Brother Of Mine (Chapter 6)
++Kazu++
I am worried about Jun-ni.
He’s hiding something from the family and I don’t like it. Does he think I would actually buy his ‘I’m-so-tired-I-fell-asleep-on-the-floor’ excuse he must really think that I was born yesterday. Sometimes Jun-ni forgets that we’re all grown up now and not naïve little boys whom he needs to protect.
Walking into the office again this morning I found breakfast waiting for me on a tray again. This time it was French toast with a side platter of butter and maple syrup. Meisa used to make them when we first got married. She liked hers with honey and I liked mine with maple syrup but since she was allergic to it, she would normally put it aside on a platter for me.
Somehow, seeing the food gave a funny warm feeling in my heart. One I have not felt in a while. I know my biggest problem has always been my quick temper and my stubbornness and that had been the biggest weakness of our marriage. The problem with Meisa on the other hand is her unwillingness to face things head on.
She hates making a scene so she would beat around the bush rather than getting straight to the point. I have no patience for that and seeing her keep everything in angers me, which in turn frustrates her. It’s a vicious cycle.
Still, cycle or no cycle I miss her.
I miss her warmth next to me when I go to sleep. I miss her smiling face in the morning before I go to work. I miss those nights when we would stay up till late watching old movies together or times when she would surprise me with breakfast in bed. I miss the feel of her in my arms and I miss the love we had between us.
It was real.
Regardless of what troubles we had run into, the love was real.
It still is.
So long as we remain stubborn, nothing will change and maybe a divorce really would happen. I think in this case the one at fault is me. Meisa had never once mentioned divorce and she is trying to reach out to me now so what the hell am I doing?
“Okada.”
It was, Kitamura Kazuki, one of the senior associates that I was working with on the M&A. He was one of the nicer ones and if there was anyone I could count on to cut me some slack.
“Are you done with the market reports? We’re going to do the drafting for the contract today and they’re going to need the full summary and conclusion from you.”
“It’s done,” I replied, “Should I prepare presentation slides too?”
“That would be great,” Kitamura nodded, “And if you can please make sure you catalogue the files on the stock exchange too.”
“Right on that sir.”
He paused for a moment to survey my office before nodding towards the plate of French toast that lay on my table.
“Breakfast?”
“Yeah…” I replied, “My… wife dropped it off earlier in the morning.”
His superior grinned at that statement.
“Lucky man. Wish my wife would do that for me.”
As Kitamura left the office I watched his departing back for a moment before turning back to my desk. The French toast tasted good and I found myself smiling as I ate it. I shouldn’t let all of Meisa’s effort go by without some sort of reconciliation on my part right?
I was still thinking about that as I walked out of the meeting room for lunch. Even though my presentation had gone well, I have to admit that I had not put my entire attention into it. Perhaps for the first time since I started working as a lawyer that I spent more time thinking about my marriage, about Meisa.
Somehow it felt like a slap to me. A wake up slap. What had I put Meisa through? Everyday, all the time, living with the knowledge that her husband thinks more about his work than about her. It really is time for me to wake up and rectify this situation.
“Okada, we’re going to grab a drink after work today. Come with us,” Ohno Satoshi was also an associate at the firm. We were hired at the same time last year and I suppose you can say we’re pretty good friends.
“Not tonight Ohno,” I told him, “I have other plans.”
“Going home to the missus?” he grinned.
Since New Year’s Eve I had not done that have I? Going home to the missus. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever actually done that properly. Every time I came home Meisa would have already been asleep and I always have to leave for work early the next morning. We have never really had time to just be together anymore. The irony of that is that I didn’t NEED to stay back late all those nights. I only did that because I wanted to get ahead of all the other junior associates.
“Yeah,” I told Ohno, smiling slightly, “Going home to the missus.”
“So, you got plans?” he asked me, walking into the office and sitting on the edge of my desk.
“No… not really,” I admitted, “Maybe dinner… then…”
My voice trailed off. Than what? I must say I was not the most inventive when it comes to romantic gestures.
