to explain to herself what compelled her in that moment, but she puts a hand on his shoulder and kisses him. He sighs softly, getting the hint, and she finds herself surrendering, surrendering to the heat, the sweetness. He tastes of sweat and a lot like the beginning of a story, buzzing bright on her fingertips, alight and expecting. Her heart beats and beats-she’s never done such an impulsive thing before.
When they break apart, Jun holds her face in his hand.
“When?” Haruka asks, her heartbeat raging violently against her ribcage.
“I don’t know. I can’t even tell when it started. Not the hour, the place, or the moment when it happened, yet it just did. I was in the thick of it even before I knew that I felt it. That I feel it.”
“Feel what?” She asks breathlessly.
He kisses her again and drinks in her questions. She lets him. His lips are a distraction she can learn to welcome.
Haruka may be stubborn, but she knows when something is right. When it’s true, even if it hits her from nowhere. His urgency and his gentleness confuse her, yet she knows that there’s no turning back. She doesn’t care, as long as he doesn’t stop.
“I’ve been watching you, hanging out outside M-Mart like an idiot. I just couldn’t approach you, except for that one night, when you allowed me to take you home and we had those abhorrent meat buns. I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he says.
“Stalker.”
“Something like that. Does it bother you?” She feels lightheaded at the way he slides his hands up and down her arm.
She looks at his eyes, now so open and alive, and she feels overwhelmed. “It doesn’t.”
She means it. He’s too intense, weird, and has a penchant for saying the wrong things, but somehow, sincere as well. When Jun smiles, she thinks that maybe she likes him too. Which she finds ridiculous, and she tells him so.
“Is it that far-fetched, you liking me?”
“You know what? Yes.”
“That’s gratifying to hear,” he says, placing the softest kiss possible on her nose. As if it’s an afterthought, he asks her something. “You’re not with that guy you work with at the store, aren’t you?”
Haruka laughs. “Shut up and kiss me or I might just come to my senses.”
Jun grins and obliges, removing her glasses. When he heatedly slips a hand underneath her dress, when he touches her skin, she might as well have dissolved into thin air. He feels good against her, the slight sheen of sweat on him be damned-he feels perfect, even. He slots himself in to every emptiness in her, even ones that she didn’t know existed, and in exchange, he bares so much more, to the point that she almost doesn’t recognize him, yet already, even now, his outline is beloved. His lips butterfly on her collarbones, brittle and present, all at once, and she feels, feels so much for him. A terrifying awareness of what’s to come makes her gasp as he lifts her up and seats her on the dressing table a little roughly. “You okay?” She sighs her consent and her feelings and her passion as he pulls even closer, and she holds on, his laughter close to her skin-ah, he mutters, exhales-understanding him perfectly for the first time.
“Haruka,” he whispers, and it escapes her that this was the same man she despised just a week ago. She wants him too.
Because that’s what it is. Passion, where there is only room for love or hate. Just one of those once in a lifetime things. She clings on to him, marveling at the feeling like she’s known him for a long time.
*
From that day on, he picks her up every day from work. Sometimes, he even lets her watch him practice. Haruka, slowly but surely, uncovers who the real Jun is, underneath the cool façade and the fancy clothes.
She finds out that he’s a hard worker. That if he doesn’t land a jump perfectly, he has a rule for himself that he has to do it three times, perfectly, for the mistake to be “erased”.
She finds out that he has about several hundred moles on his body, and that he will stop talking when she traces her finger along them. That he has a way of looking at her that dances on a line between dirty and illegal.
She finds out that he likes simple food the best. That he eats soba like the rest of them. That he can cook a mean plate of Neapolitan pasta. That he insists on carrying her grocery bags, that he hates biking around but he’ll do it with a scowl if she begs.
She finds out that his voice cracks when he laughs, even though he says she looks stupid when she does her favorite rabbit impersonation, that he has golden specks in his brown eyes, that he listens to her hopes and fears in rapt attention, that he closes up when he feels like he’s being mocked, that when he’s in a bad mood he takes up a whole room, that when he says he doesn’t like being approached from behind that he means it.
She finds out that she can outgrow years of living in fear, of running away and denying that she can ever feel this way. She lets go. He only has to touch her briefly and it feels like the world is standing motionless around them, sap rising anew in her body, an emotion that makes her tremble yet stronger at the same time. He fills her, shakes against her, loves her.
“So this is what home feels like,” he whispers, so raw and so open.
*
Everything seems to happen all at once. When she gets to work, Nino is nowhere to be found. They have a joint shift today, and Nino never misses a day at work, not willing to sacrifice a single yen even if he is deathly sick. She’s been worried about him ever since she found out that Nino and his family are being evicted from their home. Nino admitted to her that his mom confessed to him about not paying the rent money Nino’s been giving them every month. All along, Nino’s been unknowingly funding his dad’s drinking habit.
If she could move mountains, Haruka would, for Nino. She calls him up, worried and frantic.
“Nino! Where are you?” She can’t help the hysteria that creeps in to her voice.
“Haru-chan,” Nino breathes, his voice different. “I’ve been called to the main office.”
“M-Mart headquarters? Why?”
“I’ve this horrible feeling that I’m about to be sacked,” he says.
“Why would you be fired?” she asks indignantly.
“I have no fucking idea. Listen, Haru-chan, I’ll talk to you later. They’re calling me,” Nino says, before the busy dial tone rings in Haruka’s ear.
She is sick with worry as she waits for Nino. It is sundown when he finally walks in through the automatic glass doors, looking as if he’s been through hell.
“Nino!”
He drags her off to the back alley, hands shaking as he lights up a cigarette. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Start from the beginning,” Haruka says.
He chuckles in a deranged manner as he takes a puff from his cigarette. “I’ve been fired.”
“What! How can they do that! Why!” Haruka feels breathless with the injustice of it all.
“Haru-chan, I never wished for you to get hurt.”
“What do you mean?”
“The ‘M’ in M-Mart stands for Matsumoto,” he says, voice shaky. “Matsumoto, as in Riisa’s friend, as in the guy you’ve been seeing. He’s not only rich, he’s M-Mart rich, 200 branches rich. I don’t know how Riisa failed to mention it.”
Haruka feels dizzy. “What?”
“I had the surprise of my life when I entered a room which looked pretty big-time, and he was in the middle of all that upper-class splendor, sitting behind a big desk.”
She’s completely speechless, horrified, yet hanging on to his every word.
“Anyway, long story short, he just handed me a forced resignation later. It’s either that or he fires me, and I’d have a bad employment record. Might as well cast myself into destitution already.”
He kills his cigarette with his shoe. “I signed it. But before I did, I asked him why.”
“Why?”
“He only said your name.”
