“These things happen.” –Emi Ibarazaki (attributed)
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Chapter Twelve (Hisao): In the Name of Love
At least some of us managed to sleep through the night. After finishing in the bathroom for the morning, I decided to shuffle down to the ground floor and wait for everyone else to group together for breakfast. Kenji would be along once he had reviewed the plan for the day, so I grabbed an inside table at the restaurant near a far corner and ordered some coffee to kill the time. I expected Kenji to be the first one to join me, but it was actually Kwan.
The shirt he was wearing this time had the same design as the last one, except the colors were reversed, so the flames were blue and the shirt itself green. When he walked into the restaurant, he paused to look around. When he saw me he waved, spoke to the hostess, and headed over to the table I had claimed.
“Hey,” he said, “you the first one here?”
I nodded, “Kenji’s still planning, and the girls will probably take a bit. Lilly’s not what you call a morning person, and Hanako won’t leave without her. She takes her guide duties very seriously.”
“I noticed,” Kwan said, taking a seat across from me. A waitress in a bistro style outfit placed a cup of coffee at his spot and left with a bow. Taking a sip from his coffee, he added, “Emi’ll probably be down in a bit, once she’s checked the cat.”
I nodded and silently sipped my coffee, which was better than the stuff in the hotel room, and was nice and strong to boot. After a few seconds, Kwan looked up from his coffee, “about Emi… you knew her from high school, right?”
I nodded, “most of senior year –I was a transfer student.”
Kwan nodded, “right, Emi got you running, or something?”
I nodded again, “Figured I’d try and stick around a little longer, now that I had someone in my life worth living for.”
Kwan raised an eyebrow, and it slowly occurred to me Emi hadn’t told him about my arrhythmia. I figured she had because she had clearly informed him about Hanako and Lilly, but guess she felt my condition was mine to reveal. Perhaps because it was easier to hide. So I told him a rough outline of my condition, to which he slowly nodded in understanding.
“That makes sense,” he said when I had finished explaining.
He spent a few moments sipping his coffee, his eyes looking distant and wandering. I was getting the idea he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how to phrase it.
“Sen for your thoughts?” I asked, hoping to prod him along before someone showed up to derail the conversation.
Kwan sighed and nodded again. Looking at me with a weary look of desperation, he stated, “its Emi. She’s been getting nightmares lately, more so then normal. She’s started hurling herself around the track, nearly tripping over herself sometimes. In bed, she’s…”
“I think I get the idea,” I stated, raising a hand to cut him off before he got graphic, “you think something’s bothering her?”
“I
know something’s bothering her,” he nearly snapped, startling me with his conviction, “I’m just not sure what the fuck it could be…”
My weary mind slowly kicked into gear, taking the bits of information sorting them into something resembling coherent data. Once I had done that, I was able to start connecting the dots, especially when I remembered that it was the end of July. When that bit of information flickered into place, I felt my eyes widen in realization.
Kwan noticed this, and, likely realizing I knew more than I had previously let on. With a look of desperation still flickering in his eyes, he leaned forward and asked, “Do you know anything about how she lost her legs?”
I repressed a sigh with difficulty. I actually knew a great deal about the accident, but not because Emi had told me. Kenji, back when he thought she was an assassin of the feminist conspiracy, had gone digging for info about her. Besides good practice for his later PI career, it had revealed a great deal about her past, which for some idiotic reason he had shared with me.
Finding the information hadn’t been hard, really, once you knew where to look –which of course Kenji did. Connecting the dots from the raw data had been rather easy, unfortunately. We both knew not to say anything, of course, but it had been hard. Emi made so much more sense after I knew what had happened. I wanted to help her, too, of course, but Emi’s not the type to be easily helped. Fortunately she and Hanako started hanging out, and I figured Hanako’s calming demeanor might help ease Emi’s pain. In any case, she had run off –literally- after high school, so there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot I could do, anyway.
