Waterfalls

She'd smiled with her grandparents.
     They’d lived on a farm. She'd often helped her grandmother prepare meals for her grandfather. The sun would shine on the field of barley in the morning and evening and make them appear golden. The wind would blow through the fields and make the crops dance during the afternoon, and she would try and dance with them. 
     She would walk up to her grandfather as he came in from the fields and talk to him.
     "Grandpa, why do you go out into the field every day?"
     He would smile at her and take hold of her hand, then begin leading her back to their house while he talked with her and explained the intricacies of farming to her as if she were an adult who understood what he was talking about. She'd nod along with his words and laugh whenever he told a joke about the fields, and once they were close to the house he'd squeeze her hand a little bit tighter before they stepped inside.
     She'd smell rice once the door opened, and she'd wait patiently for her turn to eat after her grandparents took their portions. 
     Mukashi's voice cut through her memories.
     "That's enough. We need to get ready and go to the venue." 
     She blinked a few times as the smell of rice disappeared and the image of dancing barley faded.
     Her instructor bowed to Mukashi and left the gymnasium, and Mukashi gestured for her to follow his example.
     "Go on. You need to freshen up as much as you can. You have ten minutes, then we have fifteen minutes to reach the venue." He said as he stood near the large metal doors.
     "Yes, Mukashi." She said quietly as she started walking out of the gymnasium. She could feel his eyes on her as she did so, and she didn't know if that bothered her or not. She entered the transitory hallway and could see the elevator going down. She sighed and went into the women's locker rooms again. The sound of the gymnasium doors opening and closing resounded behind her as Mukashi stepped into the hallway, but she was already out of sight of the hallway.
     She opened her locker and retrieved her uniform, then hung up her leotard and entered the shower with practiced motions. The water felt familiar.
     Her mind returned to a waterfall. 
     There had been a waterfall near her grandfather's fields. 
     No matter what time of year it was, the waterfall would always smell like ice. She remembered how her grandmother would lead her by the hand to the waterfall and have her help with collecting water from it for their baths. The water was so cool and refreshing that sometimes she would put her hand into the waterfall and let it run between her fingers.
     Her grandmother would tell her not to do that because she'd risk getting a cold, and she would listen, but she would always ask if she could ever take a bath under the waterfall. Her grandmother responded the same way each time; she would say that it wasn't appropriate for her to do such things.
     As Miya put conditioner into her hair, she began to mistake the sound of the shower with the music of the waterfall. 
     Her grandmother had told her grandfather about her desire to bathe in the waterfall, and without telling her anything about it, her grandfather had begun to work. She never heard about it, and had certainly never expected anything like what he ended up doing, but when her grandmother took her out to collect more water one summer day, what she saw at the waterfall made her stop.
     Her grandfather had built a solid screen around it. It wasn't fancy, and it wasn't tall enough for anyone over four feet to use, but it was amazing. 
     Miya barely smiled as she realized that it had never been a true waterfall. It had only appeared that way to her younger self. She reached to turn the water off for her current shower, but as her hand reached the knob, she stopped.
     The water ran down her shoulders and back. It wet her hair and pooled beneath her feet. It made everything colder and more clear. She raised her head and felt the water stream onto her face and tickle her nose. 
     She wanted to go back.
     Drops of saltwater fell from her face onto the floor of the shower.
     Her hand slowly turned the water off, and the waterfall disappeared.
     She dried off as quickly as she could and changed into her uniform. She would normally have spent more time getting her hair just right, but that day wasn't a normal day. She walked out of the women's locker room with her hair still slightly damp and her uniform only tightened enough to stay on and not tightened enough to fit her usual image. 
     Mukashi noticed.
     He considered saying something. He looked at her again. It was clear that she wasn't experiencing anything positive at the moment. If he confronted her about her appearance, it would only serve to distress her. He pulled out his phone and texted the makeup experts at the venue to prepare themselves for a harder task than normal. Once he'd done that, he pressed the call button for the elevator door and stood in front of it with Miya next to him.
     The two of them stood side by side in front of the elevator door. 
     Her head was at the same level as his shoulder. She spoke up softly as the elevator slowly made its way towards them.
     "Mukashi... Can I lean against you?"
     He went over the requirements he'd set in his mind. 
     "Yes. Until we reach the first floor, you may lean against-"
     Her head landed against his shoulder with a gentle thud. He could feel the slight moisture in her hair begin to wet his suit. 
     He didn't care.
     The doors to the elevator opened, and the two of them slowly walked inside. Miya closed her eyes once she saw him push the button for the first floor and did her best to remember one of her conversations with her grandfather. 
     "Grandpa, why don't I live with Mom and Dad?" She'd asked.
    She heard the gentle thrumming of the elevator, but her mind replaced the noise with the sound of her grandfather humming as he walked her back from the barley fields. He'd told her, with a small sound of sadness, that her parents had left. 
     "Where did they go?" She'd asked him one day, after they had finished eating dinner and she was helping clean up.
     He hadn't answered the question when she'd asked it.
     He waited until she was sixteen.
     He waited until he was dying.
     The elevator stopped moving.
     "Miya, it's time for us to part." Said the man in the room with her.
     She removed her head from his shoulder.
     Mukashi walked out of the elevator and she followed after him. He led her through the familiar hallways of the first floor of Zygeist Media and towards the company's expansive garage. She kept up with him wordlessly until they reached the entrance of her tour bus. He opened the door for her and she stepped in first. He went in after her, and after he was on the bus another employee came in and sat in the driver's seat.
     Miya felt the bus start to move. 
     It jostled her slightly, then it didn't. The ride was smooth. Mukashi sat across from her on the tour bus, occasionally glancing at his watch. 
     "Mukashi, why are we doing this concert in Seoul?" She asked quietly. "Why aren't we touring or going somewhere else?" 
     He hadn't expected that question.
     "You told me that you didn't want to travel as much for your next album last year." He said calmly. "I talked with our superiors, and they agreed that it would be beneficial to have you stay in Seoul for an extended period of time, in order that you would serve as a sort of tourist attraction and make people aware of Zygeist Media's other local projects."
     She heard what he said; it sounded correct.
     For at least eight minutes, there were no sounds in the tour bus.
     "I want to go home." She said quietly.
     Mukashi hadn't expected her to say that.
     "Why do you want to return home?" He asked.
     She didn't answer; instead, she looked out the window of the tour bus as it approached the large dome-shaped venue. 
     She didn't really want to go back; not after he'd died and she'd turned tyrannical. 
     "Mukashi, what is love?" 
     He reached into the filing cabinets of his memory as fast as he could and retrieved what he thought was a satisfactory answer.
     "A feeling of affection towards someone."
     By that definition, Miya's grandmother had loved her.
     Then when her grandfather died, she stopped loving Miya.
     The bus reached the venue.
     "Mukashi... what is hate?"