Her head buzzes with a kind of white noise that seems a lot like anger. She couldn’t think straight. “Nino. Oh god. I’m so sorry.”
“Haru-chan. You’ve got to know that it’s not your fault, not one bit. I didn’t want to tell you, but you’ve got to know that he’s an asshole. Well, asshole doesn’t even really cut it. If you have to find out from anyone, I’d rather that it came from me.”
Haruka shakes as she hugs Nino. They both clutch on to each other, like lifelines. “I shouldn’t have trusted so quickly. Oh god.”
“I’m sorry that you love him, Haru-chan.” She feels sorry too. How could he?
*
She puts herself together after going home to change, her emotions consuming her. Haruka doesn’t know how her face looks like when she enters the New National Theatre. Her blood boils and she almost cries in frustration when she sees the marquee and hears the announcements indicating that “Midsummer: A Revue” is cancelled.
Tears stream down her face; she couldn’t hold it in. She needs answers, never needed anything as much in her life. She needs to know why.
“Haru!” A familiar voice calls out across the lobby. Her tears almost obscure her vision, but she sees Fukii approaching her. Haruka forgets to register with surprise that she’s with Sho.
“Oh Haru, what’s wrong?” Fukii embraces her. “What’s wrong?”
“Where is he?” she asks Sho.
Sho breathes. “I just called him. He says that he won’t be coming. He’s not dancing tonight.”
Haruka wiggles her way out of Fukii’s arms and runs.
“Haru!” She hears her friend calling out after her, but she couldn’t process anything else. Her legs take her to the M-Mart headquarters, fifteen minutes away.
She’s arguing with the guards who won’t let her in, when she sees him. An artic chill seeps into her as he approaches.
“How could you,” she says in a small voice, slapping away the hand that reaches out to her.
His expression turns ashen. “Let’s talk somewhere private.”
Somehow, she’s able to keep quiet while they walk in stony silence towards an empty conference room. He locks the door.
“I trusted you.”
“Haru, please let me explain.”
“Don’t you ‘Haru’ me!”
“Sho-kun texted me that he just saw you. I’m sorry if you found out that I discouraged him before, that I told him not to see Fukiishi-san anymore. God, how do I explain this.”
Haruka’s eyes grow big.
“I didn’t think she was interested, she didn’t show any signs of liking him back. I didn’t want him to get played around,” he says, his eyes pleading.
“Doesn’t show any signs of liking him? She hardly shows her emotions to me! And I’ve known her practically since birth!”
Jun takes a deep breath. “Haru, please. Listen-”
“And what about this M-Mart business? How can you fail to mention such a tiny detail to me? When I’ve worked so long for a corporation that you apparently own?”
“I’m not proud of it, and I never wanted to inherit it. My family is a screwed up one, Haru, and I can’t-I can’t take their lies anymore. And I can’t stand your friend, Ninomiya-san, working for my family, especially when I found out-”
“That we’re close? That’s he’s my best friend? Did you have me tailed all the time? Did you doubt that I was true to you? He doesn’t deserve what you did! You don’t know what he’s been through.”
“Haru-”
“Stop calling me that! You are the most selfish, the most spoiled, the cruelest creature I have ever met! You think that’s everything about you, and just because you have the power to do things, it doesn’t mean that you should! You don’t own me, you can’t control everything. Your mood swings are just a front for your temper. You’ve never worked a day in your life, and you don’t know how it feels. How could you? You’re horrible, and nothing but a spoiled brat.”
Jun is silent, looking at Haruka. “Is that what you really think of me?”
“That’s not even the half of it.”
He puts on that expressionless face that Haruka resents so much and walks away, the sound of his shoes echoing harshly against the polished wood. He bangs the door shut before she could even get another word in.
Standing there, alone-she’s never felt angrier in her entire life.
*
Everything changes quickly in the span of a couple of weeks. She quits her job at M-Mart and finds another job waitressing at rundown café. Haruka pours her soul into work and into putting finishing touches on her dresses for the final runway show. She tries not to think about him, because it still hurts. Maybe it had been for the shortest while, but she had returned his feelings. To her, it was real and true and that hurt the most.
The day of her runway show arrives, and she feels alive for the first time in weeks. When her creations-long architectural gowns completely constructed from eyelet lace-saunter past the runway and are met by cheers from the crowd, she can’t help but feel that she’s made it. Or at least, it’s the first step, she thinks, towards her dreams.
When the show finishes, she is astounded to run into Sho and Fukii, who were holding hands. “You guys!” she says, overwhelmed to see them.
“You were amazing, Haru!” Fukii says, drowning her in a hug. Sho smiles. “Congratulations! It was a great show.”
“Thank you.”
“And oh yeah, we brought the entire motley crew,” Sho says, sheepishly. “Or rather, they insisted on coming along.”
Haruka finally sees them as they walk up to her: Kanako, Ohno, Keiko, and Aiba, all with big smiles on their faces. They all individually hand her delicate stalks of lilies.
“Oh god, what’s this for? What-why are you all here?” Haruka says, feeling puzzled as she accepts all the flowers. “You shouldn’t have!”
“Oh, it was beautiful, Haru-chan! I absolutely must have one of your dresses,” Kanako exclaims.
“You’ll look like a big doily,” Ohno says. “An adorable one, but still a doily.”
Kanako rolls her eyes. “Poor old man doesn’t know a thing about fashion.”
“Of course I do. You’ve got to teach me how to crochet one of these days, Ayase-san,” Ohno says.
“Why do you immediately assume that I can’t crochet?” Kanako asks him indignantly.
“Mama Bear, please,” Ohno says, hugging her from the side. “You know Papa Bear is the handy one around the house, yes?”
“You guys are the very definition of gross,” Keiko says. Haruka can only giggle.
“Congratulations, Ayase-san,” Aiba says, his hand comfortably resting on Keiko’s hips. “It’s not quite my taste, but it was beautiful!” she says.
“Were you even able to see her dresses? Your mouths were semi-permanently attached to each other almost the entire show!” Kanako says.
“Jealous?”
“I have Ohno Satoshi as my fiancé, okay. It’s a great convenience that he’s attached to a mouth that never quits.”
“Kana-chan!” Everyone whines.
Haruka laughs. “Thanks for coming, you guys.” She feels a little teary as the sun is setting, as it sinks in that she has just finished with her final project, that she has successfully put herself through school, through her own power. It feels like she can finally move on to bigger things, to much bigger dreams. If only Nino were here, she thinks. Haruka hasn’t seen him for ages, after he said he’s going away for a bit to fix things, to fix his home. He’s in her thoughts all the time. But the kindness of people who are practically strangers to her makes her feel less lonely.
“Sho, give it to her,” Fukii says.
