章 86: All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 82
Slow motion. Freeze frame. A drastic shift in the art style.
All of them are ways to signify a sudden, dramatic twist about to develop or about to hit.
Hard.
Unless it turns out to be nothing.
Unless I'm making a fool of myself.
Like a part of me desperately wants.
"Senpai?!" Iroha asks, bewildered, as I sharply turn on my heel and rush down the corridor we'd been walking through.
Away from Shizu's apartment.
And straight to where I just heard a lock click open.
I see the half-open door, the blade of light pouring out into the night through the narrow slit between the pale wood and the doorframe.
It's closing.
And I slam shoulder-first against it.
It takes [effort] not to barrel through. To stop at just holding the door open rather than crushing whoever's behind it.
My hands tremble.
"Senpai!" Iroha is running toward me, her peach coat flaring open behind her as her face twists into concern and worry.
I look away from her.
And, with far less effort than it should take me, I push back the door and the woman trying to close it against me.
She's pale, thin, old.
And she's holding a polaroid camera with a shaking hand.
Suddenly, all that I went through before comes right back up. All the sweet hatred, the comforting, dark warmth of pure rage.
The will to hurt.
As much as I've been hurt.
As much as [Shizu] has been hurt.
"Explain," I demand in a voice I don't recognize.
The woman looks up at me, her head level with the lower part of my chest, her mouth open, her eyes panicked.
"I told you to [explain,"] I say, barely restraining myself from shouting.
"Senpai! You're scaring her!" Iroha says, her hand on my left shoulder, pulling me back.
But not hard enough.
"She took the photos. She [sent] the photos. She's hurt Shizu," I explain without turning back. Without looking at Iroha to see how she's looking at me.
How much of what we just went through really holds up to the test of seeing this part of me.
Nobody says anything.
And so I go through the door.
"You—you can't come in here! This is—you're trespassing! I'll call the police!" the woman hastily walking away from me says, even as she keeps facing me.
Even as she keeps fearing me.
It's… It's a new kind of fear. One I've never seen before.
I've seen girls turn away from me in disgust, disguised or otherwise. I've seen people nervous at interacting with the weird loner. I've seen those that know me realize that I'm about to do something that will hurt somebody.
Likely me.
But this… This I haven't seen.
A short woman wearing a blue, unadorned kimono. Cotton. Thick. The color is faded at the cuffs of her sleeves, and the cloth seems threadbare at the elbows. Old, but not uncared for.
Her hair is pulled up into a tight bun. She has more gray hair than black, but still has enough of the original color for me to imagine how she would've looked twenty years ago.
Her right hand dangles nerveless, barely strong enough to keep holding her camera.
And the horror in her eyes is only accented by the deep wrinkles around them.
"Do you know what the time response for a police call is? Whatever is going to happen will happen before they get here," I say, not even knowing if that's true.
Iroha remains at my back.
Silent.
"I—what…" the woman tries to say.
And I step further in.
The layout of the apartment seems similar enough to Shizu's, but the decoration couldn't be any more different. The entranceway is made of wood, but the woman is stepping on tatami mats that should've been changed at least one season ago.
The kitchenette is right in front of me.
Like Shizu's in her apartment.
I don't clench my hands into tight fists.
I don't grind my teeth.
No. I [try] to look calm as I let my rage wash over me. As I let it crawl up my back and neck, deepening my breathing even as it speeds it up.
And I walk forward.
I [don't] take off my shoes.
And I make it a point to stand right on the tatami, just past the wooden flooring, looking down at her scared, trembling, pleading brown eyes.
"You have hurt the woman I—you took some pictures. Pictures you know nothing about. And you've sent those pictures to her workplace. You have gotten her [fired]," I say.
"She—it's not my fault! She shouldn't have done such inappropriate—"
I cut her off.
I cut her off so I won't hit her.
"You sent those pictures to insinuate that something wrong was happening. To tell the director of my school that Shizuka Hiratsuka was taking advantage of her students."
"You spend the night—"
"You let my girlfriend walk to what you thought would be her rape!"
And [now] I scream[.] Now I walk forward and have her rush away from me until her back hits the wall behind her.
Now I loom right over her, looking down at a woman who has to crane her neck back to keep looking at my eyes.
At eyes that burn because I haven't blinked in so long.
"Get… Get away from me…" she begs.
I lean down.
I bend until I look straight down into brown, muddled eyes.
"I don't think I will," I say.
And then I take away her camera before she drops it.
She lets out a strangled sob, and I know I should feel guilty. That I shouldn't enjoy this. That it's wrong to bully somebody this weak and pathetic.
I do. I do feel all those things.
It's just that they don't matter.