Stalling for time, I asked Kwan, “What makes you think that’s related?”
Kwan sighed and half rolled his eyes, pausing partway through the act; whether from fatigue or politeness I couldn’t say, “There’s clearly some past trauma affecting her –I know the signs of PTSD; my grandfather was at the Pusan Perimeter- but every time I even think of bringing it up, Emi clams up, changes the subject, or fucks me until I pass out.”
I cleared my throat and drank my coffee, trying to keep various lewd images from entering my mind. I didn’t know what to say, so I settled for setting my coffee down and sighing.
Kwan glared at me, making it hard to look at him as he tried to probe me for answers, “you know something, don’t you?”
I sighed again, slowly raising my head to look him straight on, “yes and no. Yes, I know what happened. No, I don’t know in a way that would allow me to tell you. As it is, you could probably count the number of people who know what happened on one hand, and none of them can tell you, except Emi herself –Emi’ll have made sure of that, I bet.”
Kwan groaned and leaned back into his chair, “I was afraid of that. I thought about asking her mother, but was afraid Emi might find out.”
“She would,” I stated, “like I said, the only one who can tell you what happened is Emi, and she’ll do that when she’s good and ready.”
“Well, can you at least tell me if the accident involved her father? I already know it’s a trigger for her, and I know you do, too; I noticed that ‘apple skin’ trick you pulled,” Kwan said with a weary smirk, “thanks for that, by the way; I got a little caught up in the moment, then.”
I gave a stiff nod as I tried to think of what to say. Confirming his question might cause him to do something rash, but he already had suspicions, so answering a simple yes or no question, especially one so vague, might not be too harmful.
“…Yes,” I declared, “The accident involved her father. It also occurred in early August.”
“Thank you,” Kwan breathed, draining his coffee and sighing, “That confirms a lot, actually. Now the big question is, what the hell do I do next?”
I shrugged, “same thing you’ve been doing; keep quiet and be supportive. As long as you’re there for her, she’ll be fine. Or as fine as she can be, at least.”
“That’s it?” Kwan asked, nodding in thanks to the waitress as she refilled our coffees.
“It’s more than you think,” I declared, “she gets like this every year –I remember it from high school, though I just chalked it up to exams at the time. She’s had to go through it alone for the most part, so just having someone with her should help.”
“What if she pushes me away?” Kwan asked, “And insists on doing it alone?”
I shrugged, “That’s up to you two; you have to decide if you can live with the ignorance of what happened, and if you can be stubborn enough to fight her own stubbornness.”
“So I have to be strong for her,” Kwan grunted with a snort, “there’s an irony.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but before I could follow it up Kenji appeared behind Kwan, like some sort of brown suited, legally blind ninja with a scarf.
“Today’s the day!” he declared, taking a seat next to me while also pulling a stack of papers from his inside jacket pocket.
“You are really into this,” Kwan observed.
“I take my duties as wingman very seriously,” Kenji declared, glancing at me as he added, “it’s the best way to ensure the infiltrators aren’t trying to corrupt my friends and spread their insipid influence deeper into the university. The business and gender studies departments have already fallen, and I will not let the writing and science departments meet the same fate!”
Kenji slammed his fist on the table for emphasis, making the cups clatter and startling several patrons. Kwan raised an eyebrow and glanced at me. I nodded slightly, confirming that yes, Kenji was insane.
“Thanks,” I said to Kenji, “last night was a huge hit, and I couldn’t have pulled it off without you.”
Kenji grinned, “Yeah, that’s true. So, you gonna ask her to marry you now, or later?”
I blinked, “huh?”
Kenji sighed and rolled his eyes, pausing to order some coffee from the waitress before responding, “Please, you said you wanted to make sure you’re relationship was on equal footing and moving forward. If last night was a success, it must be. Ergo, you gonna ask her sooner or later?”
“Later,” I grunted, “can we move on?”
.
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