“Oh yeah!” Sho hands him the last lily. “The last one.” It has a ribbon with a small envelope attached to it.
“What-I mean, thank you for-”
“It’s from Matsujun. All of it.”
Silence descends upon the group as Haruka takes the flower. “He told me it’s the last thing he wants to do before he leaves Japan,” he says. “I don’t know what happened between you and him, but I hope I could help the two of you see something that I think you’re both too blind to see. He told me to tell you that he wishes for your show to be a success. I was only supposed to give you the flowers and leave it at that, but I couldn’t not tell you. That he’s leaving.”
Despite everything, Haruka feels her heart fall. “What?”
“He suddenly decided to study in Paris. He didn’t even watch your show, something that he made possible.”
“Sho-chan!” Kanako says, her voice disapproving.
“What are you talking about?”
“Go on, Oh-chan, tell her,” Sho says, elbowing Ohno. “You saw how Matsujun looked like the other night. Like he used to be, when he couldn’t control his-you promised me.”
“My family is the biggest backer of The Japan Arts Council,” Ohno says, feebly. “Jun-kun reserved this place a month ago and paid in full for the venue so that your school can use it for your finals. He made the payment in secret, and no one’s supposed to really know.”
Haruka’s hands fly to her mouth. “No.”
Sho eyes her apologetically. “I know I shouldn’t interfere, but I can’t just leave it at this. I want to help him just like he helped me. I don’t know what he said or did wrong, but I know that he likes you. You’re the first girl he’s ever mentioned to me, and knowing Jun the way that I do, that in itself is monumental. He’s different, Haruka-chan. He’s a good guy but he tends to overdo things, and he can’t say things in the right way even though he means well-I don’t know how to explain it to you. Maybe he offended you, but I’m asking you to think again.”
Haruka knits her eyebrows. “Helped you?” She backtracks. It’s all too much to absorb at once.
It’s Sho’s turn to knit his brows. “He told you, right?”
“Told me what?”
Fukii gently encircles her wrist to take her a little distance away from the group. “Haru.”
“What is he talking about?”
“He didn’t tell you,” Fukii breathes, realizing something Haruka couldn’t wrap her mind around. She tells Haruka about how Jun went to all the trouble of apologizing to her, that he was wrong to interfere with her relationship with Sho, even if he wasn’t sure about what she felt for Sho. She tells her about how Jun practically begged her to go with him, for a coffee or two, because he said he wanted to make it up to her. When she got to the café, she finds Sho there, alone, and they both realized what Jun had done. He apologized to both of them and left them alone.
“Frankly, it was too much. It’s not like Sho and I were getting married and it was his fault that things didn’t push through, nothing major like that. But I’ve got Matsumoto-san to thank for the fact that Sho and I have this chance again to test the waters again. We were both stupid at that time, but Matsumoto-san gave us a second wind, so to speak. Haru, you have to know just how considerate and sorry he was, to the point that I was so, so embarrassed.”
“Fukii,” Haruka says, her head spinning from everything she’s been hearing. “You aren’t toying with me, right?”
Her friend shakes her head solemnly.
“Dead serious. He asked me not to mention it to you, but I just can’t leave it at that, not when he told me so himself.”
“Told you what?”
“That he regretted being rude to us. That he thinks highly of you.”
Haruka feels like a stake has been wedged inside her heart. She feels sorry, so sorry, that she accused him on that account. It’s not enough for her to forgive him, she can’t forgive him for doing what he did to Nino, but it’s enough to amplify the twinge that she’s been trying to ignore for weeks.
“Haru-chan!”
She knows that voice. When she turns around, she sees Nino and Riisa running towards her, looking like they’ve been running for miles. “Nino!”
He stops in front of her, his hand on his knees, panting. His other hand grasps Haruka’s wrist, tugging desperately. “Haru-chan, you have to come with me.”
“You can barely breathe! Why were you running?” Haruka asks, still shocked at seeing Nino all of a sudden.
Nino shakes his head. He turns towards Riisa, “I’ve got this from here.” She nods.
Haruka doesn’t even know what’s happening when Nino drags her quickly and she’s hardly able to look back at everyone they’ve left behind. She struggles to run, when Nino has her wrist in a tight grip and her other arm is clutching all those lilies. They’ve ran for a bit when Haruka finds her voice. “Nino, what’s wrong?”
“You just have to keep on running, okay? Don’t turn weak on me now. This is important,” Nino says, still breathless as he jogs and drags Haruka along.
Haruka yanks her hand away from Nino and stops dead in her tracks. “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t even breathe anymore! I haven’t seen you in forever and you drag me away like this? I mean, how the hell are you? What’s happening? You have to tell me now or I won’t take another step.”
Nino whines and pants at the same time. “God, Haru-chan, can’t you shut up and cooperate for just once in your life?”
If Haruka thinks that what Nino said to her was harsh, or that the things she’s just found out that day were fucked up, none of it compared to what Nino is about to say to her. When he finishes talking, Haruka feels like her legs are about to give out.
“Are you crazy? Of course I forgive you, you-”
Yet Nino shakes his head and tells her to run. “No time. Get him. I’ll chase your slacking ass if you do anything less.”
Haruka does exactly as she’s told.
*
He is riding in the back of the limousine with a man who looks severe and contemplative. It isn’t hard to imagine that he’ll grow up looking like him one day-they share the same pale skin, the same thick eyebrows. Rows of splendid houses speed past as he turns to look through the window, all the white walls, granite, and marble catching the rays of sun like fortresses made of gems.
“What are we doing here, Father?” he asks, wondering why they’ve stopped in front of a stately house. He looks up at his father, who’s now staring intently at the marbled residence. After a few minutes of waiting, a family of three heads out of the house, parents and a small boy who is probably the same age as him. They don’t look very happy, he thinks.
“I’m ensuring your future, Jun-chan,” his father murmurs.
His own father rolls down the window. The family in front of the house notices, looks at them, yet says nothing. They continue walking with their big bags, the two adults with their heads down. The little boy, on the other hand, stares at Jun. He looks as confused as Jun feels.
*
She’s in a cab, urging the driver to hurry. Haruka reads the note attached to the lily.
“Somehow, I can’t say things well. It’s enough for me to imagine that you know: it’s all for you.”
*
Jun doesn’t understand why the other kids call him “thief” or why most of them point at him, saying mean things like “Don’t touch him, he’s got dirty hands!” He tries to make friends, but the more effort he puts into it, the more they mock him. Jun learns quickly to stay quiet and blend into the background. If he could only melt into the walls, paint his skin the same color, he would have done it.
