Chapter Text
They were like two doves in the beginning, the mother and father. They preened each other, cooed after each other, stuffed their heads with foolish notions of love. But doves, no matter how beautiful their feathers looked entangled together or how large their nest grew, eventually leave one another. No exceptions.
Their baby – their chick – was settled in the corner of the room, swaddled in a woolen towel and sleeping soundly with the curl of warm formula in her tiny belly.
They had fallen into silence once more as he watched her brew a cup of tea and pour a glass of Nagasaki-made shochu in the kitchenette. They would have random battles of silence, with no victor ever rising from the aftermath. She was too prideful and he was too considerate. The weight of silence was heavy on both of their shoulders. He could always feel it and she wouldn’t admit that she could feel it too.
“Yumi.” The voice that called was light, yet emotionless.
“Yes, Yuki?” The voice that responded was heavy, yet hopeful.
“All of this can’t be good for your system…” She shrugged and slid his cup to him. Tea warm enough to spread through his chest – just as he always liked it.
“I drink when I’m worried," she muttered. She took a sip from her glass and threw a glance at their child. Still asleep.
“You must have a lot of worries then, hm?” He noticed the faint twitch of her tweezed eyebrow before she brought the glass back to her lips. She closed her eyes as she forced the bitter drink down her throat. He could only quietly chuckle and reach across the table to stroke the crook of her arm. The laugh was humorless, meaningless. He would often laugh just to fill in the deafening space in between them. “Please don’t get mad, it’s just a joke. But… Can you at least tell me what you’re so worried about?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Yumi stared down at the smoky whiteness of her drink before she released a slow breath. “I’m always worried about you.”
“W-Why?”
She tapped her fingers against the side of her glass before she shrugged again. “I dunno. You’ve been acting… kinda weird lately.”
He couldn’t figure out what his wife was trying to say. Though her words seemed simple on the surface, there was always some type of hidden meaning behind them – and he hadn’t mastered the art of deciphering her codes quite yet.
“Can you... elaborate for me?”
“Well,” she started, “you’re always staring outside the balcony, and always taking care of the flowers and listening to the birds sing—but you never really go outside. And yeah, I get it,” she shifted her weight from one arm to the other, “you’re from the mountains and your mother always taught you to be ‘one with nature’ or whatever, but it just feels like something’s always on your mind. Like, whenever you go out to the balcony, it feels like… you’re running away from me in your own little way, or something…” Her eyes darted off to the side, back to the baby. Still asleep. She could hear the child’s soft snores from across the room.
Yuki touched his wife’s hand, the hand that was wrapped around her drink. She flinched and nearly pulled away. He used to be such an affectionate man, but now his touches always came intertwined with an underlying sense of shock.
“I’m sorry that I’ve been making you worry about me.” He nudged the glass away from her fingers. “But honestly, there’s nothing wrong with me. So, please, no more drinks tonight. Please, Yumi?”
She only smirked and snatched the cup from his hands. He almost pulled away just from the sight of her expression. Lately, she had just been giving off cold, calculated smiles to him. Not the usual mischievous, flirty smirk that she always used to have.
“I think you’re too busy appreciating the little things,” she picked up. “You gotta appreciate the practical things, too.” He shook his head as he returned her smirk with a smile. He was glad that he could relieve her worries, even if it was only for a moment.
“Like you said, I was raised to love the world’s ‘beauty.’” He took her cup again and hid it behind his back. Her smirk briefly downturned into a pointed frown.
“Ugh. Fine.” She ran her fingers through her hair. It was long, brushing past her shoulders, and a natural shade of brown – something that had always gotten her into trouble, from teachers pestering if she had dyed it, to bold boys wrapping their fingers through it without permission. “Tell me what you consider beautiful, then. Since you’re the ‘expert’ and all.”
“Hm, let me think…” He tapped his finger against his chin. “I consider the kimono that you wore for our wedding beautiful. White and purple really suited you.” Her smirk fell apart. “I consider our child beautiful.” They both simultaneously turned their eyes to their daughter. “She sleeps a lot, but I don’t think she’ll be lazy when she grows up. I bet she’s going to grow up to be as tall and headstrong as you. And I bet that she’ll have your hair, too.” Yumi brought her thumb to her lips and chewed across her nail. Sometimes she felt like there was a war in her mind, and it always ended with a battle of friendly fire against Yuki – whether intentional or not. “And last, but not least," Yuki grasped her hand again, “I consider you beautiful.”
