I Will Forget This Feeling Someday, page 19
The morning my week-long grounding ended, I flew out of the house like a racehorse out of the starting gate. It took me some time to get back into my jogging rhythm, but I thankfully hadn’t fallen out of shape at all. My body craved running as strongly as it did food.
Chika wouldn’t be around in the daytime, so it felt pointless to go to the bus stop. But I wasn’t interested in seeing anyone I knew and getting weird looks, so I headed off into the mountains. Hydrating myself as I ran, I soon reached my usual spot. I was relieved to see that the bus stop was there as always. It obviously wouldn’t up and vanish, but just seeing with my own eyes the place that put my heart at ease gave me the strength to pick up running once more.
By the time I got home, I was drenched with sweat, so I took a shower, changed my clothes, and ate some somen that my mother had made. The afternoon went roughly the same way, and before I knew it, it was nighttime. My family gave me dirty looks about going running after dinner, but they permitted me to leave under the conditions that I come home early, keep away from the school, and take my phone with me. At the very least, I didn’t intend to outright violate any of these.
It being August, even the evening breeze was not particularly comfortable. I felt my back prickling with sweat as I made my way down the road to the bus stop. I sipped from the water bottle my mother had made me take to avoid dehydration.
I had no idea if Chika would be there, but just the possibility of a reunion made my heart leap. An expectant, bashful nervousness coursed through me. If she wasn’t there, there was nothing I could do about that. While I was aware of this, somewhere deep down I was convinced that I would see her. The ridicule I lobbed at myself for acting like a basic, garden variety high school boy gave me a little more room to breathe. I wrapped my fingers around the door handle and opened it to see a set of lights that existed nowhere else in the world.
“Oh, Kaya! You’re here.”
The relief in her voice mirrored all the joy and reassurance in my own heart. I closed the door, vibrating with shameful anticipation at the thought that she was actually happy to see me.
“Sorry I haven’t been coming here,” I replied, then I looked at the bench. I wondered how close I ought to sit, but eventually my reason won out and I sat down at the normal distance from her. “I was stuck in my house. The school punished me, like I said would probably happen. Sorry if you came here while I was gone.”
“I came a few times, but it’s fine. I was worried it might be a long time before I saw you again, so I’m just so happy you’re here.”
I wanted to tell her that it made me happiest of all just to hear her say that, but my shyness stole my words. I had not yet lost enough reason that I could just do whatever my id told me, as I had last time. Yes, that time. My cheeks grew hot in the darkness.
“Sorry to make you worry. Any news about the war?”
I noticed then that all the light was back in her eyes.
“They still haven’t given an estimate for when the siren will be fixed. It’s slow going, but my house is being rebuilt. It’s all thanks to you.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t say that, but I’m glad nonetheless.”
I’d felt guilty the entire past week. Though she didn’t see it that way, the last time we met I had more or less used breaking the siren as a pretense for touching her, so it felt bad to receive too much gratitude for it. Still, I was happy that she was happy.
“So what did you do while you were stuck at home?”
“Nothing in particular. I wrote an apology and did some strength training. Oh, right, my mother hit me—did anything happen to you?”
“She hit you? Like, she was violent toward you? Nothing happened to me, but are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, it didn’t really bother me, and it was my fault anyway.”
“Glad you’re all right, then.”
It was clear from her tone that she was worried, which I felt bad about. I needed to change the subject.
“So what have you been up to?”
“I’ve been helping with the house repairs and collecting things to put in my new room when it’s done, like some books and that scent thing I brought here before.”
“Oh, nice. I know I won’t get to see your room, but it’s still exciting.”
I was glad to hear her have some optimism about her world again. Like I said, I would never get to see it, but I was excited to know that her world was being rebuilt.
“Did anything else happen?” I took a swig from my water bottle while I waited for her reply.
“Let’s see… I was thinking about that kiss.”
I sputtered, wasting water and choking as some of it flowed into a part of my body where water should not go.
“Kaya, you all right?”
“Guh, sorry, sorry. I’m fine.”
It should have been obvious, but of course I was the only one who was embarrassed. It could be easy to forget which of our practices and contexts weren’t shared.
“Wait, is it weird to go around thinking about kissing during normal life in your world?” she asked.
Was it?
“I mean, I don’t think it’s really all that weird. My water just went down the wrong way.”
What a lame recovery, I thought.
“Please try to drink a little more slowly.”
“Already done.”
“Anyway, I was thinking about the kissing and, well, you said that it’s something that people do as a means of expressing the emotion called rohmanse, right?”
“Yeah. Usually, anyway.”
“Well, I was kind of worried that for me to kiss you when I have no idea about rohmanse might be considered rude in your world.” She blinked once, slowly. “What I said before, that I want to cherish your feelings as much as you do, is true. That’s why I asked you about kissing—because I wanted to understand more about rohmanse, even just a little. But I started wondering if I was being rude and you only went along with it because you’re so nice. I’m really sorry if that’s true.”