They’re required to join a club for their after-school activities. Jun checks all the sign-ups and joins the club where he sees only two other names. He gets the surprise of his short life when he realizes with horror that he’s just signed up for ballet, along with a noisy girl in pigtails named Riisa, and a short, shrimpy boy named Sho.
After a few Wednesdays, Jun finds out that Riisa is actually kind of good in ballet, and that Sho joined the club for the same reason as Jun.
“They call me ‘toilet-trained rich boy’,” he says, the red in his cheeks deepening. Sho’s dad is, quite literally, a toilet magnate-they produce practically all of the fancy toilets in Japan.
Riisa laughs. “But that’s actually pretty cool! I like the ones with a lot of buttons!”
“Yeah!” Jun exclaims.
He secretly feels relieved that he isn’t alone, and that maybe, the two of them can be his friends. Just maybe.
*
When he’s older, in his teenage years, he finds out why he’s been called a “thief” half of his life.
He isn’t really rich. His father had apparently swindled money from an old friend.
*
“He took the CEO post just to give back majority of M-Mart’s shares to my father. When I refused, how could I accept all that money from a stranger, from him, of all people, he says that he’s doing it for himself. He told me that he recognized my face, connected all the dots-and that he couldn’t just deal with what his father had done any longer. He fired me so that he could give me the shares, which is absurd, and when I said that I couldn’t accept it, it’s too much, he insisted on buying back our home, and giving us a 5% share. ‘Do it for Haruka’, he said. When I thought about you, and my family, I finally signed everything, I couldn’t deny that I needed the money. He was on the floor, Haru-chan, his forehead was on the floor, he kept on apologizing-and I couldn’t refuse anymore. I found that I couldn’t hate him for what his father had done to my dad. It’s a sick world, but there are still people like him. And then I heard a couple of days later that he quit, and that he’s leaving. Haru-chan, I’m so sorry, I got him wrong. We were so wrong. Forgive him if you can’t forgive me.”
*
She arrives at the airport only to find him gone. His plane had departed ten minutes before she got there. Her grip tightens on the bouquet of lilies in her hand. Haruka feels so sorry and so torn apart, because really, how stupid is he?
“It’s all for you.”
How stupid. How perfect.
*
He dances across the stage-he jumps, pirouettes, flies.
When the song finishes, he bends down to grab a bottle of water. Haruka experiences déjà vu, in Paris, of all places, and she feels nervous and excited. She steps out of the shadows, and calls out to him with everything in her lungs.
“The Free Willy song doesn’t quite suit ballet, don’t you think?”
The look on Jun’s face is precious. Just like before, he jumps from the stage, paying gravity no heed.
“You can’t seriously be dancing so passionately to a song about a whale,” Haruka shouts across the vast hall, her heart thundering in her ear.
He walks towards her. Haruka takes a deep breath. When he’s barely a meter away, he stops and puts his hand on his hip.
“You’re here.”
She is barely breathing. “I’m here. You were dancing to Michael Jackson.”
“I was. We’re probably on more intimate terms than you can imagine.”
Haruka grins, because really, when will he stop surprising her? She might not be able to take more. “I’m afraid to imagine.”
“How can someone like you even afford a plane ticket to Paris?” She can tell that his face is painted on, that he’s measuring her, even as he is teasing her.
“Your friends are very nosy. Also, they’re very rich.”
They stand there, just looking at each other, as if they could spend an eternity doing just that. Even with just the house lights on, Jun looks so beautiful and somehow-true. Where does she even start? How can she ever begin to say everything she feels, all the thoughts that have ran back and forth in her head, fighting for her attention? How does she repay everything? She is about to speak when he takes a step closer and grabs her to him-violently, tightly, thankfully.
And just like that, everything she’s been desperately trying to make sense of gush out of her in tears. Haruka hugs him back-she flew a thousand miles precisely because she never intends to let go. Waves upon waves of emotion crash into her, as he feels his arms tightening around her. She can’t help herself. “You just might be the most unbelievable man on the planet!”
He turns his head and whispers in her ear. “Forgive me. For being stupid.”
“How could you,” she says, inching away from his face to meet his eyes. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.” Because really, that’s all she can say. After everything. Despite everything. Because of everything.
There’s a second of regret when he lets go, but it doesn’t last long. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Kisses her through her tears like he fucking means it-which makes her cry some more.
“Stop crying, stupid,” he says, kissing the trails of tears down her face.
She is dizzy and floating and just there, hopelessly present in the moment. “I love you,” she says, finally, because she does, she just does.
He looks at her with his brown eyes and grabs her close again, close to his heart. “Home.”
Haruka knows what he means, even in his ineloquence-and she aches and loves him even more. She holds on to him.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jun/Ayase Haruka, with a side dish of Sho/Fukiishi Kazue, Nino/Naka Riisa, Aiba/Kitagawa Keiko, and Ohno/Yanagihara Kanako
Word count: 14,693
Summary: AU. Jun and Haruka come from two different worlds.
Part 1
Just like that, the date of her final runway show along with other Bunka Fashion College seniors crawls near. Today, she’s visiting the New National Theatre. Like a dream, The Japan Arts Council is sponsoring this year’s runway show, and Haruka couldn’t be more excited. She walks around the outdoor area, already dreaming about how the setup would look like against the dramatic and modern architecture of the building, wondering how the light will hit the folds and creases of her garments. She feels like her heart is overflowing from excitement.
A random girl approaches her. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you, but I just had to ask. Where did you get your dress?”
Haruka feels her heart burst with pride. “I made it.” She self-consciously smoothes over her shift dress peppered with appliqués made to look like lilies that she fashioned herself.
“You’re seriously awesome. You need to sell your creations, I’d definitely buy them!”
Haruka muses that this is what it must be like to float on air.
When she’s done doing her ocular, she spots a commotion inside the building. With her curiosity and love for any kind of art, she finds her feet carrying her towards the entrance. A standing poster indicates that a show called “Midsummer: A Revue”, will be premiering the next day. If there isn’t a show today, then why are there so many people milling around? She wonders.
Haruka walks across the majestic hall, where the light seemed to flow in beautifully from the gigantic glass windows, and finds herself entering the main theater. There are many groups of girls clustered together, all watching a man dance by himself on stage. From what it looks like, it’s only a practice session, but with the hushed reverence inside the theater and the classical music playing loud and clear, Haruka could swear that it’s an actual performance.
