Assessment Four, Pt. 2

Akira waited outside.

He ignored the vibration in his pocket. He let it buzz until the battery finally died.

By now, it was well into 11 PM.

Akira sat on the concrete floor right next to Hayami’s door.

Mosquitoes were everywhere. Akira swatted at his neck, then his ankle. He already had three welts on his hand.

Her family was nowhere to be seen. The movers had come and gone hours ago.

He was willing to bet that he looked pathetic.

Click.

The sound of the deadbolt sliding back was deafening.

Akira scrambled to sit up straighter and wiped the exhaustion from his face with his hand.

The door creaked open a few inches.

Hayami stood there. She was wearing her pajamas now—an old, oversized t-shirt. Her eyes were puffy.

It had a devastating effect on his heart.

“Hey,” he started.

“Akira?”

“Yeah. I’m still here.”

“The whole time? You must feel gross.”

“Hot, sweaty, and bitten by all manner of mosquitoes.”

He stepped closer, bringing the scent of musk into her personal space and right up her nostrils.

“You know, most girls would have to pay extra to see me this disheveled. Some guys too.”

Hayami stared. Understandably, she didn't look very happy. But she also looked resigned.

“Come in,” she whispered.

Akira blinked, stunned. He had expected to spend the night in the hallway.

“Really?” he asked.

Hayami frowned. She started to push the door closed again.

“On second thought…”

“Okay! Okay!” Akira scrambled to his feet, jamming his foot in the door before she could change her mind.“I’m coming in.”

\\

“Smells… awful! Did a rat die in here or something?”

“You don’t need to tell me how awful I am at cooking. But I’ve wasted so much time already and I needed to make a start.”

“For someone who was surviving on a diet of two onigiri for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I’d say this is not that bad.”

“That gets really expensive, really quickly, too…” Hayami admitted.

She finally turned to face him.

“So, tell me… Did you watch me undress?”

Akira waved his hands. “No! God, no! I turned it off as quickly as I could!”

“Okay. Good. Then I have officially downgraded a kick to the balls to a kick to the shin.”

“Wait, wha—”

THWACK.

“Yow!!”

She waited for him to stop hopping around before her expression softened into something more hurt.

“Why couldn’t you just trust me?” she asked quietly. “Did you really think I was going to sell you out to Kenji?”

“It’s not that I didn’t trust you. It’s just…”

“What?”

“...I wanted to protect you.”

“That would require you not to make as drastic a decision as when you brought in all that money. What was the real reason?”

“Well… because ever since I found out that you sat alone in this apartment, going through this alone, when I could have done something about it… I couldn’t bear it. But I swear my original intention was just that—innocent!”

Hayami stormed to the door and pointed a finger out. The old Hayami would never do that. “Get out.”

“I don’t understand what it is that I did wrong!” Akira cried.

“You’re lying like you always do! I know you, Akira, you never do something for others purely for their own sake. You wanted something else.”

Akira stood there staring at Hayami for a long moment.

“...I was jealous.”

…

Hayami blinked at the frankness of his admission. “Of my Uncle, of all people?”

“I was jealous that he had power over you,” Akira said. “Whenever I switched on the cameras, I saw him tell you when to sleep, what to eat, when you could leave.”

He clenched his fist on the counter.

“And I hated it.”

He looked at her with an intensity she hadn’t seen in weeks.

“If anyone was going to hold you, if anyone was going to be the reason you had a roof over your head, I wanted it to be me.”

“You are such… a goddamn… PIG!”

With the might of years of training behind him, he silenced her. Physically. “Your neighbors will hear, Hayami…”

Akira felt a wetness. Was that blood?

He took his hand out. Wow. It was her tongue getting into the crevices between his fingers, leaving a trail of saliva behind.

When he proceeded to shove and mash his hand onto her lips again, she kicked her legs.

THWACK!

“Yow!” he cried, pulling back.

But the victory was short-lived. That kick had taken the last of her energy, and she felt the adrenaline drain away.

Her knees buckled.

“Hayami?”

Akira moved faster than thought and caught her in his arms.

“Are you alright? You need to lie down.”

“I have to finish,” she mumbled, one shaking finger pointing at the utensils. “The ohagi… for Grandma. I just need to stir it.”

“You nearly hit your head on the countertop, for god’s sake.”

“Then, could you… help me?”

Akira stared at her for a long moment. “...It’d be an honor.”

Hayami didn't push him away. Instead, she leaned back against him and huffed grumpily. “I’m s-still mad at you.”

“Rightfully so.”

