Lavender | Wakatoshi Ushijima

30 | Radiant Regret

"Takahashi, please remain seated after class." Mrs. Ito voiced.

Kiyomi had packed her belongings and laid a farewell palm on Hana's shoulder with a thin smile. Hana nodded back. Kiyomi left the classroom along with the rest of her classmates to go to lunch, leaving Hana alone with Mrs. Ito.

Mrs. Ito began cleaning the chalk board with the dusty wooden eraser. They had been analyzing a new passage. Specifically a poetic passage, requiring lots of writing. All of which Hana wrote, also making sure to add little verbal details her teacher spoke of to the unenthusiastic students.

"How is the poem coming along?" She inquired.

"I have completed it." She replied. It's true. The wide range of emotions that pulsed through her every night made it frankly easier to describe and emphasize. Infact, she finished the majority of it within a week or two.

"In such short time?" Mrs. Ito was taken aback.

"Yes."

"That's marvelous." A thin upward curve appeared on her slightly wrinkled complexion.

"That is also why I asked you to stay. I have noticed a difference, Hana." She said as she laid the eraser flat on the metal ledge of the board before taking a seat at her desk, gesturing for her to come closer.

"What may that difference be, Mrs. Ito?" She asked.

"I have been reading your analyzation work in your notebook in a more thorough manner recently. I can't help but find a noticeable difference in the way of your words." She paused.

"It seems that there is a drastic amount of emotion changes within you that allows you to look at things differently. In contrast to your work in January, your words are noted with heavier weight and significant detail."

"I haven't noticed that." She said shakily, knowing exactly what her teacher was talking about.

"Which brings me to my point. I can't help but ask about this change in you and your behavior. Is everything okay? Are you okay, Takahashi?" She said, concerned.

"I-" Her throat stopped short. She had been keeping a straight face and was ready to answer confidently but it failed on her. It all failed on her. She expected her throat to answer the ordinary "Yes I'm fine." Instead, her throat throbbed and lumped, her eyes prickled, her hands shook, she knew what followed.

To Mrs. Ito, she had asked her best disciple a very serious question out of motherly concern. No child should go through such a vigorous change full of exhaustion and depression. This disciple, with all her solemnity, began to tear up. The brightest tears she had ever seen.

She could see that in her eyes, she has been through too much for an eighteen year old who works that hard. The way her entire face was slimming, the bones in her hands carving out, the change of tone. Mrs. Ito rarely noticed the change in writing, that was an excuse to ask about the physical changes in her well being.

Those tears were ones of affliction, pure pain. And it was all visible, the strong wall of masking titanium creased with a cry for help.

She cleared her throat before speaking with a raspy voice.

"Yes, I am okay." She mumbled slowly, blinking at a faster pace. Those blinks were meant to conceal her tears, bottling them again. Forcing them back in as they scream to stay and to plummet. She even itched the outer corner of her right eye, sneakily wiping a drop threatening to fall behind her hair.

Mrs. Ito could see right through her. She was in pure grief and she was falling apart faster than the blink of an eye, all because of a question. She was falling apart because that's what she clearly wanted to do, but she didn't allow herself to.