This is a YA novel I've been working on for about three years now. It's about 240 pages long so far; I'm about 3/4 of the way done. I rewrote most of it my freshman year of college and am beginning to work on it again!
-
One
Rai
Rain pours down from the sky,
unrelenting. It seems like someone has ripped a hole in the clouds.
The
sky is gray; the color of the Atlantic, and the rain is warm against my skin. It
is falling in sheets, cascading against pavement and soaking through this black
dress. It stings my skin, and soaks through me, into my bones. Technically now
I’m not crying, I’m not being weak – the rain has washed them away, washed away
everything to make it flawless again.
From
where I’m sitting I can see the entire road. It is only me and squat homes with
thatch roods and damp siding, silent cars taking the stinging rain stoically,
and cherry blossoms quivering on delicate branches. I tilt my face upward
toward the gray sky, feeling my hair plastered to my neck in thick tendrils,
and I try to breathe, but it feels like I am choking. I swallow, but the
tightness in my chest is still there. Even if I breathe in, it feels like I am
drowning, that I can’t get any air – that I can only destroy myself further
with each breath I take.
This
is tsuyu, the Japanese rainy season.
In
English, my first language, it translates “plum rain.” Early July in Japan is
cherry trees blossoming and plums blooming. It’s life, which is ironic,
considering I’m currently at a funeral with no one that can see me. It’s irony,
this season – and the rain itself. It was raining the night they died. It is
raining the day their deaths are celebrated.
I
hear unhappy footsteps now through the sound of rain pounding the pavement;
high-heeled shoes pulled out for this dismal occasion,
splashing through inches of rainwater,
clicking
against concrete the color of dirty quarters,
trying to not slip and fall and drown
in the slippery, grimy concrete that
is Tokyo.
My
own high heels are stashed somewhere inside the funeral home’s coat closet,
discarded. Someone will find them someday; maybe it will even make them happy.
They weren’t cheap shoes.
My
feet are bare, submerged in a river of rainwater that flows with cigarette
buds, sweat and heartbreak: the flavors of the city. I curl my toes in the warm
water, my skin soft compared to the jagged curb. The clicking stops beside me
on my side of the metal fence. I 100% know who it is without even looking, and
not because I can smell her perfume, which is sweet and delicate, like fresh strawberries,
amplified by tsuyu.
“Rai?”
My aunt’s normally soft voice is muffled by the cadence of rain.
I
lean my head back against the metal fence behind me and breathe in, tasting
salt. The beam presses against the back of my head, biting into my scalp. “Hitomi.”
“May
I join you?”
I
nod, looking up at the overcast heavens. The clouds are knit together. Hitomi
folds up the umbrella carefully, collapsing her sole shield from the rain and
carefully sits down beside me on the curb. A few inches of space separate us.
As I watch, raindrops pattern her gray dress and cling to her pale, exposed
skin. I watch her become a part of the world, getting soaked through like the
rest of us.
My aunt is twenty-three years old and a lovely,
soft kind of beautiful. She was named for her eyes, which shone quite
wonderfully when she was born. They are large and dark, the color of the night
sky in the middle of the country. Doe-eyes, my sister would have called them,
luminous, the shape of almonds. Her features are straight and petite,
emphasized by high cheekbones and a gentle, oval-shaped face.
Hitomi is stunning, even though grief clings to her
like it’s her shadow.
Her
dark eyes flicker up toward the sky, and I can see the outline of the clouds
reflected in their dark expanses. “Nimbostratus?” Hitomi guesses, squinting through
the rain at the storm clouds.
I nod again, the rails pressing against the back of
my head. “Remarkable, especially considering your loose understanding of the
English language.”
My aunt chuckles lightly, leaning her elbows
against her knees and glancing over at me. English is her second language, but
she speaks it better than most Americans. She gathers her black hair together, which now
looks like she just got out of the shower, and expertly twists it into a bun on
the nape of her neck. Hitomi purses her lips, which are painted apple red, and
looks around us contentedly, blinking away the raindrops from her eyelashes. “Well.
Lovely weather today.”
I don’t say anything. I love rain, actually. When I
was little whenever it rained our windows always had to be open at least a
crack so my sister and I could fall asleep listening to water rushing down. Hitomi
looks at me intently, waiting for me to say something.
I take a deep breath, looking down the empty
stretch of road. Everyone it seems, besides my aunt and I, is sane, warm and
out of the rain. It’s just the two of us outside today. The world is ours for
the taking. “I thought you were coming out here to make me go back in,” I say
finally, fingering the sleeve of my dress where it’s practically glued to my
skin. Hitomi bought it for me with her shiny plastic credit card. It’s
expensive, I can tell by the way it feels against my body, but she cut off the
price tags before I could look at them. She’s a fashion student, Hitomi is, but
I don’t think she enjoyed picking out this dress.
“Yeah, I was,” Hitomi admits, suddenly reaching
into the pocket of her dress, “but then I really wanted a cigarette.” She pulls
out a white and red pack of cigarettes and a plain black lighter, which look so
strange in her delicate, slim fingers. Alien. I watch, slightly bemused, as she
expertly removes one of the paper sticks and manages to light it by creating a
little tent with her hands. The end of the paper turns orange and crinkles,
especially when she takes a long, deep inhale. Hitomi holds it in for a second
before slowly exhaling out a long stream of silvery smoke. The unfamiliar scent
of tobacco, mixed with the damp smell of the rain, seems almost fitting with
the theme of today.