Ohno raised an eyebrow at me before asking, “Okada… when was the last time you took your wife out for a nice date just the two of you?”
Not since we got married.
“Not in a while,” I half admitted before looking at him, “Why? You have a suggestion about what I should do?”
I never thought Ohno could look so smug or self congratulatory. It was obvious that he thought I was clueless when it comes to relationship. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit that he was right. In our relationship it was always Meisa who would do the planning for dates and somehow it just seems to become clearer to me that I am the one at fault about our marriage going down the drain.
“How special a night do you want it to be?” Ohno asked me.
I crossed my arms across my chest, tilting my head to one side. How special do I want this to be? Well, maybe I want to start over… learn more about my wife, and see how much more could I do in order to fix the mess I made. If that was what I want to do then I definitely need to do something special.
“Very special,” I said, matching Ohno’s grin, “Special enough to make it feel as though we’re going to get married again.”
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What makes a person? Do we have a pre-programmed code in our DNA? Or do our lives, experiences and our memories change us? Ryo could never know for sure, but somehow, he believed that maybe it was a little bit of both. Someone once said ‘what we are does not change - who we are never stops changing’.
There were some things about him which can not be changed - his height, his face, his fingerprints. He might be shy and soft spoken and that perhaps can’t be changed either. On the other hand, there are a lot of things that shaped and changed him, continue to shape and change him. Things like his relation with his friends and his brothers for example.
He was 25 now; a quarter of a century old and sometimes Ryo felt he had done nothing with his life. At 25 Jun-ni had landed his first magazine spread. At 25 Kazu-ni had joined one of the country’s most prestigious law firms. At 25 what has Okada Ryo done?
Nothing much but serve drinks day after day.
However that didn’t mean he had resigned himself to only that. Ryo knew he might not be the brightest page in the book but Ryo knew that this was not the entire definition of his life. When he was younger he never really had much drive or motivation to make anything much out of himself but lately things have been different.
It wasn’t so much that Erika was going out with a much friendlier, much more successful man than him… it was something more along the lines of wanting his brother to quit worrying about him. Jun-ni especially. His elder brother might have thought that he didn’t notice but he did. He definitely noticed how his brother seems to worry a lot more than he normally did.
Today as he sat in the empty bar before opening time, Ryo found himself smoothing out the piece of paper in his hands. It was a magazine page that he had torn out a couple of days earlier, advertising a national poetry competition. He had given it much thought and now all he needed to do was work up the courage to do this.
All his life, the thing that he holds closest to his soul was his poetry. It was the only part of himself which he gave any thought to. Before this however, his poetry had always been too private, too personal and he had never give thought about writing for the purpose of sharing it with other people. But these days he felt as though writing for himself was not enough anymore.
“You always keep all your feeling bottled up inside you Ryo,” Jun-ni had said to him during their fishing trip that New Year holiday, “It would only do you good to let people know what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling sometimes. If not, you might just spend the rest of your life regretting what you did not say.”
Ryo found himself nodding as he thought about that. Jun-ni was right in that respect. One of the reasons Erika never noticed his feelings was because he kept them so tightly bottled up within himself - never even hinting that he might be in love with her. Throughout the years of their friendship she had not once noticed that the feelings he harboured was more than friendship.
If he wanted her to notice him, then he was the one who would need to do something about it. Sure, he might be late. Sure she might be in love with someone else but he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life regretting the fact that she never knew how much he loved her. Wanting to let her know how he feel was probably the biggest decision he had ever made since they became friends.
“You’re writing again,” Pi commented as he walked into the bar, “You ever going to let me take a peek at what you’re scribbling away at.”
“Sure,” Ryo replied before he could even stop to think.
“Really?”
This time Pi was surprise. He had asked Ryo about his writings before but his friend had absolutely refused to allow even the slightest peek.
“No, not really,” Ryo admitted, pushing his notebook across the table towards Yamapi, “So just take it before I change my mind.”