They got to the kitchen table, equipment haphazardly strewn about. Unfortunately, the red bean paste Hayami referred to looked more a congealed blob than a delicious filling.

Hayami took a small taste from the wooden spoon once it was all done.

Her face crinkled instantly, and spat it out.

“Ptu! Ptu!”

She groaned.

“Aw, damn it… Way too much sugar…”

She slumped against the counter, defeated. She looked at Akira, who was inspecting a bag of glutinous rice.

“Hey, don’t look at me, of all people, for culinary advice,” Akira said, holding his hands up in surrender.

“It’s supposed to be simple,” Hayami murmured, staring at the ruined paste. “Grandma used to make these by the dozen.”

“We could only wish we were our grandparents.”

Hayami picked up the spoon again, staring at the dark gloss of the beans.

“My g-grandma… she used to take me to get boba tea. Every Tuesday.” Hayami’s voice went quiet, lost in the memory. “She always ordered Taro milk tea with extra sugar. I thought she loved it.”

Akira watched her closely. He set the rice down.

“She didn’t?”

“It didn’t make sense back then,” she replied. “At home, she hated sweets. She drank bitter green tea. She never ate candy.”

Hayami’s hand trembled, the spoon clattering against the bowl.

“It w-wasn’t until she passed away t-that I realized…” Tears prickled in her eyes. “T-That she didn’t drink it because she liked it. She drank it to fit in with me.”

She wiped her eyes with the back of her flour-covered hand, leaving a white streak across her cheek.

“She was so lonely. Mom and Dad didn’t want anything to do with her, so she was on her own. Imagine getting up every day in an empty house, doing your chores, staring at the wall, then going to bed. Every single day. H-Her only chance for connection is a granddaughter who could only provide shallow conversations. Every exchange boiled down to ‘studying hard.’ She tried so hard.”

Hayami looked at the messy counter. The failed food. The burnt rice.

“I wish I had visited more,” she choked out. “I wish I h-had the courage to just sit with her. And now…” her voice broke. “Now I can’t even get the offering right!”

She grabbed a handful of the sticky rice, trying to mold it, but it fell apart in her shaking hands.

“I live alone, I have a stove, but I’m useless! How am I supposed to honor her with this?”

She dropped the rice. She covered her face and began sobbing, her small shoulders shaking with the weight of four years of guilt.

Akira reached out and picked up the misshapen, overly sweet rice ball she had dropped.

“Hayami,” he said. “Look at this.”

She looked up.

“Do you know what you’ve given this rice ball that most people haven’t?”

“What?”

“Time.”

He stepped closer, wiping the flour off her cheek with his thumb.

“You are spending the most finite resource in your life, your time, and you are choosing to burn it to celebrate her memory. She wouldn’t care that it is overly sweet.”

He looked at the lumpy rice ball in his hand as if it were a jewel.

“She would be ecstatic that you worked this hard,” Akira whispered.

He took a bite of the terrible, sugary rice ball. Somehow, he didn’t even recoil.

He held it up to the light, his hand suddenly shaking.

There was a sweet silence as they finished up in the kitchen. They didn’t really communicate as they moved; they just fell into a silent rhythm. She washed and he dried.

Hayami glanced at the microwave clock once they were done. 11:45 PM.

She looked at him.

“Too late for anyone to pick you up, huh?” she asked.

“My employees leave work at 5 p.m. on the dot,” Akira said, stifling a yawn. “I threaten to fire them if they don’t clock off. Everyone deserves a life outside work. Except Watari. I sent him home early so that he wouldn’t intervene.”

“The government should take notes from you.”

“That would require hell freezing over.”

“Hah.”

She wrinkled her nose, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Ugh, seriously though, you stink. Go take a shower.”

She pointed down the hall.

“I got… a spare futon in the closet. It would be my Grandma’s, actually. You should be honored. And take a damn shower!”

Akira bowed dramatically, though he looked ready to collapse.

“I am unworthy,” he deadpanned. “But I am also feeling kinda gross, so I accept.”

\\

The apartment was dark. The only light came from the streetlamps filtering through the thin curtains.

Akira lay on the futon in the living room.

He stared up at the ceiling, listening to the soft sounds of Hayami moving around in her room next door.

He reflected on the extent to which he had grown as a person. Upon realizing that the Akira of a month ago would have slapped him silly for even thinking of sleeping on a futon, he’d like to think he had.

“Grandma Sato,” he whispered into the darkness. “I wish you were here to give me advice.”

He closed his eyes, imagining the girl sleeping a few feet away.

“I don’t think I can go through with Hayami’s plan.”

ASSESSMENT FOUR: LOVING YOURSELF

CLEARED!