"You allowed a minor to walk into what you thought to be sexual entrapment at best. You documented it. You didn't alert anyone. You let whatever happened happen, and only when it was done did you think to do anything at all. [Explain]."
She doesn't.
She's breathing rapidly. Panicked.
So I punch the wall by her side hard enough to hurt my left hand.
She jumps up, her pale face trembling.
Her whole body shivering.
"I told you to explain," I repeat, forcefully calm even as my fist throbs.
"I don't think she can," Iroha says, her hand gently pressing down on a shoulder she's no longer trying to pull back.
And then she stands right by my side.
She doesn't look at me. She doesn't shoot me a glare full of reproach or a frightened look that no longer recognizes the man she claims to love.
No.
Iroha is donning one of her masks. One of those things I always enjoy shattering.
One I haven't seen before.
She's… prim. Proper. She stands straight, her lips pursed into the faintest hint of distaste, her chin tilted up just enough to look down at the woman cowering against the beige wall in front of me.
She has taken her shoes off.
Because of course she has.
"I apologize for the intrusion," she says with a clipped, cold tone that has no apology whatsoever in it. "I'm sure you'll appreciate that, under the circumstances, emotions can run high."
The woman doesn't answer.
So Iroha pushes.
"My fiancé is right, you know?" she adds, not even bothering to look at how I'll react to my new legal status. "What you did has had terrible consequences for a woman I dearly appreciate, and you most certainly weren't thinking about my wellbeing when you sent those pictures. Not with the way you acted. I'd ask you to retract your actions, but it seems to me that all the harm you could do has already been done, and no good will ever come out of any further action on your behalf."
"I—I didn't mean—"
"Oh, but you [did]. You saw a juicy piece of scandal and, as a concerned citizen, couldn't help but do your [civic duty]. I have met your type, you know? My mother deals with plenty of people doing their civic duty or, a the very least, pretending to. Though most of them usually at least would make an effort to look as if they cared for a minor about to be sexually assaulted. They are that self-aware."
The woman's mouth is open.
She doesn't gasp.
And I don't think she's breathing.
"But, you see," Iroha continues, her warm hand a constant presence, a leash, "standing around and just taking pictures? Documenting what you thought was a crime in progress without alerting the police or even attempting to make sure nothing actually harmful was happening? That [is] a crime. That could get you in a lot of trouble, Miss. So, if you ever think about getting my fiancé here in any more trouble than he's liable to get himself into, remember that I know where you live. I know who you are. And I can and will [make your life Hell."]
The mask doesn't slip.
No, it sharpens.
And then, dismissing the old woman's existence entirely, Iroha does pull me back, grabs my throbbing hand, and marches me down straight back to the apartment's entrance.
I… I don't know how to react, what to say, what to do—
And then I see.
A small wooden shelf by the right side of the door. There's a green bowl on it with a keyring.
And a picture frame beside it.
A picture frame made of bamboo turned down, the photo hidden from view.
But the shelf's varnish is scratched around it, pale lines on reddish wood surrounding the worn rectangle. The picture has been put up and down plenty of times by someone who wanted to look at it and then regretted doing so.
By someone who very much wants something from the hidden picture but also doesn't want to want it. By someone who can't bring herself to throw it away.
It would usually be hidden somewhere inside the apartment if the woman had frequent visitors who would dare ask about the picture. But she doesn't. Nobody comes into this well-cared yet neglected home.
And so the picture remains by the entrance, a constant reminder each and every time she goes in and out, but never intruding into her solitude.
The solitude of a nearly empty shoe rack with just a woman's shoes on it. Of a house well-cared yet neglected. Of a thousand little things that point out at someone struggling to keep up appearances when there's nobody to see her doing so.
I stop, Iroha tugging at my hand like she often did at my sleeve before she turns around and follows my gaze.
Her mask is still in place, so she doesn't react.
Not even when I put the camera down on red, varnished wood, and pick up a worn bamboo frame.
Not even when a young woman who looks like the old one trembling behind me smiles nervously at the camera, a child held in her arms, dangling from his armpits, caught in the middle of enthusiastically waving at whoever took the picture.
But not at the woman it was meant for.
I am not Haruno.
I can't pick this apart and dissect it until I arrive at the unavoidable, lone, only truth.
No, what I can do is much worse.
I turn around and show her the picture. The picture she's seen a thousand times. The picture she hasn't acted on.
The young woman is in the countryside, and it's incongruous that the old one would remain in the city while her daughter and grandchild are no longer there.
There was a schism. A rift in their relationship.
The daughter tried to mend it. To at least put up appearances or repay a perceived debt.
We are, after all, the children of our parents. They give birth to us, care for us, watch us grow up.