She smiled. A pale blush even graced her cheeks. “Alright, enough with the flattery,” she murmured. She patted his knuckles before she stood up and walked to the balcony door. She opened it widely enough to let the night sky flood through the room.
Yuki’s eyes lit up as he saw the moon and stars’ light blanket their home. Yumi turned around and gave him one last smile before she walked to their bedroom. He didn’t follow after her.
⁂
Yumi trailed up the building’s stairs. The wallpaper that aligned the stairway’s walls was infamously tattered and chipped. She had gone up the stairs enough times to know where each peel and tear was.
Paint that was a nearly offensive shade of yellow peered out through the eyes of the wallpaper. Yumi pressed her finger into one of the spots. No amount of wallpaper could hide the wall’s rough texture.
A light bulb lit every doorway in the hall, but the glow of their doorway’s bulb would sink in and out throughout the day. Yumi had told Yuki numerous times to replace it when they had first moved in, but he had a tendency to be “conveniently” forgetful.
The burning-out bulb helped her quickly find where the door was, though. So, her constant complaints had turned into the occasional grumble over time.
The doorknob always made the same jingling sound when she unlocked it. The apartment was as quiet as usual. She could hear whispering, scratching on paper, and the faint humming of the television. The TV was constantly on some news station or kids’ network because Yuki liked having “background noise” throughout the day. They weren’t the type to gather around the TV together like the make-believe families in commercials and sitcoms did.
Yumi set down her bag and took off her shoes. There was an extra pair of shoes by the door. They were black, the laces were ripped, and the aglets were covered in some sort of dark substance. Tar? Maybe. There was a new construction site right by the sidewalk that wrapped around the apartment. Yumi had narrowly avoided accidentally stepping her work heels into the gooey residue herself.
“Welcome home!” a voice called out. It was… chipper. She wrinkled her nose.
Yumi slowly walked into the kitchenette. Yuki had a broad smile across his face and a cup of tea in his hands. His grin wasn’t on display for his wife, but for the man that sat across from him.
The man looked young. His hair was darker than the tar on his shoes and swept messily across his shoulders. He wore a black sweater covered with wisps of lint across the torso and shoulders.
When the young man faced Yumi, she could see that one of his eyes wasn’t exactly focused on her, but unfocusedly wandered slightly toward the side. She felt a wave of nostalgia hit her, like the waves of the ocean by her childhood home, at the memory of how her father’s eyes had grown lazy with age. She had to visit someday. Her daughter needed to formally meet the family soon, anyway.
Ah, wait. She had yet to respond to Yuki’s overenthusiastic greeting. “Thank you.” Yumi took the last seat at the table. The man smelled like aloe vera upon closer inspection – and she could also make out the faintest odor of cigarette smoke. “Hello," she slowly greeted, before she pointedly glanced at Yuki.
“Oh, sorry. This is, um…” Yuki politely chuckled. “I’m sorry again, but could you say your full name, please? I don’t want to get it wrong, sorry.”
The man chuckled, also politely. His teeth were aligned perfectly, and pearly white. Yumi readily theorized that the stranger was probably a recent high school graduate and rented a cheap room in the apartment in preparation of joining the workforce.
“Okay,” the man said, “the story goes is that my mother wanted me to be ‘special,’ so she decided to go against the norm and give me a really long name for ‘prosperity.’ It… didn’t really work out too well, though. My name is a lot worse than the average kira kira name.” He chuckled again. His laugh was soft and meaningful. An unfamiliar sound. “My entire name is Sentimental Komuro Michael Sakamoto Dada. But I go by Sekomu Masada for short. The ‘Se’ is for ‘Sentimental,’ the ‘ko’ is for ‘Komuro,’ the ‘ma’ is from ‘Michael,’ the ‘sa’ is from ‘Sakamoto,’ and the ‘da’ is from ‘Dada.’”
Yuki’s smile widened. “Wow, your name certainly puts ours to shame. Well, just in case you forgot, my name is Ui Hiroyuki.” Masada laughed again softly. “And this is my wife, Yumiko.” He placed his hand over his wife’s. His hand was warm from holding the teacup and hers were still cold from the outside chill. She resisted the urge to snake her hand out from underneath his and return it to her side. “He’s the new tenant,” he murmured to her. It sounded like an afterthought.
Yuki was the assistant landlord of the building, so perhaps he had personally met with previous tenants without her knowledge before. It still seemed odd to invite someone to their home and not to simply just meet in Masada’s.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Masada briefly bowed his head down.
