Arigato

Promises are broken, tell me are you happy now? Drowning in the hourglass, I guess our time ran out –

“Eric, I swear to God-“

“Oh stop Mum, I’m going to bed.”

He halts the Set It Off classic just a moment, listening for the footsteps echo on the other side of the doorframe. His mum once again paces on the creaky wood panels, her heels clicking. He just rolls his eyes, turning the volume down a few notches to appease her as he starts back up the music. He can only imagine how flustered she may be, the rouge on her cheeks faded by the natural hue as she tries to restructure the calm on her countenance. He falls back, his care for her plans as obvious as his concern for the papers crumbling under his weight. A lampshade softens the otherwise empty darkness surrounding him, his mind silent despite his music blaring at the same pitch.

A honk disrupts the calm, and the clicking fades off. Eric counts the seconds, and right on time, the tide of normalcy bring her right through the threshold. Her eyes burn subtly, a pale ocean tint that shines brighter against the red veins that pop out when she’s nervous. She shows a tired grin, leaning over and stealing a mother’s kiss to the temple before patting his already jumbled ash locks and whispering a goodbye and goodnight.

He doesn’t give a shit. He’ll be moving out soon, the only reason she’s been showing any real sign of affection lately.

He grumbles, feeling the matte red transferring to his skin. She doesn’t mind him wiping the mess as she turns on her heel, her clicks multisonorous in a clearer, but confident rhythm as she walks away. He watches the doorway a bit longer, his vision impeded by the cat clawing its way up the stairwell. He groans, knowing he can’t allow Mr. Fluffybottoms – a name conjured by a fourth glass of rum, room temperature by the time it was poured – into his room, so he can save the vinyl’s the cat finds to be perfect scratch posts. He’s quick to the door, scaring the near intruder from his perch and prompting him to scurry back to his usual place on his treadmill, starting the routine but pressing the red button. Not that Eric blames the feline; exercising stalls animals from being transported to the frozen tundra on nights like tonight. Didn’t help that the small beast was obese at best.

He mumbles nothing to himself, allowing gravity to take him again as he meets the sheets. The tread is nothing more than a common occurrence, the trip mute from his thoughts. His eyes shift from the ceiling to the adjacent corner, before being caught. Chocolate brown, while warm, negated the fact by implying that it’d be better suited the color of bumble bees. He, being the kind of person he’s always been, said simply, “It’s impossible for them to be that color.”

Everything was Yellow. He allowed it nearby, but only with that honey like sweetness he used to know. Or would it be better to compare them to something as original as those moments? Kumquats? No matter what, nothing would change the tune than bringing forward that prized fruit. He learned that.

The moment falls off with memories of carnations sold in front of Buckingham. Dragged through the muck, his arguments failed to convince they weren’t the same color. Cut. His eyes shift with the rest of his form, before his mind clicks the timer on his consciousness. It’s faster, at least than average attempts at entering the dream realm, but he’d rather walk the void than attempt weighing reasons. Well, that’s normally how it goes –

“Eric.”

A cringing prick stabs at his gut, and slowly, he turns. Before him, just as that day; A bob with a wilting carnation tucked behind the ear, the bright hue dulled with time. The bright fabric bounces on the tulle, tightened around the chest going up to a high halter. It allures the eye, but his thoughts go flat, just like his expression. “What’re you doing here?”

A china doll face, broken by a childlike pout, though the voice drips with the sweet oriental twang, like honey. “Well then, a simple hello would’ve been nice.”

His brow furrows, his eyes stuck to her form despite his body language. “You know how I am with formalities,” he mutters, his gaze breaking, “But seriously, why’re you here?”

In response, her feet raise from the ground. She had this odd habit of moving like a dancer, spinning on her toes in long strides, before she’d catch his hand and turn into his embrace. Just as usual, her fingers interlock with his, and in a single moment, the black dissipates. The void morphs. His eyes dart across every surface, recognizing the Secondary School classroom. “W-Why-“

“All right class, stand.”

