Chapter 3: Ch. 3 The Cracks Grow

I softly closed Himawari’s door, the slightest click sounding. Then I went back to the kitchen and brewed up a cup of tea. It almost surprised me that there was tea, but it was a Japanese tea. It still tasted good. Sipping at that, I finished up the rest of my homework, which included writing about Japanese history I’d never learnt and, presumably, meant writing in Japanese, which I’d also never learnt. Things like that kept tripping up my thoughts, a kind of uncanniness to it. A world of make-believe where everything fell apart if I looked too closely.

The night young, I moved to my bedroom and logged on to my laptop. It was probably the most comforting moment of my day. I’d spent so many years working, keyboards were my home away from home. My loose promise to Sakura coming back to me, I searched for the song she recommended and put it on. It surprised me that it was an idol group—a bunch of girls, somewhat around our age—that were more performers than singers. But it only surprised me because I’d expected a girl our age to be more interested in boy bands. When I thought about it, she’d always liked idol groups and even used to learn the dances and talked about joining one, at least in the past.

Once the song finished, rather than relax and listen to more music, I had a lot of work to do. Some kind of panic tried to rise up inside me, which I ignored without a thought. Hitting so many (and missing a few) deadlines gave me a keen sense for if I had time and I definitely had plenty of it.

That said, I had inherited messy code and didn’t have the usual familiarity with the project. It was also web development rather than the kind of programming I did before, which meant I probably wanted to throw away everything and choose the best framework for the job and start from there. Plan coming together, I lost myself in the work.

The next thing I knew, someone was moving my shoulder, saying something.

“Onee-chan, wake up.”

I focused on the words, my brain struggling to decide if “onee” or “big sister” was correct. Then I realised what her other words were and, begrudgingly, opened my eyes. Light streamed in through the window, not at an angle to blind me but enough to make it painful for my eyes. After a good wince, I hid behind my arm and gradually sat up, stretching out the knots in my muscles. A dozen blinks made the brightness tolerable.

“I’m… awake,” I said, pausing in the middle to yawn.

Himawari clicked her tongue. “You better not just go back to sleep,” she said.

“It’s okay, I’ll sleep at school,” I said.

She stamped her foot at that and gave such a pout. “O-nee-cha-n,” she said, dragging out every syllable into a whine.

“Don’t worry, Hime-chan. Everything’s going to be fine,” I said, warmly smiling and patting her head.

She wriggled, but didn’t stop me, and didn’t say anything else about that either. Instead, she walked to the door. “Breakfast is ready, so come eat before it gets cold,” she said.

The click of the door broke me from my act and I slumped back down. Rubbing my forehead helped with some of the headache. Still, I wasn’t going to keep her waiting, so I pushed myself up.

Sakura met us outside and we all walked together until Himawari had to go a different way to get to her school. Before she left, she gave Sakura such a look that I nearly burst out laughing, lightly chiding her instead.

“See you after school,” I said.

Sakura and I watched her head off down the road and turn the corner, then we shared a look and giggled before carrying on. We talked about the new song from her favourite idol group and complained about the homework and whatever else came up.

“Ah, you know, Hime-chan asked me to bath with her last night,” I said.

Sakura chuckled, covering her mouth. “And you said yes, didn’t you?”

“I kinda went with the flow,” I said.

“You spoil her so much,” she said, emphasising it. “Your little Hime-chan.”

“It reminded me that we used to go to the sentō nearby with your mother. Our bath is so small, maybe I should take Hime-chan there now and then. Would you come with us if we did?”

On the back foot now, Sakura stumbled over her words. “Ah, that’s, it would be so embarrassing going now, don’t you think?”

“Maybe I should invite Natalie instead? It’d be hilarious seeing her freak out. After all, they don’t do anything like that in America.”

Grumbling more to herself than me, she said, “I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”

“We’ll definitely have to all go together. I know: we go to the sentō, then order pizza, and we can have a movie night. We can do an English movie so you can learn, yeah?”

I had mostly been rambling my thoughts aloud and expected her to push back. But, instead, she had a soft smile when I looked over. “That would be really nice.”

After a few seconds of thought, I said, “I’ll go through the storage next week and see if Hime-chan wants to do that.”

We soon fell back into lighter topics, joining the flow of students marching to school. By chance, we ran into Natalie at the shoe lockers. The three of us chatted until the bell dragged Natalie off to her own class. However, when it came to first period, I couldn’t imagine surviving an hour long lecture about maths I already knew on however many hours sleep I had ended up getting. So, I slipped out and headed to the infirmary. As was very much usual for me now, I knew the way despite never having walked it before.

“Um, excuse me,” I said, entering the infirmary.

The nurse looked over from her desk. “Low blood pressure?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, surprised at how easy that was.

“Pick a bed and try not to sleep until lunch.”