“It wasn’t rude,” I immediately, firmly declared. There was a surprising strength to my tone. I had no idea that she had been worried about what we did.
I thought it over again and realized that this was what it meant to be part of two such utterly incompatible cultures. When you want to show off your own culture, sometimes you might end up ignoring the other person’s viewpoint, and when you try to respect their culture, you might worry that they find everything you’re doing incredibly strange. It was quite the delicate situation.
It was why wars persisted. But that much was lucky for me. It gave Chika and I a perspective we could share.
“It wasn’t rude at all. In fact, I was worried that I took advantage of your gratitude to ask for something that doesn’t exist in your culture and made it weird.”
“I didn’t dislike it at all. My gratitude then, and now, was completely genuine. Even if I can’t understand it, I’m glad that I got to share something with you thanks to this rohmanse thing.”
“I…I see. I’m glad too.”
All I could do was blush.
“I’m really glad I wasn’t being rude,” she said.
“Sorry to make you worry. I really don’t think there’s anything you could do that would bother me.”
All that said, it did make me happy that Chika had been worried about the same sort of thing I was. I knew there were differences in the ways we felt, but because we understood so little about each other’s alien cultures, we were both trying our best to make sense of them.
“That’s good. Um, well then, if you don’t mind it, there are some more things I’d like to know about rohmanse.”
“Sure, I can tell you anything I know,” I said, then immediately wondered how much I did know.
“Rohmanse is like a feeling of wanting to get closer to someone, right? So I was thinking the practice of kissing must be a way to get as close to the other person’s body as possible?”
“Something like that, I guess. I don’t know the origins of kissing, but that sounds plausible. I feel like that’s a big difference between romance and friendship, that it makes you happy to be both emotionally and physically close.”
“Do you feel that way?”
“I do.”
“Then let’s get close.”
As she said this, Chika’s lights moved up high. Before I could react, she got close to me, sitting at my side so close our shoulders touched. As she sat down, our knees touched, whatever garment she was wearing sandwiched in between them.
“Is this bad?”
“N-no, not at all!”
Of course it wasn’t bad. I was too shy to look her in the eye from this distance, though, so I turned to the front. What I assumed to be one of her arms was adjusting to the heat of mine.
“Since you first touched me, I’ve been thinking about how warm you are,” she said.
“I did think you were a bit colder than people from my world.”
“My body temperature isn’t especially low, so I guess we’re just colder overall.”
Though we couldn’t convey taste or smell, heat got through just fine. I tried to keep my heart in check as I wondered what that difference might mean.
“My body heat might be a bit higher than usual.”
“Is it? I’d love to be able to confirm that, but since you’re the only one I can see here there’s no one else I’d be able to touch at the same time.”
Even if there was someone else who could see Chika, would I really be able to go along with that? I supposed I might have considered it in the past, but only before I realized my romantic feelings.
“Right,” she continued, “if you wanted, I could try bringing someone else here with me next time, so we can find out whether you can see them? We might be able to tell if I’m the only one you can see.”
This proposal was the next logical step of our conversations, and by all rights it was something that we probably should’ve tested out, but I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “Seeing you is enough.”
What I said was true, but behind those words was the sinking feeling that Chika still didn’t see me as her one and only. I suppressed the feeling lest it show on my face.
“If you ever do want to try, just let me know. I offer this only because I’m so grateful for all that you’ve done. But the part of me that treasures you feels the same way. As long as I can be with you, that’s enough for me.”
Any petty thoughts within me were painted over by her words. What simple creatures we were, those of us who knew of romance. Chika didn’t know the first thing about romantic love, and yet every single word she chose seemed to perfectly reflect my feelings. Or perhaps it was because she knew nothing that she was able to speak words that would delight a person in love without shame. There were so many words that I couldn’t say to her because I knew of the love I felt inside my heart.
Putting all that aside, though, I didn’t want to deny Chika’s feelings of gratitude, so I offered a counterproposal. I’d been thinking about it while we were apart.
“Well then, let me ask something of you instead.”
“Sure.”
“I want you to draw me a picture.”
“Huh? But that didn’t work when we tried it before.”
I had in fact brought a pen and notebook with me once, thinking I could get Chika to write down her language and the words that I couldn’t hear. As Chika said, it had failed. She couldn’t hold my notebook or pen.
“Well, when I tried to hand you that pen, it just fell on the ground. But remember how we were able to eat the food when we gave it to each other directly? I figure if you hold the pen while I’m also holding it, it should work.”
“I see. That might be good to try. But you don’t want to try words like last time but a picture.”
“Yeah. There’s something I want you to draw.”
“What?”
It was impossible to know whether asking for this would be rude or not, so I was prepared to say I was sorry if she found it offensive. “A self-portrait.”