Yumi returned the gesture. “Likewise.” She didn’t feel any uneasy vibes from the young man, though. He looked friendly enough.
Masada suddenly had a thoughtful look on his face. “Your name sounds very familiar, actually. Would you mind if I ask what your maiden name is?”
Yumi shook her head. “No, it’s fine. It was Akiyama.”
“Akiyama Yumiko,” Masada slowly said. His smile faded away. “Do you have a family member by the name of Akiyama Kumiko?”
Yumi nodded. “Yes, my grandmother. But she died two years ago. Did you know her?”
“She was my music teacher. Let me tell you, your grandmother had a great influence on my life. You see, I grew up in this orphanage in Fujisawa and I would go to your grandmother for piano lessons to sort of, um… to sort of just escape from everything.” Masada’s smile returned. “Honestly, if it weren’t for her, I probably wouldn’t be here talking to you right now. She really saved my life.”
Yumi nodded. “I’m sure that she’d be happy with how far you’ve come.”
Honestly, Yumi had never paid her grandmother much thought until her death. Their relationship wasn’t necessarily bad. It just wasn’t close. Yumi had only tagged along to visit her grandmother with her father on occasion. That was it.
Yumi still remembered her father’s small speech about how great his mother was at the funeral. Kumiko was a good woman – too good to be true, actually. After her husband had died and she had retired from a postwar music group based in Nagasaki, she had moved up to Kanagawa. And she had offered free music lessons to the children at the orphanage next to where she set up her shop – because that’s what perfect angels like her did.
The story still made Yumi bristle. Her few elders had always clicked, “Yumiko, you’re so different from Kumi—eh, smile, you mean child,” at reunions.
“It’s just,” Masada picked up, “your name sounded familiar because Kumiko would always talk about her family.”
Yumi nodded again before she pushed her chair back. “That’s good to know,” was all she could think of to say.
“Where are you going?” Yuki asked.
“I’m gonna go check on our daughter.” Translation: she had enough.
One privilege of Yuki being the assistant landlord was that he didn’t have to ask for permission to put up wallpaper in their daughter’s room. He just could. It was just a simple pattern of a blonde ballerina twirling around and around to no end.
Leaning against one of the walls was the canvas that Yumi had bought for her child the other day. She was poking and prodding at finding an interest of her daughter’s before she was to be enrolled in school, but the child had made it a habit to play with something only once and then never pick it up again. Hence the maze of abandoned stuffed animals, coloring books, and little dresses that littered the floor. The canvas looked like it was also in the process of abandonment. At least her daughter had taken the effort to use it.
It was a painting of a large eyeball with a completely black iris, against a dark sky with pinpoints of tiny white stars. The eye looked eager somehow, like it was opening itself to speak to the night sky in its watchful language, like it had secrets to share in its both meaningless yet meaningful ways. The points of the stars hid their massive, violent brightness against the lashes.
Yumi could only sigh at the painting’s ridiculousness. She could live with it, though.
Yumi walked over to her daughter. She was sitting on the bed with a book nestled on her lap. Her daughter managed to easily outgrow large cardboard picture books, and had already moved on to hardbacks with smaller text and plots to actually stew over.
“I’m home," Yumi announced. The girl glanced up.
“Welcome home, Mama.” The response was automatic. At least her husband had been teaching her manners throughout the day.
“How was your day?” Yumi sat next to her daughter on the bed. It looked like she had reached the middle of the book.
“It…” Her voice slowly trailed off as she moved to turn the page. “It was good.”
“Ui Madotsuki, get your nose out of that book and talk to me like you mean it.” Maybe that was Madotsuki’s talent: words. Yumi made a mental note to pick up new books on her next outing.
“I’m sorry, Mama.” Madotsuki turned to her mother. She had brown hair, just like Yuki had predicted, but he had been wrong about her being tall. She was very small for her age. She looked so delicate on the bed and against the too-bright wallpaper, almost like a doll baby in a playpen. “Papa helped me paint today.”
Yumi touched a splatter of black paint that was on the hem of Madotsuki’s dress. “Well, I can see that. Did you have fun?”
“Yes, Mama.” Her daughter’s hands were squeezing against the cover of the book. Yumi knew a cue to leave when she saw one. She patted Madotsuki’s small hands before she got off the bed.
“I’ll call you for dinner, alright?” Madotsuki nodded.
Yumi could hear the sound of the pages crinkling and turning as she returned to the kitchenette, to the lovely strangers that laughed over too-hot tea.