Her heart pounds, pounds, pounds when she recognizes the dancer’s tousled hair. As if in a trance, she walks towards a spot somewhere in the middle aisle, finding a seat that’s close enough to see better. When she settles in, she is left in no doubt that the dancer is Jun, yet she is so transfixed by the difference. Seeing him in his black leotards is of course unsettling, even though he’s wearing a loose hoodie on top, but it’s the way that he dances and the rich expressions that play about on his face that capture her. He moves as if gravity doesn’t apply to him, his strong legs making inhumanly graceful leaps, his arms, long and tapered. Haruka finds herself thinking that this is his natural state, this is where he is most himself. The look on his face is as far from the indifferent one that Haruka is used to-he looks free and untethered. She can’t stop watching, the other people in the theater disappearing into the background. With a sense of unease and wonder, she feels like she’s intruding on a private moment, an intimate one, yet she can’t take his eyes off of him.
She grapples with the fact that she wants him.
When the music stops, he crouches on the stage to drink from a bottle of water. He calmly surveys the crowd as he sips his water, obviously catching his breath. Haruka sinks on her chair, finally snapping out of her reverie. It would seriously suck to get caught by him.
Too late.
When their eyes meet, he looks taken aback. Haruka could only give an iffy smile and a small wave, feeling quite pathetic. Jun jumps off the stage as if it isn’t at least six feet off the ground. The girls screech in excitement and start to talk among themselves. Haruka could only close her eyes and wish for this moment to be over, because, really, how mortifying. If she could only disappear like a soap bubble!
He is breathless when he reaches her. “You’re here.” It isn’t even a question.
“Yes, I’m here.”
Just like that, he takes her hand and drags her off. Haruka couldn’t even protest, even amidst the curious murmurs from the other spectators, or, as she realizes, Jun’s fans. She lets her head swim around the notion that he has fans, lots of them, when she suddenly finds herself alone in what looks like an empty dressing room.
“You’re here,” Jun repeats, letting her hand go.
Haruka stumbles for the right words. “I was just…I was just checking the outdoor area, we’re doing our graduate fashion show here, did you know? And, well, I saw a lot of people and I was curious, so I took a peek, and, god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude-”
Jun cuts her off and kisses her.
“Jun!” she says, surprised, her voice muffled against his lips as he drops her bare arm gently.
“Sorry-I’m so sorry. I just-” Jun stutters. He looks down, as if in defeat, and plants his two hands on his hips.
Haruka only barely begins to find her voice. “What?” she says dumbly.
He looks up, meeting her eyes with his own brown ones. “I want you. I want you so much.”
And she can’t ever, won’t ever be able to explain to herself what compelled her in that moment, but she puts a hand on his shoulder and kisses him. He sighs softly, getting the hint, and she finds herself surrendering, surrendering to the heat, the sweetness. He tastes of sweat and a lot like the beginning of a story, buzzing bright on her fingertips, alight and expecting. Her heart beats and beats-she’s never done such an impulsive thing before.
When they break apart, Jun holds her face in his hand.
“When?” Haruka asks, her heartbeat raging violently against her ribcage.
“I don’t know. I can’t even tell when it started. Not the hour, the place, or the moment when it happened, yet it just did. I was in the thick of it even before I knew that I felt it. That I feel it.”
“Feel what?” She asks breathlessly.
He kisses her again and drinks in her questions. She lets him. His lips are a distraction she can learn to welcome.
Haruka may be stubborn, but she knows when something is right. When it’s true, even if it hits her from nowhere. His urgency and his gentleness confuse her, yet she knows that there’s no turning back. She doesn’t care, as long as he doesn’t stop.
“I’ve been watching you, hanging out outside M-Mart like an idiot. I just couldn’t approach you, except for that one night, when you allowed me to take you home and we had those abhorrent meat buns. I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he says.
“Stalker.”
“Something like that. Does it bother you?” She feels lightheaded at the way he slides his hands up and down her arm.
She looks at his eyes, now so open and alive, and she feels overwhelmed. “It doesn’t.”
She means it. He’s too intense, weird, and has a penchant for saying the wrong things, but somehow, sincere as well. When Jun smiles, she thinks that maybe she likes him too. Which she finds ridiculous, and she tells him so.
“Is it that far-fetched, you liking me?”
“You know what? Yes.”
“That’s gratifying to hear,” he says, placing the softest kiss possible on her nose. As if it’s an afterthought, he asks her something. “You’re not with that guy you work with at the store, aren’t you?”
Haruka laughs. “Shut up and kiss me or I might just come to my senses.”
Jun grins and obliges, removing her glasses. When he heatedly slips a hand underneath her dress, when he touches her skin, she might as well have dissolved into thin air. He feels good against her, the slight sheen of sweat on him be damned-he feels perfect, even. He slots himself in to every emptiness in her, even ones that she didn’t know existed, and in exchange, he bares so much more, to the point that she almost doesn’t recognize him, yet already, even now, his outline is beloved. His lips butterfly on her collarbones, brittle and present, all at once, and she feels, feels so much for him. A terrifying awareness of what’s to come makes her gasp as he lifts her up and seats her on the dressing table a little roughly. “You okay?” She sighs her consent and her feelings and her passion as he pulls even closer, and she holds on, his laughter close to her skin-ah, he mutters, exhales-understanding him perfectly for the first time.
“Haruka,” he whispers, and it escapes her that this was the same man she despised just a week ago. She wants him too.
Because that’s what it is. Passion, where there is only room for love or hate. Just one of those once in a lifetime things. She clings on to him, marveling at the feeling like she’s known him for a long time.
*
From that day on, he picks her up every day from work. Sometimes, he even lets her watch him practice. Haruka, slowly but surely, uncovers who the real Jun is, underneath the cool façade and the fancy clothes.
She finds out that he’s a hard worker. That if he doesn’t land a jump perfectly, he has a rule for himself that he has to do it three times, perfectly, for the mistake to be “erased”.
She finds out that he has about several hundred moles on his body, and that he will stop talking when she traces her finger along them. That he has a way of looking at her that dances on a line between dirty and illegal.
She finds out that he likes simple food the best. That he eats soba like the rest of them. That he can cook a mean plate of Neapolitan pasta. That he insists on carrying her grocery bags, that he hates biking around but he’ll do it with a scowl if she begs.
She finds out that his voice cracks when he laughs, even though he says she looks stupid when she does her favorite rabbit impersonation, that he has golden specks in his brown eyes, that he listens to her hopes and fears in rapt attention, that he closes up when he feels like he’s being mocked, that when he’s in a bad mood he takes up a whole room, that when he says he doesn’t like being approached from behind that he means it.
She finds out that she can outgrow years of living in fear, of running away and denying that she can ever feel this way. She lets go. He only has to touch her briefly and it feels like the world is standing motionless around them, sap rising anew in her body, an emotion that makes her tremble yet stronger at the same time. He fills her, shakes against her, loves her.
“So this is what home feels like,” he whispers, so raw and so open.