Another day, another anxiety attack as his eyes trail over, finding her in his peripheral vision; Hikari. Despite wearing the usual uniform, she still finds a way to sneak in an accessory that’s as bright as the sun; today a headband with a yellow flower attached, tucked with precision behind her ear. She’s been able to catch everyone’s attention since day one. Being the most outspoken of the students in the Asian exchange program, she’s popular. A star tennis player, up on all the latest trends he’d only seen in magazines before passing her in town now and again, a smile always shining on her countenance.

It was that smile that prompted him to want to do the unthinkable: ask her out.

Sure, he’s not the most popular, but he’s decent, having had a few admirers in his lifetime. He counts the minutes to lunch break; the pencil tapping out a nervous rhythm on his pad of paper. His heart is racing, ready to hear that bell-

“Time for lunch! Be sure to be back on time today since we have to start on proofs!” the teacher calls over the bell. He jumps in his seat, before he looks to see Hikari already half way out the door with everyone else.

“Sh-Shit,” he mumbles to himself as he hurries to his feet, grabbing his jacket as he races out the door. He does his best to look casual as he searches for her in the crowd, but it’s as if a tidal wave has consumed her. He sighs. “Dammit-“

The cuff on his jacket is dragged back, catching him off guard as he stumbles into an empty classroom. He looks around, before he finds chestnut staring back at him. Hikari.

He starts to speak, but she cuts him off with giggling, placing a finger to her lips. After a moment, she chuckles, lacing her fingers behind her back as her voice sings coyly, “To be totally honest, Eric; you’re quite a blind boy.”

He blinks, but becomes more flabbergasted as she holds out a paper to him, numbers written on the ripped paper. “Baka. . . . My number; it’s normal for a boyfriend to have one.”

A waterfall of questions slam him, mixed in with a healthy slap of embarrassment, and oddly, joy. She smiles just as he adores, and finally, his voice breaks free, laughter escaping his lips, “I guess that’s right.”

It fades, and Eric twists, Hikari standing a little ways away. Her china doll face fades like the memory, a grimace taking hold. His countenance breaks a little seeing it, his stomach twisting as he’s forced to look back. “You were quite clumsy at first,” she comments.

“Most guys are; but that was the past,” Eric replies, his tone more stubborn.

She watches him a moment, before she sighs, her bob bouncing. Light creeps from under her feet, veining out around both of them and consuming them as the scene once again transforms. He turns as the hue fades, the area now the library near his flat. He groans, running a hand through his bangs. “What in the bloody hell did I do to deserve this—“

“Eric, c’mon!”

“H-Hikari, you can’t shout in here,” he stutters, being dragged through the halls by his coat sleeve. Hikari, girlfriend of now four months, giggles, shushing herself as she looks back at him with a joking, but apologetic smile. He just sighs. He’s just learned to let her do her own thing. Swear to God, she could probably light the city if someone could figure a way to harness human energy.

But his eyes just trace her. It’s winter now, but still, she’s as bright as usual with a white coat accented with a yellow belt. For Christmas, he’d bought her a bumble bee charm necklace, and she wears it perfectly around her neck, the silver reflecting the light as it bounces off her porcelain skin. They round a corner, and she turns to face him all the way. Her hair is starting to grow out, curling slightly at the ends and falling perfectly on her shoulders. Her chocolate gaze meets his, warm and curious. “Well? You said you wanted to say something, now we’re hiding among a bunch of books,” Hikari says, her voice softer despite the raised excitement, “What is it?”

His heart starts pounding in his ears. He had told himself that he wasn’t going to wimp out of this. He was going to do what had been impossible before. The air stills.

“Uh, I-I wanted to say. . . . Well, I suppose I just wanted to say that . . . I,” he stumbles, unable to put together a fluid thought.

Hikari watches him, her expression falling slightly. “Are you alright, Eric?”

He can feel his chest tightening, thoughts warping and tumbling over one another. He clenches his fists a bit tighter. It’s just four words, four dumb ass words! Why can’t he just say it–

“Eric, what is—“ Hikari starts.