Pi smiled slightly, closing the notebook before pushing it back to Ryo, “You’re not comfortable with me being the first person reading this aren’t you?”
“What makes you think you’ll be the first person ever to read it?” Ryo responded only to have his friend grin back knowingly at him.
“Oh come on Ryo, you horde that notebook worst than a magpie hordes its junk pile. Anytime someone even walks behind you even you snap it shut so I doubt anyone has ever read it before.”
“Well I’m letting you read it now,” Ryo shrugged, “So if you want to read it just read it.”
Pi reached for the leather bound book again, opening it slowly before pausing halfway and closing it again.
“Why the sudden change of mind?”
“Not so much as trying to change my life,” Ryo sighed, running a hand through his hair, “Let’s just say I’m trying to make sure there’s less regrets in my life from now on.”
This time Pi placed his hand on the notebook and pushed it back to Ryo, “Then maybe the first person you really ought to let read this book is Erika-chan isn’t it?”
Pi’s words made Ryo froze, blinking in shock as his friend looked back at him with a knowing grin.
“How…” his words faltered as Yamapi laughed, shaking his head at the reaction Ryo gave him.
“How do I know that you’re all head over heels for her? I’m not blind Ryo. We’ve been hanging out together for how many years now? Four? Five? I see the way you look at her, worry about her, blush whenever she directs a comment at you. It took you a million years before you could even talk to her properly and you didn’t have that much problem talking to Maki and Mao. Plus, every time she leaves the bar, you have this dreamy look in your eyes as you watch her back. Not to mention the fact you’ve been spacing off and acting like a retard ever since she introduced Shige to us.”
What we are never changes, but who we are is always changing. We change by learning, by discovering and today, Ryo rediscovered that particular trait concerning his best friend. Yamapi really does know people. No wonder he was the gravitational orb around which their little group orbited. Ryo had not thought anyone knew about his feelings for Erika but to Pi, it had been an open book.
“So?” Yamapi was asking him, “What are you going to do about it?”
“Do about what?”
“About Erika of course you moron.”
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Kazu couldn’t remember the last time he felt this nervous. He didn’t even remember being this nervous during his first date with Meisa all those years ago but maybe because he knew that the problem here is that he had screwed up and he was going into this knowing that he had to make amends. Looking back down at the address slip that Ohno had given him Kazu smiled slightly, he’s going to need to take Ohno out for a treat later for this.
The night was still young and as he drove out of the office building, Kazu found himself looking at the nightlights of the city. Tokyo was a thriving metropolitan and the glow of neon lights pretty much out glows the night sky. Any star that could be seen from here would be a very brave star. Tonight though, Kazu wondered if any of those brave stars might be willing to come out and help him.
When they were younger, Jun-ni used to take him and Ryo out at night to go star gazing. There was a high grassy knoll about twenty minutes walk away from Aunt Ayako’s old home and the three brothers would ride their bicycles together to reach it. Sometimes Jun would pack them all a picnic box and they would munch on sandwiches as they sat in a semi circle together, looking up into the sky. In nights like that they would normally share their secret thoughts, their hopes and their fears.
Right now, Kazu’s hope was to mend the broken relationship between him and his wife. His fear…? His fear was that his brother was hiding something potentially life changing from the family. Regardless of how much they grow up, how far apart they might drift from one another, his brother was his anchor in this crazy world and if Jun-ni was to ever break apart, so would this family.
“Welcome to State Tower sir,” the valet greeted him as he stopped in front of the building where the Sirocco Restaurant and Sky Bar was located. Ohno had definitely pulled some magic strings to get him reservations here. The Sirocco was the world’s highest open air restaurant and the bar was known for its exquisite cocktails. Meisa had once sighed dreamily while they were driving past the building but Kazu had been too busy to give it much thought.
As he rode the elevator up to the roof, Kazu straightened his tie in the mirror that was mounted on the wall. He was so nervous his hands were clammy. It had been so long since he had actually gone out with his wife and he had not seen her nor talk to her since she moved out of the apartment. All in all this could work out, or this could turn out very ugly.