*
Everything seems to happen all at once. When she gets to work, Nino is nowhere to be found. They have a joint shift today, and Nino never misses a day at work, not willing to sacrifice a single yen even if he is deathly sick. She’s been worried about him ever since she found out that Nino and his family are being evicted from their home. Nino admitted to her that his mom confessed to him about not paying the rent money Nino’s been giving them every month. All along, Nino’s been unknowingly funding his dad’s drinking habit.
If she could move mountains, Haruka would, for Nino. She calls him up, worried and frantic.
“Nino! Where are you?” She can’t help the hysteria that creeps in to her voice.
“Haru-chan,” Nino breathes, his voice different. “I’ve been called to the main office.”
“M-Mart headquarters? Why?”
“I’ve this horrible feeling that I’m about to be sacked,” he says.
“Why would you be fired?” she asks indignantly.
“I have no fucking idea. Listen, Haru-chan, I’ll talk to you later. They’re calling me,” Nino says, before the busy dial tone rings in Haruka’s ear.
She is sick with worry as she waits for Nino. It is sundown when he finally walks in through the automatic glass doors, looking as if he’s been through hell.
“Nino!”
He drags her off to the back alley, hands shaking as he lights up a cigarette. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Start from the beginning,” Haruka says.
He chuckles in a deranged manner as he takes a puff from his cigarette. “I’ve been fired.”
“What! How can they do that! Why!” Haruka feels breathless with the injustice of it all.
“Haru-chan, I never wished for you to get hurt.”
“What do you mean?”
“The ‘M’ in M-Mart stands for Matsumoto,” he says, voice shaky. “Matsumoto, as in Riisa’s friend, as in the guy you’ve been seeing. He’s not only rich, he’s M-Mart rich, 200 branches rich. I don’t know how Riisa failed to mention it.”
Haruka feels dizzy. “What?”
“I had the surprise of my life when I entered a room which looked pretty big-time, and he was in the middle of all that upper-class splendor, sitting behind a big desk.”
She’s completely speechless, horrified, yet hanging on to his every word.
“Anyway, long story short, he just handed me a forced resignation later. It’s either that or he fires me, and I’d have a bad employment record. Might as well cast myself into destitution already.”
He kills his cigarette with his shoe. “I signed it. But before I did, I asked him why.”
“Why?”
“He only said your name.”
Her head buzzes with a kind of white noise that seems a lot like anger. She couldn’t think straight. “Nino. Oh god. I’m so sorry.”
“Haru-chan. You’ve got to know that it’s not your fault, not one bit. I didn’t want to tell you, but you’ve got to know that he’s an asshole. Well, asshole doesn’t even really cut it. If you have to find out from anyone, I’d rather that it came from me.”
Haruka shakes as she hugs Nino. They both clutch on to each other, like lifelines. “I shouldn’t have trusted so quickly. Oh god.”
“I’m sorry that you love him, Haru-chan.” She feels sorry too. How could he?
*
She puts herself together after going home to change, her emotions consuming her. Haruka doesn’t know how her face looks like when she enters the New National Theatre. Her blood boils and she almost cries in frustration when she sees the marquee and hears the announcements indicating that “Midsummer: A Revue” is cancelled.
Tears stream down her face; she couldn’t hold it in. She needs answers, never needed anything as much in her life. She needs to know why.
“Haru!” A familiar voice calls out across the lobby. Her tears almost obscure her vision, but she sees Fukii approaching her. Haruka forgets to register with surprise that she’s with Sho.
“Oh Haru, what’s wrong?” Fukii embraces her. “What’s wrong?”
“Where is he?” she asks Sho.
Sho breathes. “I just called him. He says that he won’t be coming. He’s not dancing tonight.”
Haruka wiggles her way out of Fukii’s arms and runs.
“Haru!” She hears her friend calling out after her, but she couldn’t process anything else. Her legs take her to the M-Mart headquarters, fifteen minutes away.
She’s arguing with the guards who won’t let her in, when she sees him. An artic chill seeps into her as he approaches.
“How could you,” she says in a small voice, slapping away the hand that reaches out to her.
His expression turns ashen. “Let’s talk somewhere private.”
Somehow, she’s able to keep quiet while they walk in stony silence towards an empty conference room. He locks the door.
“I trusted you.”
“Haru, please let me explain.”
“Don’t you ‘Haru’ me!”
“Sho-kun texted me that he just saw you. I’m sorry if you found out that I discouraged him before, that I told him not to see Fukiishi-san anymore. God, how do I explain this.”
Haruka’s eyes grow big.
“I didn’t think she was interested, she didn’t show any signs of liking him back. I didn’t want him to get played around,” he says, his eyes pleading.
“Doesn’t show any signs of liking him? She hardly shows her emotions to me! And I’ve known her practically since birth!”
Jun takes a deep breath. “Haru, please. Listen-”
“And what about this M-Mart business? How can you fail to mention such a tiny detail to me? When I’ve worked so long for a corporation that you apparently own?”
“I’m not proud of it, and I never wanted to inherit it. My family is a screwed up one, Haru, and I can’t-I can’t take their lies anymore. And I can’t stand your friend, Ninomiya-san, working for my family, especially when I found out-”
“That we’re close? That’s he’s my best friend? Did you have me tailed all the time? Did you doubt that I was true to you? He doesn’t deserve what you did! You don’t know what he’s been through.”
“Haru-”
“Stop calling me that! You are the most selfish, the most spoiled, the cruelest creature I have ever met! You think that’s everything about you, and just because you have the power to do things, it doesn’t mean that you should! You don’t own me, you can’t control everything. Your mood swings are just a front for your temper. You’ve never worked a day in your life, and you don’t know how it feels. How could you? You’re horrible, and nothing but a spoiled brat.”
Jun is silent, looking at Haruka. “Is that what you really think of me?”
“That’s not even the half of it.”
He puts on that expressionless face that Haruka resents so much and walks away, the sound of his shoes echoing harshly against the polished wood. He bangs the door shut before she could even get another word in.
Standing there, alone-she’s never felt angrier in her entire life.
*
Everything changes quickly in the span of a couple of weeks. She quits her job at M-Mart and finds another job waitressing at rundown café. Haruka pours her soul into work and into putting finishing touches on her dresses for the final runway show. She tries not to think about him, because it still hurts. Maybe it had been for the shortest while, but she had returned his feelings. To her, it was real and true and that hurt the most.
The day of her runway show arrives, and she feels alive for the first time in weeks. When her creations-long architectural gowns completely constructed from eyelet lace-saunter past the runway and are met by cheers from the crowd, she can’t help but feel that she’s made it. Or at least, it’s the first step, she thinks, towards her dreams.
When the show finishes, she is astounded to run into Sho and Fukii, who were holding hands. “You guys!” she says, overwhelmed to see them.