It's a link that it's hard to cut. To ignore entirely.
Something has to happen.
"Let that go," she says.
Not crying out. Not afraid.
Just…
I can easily imagine Mom saying this very same line about another picture very much like it.
She would use another tone, though.
Mom is a lot of things, but she's never been a coward.
"She left. Because you pushed her away," I start. And continue when she flinches. "That's it, isn't it? Your child did not behave like she should have. She did not follow the rules you taught her. Rebelled."
"You don't know what you're talking about," the woman whose name I don't know says.
I clench Iroha's hand.
She returns it.
It's the only thing I need to keep talking.
"I do. It's so [easy]. So trivial to see where it all went wrong. She married—no. [No], she did [not] marry. She had a child on her own, and you couldn't stand the scandal of it. The ungrateful child you had raised doing something so [wrong]."
"Stop," she says.
And [there's] the begging.
"She had to go away. Leave Chiba. Not because she couldn't live here, but because she couldn't live here[ with you]. With the constant reminder of the mother who closed the door on her daughter when she needed her the most. She left, and you only realized she left for good when the letters stopped coming. When a single picture of your grandchild was the last vestige you could hold onto, the last trace of the child you once held in your arms. The daughter that had loved you."
Her eyelids tremble. Tears start falling down her cheeks.
It's not enough.
"And then you met your new neighbor. A scatterbrained woman with no filter who kept helping you even when you did not ask her for it. Who would always pick up your groceries and carry them to your door for you, chatting away about anything and everything, because she has no sense of boundaries."
She flinches away, going back one of the steps she had taken away from the wall I just pushed her into.
Better.
"Shizuka Hiratsuka. And she [also] was a scandalous young woman. She brought men into her apartment, and you wondered if that was how it had been for your daughter. If it had been a brief fling like those that ended in her becoming a single woman."
Iroha's fingers squeeze mine.
Reassuring.
Warm.
There.
And so, for a moment, I don't think about the woman crying in front of me.
"You decided that, yes, that it was just like this. And you reveled in being right. In hearing how unhappy she was with how her life was going when she helped you with your groceries. When she asked about your day and then ranted about hers. You enjoyed her heartbreak because it told you that you had been right. That you had been right, and your daughter wrong."
My throat hurts.
I don't know why. It's not like I'm screaming.
"And then she was happy. She was no longer the woman you had seen, the living proof that you did everything that you should have, everything that was [proper], even as your daughter suffered. Shizuka Hiratsuka was a happy woman."
I close my eyes, almost savoring what I'm about to say.
"But she was happy in a way you thought wrong. And that's why you sent those pictures."
Now I open them.
I look at her, stare at her.
She's angry, her cheeks flushed, her lips trembling.
That won't do. Anger is a way to cover up all the ugly, hurtful feelings that hide under it.
I should know.
So I squeeze back Iroha's fingers and slowly let go of her, the small hand brushing past mine in a lingering touch that only breaks when I finally take another step forward.
Or back.
A step toward the angry woman.
I hold up the picture frame.
And she's afraid.
"I could break this," I say, and her eyes widen in horror. "I could return even a small measure of the pain you've inflicted on a woman who just wanted to help you and everyone she's ever met."
I, instead, take another step.
And undo the latch behind the frame.
The bamboo panel with a hinged support slides open, and I carefully take away the picture inside.
Behind it, there's a scrawled, poorly written, 'Happy birthday, Gran! I hope to meet you soon!'
It almost makes me throw up.
So the next step is more forceful.
And I grab her hand.
Her weak, trembling, small, wrinkled hand.
Thin skin, protruding bones.
Age spots.
Mom's hand isn't like this. Not now. Maybe not ever.
I hope it never is.
Because I can see myself, ten years from now, grabbing such a hand and carefully sliding such a picture inside of it before gently closing her thumb and forefinger to pinch its faded corner.
"I don't know how old he is. I don't know how many times he's asked why he doesn't have a grandmother. I just know that I want you to remember this on each of your birthdays. And on each and every day that you deny him [anything] for something he never had a say in."
Her fingers don't open, and she raises her other hand to hold the picture.
To keep it safe from me.
"I don't even want you to suffer," I finally say. "I just want you [gone]."
And then I turn around, going back to an Iroha who's still wearing her mask and waiting for me.
Before we leave, I carefully place the empty picture frame on the red shelf.
Face up.
==================
This work is a repost of my second oldest fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/all-right-fine-ill-take-you-oregairu.15676/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 98 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).
Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Brain-chan's intrusions into Hachiman's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance
Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and help me keep writing snarky, maladjusted teenagers and their cake buffets, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!
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