“I love you, Hikari,” he grumbles in frustration, before his expression shatters. He presses his hand over his mouth, his body instantly tensing as his face starts turning cherry red. Hikari’s breath catches, her face falling to a blank stare as she watches him implode in embarrassment. After a moment, her expression strangely lightens, a soft red hue rising on her cheeks. As he eyes the floor, Hikari steps up to him, making him even more flustered, but Hikari simply giggles.

“Y’know, I didn’t hear you clearly,” Hikari comments, “Could you repeat that?”

Eric jerks slightly, uncovering his mouth as he snaps, “Y-Yes you did—“

He’s caught off guard as she silences him with a kiss, her lips soft, warm. His face flushes to full red, but strangely, the awkward tension he’d felt fades away, morphing into a sweet comfort. He closes his eyes, falling into the kiss as she grasps his coat, and he wraps his arms around her. They’d kiss before, by now probably hundreds of times, but now, it’s different. Perhaps due to his confession, the normalized gesture causes a new kind of spark to surge through them, both much more engage in the other. He pulls her closer, tighter. She wraps her arms around his neck. Their breathing becomes hotter, heavier.

After a few more moments, she pulls away, her face just as flush as his as she meets his eyes. He watches her before he grins, whispering, “I love you.”

She giggles, taking his hands in hers as they stand almost nose to nose, lost in one another. She smiles like the sun, before she replies in her native Japanese, “Watashi wa, anata o aishiteimasu.”

I love you.

“What’s the point of all this?”

Everything fazes out, the two now standing even farther apart. Hikari just stares a moment before she looks down at her feet, her eyes reading she’s lost in thought. Eric groans, rubbing the back of his neck. This is just bringing back thoughts he hasn’t unlocked for a while.

“Do you hate me now?”

Eric’s eyes widen, looking back to see Hikari’s posture has fallen a bit, her body language reading some version of defeat. Her brow is furrowed slightly, smiling despite her saddened eyes as her glance meets his. “We had been so strong at one point . . . then. . . .” she trails as the light breaks from her feet again, though this time it’s not nearly as bright, surrounding them in a fogginess.

“Hi-Hikari, can we please just—“ Eric starts, his voice more troubled than before. But it’s no use, Hikari has faded away. He hands clench tight, a feeling of helplessness threatening to consume him. After a moment, something in him snaps, and he shouts through the fog, “You really want to know if I hate you? Do you want to know what happened?”

An image. The girl he’d loved, dating now for over a year, standing stone still in the hallway; in shock. That day was supposed to be a happy one. Originally, the pair had planned to leave for Wales that night to go sightseeing for the weekend. She had been so excited. But instead, he greeted her with a goodbye. He broke up with her, and walked away without another word.

Her light had been waving in a wind. She was heartbroken.

He grits his teeth, yelling louder, “Fine! I’ll talk!”

The fog twists around itself, now following his command before falling away, the scene framed strangely as his flat lays out upside down, the action playing out above. The scene is the night before the break-up.

“I don’t understand it.”

“Mum, please—“

“No! Why do you like her?” his mum continues, gripping her beer tight in her hand, half full, “She’s so hyper all the time. I thought people like her exhausted you.”

“No, she’s just energetic. If anything, she pulls my energy up,” Eric replies, defending his girl with a straight face, “I don’t’ understand why you don’t like her.”

“Boy, if there’s one rule you know I live by, it’s God’s,” his mum continues, causing him to groan. She always gets biblical with him when angry, or drunk. “You shouldn’t be involving yourself with girls that aren’t of God—“

“Will you just stop it? This isn’t the 18th century for crying out loud!” he snaps, tired of his mum’s antics, “Hikari is beautiful, intelligent, and I won’t just let you sit there and say things like that about a girl I love.”

His mother spits out the beer she’d been downing, before her eyes find him again, beety. He senses a cold chill go down his spine. He hasn’t seen a stare like that in years. Plus, what normally goes with it still scares him to the core. “M-Mum,” he starts.

