the greatest thing you’ll ever learn [nakajima/suzuki]
001. champ de mars
The city of romance, that’s what they call it. You can’t be so sure of that fact. Your mother looks at you with her star eyes and sighs softly, “Your father would have loved to see this.” She sighs once more and leans her hand against her cheek. You can see the dreams in her eyes and it’s the strangest thing in the world.
You are two when your mother moves here with you. Your father died, too long ago for you to remember, in a car crash, they say, or at least, that’s what they tell you. The two of you live in a quaint apartment above a bistro, your mother a cafe waitress. She speaks fluent French for a Japanese woman, and you grow up speaking both languages.
You are eight the first time your mother takes you the Paris. “The city of romance,” she whispers to you as your head tilts up to look at the hard silhouette of the Eiffel Tower cutting against the night air. Lights blink sleepily, counting their blessings as you trace them like stars in the sky. The Tower looms over you like a shadow ready to pounce. Your mother sighs soft and holds your hand.
You are twelve when you first visit Tokyo and lose yourself in the city. The lights, bright and harsh and glowing neon blind your eyes as you wander aimlessly, lost as you try not to wail for your mother. Your mouth trembles, wrought into a harsh frown as you eyes twinkle with unseen tears.
That’s where you first meet him.
He is thirteen. He sits there at the curb of the street with his arm around the neck of his dog, ruffling the dog’s fur and tugging on the leash to prompt it to walk. The dog whines soft but complies, and he laughs, rough and loud like a boy does but so much more. Your eyes meet his and he smiles, giving you a small wave like he’s known you forever.
He sidesteps and pulls the russet pup along with him, humming a nameless tune under his breath while he walks right past you. Yet there, there is where he hesitates and turns, his eyes searching for yours again. “You look lost,” he says, one hand fumbling with the leash and the other outstretched to you, like a prince on a white horse. “M’name’s Nakajima Yuuto. I do live around here, let me help you?”
Your heart stops in your throat and you forget how to speak while you take his hand. He laces his fingers through yours and you flush the color of the red wine your mother drinks before she sleeps. The dog barks at your feet, and he laughs again, shaking his head. “This is Kuu, he’s not mine. Just taking care of him for a friend.”
Your mother yells your name, “Airi! Where have you been?” You turn, hair a flurry of black and heart falling to the pits of your bowels. Mother pulls you close and wraps her arms around you and cries about how bad an idea this trip has been. When you turn back, he’s gone like he wasn’t there to begin with.
You are sixteen when you officially move to Tokyo. Your mother has thoughts of an even brighter future and gets a job as a shop saleswoman. She is far from looking old-your mother with dreamer eyes is young, thirty-two to be exact. You do not ask why this is how it is, but your mother sighs and tells you of castles spun from sugar and her love of a century.
“I could have had a comfortable life, Airi, but I loved your father, yes. But the world, it’s always against loves like ours. We eloped and he died the next year. Maybe to give you life, though,” she says soft, brushing on her makeup and pursing her lips for lipstick. She looks too young to be a mother. You shrug on your school uniform and your brow creases a frown.
City of romance, Paris, you don’t see the appeal-love, you don’t see the appeal. Your mother chides you and hurries you on for the first day of school in Tokyo.
There are new friends here in this class, you are exotic. You are the girl from France. You have never believed yourself pretty, being surrounded by the blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauties in France, but here, here it’s different. You have the smile of an angel and a laugh that makes them stop dead and stare.
The boys do, they stop often, and stutter as they talk to you. They touch their hair and toy with their shirt or their tie and refuse to meet your eyes. The girls seethe in jealousy and want to be your friend, yet none of them do. They leave you alone in the corner of the classroom.
They do not understand.
And here, here is where you meet him again.
You see him and it sends a chill down your spine, like electricity but far worse and you shudder. He is laughing with his friends, the same rough boy laugh you heard four years ago. He is still the same, taller, older, yet his eyes sparkle and glitter with the child he is. You strain your neck as he passes, but lower your head as he looks your way.
He doesn’t notice you the first time, or the second, or the third. Your mind runs a million miles an hour as you think of words to say to him when you do meet him. They don’t come so you bite your tongue until it bleeds. Fourth, fifth, sixth, the year is coming to an end, you realize soon enough. He is a third year, you are a second year.
The last time you see him that year his eyes meet yours for the first time in so long, and his mouth slips open. His lips move but no sounds come through them. You pretend not to recognize him and move out of the way. He passes by you quick and his fingers brush by you ever-so-slightly. Your heart collapses. You don’t know why.
And five years later, you are twenty-one. You move back to Paris. You go to finish college. Life is normal. But you don’t forget about the boy with the rough laugh, even though you can barely remember his name.
You are twenty-four, and you paint pictures and take photos and teach children how to read. You see him again, one more time, by the silhouette of Paris’ most famous landmark. A silver band glitters on his left hand and a girl holds onto his right arm. You raise the camera and the moment stays on film forever.
His eyes meet yours and you duck your head. His eyes widen. You run, and half expect him to run after you. He doesn’t, and why should he? You don’t understand and he doesn’t either. Your eyes water and you will yourself not to cry.
The city of romance, they say. You can’t be so sure of it, not at all.
Yet four years later, he ends up on your doorstep.
“Hi, I’m looking for a Japanese…tutor…?” he trails off in Japanese, midsentence as he walks into your office, a small, dark-eyed girl in his arms, her hair held back in braids. You offer a smile, but it isn’t until he returns it do you realize. The girl in his arms wails, and he struggles to keep her, and ends up putting her on the ground to hold her hand tight.
You shuffle papers, pushing up your reading glasses. “Hello there, fill out this form for me and we’ll set you two straight.” Three months, two weeks and four days later, he smiles sheepishly and welcomes you into his house. The little girl wraps her arms around your legs and squeals.
She doesn’t have a mother. But they’ve been living in Paris for the years she’s been gone. He tells you she died and looks a little teary-eyed. The little girl shrieks a laugh and he twirls her around. You smile and bring her into a hug as she reaches in outstretched arms. He tells you he can never leave Paris because that’s where he met her.
The city streets are quiet when he looks at you and smiles. Together you talk about the sky and the ocean and the Eiffel tower lights, and he tilts his head, the mechanics in his mind creaking so loud you could hear him think. “I’ve been looking for you all my life, you know.”
You are twenty-nine, he is thirty, and he closes his eyes to kiss you like boys did when they didn’t know how to.
“La Ville-de L’amour,” you laugh at the words as he brings your hand to his heart.
disclaimer: this is purely fictional. any coincidences with things in real life, dead or alive, coincidental or not, are for fictional purposes only.
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