By Kelfin
This is fan fiction. Neither Fushigi Yuugi nor any of its characters belongs to me.
now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)
“Hmm? What?” He was trying to sleep. He'd been up all night trying to sort through her things—she'd given up and gone to bed early, but the packing had to be done, or they wouldn't have been able to leave in the morning. You've been to college before; you know what I need, she'd said. I'll drive, and you can sleep in the car.
“The sunglasses,” she said impatiently. “Nobody can see what you're thinking. You look like an idiot.”
He glanced at the side mirror. Was she right? No... He didn't look like an idiot; he looked aloof and unflappable. But there was no sense in saying anything to that effect; she'd take offense if he contradicted her. He grunted to avoid having to agree or disagree verbally and buried his face in his pillow.
“Here.”
She was nudging him with something. Irritated, he opened his eyes again and took the two ¥1000 banknotes she offered. “What's this for?”
“You paid for my book last week, remember?”
He did remember. Actually, she owed him ¥2433, but he didn't mind. With anybody else, he'd never let ¥433 go by, but he loved her, and she was so easily upset, and it was better not to say anything about it. Besides, he'd spend many times that amount on her any time she asked.
He grunted again and stuffed the notes into his pocket.
“Oh, don't do that!” she cried. “They'll get all wrinkled. And they might fall out, and you might lose them. Fold them up like a normal person.”
He really didn't care how money was folded, but if she did, well... it was best to yield to her opinion. He sat up slowly and put them away carefully in his billfold. Scrunching up his pillow, he closed his eyes again and tried to sleep.
It was not very many minutes before she spoke again.
“Tetsuya... Hello? Tetsuya!”
“What?” It was difficult to conceal his annoyance.
“You're ignoring me.”
“What?”
“You're ignoring me!” Her voice was pouty and singsongy. She thinks she's being cute, he realized. “You should stay awake and talk to me!”
“Okay,” he said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Oh, Tetsuya! How like a man. I don't want to talk about anything; I just think that you should be social. You never want to just talk.” She frowned. “God, Tetsuya, you're so selfish sometimes.”
“We talk,” he said.
“Never mind. That's not the point. The point is that you're selfish.”
He considered this for a moment. This was a frequent complaint of hers, and he had never understood how it might be justified. In his opinion, he was not an excessively selfish person. Of course, he was occasionally thoughtless, and he could be a little miserly, but, in general, he went out of his way to be unselfish. He nearly always gave in when they disagreed, and he did everything she asked, and even tried to anticipate her desires.
“I don't think that's true,” he said carefully, after a long pause. He tried to make it sound like an opinion. She couldn't disagree with an opinion, could she?
She huffed. “Of course you don't think it's true. You only think good things about yourself.”
“Well,” he grinned. Maybe he could keep it light. “Somebody has to be self-confident and optimistic around here.”
“You are so conceited sometimes,” she said in a tone that could have been either an insensitive joke or a downright insult. He decided that she probably didn't realize how cruel it sounded. She had been so badly hurt—sometimes he wanted to kill Nakago—and she was broken. She didn't work right. He would give her as much time as she needed to heal.
So he didn't answer, and for a time they were silent.
Silences were always uncomfortable between them—at least they were for him; he'd never asked her how she felt about them. It seemed as though she was waiting for him to say something and getting steadily angrier when he didn't.
“The scenery is pretty,” he offered.
“Not really. I don't understand why people don't take better care of their lawns.”
He tried to remember a time when she had said something nice about someone or something. He couldn't think of any. He wasn't sure if he should act morose, to match her mood, or if that would make her more upset. Maybe she wanted him to be unhappy? Or maybe he was supposed to be cheerful? He never knew. It was best to act normally, he decided.
“There's a fountain. I didn't know that was there.”
“Of course not. You're not very observant. It's been there for several weeks now.”
“It's very pretty.”
“Pretty? You can be so girly sometimes.”
“Look—that building is really interesting.”
“It looks modern.”
“Don't you like modern things?”
“No,” she said shortly. “I've told you that before. See? You don't listen to me.”
He took a fortifying breath. “Look... Just because I don't remember everything you say doesn't mean that I don't pay attention.”
She gave him a disgusted look. “I remember what you say. If I can do it, I don't see why you can't.” She snarled viciously at the dashboard. “It's because you're selfish. You never think of anybody but yourself. If you cared about me, you would remember what I tell you.”
His eyes were starting to droop closed. Digging around in his backpack, he found some Koara no M?chi. He pulled them out and started stuffing cookies into his mouth.
“God, Tetsuya, you're always eating. You're going to get really obese.”
“I haven't slept. I need energy.”
“Well, those are really high in saturated fat.”
“Are they?” he asked vaguely.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” He didn't care.
He liked Koara no M?chi. They were shaped like little koala bears and filled with chocolate. Visually adorable, texturally crunchy, and sweet-tasting—what was there not to like? He tossed another handful into his mouth.
She rolled her eyes and huffed angrily. “You're not listening to me!” she cried, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.
He sat up. “What's the matter?” he asked.
She didn't answer.
“I can... stop eating the cookies?” he guessed. Was that what she wanted?
She sighed in annoyance and refused to look at him.
“Look, Yui... Yui-chan...” Not sure what to say, he put a hand on her arm.