“Witchcraft!” his mum spits, slamming the beer bottle on the table with a sharp thud before she reaches across the table, snatching him by his collar. He cringes a little, shouting in surprise as his mum tugs him out of the kitchen and into the sitting room, throwing him down onto the hardwood floor. He grunt a little, not expecting her to be so rash. He starts to turn over and get up, but before he has a chance, the side of his head is met by an old unwanted friend; his mother’s bat. “Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God!” his mum shouts hysterically as he falls limp against the floor.

He blacks out for a few minutes. He hasn’t experienced an episode of drunken rage on this level since he was a small child. His father had left when he was five, that’s when his mum started to drink far beyond normal amounts. Once it became normal for her to walk around with more alcohol in her body than blood, she started to lash out against him. Apparently he looked too much like the deadbeat not to be punished. There was a time when he’d be beaten days in a row, night after night lulled to sleep with a good night smack to the back from Mr. Bat. Being the child he had been, he didn’t understand the situation. He just thought it was his fault.

His—

“That yellow witch has cast a spell of seduction on you! She must be taken down!”

His mum shrill cry of insanity snaps him back to life. He looks up, seeing that his mum is putting on her coat, bat in hand as her eyes search crazily for the car keys. His heart almost stops. His mum knows where Hikari lives.

“M-Mum, wait—“ he starts, his voice coarse.

“No, don’t you stop me you weak ass bastard!” his mum wails, “I’ll take her down!”

“You don’t have to!” he cries, getting a last second idea, “. . . That hit woke me up, undid the spell.”

His mum pauses, looking back at him with a confused expression. “What?” she asks.

“You, with your bat, shook off her control,” he lies, trying to sound thankful, “She no longer controls me.”

Without a moment spared, his mum bursts into tears, dropping the bat and falling to her knees in front of him, pulling him into a tight embrace. He winces in pain, realizing what had been stinging his eyes wasn’t sweat; it was blood. Red paints his mum’s face as she peers into his eyes, smiling without a soul. “Thank Jesus himself, I thought I’d lost you to that witch.”

“I’m alright, Mum,” he breathes heavily, “But to make sure she can’t get to me again, you cannot speak of her anymore. Understand?”

She nods like a bobble head, before pulling him back in. His gut twists, but he can’t do anything now. If he hadn’t said something so ridiculous, his mum would’ve gone out and possibly hurt Hikari. He can’t allow that. Everything he just said is a lie. He loves her. He wants to be with her. She is no witch.

Hikari was the light of his life; a light he’d have to leave to keep it from going out.

The memory breaks apart, Eric tense as he watches it crumble to dust. After it’s all faded, he looks up, surprised to see Hikari standing a little farther away than before, but now, she just stands with a blank face; shocked. His expression falls, his eyes falling back down as he tries to think of something to say. Since that day, he hasn’t spoken to her, responded to a text, or even seen her. He was transferred to a different school soon after the incident, to ensure she wouldn’t “tamper with his head.” Putting together all the time, it’s probably been a good year, if not more.

“Eric.”

Her voice catches him off guard, his eyes immediately looking up to meet hers . . . and she’s crying. Her face is flush, her expression confused, but sad. He can feel his calm break a little, becoming sadder as he watches her. She wipes away the tears with one hand as she sniffles, holding herself with the other. Looking closely at her form, his heart pangs as he sees she’s trembling a little. She takes a deep breath, straightening herself after a moment before looking to him, her eyes still glossy. “. . . I thought you hated me. . . .” she trails, the warmth faded from her voice as she starts to mumble in her native tongue, “Naze kore ga watashitachi ni . . . okoranakereba naranakatta nodesu . . .ka?”

There’s silence for a moment, before he suddenly starts to walk toward her. Her breath catches, tears threatening to spill over the rims of her eyes once more as her eyes glue to his feet. His steps echo as he closes the distance, stopping only a foot or so in front of her. Her face is pale, unsure. He just sighs, reaching his hand out to wipe away the forming tears. She just stands still, just like the day he left her. His expression breaks, emotions he’d locked away suddenly rising to the surface.