“You were amazing, Haru!” Fukii says, drowning her in a hug. Sho smiles. “Congratulations! It was a great show.”
“Thank you.”
“And oh yeah, we brought the entire motley crew,” Sho says, sheepishly. “Or rather, they insisted on coming along.”
Haruka finally sees them as they walk up to her: Kanako, Ohno, Keiko, and Aiba, all with big smiles on their faces. They all individually hand her delicate stalks of lilies.
“Oh god, what’s this for? What-why are you all here?” Haruka says, feeling puzzled as she accepts all the flowers. “You shouldn’t have!”
“Oh, it was beautiful, Haru-chan! I absolutely must have one of your dresses,” Kanako exclaims.
“You’ll look like a big doily,” Ohno says. “An adorable one, but still a doily.”
Kanako rolls her eyes. “Poor old man doesn’t know a thing about fashion.”
“Of course I do. You’ve got to teach me how to crochet one of these days, Ayase-san,” Ohno says.
“Why do you immediately assume that I can’t crochet?” Kanako asks him indignantly.
“Mama Bear, please,” Ohno says, hugging her from the side. “You know Papa Bear is the handy one around the house, yes?”
“You guys are the very definition of gross,” Keiko says. Haruka can only giggle.
“Congratulations, Ayase-san,” Aiba says, his hand comfortably resting on Keiko’s hips. “It’s not quite my taste, but it was beautiful!” she says.
“Were you even able to see her dresses? Your mouths were semi-permanently attached to each other almost the entire show!” Kanako says.
“Jealous?”
“I have Ohno Satoshi as my fiancé, okay. It’s a great convenience that he’s attached to a mouth that never quits.”
“Kana-chan!” Everyone whines.
Haruka laughs. “Thanks for coming, you guys.” She feels a little teary as the sun is setting, as it sinks in that she has just finished with her final project, that she has successfully put herself through school, through her own power. It feels like she can finally move on to bigger things, to much bigger dreams. If only Nino were here, she thinks. Haruka hasn’t seen him for ages, after he said he’s going away for a bit to fix things, to fix his home. He’s in her thoughts all the time. But the kindness of people who are practically strangers to her makes her feel less lonely.
“Sho, give it to her,” Fukii says.
“Oh yeah!” Sho hands him the last lily. “The last one.” It has a ribbon with a small envelope attached to it.
“What-I mean, thank you for-”
“It’s from Matsujun. All of it.”
Silence descends upon the group as Haruka takes the flower. “He told me it’s the last thing he wants to do before he leaves Japan,” he says. “I don’t know what happened between you and him, but I hope I could help the two of you see something that I think you’re both too blind to see. He told me to tell you that he wishes for your show to be a success. I was only supposed to give you the flowers and leave it at that, but I couldn’t not tell you. That he’s leaving.”
Despite everything, Haruka feels her heart fall. “What?”
“He suddenly decided to study in Paris. He didn’t even watch your show, something that he made possible.”
“Sho-chan!” Kanako says, her voice disapproving.
“What are you talking about?”
“Go on, Oh-chan, tell her,” Sho says, elbowing Ohno. “You saw how Matsujun looked like the other night. Like he used to be, when he couldn’t control his-you promised me.”
“My family is the biggest backer of The Japan Arts Council,” Ohno says, feebly. “Jun-kun reserved this place a month ago and paid in full for the venue so that your school can use it for your finals. He made the payment in secret, and no one’s supposed to really know.”
Haruka’s hands fly to her mouth. “No.”
Sho eyes her apologetically. “I know I shouldn’t interfere, but I can’t just leave it at this. I want to help him just like he helped me. I don’t know what he said or did wrong, but I know that he likes you. You’re the first girl he’s ever mentioned to me, and knowing Jun the way that I do, that in itself is monumental. He’s different, Haruka-chan. He’s a good guy but he tends to overdo things, and he can’t say things in the right way even though he means well-I don’t know how to explain it to you. Maybe he offended you, but I’m asking you to think again.”
Haruka knits her eyebrows. “Helped you?” She backtracks. It’s all too much to absorb at once.
It’s Sho’s turn to knit his brows. “He told you, right?”
“Told me what?”
Fukii gently encircles her wrist to take her a little distance away from the group. “Haru.”
“What is he talking about?”
“He didn’t tell you,” Fukii breathes, realizing something Haruka couldn’t wrap her mind around. She tells Haruka about how Jun went to all the trouble of apologizing to her, that he was wrong to interfere with her relationship with Sho, even if he wasn’t sure about what she felt for Sho. She tells her about how Jun practically begged her to go with him, for a coffee or two, because he said he wanted to make it up to her. When she got to the café, she finds Sho there, alone, and they both realized what Jun had done. He apologized to both of them and left them alone.
“Frankly, it was too much. It’s not like Sho and I were getting married and it was his fault that things didn’t push through, nothing major like that. But I’ve got Matsumoto-san to thank for the fact that Sho and I have this chance again to test the waters again. We were both stupid at that time, but Matsumoto-san gave us a second wind, so to speak. Haru, you have to know just how considerate and sorry he was, to the point that I was so, so embarrassed.”
“Fukii,” Haruka says, her head spinning from everything she’s been hearing. “You aren’t toying with me, right?”
Her friend shakes her head solemnly.
“Dead serious. He asked me not to mention it to you, but I just can’t leave it at that, not when he told me so himself.”
“Told you what?”
“That he regretted being rude to us. That he thinks highly of you.”
Haruka feels like a stake has been wedged inside her heart. She feels sorry, so sorry, that she accused him on that account. It’s not enough for her to forgive him, she can’t forgive him for doing what he did to Nino, but it’s enough to amplify the twinge that she’s been trying to ignore for weeks.
“Haru-chan!”
She knows that voice. When she turns around, she sees Nino and Riisa running towards her, looking like they’ve been running for miles. “Nino!”
He stops in front of her, his hand on his knees, panting. His other hand grasps Haruka’s wrist, tugging desperately. “Haru-chan, you have to come with me.”
“You can barely breathe! Why were you running?” Haruka asks, still shocked at seeing Nino all of a sudden.
Nino shakes his head. He turns towards Riisa, “I’ve got this from here.” She nods.
Haruka doesn’t even know what’s happening when Nino drags her quickly and she’s hardly able to look back at everyone they’ve left behind. She struggles to run, when Nino has her wrist in a tight grip and her other arm is clutching all those lilies. They’ve ran for a bit when Haruka finds her voice. “Nino, what’s wrong?”
“You just have to keep on running, okay? Don’t turn weak on me now. This is important,” Nino says, still breathless as he jogs and drags Haruka along.