Despite the blunt tone, she seemed nice enough. A bit of a “punk”, she had a streak of dark purple in her otherwise black hair, cut short, and there was a scar on her nose from a piercing and still holes for earrings she wasn’t wearing. Her eyeshadow and lipstick also matched the streak in her hair.

Alone on a bed with the curtain drawn, I closed my eyes. Though I wanted to sleep, unpleasant thoughts kept forcing their way to the front of my mind. Thoughts about the person whose “heaven” I was in.

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I still couldn’t imagine a woman asking for this, and the kind of men who would—I dredged up nauseous memories of guys making “jokes” about how they should have pretended to be gay to get invited to girls’ sleepovers, or to go shopping and “help” girls choose outfits.

What if one of them asked to be a girl? One of them who invited Sakura to the sentō?

But, it wasn’t one of them, it was me. That truth the only thing keeping my breakfast from coming back up.

I must have fallen asleep after that because, next thing I knew, I woke up. For a second, I wasn’t sure why, but then I heard muffled talking that included my name. Pushing myself onto my feet, I pulled open the curtain.

“Toyama-sensei?” I said.

She stopped talking to the nurse and turned to me. Something of a wry smile settled on her lips and she said, “Second period is starting shortly.”

I rubbed the back of my head. “Ah, I’ll get back to class.”

Expression hidden behind her mug, the nurse asked, “Feeling better, then?”

“Much. Thank you, sensei,” I said. On my way out, I gave her a shallow bow. Toyama followed behind me.

When we were in the corridor, she said, “I’ll be babysitting tomorrow, yes?”

“That’d be great. Thanks,” I said.

She let out a slight snort. “You’re speaking quite casually, aren’t you?” she said.

“Well, I’m not in trouble this time… am I?” I asked.

“No,” she said, softly shaking her head.

“There we go then,” I said.

I didn’t think she was offended by that, but we didn’t speak until she went off to the office, exchanging goodbyes at that time. Then it was back to class. I pulled through, dutifully taking notes and listening to the subjects I wasn’t so familiar with—Japanese literature and Japanese language hadn’t been a part of my British schooling, after all.

Three classes down, I slumped in relief that the day was done, then frowned, it only being lunchtime, then remembered that it was Saturday, so a half-day. That roller coaster of emotions took a moment to settle down. Sakura was there when I came back to reality, looking concerned.

“Late night,” I half-said, half-mumbled, stifling a yawn that slipped out of my open mouth. Before she could be any more concerned about me, I asked, “Wanna go watch Natalie? It’s a while until I have to pick up Hime-chan.”

It took her a few seconds to decide, and then she nodded, smiling. “Sure.”

So we shuffled over to the sports hall, waiting a few minutes for the girls’ basketball team to come out. Natalie spotted us right away, giving us a wave and a grin, then it was down to work for all of them.

Honestly, I wasn’t interested. Something the “old” me had liked to do. So I often ended up glancing at Sakura. Unlike me, she was interested, staring at the action, albeit not cheering like the club’s other fans around us. Well, Natalie looked at us whenever she scored, so I had to pay some attention to the practice game.

It was, overall, a nice way to spend an hour, giving me time to think. I had to make the most of my “day off” to get my work in order. Even if I was sixteen again, I needed sleep.

My phone eventually buzzed, the alarm pulling me and Sakura from the hall, off down the familiar roads I’d never walked to Himawari’s school. Without being told, I knew Himawari usually walked home with a friend, that she had club on Saturdays, and the reason I picked her up afterwards was because—

“Mi-onee-chan!”

Like a rocket, she slammed into me, positively beaming. Chuckling, I hugged her back and said, “Have fun, Hime-chan?”

Reminded of something, she wriggled out of my hug and ran back inside the room, returning a moment later with freshly baked cookies. After giving me a grin, her gaze slid over to my side and expression soured, but she said, “You can try one.”

“Don’t be rude,” I said, trying not to smile. I was also sure she only offered Sakura one to assert her position as best-in-the-kitchen after the karaage incident.

“Fujiyama-san,” Himawari mumbled, looking away.

I silently chuckled as I took a cookie to try, Sakura doing the same—just not so silent with her laugh. “Thank you, Himawari-chan,” she said.

Himawari harrumphed, then stared at me with wide eyes, smile back. “What do you think, onee-chan? Tasty, right?” she asked.

“The tastiest,” I said, giving her head a pat.

Her face turned into wrinkles, scrunching up with her very pleased smile, only to turn into a smirk the next moment as she looked at Sakura.

Shaking my head, I let out a breathless laugh. “Let’s not make sensei wait.”

As shameless as she was a moment ago, Himawari sobered up and scuttled inside to pack up her cookies. While she did that, I thanked the teacher, then walked home, enjoying how Sakura and Himawari bickered and teased each other, thinking they seemed more like sisters than me and Himawari did—not that I’d say that.

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