Meisa was standing with her back to him at the sky bar when he walked out of the huge dome structure at the top of the building onto the high porch which overlooked the entire city. She had on a bareback dress of deep burgundy red. The wind tugged at her freely flowing hair and the soft satin material moulded to her curves, making Kazu swallow hard. He had not forgotten how beautiful his wife is.
She turned then, smiling hesitantly when she saw him. Kazu smiled in return, his heart giving a little thump. Perhaps the time spent apart had melted some of the tension that had cropped up between them. In fact, standing here, looking at her, Kazu wondered when exactly the misunderstandings did begin, when exactly did it begin to get ugly?
And he remembered.
The long nights after work, only to come home in a bad mood and completely put off with Meisa’s chattering. He was too tired to listen to talk to her, too tired to do anything. When was the last time they made love even? What followed after was your typical weariness that would follow any couple which could not communicate.
She would never be straight with him about what was bothering because she felt that he no longer listened to her and she was not far from the truth with the accusations. So when Meisa began spending more nights out with her friends, including the handsome, single dean from her department - Sakurai Sho, Kazu had not been pleased at all.
Fierce shouting wars degenerated into stony silence until finally, Meisa had told him that maybe they needed time away from one another. Maybe they really needed to give each other space and rethink what was most important to them. She had moved out, renting an apartment close to her university and Kazu had crashed at his brother’s place, neither wanting to stay in their apartment which had suddenly become too big and too lonely.
“Hello,” she said as he walked up to her and Kazu felt himself smile slightly in return.
“Hello.”
“You look well.”
“So do you.”
The awkward greetings followed by the even more awkward silence hung heavy between them. A witness to the fact that love and affection can also be overshadowed by doubt and anger. The questions is, have that doubt and weariness out weight what ever emotions that they had between them?
“Would you care to be seated sir?” the waiter interrupted them and they turned to look at him almost in relief.
“Celebrating something sir?” the waiter asked Kazu, giving him what he definitely thought was a conspiratorial grin.
Kazu merely smiled in return, not saying anything. No point in saying anything was there?
The table they were led to overlooked the terrace and the nightline, the soft flicker of the candlelight causing the shadows reflected on the floor to ceiling windows to dance. Meisa’s eyes seem to glow under the reflection of the same light and Kazu felt his heart skip another beat. There was nothing more that he wanted right now than to hold her hand and simply sit there in silence.
“How has work been?” she asked him.
“Fine. You?”
“Fine.”
Why is it hard to rediscover the same comfort that you once shared? Once where conversation used to flow like the constant course of a river it now trickles out in a dismal equivalence of a melting icicle. Kazu wondered if he had been a bit too optimistic when setting this date. Perhaps the spite between them had not really left yet. What had prompted him to set the date was because Meisa had been trying to reach out to him…
No…
A sudden thought dawned on Kazu.
“Jun-ni had gone to see you hadn’t he?”
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*Author’s Note*
Sirocco is a real restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand and it’s a bloody awesome place. The last time I went to Thailand my good friend to me up there for welcome drinks and the night view was fantastic.
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How prepared are you to give answers to questions you do not want asked towards you? Is answer a question in return for the right to ask your own a fair trade?
Maybe.
But Jun did not think he was ready to make that kind of trade off. So he took the more cowardly way out - he trailed her instead. He hung around the hospital entrance, waiting for her to show up, guessing that she would probably show up at about the same time she had when they bumped into each other at the hospital before and he was right. She was dressed in a simple dark blue one piece and save for the slim white cane and unseeing eyes, she looked as beautiful as he remembered her.
“Don’t forget to take you medicine on time Miss Ayase,” the nurse he had seen last time told her, “And I’ll see you again at our next session.”
“Okay.”
Jun had no problem trailing her in the hospital for a while, but when she got into a waiting van outside the hospital, he found himself hurriedly jumping into a cab and pulling a request which he thought only happened in the movies.