“Hmm…”
“Ah, never mind,” I apologized, almost on reflex. As I turned to her, the first time I had ever done so from this distance, she tilted her eyes curiously. I already knew we were close, but the distance still stunned me.
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Well, I…”
I wasn’t sure I could explain this, even if I was in my right mind. If I thought too hard about it, I certainly wouldn’t be able to, so I gave her the first answer that came to my lips.
“I just thought it might be rude of me. I’ve developed feelings for you without even knowing what you look like, so it seems weird to ask for a self-portrait just so I can try to form a mental image of your appearance.”
“I see. But I mean, that’s not why I didn’t agree immediately. You really don’t need to apologize to me, for multiple reasons.”
“Multiple?”
She lowered her gaze, hesitant. I wondered if there was some major reason why she couldn’t draw a picture. Had I asked something rude of her without even realizing it? I waited for her reply, worried, when she finally moved her invisible lips, still looking away.
“Well…I’m actually really bad at drawing, so I don’t think a self-portrait would even start to capture any of my actual appearance. I don’t think I could manage a picture that would give you any real impression.”
“Not at all?”
“I really don’t think so.”
“Heh.”
I know it was rude of me, but I couldn’t help but let out a compounding laugh, both at how cute it was that the worldly Chika was so bad at drawing that she’d been worried about even admitting to it, and at my own mental picture of how bad she might actually be. Naturally, I did apologize, not wanting her to hate me.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh at your shortcomings. It’s just that you were so serious about it.”
I had apologized, but she continued to stare at me, silent, as though wounded. Crap, was she actually angry at me this time?
Still, her eyes seemed completely different from when I had heard her raise her voice in anger before. Certain that my intuition must be lacking again—as someone who’d never had a talent for reading people—I apologized once more.
“I really am sorry if I made you feel bad.”
“It’s fine, I don’t. You’d probably just laugh more if you saw my drawings. That’s not why I was quiet. I was happy.”
“Happy?”
It would have been even more shocking to learn that Chika was the sort of person who enjoyed her own shortcomings being laughed at, but that wasn’t it.
“That was the first time I’ve ever seen you smile. It made me happy.”
“…Was it really?”
I was aware that I rarely smiled, but still, in all the time we had spent together, with the sense of fulfillment I had cultivated here, had I truly never once smiled?
“Yeah. As far as I can remember, anyway. I don’t know how it is in your world, but here, seeing the smile of someone you treasure is a joyful thing. I was so happy at seeing it for the first time that I couldn’t speak.”
“I…I see. I’m not sure it’s something so amazing in our world that it’d leave you speechless, but, yeah, seeing your smile makes me happy too.”
I remembered how much joy coursed through my body when I’d been able to confirm that narrowing her eyes meant she was smiling. And now, though it wasn’t enough to render me silent or reduce me to tears, I was happy to hear her say how much I meant to her as though it was natural.
“Well then, I’ll make an effort to smile a bit more in the future.”
“Don’t force yourself, of course, but it does make me happy to see.”
“I’ll just try to keep it in mind.”
For the first time in my life, I was aware of my own smile. What else might this lead to?
I wouldn’t have any idea how bad Chika’s drawings were until I saw them, and we had no idea if the experiment would even work in the first place, but we decided that I would bring a notebook and pen with me the next time I came.
Just then, my pocket vibrated.
There was no one outside of my family who had my contact info and would bother to use it. I knew without looking that it was my mother texting me “Time to come home” or something. I would normally just ignore this, but I already owed them a debt for all the trouble I had caused.
“Sorry, Chika, I have to get going.”
“Rare to see you leave first.”
That was true. I never wanted to be the first to go.
“Yeah, my family’s calling me.”
“I see. Hey, Kaya…”
Knowing that my time with Chika was ending, my tension melted away in proportion to my heightened sense of regret. This was the first time I realized how much emotional and physical strength it took to be with the person you liked. My regret was real, but there was also a moment of relief.
“What kind of times are you supposed to kiss someone?”
And yet, I found myself dragging that strength back at breakneck speed. I had started to look away, but she sucked my gaze right back in.
“What kind of times…? I guess…when the atmosphere and timing are just right.”
“I don’t get it.”
We were struggling enough just to understand each other’s cultures without trying to understand things like “the mood” too.
“Okay,” she continued. “Are there any kinds of feelings that prompt it?”
“Well, whenever you want to do it, I guess.”
Why do you eat? Because you’re hungry. That was how stupid my answer sounded, but I had no idea how else to put it.
“Obviously I can’t feel it, but do you mean, like, when your rohmantick feelings grow really strong? Like when you feel an especially strong love for your family and really want to hug them.”
I had no idea. I’d never felt anything like that with my own family.
“I guess so. It’s like when you love someone so much you can’t help yourself.”
“Kaya…”
I had never expected the flow of the conversation to go this way, but no part of me was capable of refusing her.