Hitomi catches me watching her and looks a little
guilty. “This is a nasty, filthy habit,” she tells me sternly, the thing
balanced between two of her fingers.
“And yet?”
Hitomi’s beautiful face, usually characterized by a
contagious, sweet smile and an almost pure glint in her eyes, darkens slightly.
It’s like a shadow passes over her, but it’s fleeting and gone before I can get
a good look at it.
She taps the end of her cigarette with a fingertip.
Tiny bits of ash fall off the glowing end, down to join the river running
beneath us. Embers swept away from sight. She turns the cigarette over in her
fingers, staring blankly at it. “My sister died. I think, this time, it can be
overlooked,” Hitomi says grimly.
The moment the words leave her lips, she tenses
slightly, eyes darting toward me, immediately apologetic. Regret is clear on
her face, especially when she hurriedly says, “Oh, Rai, I’m so sorry. I
shouldn’t have said that.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
I can feel my aunt looking at me intently, her gaze
serious. She takes another drag off her cigarette, shaking her head slightly.
“Yes, I do,” Hitomi replies, suddenly crushing the end of it against the
pavement. A black circle of ash appears, but is immediately hammered out by
raindrops, leaving only a faint dark circle on the stone. A waste of a
perfectly good cigarette, I want to joke, but I can’t. Instead I dig my fingers
into the grass, into soil that has now become mud. It is soft, softer than this
world I am in now.
Well, this world I know now. I think it has always
been this way, but it hasn’t been until recently when it was reared itself upon
me and struck my face, my skin.
Hitomi looks at me. “Airi’s death isn’t an excuse
for me to give myself lung cancer.”
My mother’s name coming off my aunt’s lips makes my
chest contract tightly. I am conscious of each raindrop biting against my skin,
which suddenly feels raw. Without wanting to, I look at my aunt, but instead of
seeing her with her 100% Japanese features, I see my mother.
Instead of Hitomi’s ebony hair I see hair that becomes
golden brown in sunlight. I see eyes the color of chocolate, glinting with
intelligence. I see thinner lips, always amused, and dimples. Instead of
Hitomi’s delicate softness, I can see my mother, who practically gave off
confidence, whose laugh was contagious and echoed even in the loudest, most
full room. Who was infamous for her mischief.
She
is there a little in Hitomi. My mother, Airi, whose blood was a mixture of
American and Japanese and good luck and hope.
Hitomi
flicks the cigarette into the water. The white cylinder thrashes in the
current, slipping away from us more quickly than it takes Hitomi to ask me,
“Rai, are you okay?”
I don’t say anything. Hitomi tucks the box of
cigarettes and her lighter safely back into her pocket. The seconds build
between us, effortlessly becoming minutes of silence. Finally, she tells me,
looking back at the funeral home, “There are people waiting to pay their
respects.”
“I’m not one to stop them.”
“I know,” Hitomi agrees, pursing her lips slightly,
“but that doesn’t mean you
can be out here alone,” she says firmly.
Four
weeks ago, Hitomi and I had only ever met once. Since then, she has become my
last family on earth, and responsible for me. She is still navigating this
situation of ours, and I don’t want to make it harder for Hitomi.
My
parents were only thirty-six and thirty-seven; too young for something like a
will and what would happen to their little girls if they died. So Hitomi got
me, and she’s only twenty-three years old.
She doesn’t know what to do with me. Why would she? She should be doing
twenty-three year old hood rat things, not playing house with me. I know
everyone expects me to be angry, an uncooperative teenager, but no one can be
angry with Hitomi. Not Hitomi, who was named for her shiny eyes and reminds me
of delicate flower blossoms. But, I really don’t want to go inside so people
can pay their respects.
I
don’t want one single respect from someone who couldn’t even tell me one thing
about any of my family.
“I
don’t know any of those people.”
“You
know me,” Hitomi points out. “And Tarou and Izumi.” I snort at the names of the
people who claim to be my grandparents, which makes her smile become more real.
Her parents and I have a laughably horrible relationship.
Hitomi,
using the fence for support, carefully stands up. Her dress is now soaked like
mine, and raindrops cling to her sheer black tights. She doesn’t bother with
her umbrella, only offers her hand to me.
Slowly,
even though I know I will regret it, I take my aunt’s hand and let her pull me
up from the curb. My body is stiff from sitting so long, my butt sore from the
hard pavement. Even though Hitomi’s in heels, I’m almost as tall as her. I can
see myself in her stone-like eyes, small and soaked, like a half-drowned cat. My
hand feels small in her warm one; I gently tug it free and tuck it under my
arm. “Your question, earlier,” I say, blinking away the rain that seems to be
falling harder now that we are standing.
“Hm?”
her brows knit together, trying to remember what I’m referring to.
I
just look at my aunt and shrug slightly. Rain slides down my arms and my legs
and my face, the sound eating up the sky. My skin is thoroughly numbed from the
rain now.
“I’m
not okay,” I tell her simply.
Hitomi just looks at
me, understanding in those eyes. She gestures toward the funeral home, where
people are waiting to pay their respects, and steps back to let me walk beside
her. Hitomi smiles slightly, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “That’s
allowed,” she says to me, and takes my hand in her soft one to lead me forward.