“Follow that white van please.”
The streets of Tokyo was full and the going was slow but that did not stop Jun from peering apprehensively at the busy street in front, worried that they might lose the trail of the van that Haruka was in. He worried needlessly though because the journey made by the van was a short one and soon the vehicle pulled into the compound of a large beige coloured building that hosted a big sign in front of it with the wording ‘Jyuunan Community Centre’.
Jun paid the cab driver hurriedly and got out of the car, walking towards the gate where he stopped and peeked in. Haruka was just getting off the van, being helped down by a tall, thin man who kissed her affectionately on both cheeks and asked her, “How did your check up go?”
“It was fine,” she told him as they walked into the building, him guiding her by her arm, “The doctor said I’m making progress.”
Progress? Jun could not help but wonder what she was talking about. He was still standing by the gate when he suddenly felt two sharp tugs on the hem of his shirt. Looking down in surprise, Jun found a pair of earnest eyes gazing up at him, a little girl of about four or five was standing there, skinned knees, grubby hands and the most innocent sparkling face he had ever seen. She grinned at him showing him a gap where one tooth was missing in the front row.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” Jun replied, kneeling in front of the girl and placing a gentle hand on her head for one moment, “What’s your name?”
“Nana.”
“Hello Nana-chan,” he smiled.
“Are your mom and dad dead too? Are you an orphan like me too? Is that why you are here?”
The seemingly innocent question made Jun feel a sadness he had not felt in a long time. When was the last time he had been reminded of the parents whom he loved so dearly? He honestly could not remember. It did not seem to occur to people that even those whom the world would consider as ‘adults’ would still miss their parents much, would still ache at the term ‘orphan’.
“Are you?” she asked him again and Jun nodded, “That’s right, I’m an orphan too… but… that’s not why I’m here.”
“Is it because you’re already a big boy you don’t need to stay at a centre anymore?”
He laughed slightly, “What makes you say something like that?”
“Ken nii-san had to move out and he said it was because he was a big boy already and could live on his own.”
“I see,” Jun nodded.
“But Haruka nee-chan still stays with us,” Nana continued, “Tamaki sensei said it was because Haruka nee-chan is special.”
“Is she now?”
“Haruka nee-chan can’t see.”
“Oh. Do you know why?”
Nana shook her head, “I don’t know. But Tamaki sensei knows why. Tamaki sensei takes good care of Haruka nee-chan. Tamaki sensei takes good care of all of us.”
Tamaki sensei takes good care of all of them.
Jun’s heart sank lower at those words. Where had he failed then? Was that the reason why Haruka left him? Because she felt that he could not take care of her?
The irony of that thought made Jun chuckle bitterly. Well she wouldn’t be far from the truth on that. He was barely able to take care of himself and his brothers - how can he even think he could take care of her?
“Nii-san?” Nana asked him, looking curiously at his sad expression.
He shook his head, standing up now, turning to go but Nana toddled after him, “Nii-san. Aren’t you going to come in?”
“Not today,” he smiled at her, “Not today but maybe I’ll drop by again and pay you a visit okay?”
“Okay!”
Heading back home, Jun felt suddenly sombre, wishing he had not gone after Haruka the way he did. Now he knew where she lived, knew that something was wrong - there was no way he was going to be able to let go until he understood what the hell happen. And truth be told, he knew that he didn’t have time to be running around like this. There were too many other things he needed to handle.
“You’re back,” his aunt greeted him as he walked into the house, “How was your day?”
“Oh… it was fine.”
“I see.”
There was a heavy pause before his aunt sighed heavily, coming forward and wrapping her arms around him, her tears suddenly pouring as she sobbed as though her heart would break.
“Jun, oh Jun,” she cried, hanging on to him, “Why did you hide such a thing from me?”
“Wha… what are you talking about Aunt Ayako?” he asked her, catching her by her shoulders and looking at her tear stained face.
He knew before she even answered, “I saw your medical reports when I was cleaning up your room. I know you’re sick…”