He closes the distance, pulling her into a tight embrace. She gasps in surprise, but immediately clings to him, her grip tight on the front of his shirt. “Eric—“

“I’m sorry. . . .”

Her heart skips a beat. He can’t help it though, he’s longed to do this for so long; his guilt has been stabbing his heart since he let the words fall from his lips. Her shaking becomes a bit more intense, the tears forming again. Though, his composure is hardly any better, the monsoon of emotions drowning him. Slowly, Hikari pulls away a little, searching his eyes as he stutters, “I-I never wanted you to think I hated you, h-how could I? You were literally the best damn thing t-that ha-happened to me! I didn’t want to l-let go either, but Mum was threatening to h-hurt you, and I—“

“Eric,” Hikari shushes, raising a hand to his cheek.

He melts under her touch, a smile forming gradually on his countenance as he rests his forehead against hers. She grimaces, playing with his ash locks. Then he makes a choice. “I’ll find you.”

She blinks, not expecting the statement. “What?” she questions.

“Tomorrow, I’ll start looking for you,” he says with a warmer grin, “I know I messed up. Even if I had good intentions, I still badly hurt you. I need to apologize appropriately.”

She just stares, shocked. He keeps going, reaching up to her take her hands in his as he speaks, “I’m moving out of my mum’s. I won’t let her scare me. If anything, I’ll protect you.”

Still, she’s silent..

His brow furrows, lacing his fingers with hers. “. . . Will you give me another chance, Love?”

With that, her expression falls apart, tears falling down her face despite her smile. He grimaces now, wiping away tears. Something about her reaction, while he can tell she’s happy for the most part, something is off. There’s a glint of regret, as well as loss in her eyes. “Baka . . . you can’t say things like that,” she trails, her voice thick with emotion as she smiles, “I’d love to be with you again—“

“I’ll make it up to you—“ he starts, a fire lighting in him.

“But.”

His eyes widen as she presses a finger to his lips. Her expression becomes calmer, tears still tracking down her cheeks as she grins. She speaks quietly, “The best way to make it up to me is by being the strong and courageous man I know you are.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Hikari—“

“I love you,” Hikari says with a light laugh, tears dripping from her chin, “All this time, and I still loved you.”

He smiles, kissing her forehead before he whispers, “I love you too.”

She wraps her arms back around him, hugging him tight, her warmth spreading through him as he holds her. She feels so real, he just wishes he could keep her in this place forever. She leans in and kisses his cheek, sniffling a little. “Eric. . . .”

“Arigato.”

The alarm goes off without warning, causing him to snap awake. He jerks slightly, looking around the room to see where he could be now. “Hi-Hikari?” he calls out without thinking.

No response.

His room is dankly lit by the rising Sun, offering little hope for a bright day. But it doesn’t matter to him. He doesn’t waste a moment on keeping his promise. Even if it was a figment of his imagination, she was too real for him not to fall for again. She’s relit something in him; the desire to live.

Quickly, he gets onto the internet from his laptop, searching through his social media outlets to find some hint of where Hikari could be. She won’t be back in Japan, her education exchange lasts until she ends university, and that’s not for a couple years at least. She must still be in England, at least. To his surprise, she pops up without much effort, raising his hopes. “Well then, that was eas . . . y. . . .” he starts, his voice trailing off though as he reads the article connected to her name.

It’s an article from this morning’s news report.

Last night had felt so real, as if she had truly been transported to his dream, that he had truly held her hands in his, that she had said all those things.

The headline reads clearly in all caps, bold font.

Those tears, happiness mixed with something he couldn’t describe. Now he can’t think of anything, much less feel as his own tears form. She wants him to be strong and courageous.

“TRAGIC LATE NIGHT AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT TAKES EXCHANGE STUDENT’S LIFE.”

That’s a lot for the dead to ask for.