FINGERS CROSSED, yuzuha usagi

CHAPTER NINE

"You know you'll get wrinkles if you worry too much, right?" Ikehara commented once she had sat next to him, feet dangling on the water and eyes fixed on Arisu and Usagi talking in the distance. After their last games and the hot spring discovery, they'd been quietly avoiding each other until then, only allowing a glance over the shoulder towards the other's direction to remind themselves they were there. "My mom said that all the time, I still don't know if it was true or not."

"I don't see wrinkles, but you do have a grey hair." She pointed out.

"Shut up." He gasped, unconsciously running his fingers through his hair from the back to the front, spiking it all upwards, "It's not funny, shut up!" He repeated as she started laughing.

Yasuko lamented it, the glint on his pupils and their elbows touching, as if nothing had changed. It caught herself off guard the way she had leaned forward, too alike how her mother used to accompany her own laugh, breathy and short; she had sometimes even surprised herself humming slow tunes like her. It made her curious what little parts of his mother Ikehara had engraved on the way he bit his lips, or doubted twice before he asked for anything.

"I miss the ocean." Yasuko said after a while.

"You never talk about that." Ikehara's whisper could've easily been dismissed if Yasuko didn't want to answer it. She could've fooled him into thinking she didn't hear him, knowing well enough how Ikehara never repeated his words when people didn't understand his mumbles, though they had been together for so long it felt right to give him the pleasure.

"About what?" Her heartbeats jumped as the memories stranded at the shore of her mind.

She didn't want to remember, she had done a good job burying the past under the sand and didn't want to go back. She wasn't quite ready. But, but, but, but.

"What happened in the ocean."

His eyes were soft when he turned to her, as if the mere act of looking at her would've had the same reaction as a wave taking away her breath. Perhaps it was that what made them so different from each other: Yasuko wasn't as afraid as he was about the past, she had never been, not even when water filled her lungs and all sounds drifted off like bubbles of air popping at the surface of the majestic blue over her head. She was just scared of feeling the guilt all over her body for a second time.

"I worked as a lifeguard at a beach close to my house." Yasuko swallowed the lump on her throat, "My mother didn't know, I couldn't tell her. I kept it to myself until she discovered it by herself."

Cold fingers wrapped around her hands, shutting down the sudden burning sensation that was about to rip apart her chest.

"Long story short, a kid fell off his surfboard, got pushed deeper by the waves. The thing was I had been kicked out of home at that time, so I barely had enough money to buy snacks, and I couldn't sleep well and that had been such a hot season it all felt as if planned for it to happen." She shook her head, troubled, "He hit a big wave and got pulled underwater, and I just knew..."

I knew I wouldn't make it.

Even then, it was hard to find a way of living in peace after that, of remembering that the root of all her problems was the same as her mother's. The ocean. A lover that talked so gently that couldn't be trusted, but still a lover at the end of the day.

"His father reached him before I did," Yasuko turned the other direction so the tears building on her eyes wouldn't be noticed in the dark, but her voice cracked and the facade was worth nothing else than letting Ikehara know love and regret had been tattooed on her insides since the start. "A lifeguard that got a leg cramp midway swimming is one thing to worry about, but one that couldn't tell what the hell she was doing was another," she scoffed, and then sank into the embarrassment warming up the back of her head, " It had been heatstroke, mostly affected too by lack of sleep and poor nutrition balance. But it was enough to get me fired and... And let me see my mom again."

Yasuko bit her lips with force to stop them from trembling. She didn't think calling her mother like that after so many years could split her heart in two, yet it did. It made her hope that, someday, she would want to do it again and she would hold her for ten seconds or ten minutes straight, and that would be all they'll do. There would be no words or shushing the crying; they would not pull away and not look at each other's faces; she wouldn't kiss her forehead, and Yasuko wouldn't ask for it either. All she would do would be wrap her up in her arms, just like Ikehara did, squeezing her into his chest where her hiccups were silenced and her hopes buried in his flesh.

She just wanted her mom back.

"We knew each other from the beginning," Ikehara said once her sobs quietened, "Hatter, Aguni and I."

"I thought you met when The Beach was created."

"Yeah, sort of." He laughed, "We spent almost every day together. Sometimes I met them around for a while since I worked part time as a boxer trainer and for a flower boutique as their delivery, you know, because their daughter wasn't allowed to, I think she had a sight problem." Ikehara waved his hand as if that wasn't the point, "What I'm trying to say is that I viewed them as part of my family, but then The Beach happened and everything I thought I knew about them just..."

Even unspoken, Ikehara's words did something to him at that moment. Yasuko couldn't tell if it hurt him more speaking or remembering.

"I guess I just didn't know what they were capable of doing to survive until then." He nodded, a way of agreeing with his own thoughts, "I came back the day Aguni locked you up, but he didn't let me see you, he kicked me out before any other militant saw me around. Back then, I didn't regret leaving, but I did regret I didn't take you with me."

"The Ten of Hearts was a massacre," Yasuko looked up at him, "I'm glad you weren't there."

"They beat you up and left you in a room to die, to burn alive when the fire started spreading." It was his turn to scoff, "I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for leading you there."

Maybe loyalty was really just terrifyingly present.

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wink wink to big fishes 🐠
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