Fetching White Snow

I fell in love. I understood it was love too late, and now I am filled with regrets. This was my first love. Stupid like a teen, knowing nothing about that “ticklish” feeling, I supported him into another love’s arms. Only later did I realize what I know now. And when I did, a question crept out from deep within my subconscious:

“Was I just being stupid, or was it never meant to be?”

Yeah, well. That is what you get with an unrequited love you do not even realize you hold. You see, my case of a first love is a special one. He, Yukina Seiji, was in love with a man, and I, Nakano Shiori, was in love with him.

A cold morning breeze crept in through the barely opened window. The curtains thrashed against the wall and chair. I squinted at the red digits on the clock: 3:03 a.m. My brain, however, hadn’t even struck midnight yet. I stretched my arms wide beyond the frame of the bed, hoping to find even the slightest proof that a person had been lying beside me.

The bed was obviously empty.

Shit...

I needed to get back to sleep, but I could not. I glanced around my apartment, half-expecting the scent of freshly brewed coffee to ruffle my nose. The timer on the machine had not gone off yet; of course, it was too early. It felt idiotic to just lie there, my eyes as wide as the bottom of a mug, so I pushed myself up, bracing my hands along the mattress to help me rise. I slipped my toes into the fluffy insides of my Kuromi slippers; it felt good to walk around a cold room, freshly out from beneath warm sheets. I made for the living room. The clothes thrown messily on the chair, the pile of files and the scattered papers, I made a mental note to tidy everything up on my way to the kitchen.

I'll do it tomorrow. A to-do list in name only.

Coffee takes only a few minutes, so I picked up my agenda from the counter. It’s a routine of mine while I wait for the De'Lingho, my faithful morning companion. Flipping through my planner for the week, I saw a meeting scheduled with a promising new author the publishing house had just signed, and to whom I’d been assigned as editor. Stifling a yawn, I sank onto the couch and reached into my bag for a fresh book. I hadn’t read any of the writer’s work, so, out of simple etiquette and because it's part of my job, I had bought this one. Green Marbles isn’t the most enticing title I’ve heard, but according to the reviewers its charm should flutter out with each turned page.

A few minutes later, legs up on the arm of the couch and glasses on, I began to crawl over some attention‑grabbing words.

'Memories… Those mingling scenes troubled her sleep each night. She would walk up to the window, calling desperately in a voice so thin it was almost transparent, her eyes fixed on the moon beyond the turmoil of her heart.

Her call carried a single question: Was all of it worth him?'

I paused. “Voice so thin it was almost transparent.” A bit purple, I thought, but it worked. The image clung to me longer than I wanted to admit. My gaze lifted from the pages to the moving curtains. I couldn’t see the moon, but beams of light bathed the floor in pale radiance, spreading out the quiet fact that it was there.

The woman in the book was suffering from the many happy memories she cherished with a man who couldn’t love a single woman at a time. A familiar premise, handled with more skill than most of the submissions I slogged through. This author was good. A little indulgent with the metaphors, but good. Memories were meant to be cherished... until they weren’t.

I have this dream about a very long time ago every once in a while, too. I could relate to the part about memories of him. Now I have memories; back when I was only a sixteen‑year‑old girl, it was merely a dream. When I was a child, it was my most vivid memory.

As childish as this may sound, I ran away from home once. We all have run or have thought of running away, be it out of pure desire to see the world or from our homes being all messed up. With a backpack thrown over our shoulder, enough money to buy a train ticket and a meal, a lousy smirk on our face, we’re ready to leave at any hour without being noticed. When I was eleven, in order to escape my noisy daily life, I went to the beach. I really bought that train ticket and stayed out all night in the middle of summer.

There I saw a scene that felt like it belonged only to my eyes. I was breaking every law I, as a child, knew, but what I saw broke those rules too. I kept my distance, unable to move for some reason. They seemed like a normal pair of male friends; no one noticed what lay behind their stares toward the sea. Silently, through simple movements, brief smiles and eloquent looks, just like Mom and Dad used to, I knew what I was seeing. They were a secret couple. And I was the only one allowed to peep at their love that nameless day.

The reason why I ran away was the second one mentioned above: a messy home. Mom and Dad, their warmth was being slowly sucked out of their bodies, leaving me alone in a very cold place. Those two men made me realize that there was still hope for my family, that the leak could be fixed. I behaved, gulped it down like a good child and went back home to my punishment.

After that summer, I became the person I was when I entered my sixteenth year of life.

To put it shortly: first Dad left Mom, afterwards Mom died, then the other woman didn’t want me living with her upcoming twins and sent me to my maternal grandparents, and finally I entered high school, being allowed to live on my own. There was not much hope for my family to begin with, and I did not rebel against it or fight or do whatever else I could have done. I took it coolly, like a counterfeit gladiator in paper armor, protecting the one I held dearest: my mother. Practically, I went on with the life served to me on a plate by my adults until I entered high school. And that memory, back then, can be solely called a dream dreamt one day… the day I met him.