Haruka yanks her hand away from Nino and stops dead in her tracks. “Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t even breathe anymore! I haven’t seen you in forever and you drag me away like this? I mean, how the hell are you? What’s happening? You have to tell me now or I won’t take another step.”
Nino whines and pants at the same time. “God, Haru-chan, can’t you shut up and cooperate for just once in your life?”
If Haruka thinks that what Nino said to her was harsh, or that the things she’s just found out that day were fucked up, none of it compared to what Nino is about to say to her. When he finishes talking, Haruka feels like her legs are about to give out.
“Are you crazy? Of course I forgive you, you-”
Yet Nino shakes his head and tells her to run. “No time. Get him. I’ll chase your slacking ass if you do anything less.”
Haruka does exactly as she’s told.
*
He is riding in the back of the limousine with a man who looks severe and contemplative. It isn’t hard to imagine that he’ll grow up looking like him one day-they share the same pale skin, the same thick eyebrows. Rows of splendid houses speed past as he turns to look through the window, all the white walls, granite, and marble catching the rays of sun like fortresses made of gems.
“What are we doing here, Father?” he asks, wondering why they’ve stopped in front of a stately house. He looks up at his father, who’s now staring intently at the marbled residence. After a few minutes of waiting, a family of three heads out of the house, parents and a small boy who is probably the same age as him. They don’t look very happy, he thinks.
“I’m ensuring your future, Jun-chan,” his father murmurs.
His own father rolls down the window. The family in front of the house notices, looks at them, yet says nothing. They continue walking with their big bags, the two adults with their heads down. The little boy, on the other hand, stares at Jun. He looks as confused as Jun feels.
*
She’s in a cab, urging the driver to hurry. Haruka reads the note attached to the lily.
“Somehow, I can’t say things well. It’s enough for me to imagine that you know: it’s all for you.”
*
Jun doesn’t understand why the other kids call him “thief” or why most of them point at him, saying mean things like “Don’t touch him, he’s got dirty hands!” He tries to make friends, but the more effort he puts into it, the more they mock him. Jun learns quickly to stay quiet and blend into the background. If he could only melt into the walls, paint his skin the same color, he would have done it.
They’re required to join a club for their after-school activities. Jun checks all the sign-ups and joins the club where he sees only two other names. He gets the surprise of his short life when he realizes with horror that he’s just signed up for ballet, along with a noisy girl in pigtails named Riisa, and a short, shrimpy boy named Sho.
After a few Wednesdays, Jun finds out that Riisa is actually kind of good in ballet, and that Sho joined the club for the same reason as Jun.
“They call me ‘toilet-trained rich boy’,” he says, the red in his cheeks deepening. Sho’s dad is, quite literally, a toilet magnate-they produce practically all of the fancy toilets in Japan.
Riisa laughs. “But that’s actually pretty cool! I like the ones with a lot of buttons!”
“Yeah!” Jun exclaims.
He secretly feels relieved that he isn’t alone, and that maybe, the two of them can be his friends. Just maybe.
*
When he’s older, in his teenage years, he finds out why he’s been called a “thief” half of his life.
He isn’t really rich. His father had apparently swindled money from an old friend.
*
“He took the CEO post just to give back majority of M-Mart’s shares to my father. When I refused, how could I accept all that money from a stranger, from him, of all people, he says that he’s doing it for himself. He told me that he recognized my face, connected all the dots-and that he couldn’t just deal with what his father had done any longer. He fired me so that he could give me the shares, which is absurd, and when I said that I couldn’t accept it, it’s too much, he insisted on buying back our home, and giving us a 5% share. ‘Do it for Haruka’, he said. When I thought about you, and my family, I finally signed everything, I couldn’t deny that I needed the money. He was on the floor, Haru-chan, his forehead was on the floor, he kept on apologizing-and I couldn’t refuse anymore. I found that I couldn’t hate him for what his father had done to my dad. It’s a sick world, but there are still people like him. And then I heard a couple of days later that he quit, and that he’s leaving. Haru-chan, I’m so sorry, I got him wrong. We were so wrong. Forgive him if you can’t forgive me.”
*
She arrives at the airport only to find him gone. His plane had departed ten minutes before she got there. Her grip tightens on the bouquet of lilies in her hand. Haruka feels so sorry and so torn apart, because really, how stupid is he?
“It’s all for you.”
How stupid. How perfect.
*
He dances across the stage-he jumps, pirouettes, flies.
When the song finishes, he bends down to grab a bottle of water. Haruka experiences déjà vu, in Paris, of all places, and she feels nervous and excited. She steps out of the shadows, and calls out to him with everything in her lungs.
“The Free Willy song doesn’t quite suit ballet, don’t you think?”
The look on Jun’s face is precious. Just like before, he jumps from the stage, paying gravity no heed.
“You can’t seriously be dancing so passionately to a song about a whale,” Haruka shouts across the vast hall, her heart thundering in her ear.
He walks towards her. Haruka takes a deep breath. When he’s barely a meter away, he stops and puts his hand on his hip.
“You’re here.”
She is barely breathing. “I’m here. You were dancing to Michael Jackson.”
“I was. We’re probably on more intimate terms than you can imagine.”
Haruka grins, because really, when will he stop surprising her? She might not be able to take more. “I’m afraid to imagine.”
“How can someone like you even afford a plane ticket to Paris?” She can tell that his face is painted on, that he’s measuring her, even as he is teasing her.
“Your friends are very nosy. Also, they’re very rich.”
They stand there, just looking at each other, as if they could spend an eternity doing just that. Even with just the house lights on, Jun looks so beautiful and somehow-true. Where does she even start? How can she ever begin to say everything she feels, all the thoughts that have ran back and forth in her head, fighting for her attention? How does she repay everything? She is about to speak when he takes a step closer and grabs her to him-violently, tightly, thankfully.
And just like that, everything she’s been desperately trying to make sense of gush out of her in tears. Haruka hugs him back-she flew a thousand miles precisely because she never intends to let go. Waves upon waves of emotion crash into her, as he feels his arms tightening around her. She can’t help herself. “You just might be the most unbelievable man on the planet!”
He turns his head and whispers in her ear. “Forgive me. For being stupid.”
“How could you,” she says, inching away from his face to meet his eyes. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.” Because really, that’s all she can say. After everything. Despite everything. Because of everything.
There’s a second of regret when he lets go, but it doesn’t last long. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Kisses her through her tears like he fucking means it-which makes her cry some more.
“Stop crying, stupid,” he says, kissing the trails of tears down her face.
She is dizzy and floating and just there, hopelessly present in the moment. “I love you,” she says, finally, because she does, she just does.
He looks at her with his brown eyes and grabs her close again, close to his heart. “Home.”
Haruka knows what he means, even in his ineloquence-and she aches and loves him even more. She holds on to him.