She flung it off. “God! Don't touch me when I'm driving! We'll crash the car! Do you really want that on your conscience?!”
He turned and looked out the window. She was impossible to deal with when she was like this. He didn't know what he should do about it. She probably wanted him to fix things, but he knew from experience that everything he did would just make her more angry. She would just be infuriated as long as she chose to be, and then she would allow him to apologize. Until then, he would sit and suffer her silence. Why did she do this? Was it to punish him? She knew she was making him uncomfortable...
Sometimes, he almost felt like getting angry back.
He wouldn't, though—he couldn't be angry at her. Being angry at her wouldn't accomplish anything—it would only make her worse. And besides... She wasn't doing this to punish him. It was just that, when she got angry, she tended to say cruel things, so it was better when she didn't talk at all. She had admitted this herself. She was being silent now to spare his feelings.
It wasn't really making him feel any better, but the important thing was that she was trying to do the right thing.
She's young, he thought. I was a brat, too, when I was her age. He shouldn't judge her too harshly; she might grow up in a couple of years. All he had to do was wait it out.
He hated Nakago for making her this way. He had at times detailed to her the many ways in which he would like to torture Nakago for what he had done, partly because he enjoyed feeling protective, but mostly because it pleased her to think of him fighting her battles for her.
She really enjoyed the idea of revenge. It was sickening.
He felt more and more upset until he had to admit that he was angry. He wanted to scream at her, Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I don't care what you think; you're not qualified to have an opinion on my life, but he wouldn't. That would be unkind. He hated himself for being resentful like this, but he was a little bit proud of himself for being able to suppress it.
He allowed himself the bitter pleasure of thwarting her plans. Refusing to sit there in misery, he took advantage of the silence and snuggled back into his pillow, closing his eyes.
The little sleep he got was overshadowed by an undefined guilt... He had run away from her angry silence... She would be displeased...
He awoke a couple of hours later to the sound of her singing happily along with the radio. Opening one eye, he gazed at her through the brown shade of his sunglasses and saw that she looked much less angry than she had before he went to sleep.
He felt somewhat less tired, so he sat up.
“Hey!” She smiled at him, reaching out her right hand to run it through his hair.
He grinned back at her. He felt that he ought to be cautious, but it was hard to resist the infectious joy of her smile. She does love me, he thought. She's sincere. She just doesn't know how cruel her words sound sometimes.
“Oooh!” she said excitedly. “Listen to this song! It's really good.”
He listened. “I like that,” he said.
They talked about it for a while. She had brought a CD player in the car, and she had him dig around in the back seat until he found it. He also found a box full of jewel cases, and she told him to play the Amuro Namie CD, which he did. It wasn't that bad, and he told her so.
She beamed. “See?”
When it was over, he asked her if she wanted to listen to Misora Hibari. “She's really cool,” he explained. “And really influential, too.”
She wrinkled her nose. “She's dead and boring. And you know I hate enka—it's so sappy.”
He sighed, but she looked so cute in her distaste that he couldn't be more than mildly disappointed.
The conversation went on, and they laughed and talked.
She pulled over at a gasoline stand.
“Do we need gas?” he wondered.
“We've traveled exactly half way,” she answered. “It's your turn to drive. But you'd better fill it up with gas, anyway, since we're here.”
She got out of the car and watched while he pumped gas.
“You can go inside,” he said.
“No,” she answered. She never went anywhere by herself. He thought that probably she was still afraid of being alone, remembering what had happened to her. It was kind of cute, how much she depended on him. It was kind of stifling, too.
As he screwed the lid back on the gas tank, he wondered how they were going to pay. She had said yesterday that she would pay for half of the gas, but she did not like to pay for things... It was likely that if he went in and paid, she may not pay him back at all. On the other hand, if he said anything about it, she might get angry again.
He decided that it was better to just pay for it himself, but she beat him to it. She swiped her credit card. The total was ¥3690.
“You owe me ¥1845,” she announced. “And don't try to get out of it; I know how stingy you are.”
He returned to her the two ¥1000 notes.
“I don't have change,” she said quickly.
“Don't worry about it,” he answered.
She stood by the car door and waited for him to open it for her.
He had to adjust the driver's seat, because he was considerably taller than she was. She watched him. He felt uncomfortable, not sure why adjusting the driver's seat would require such scrutiny. When he finished, she turned and buckled her seatbelt with deliberate care.
“Be careful,” she warned, as he turned out of the parking lot. “Tetsuya! I said be careful. You can't take corners that sharply. What would happen if we got into a crash?”
He gritted his teeth and said nothing.
“Did you know that you snore?” she asked abruptly.
“No.”
“You do. It's very annoying.”
“Oh,” he said. He couldn't help what he did while he was sleeping. She was waiting for an apology, though. He finally decided to say, “I'm sorry you were bothered.”
She did not look pleased at the phrasing of the sentence, but said nothing in response, possibly because she happened to send a glance at the speedometer. “Tetsuya! Slow down!” she said, evidently in great distress.
“What?” he asked. He looked at the speedometer. “What are you talking about?”
“You're speeding,” she said.
“I'm not speeding. I'm only driving 10 km over the speed limit; everybody drives that fast.”
“The faster you go, the more gas you use,” she said with over-exaggerated patience, as if she were instructing a small child. “Gasoline is expensive.”
He kept his eyes forward, knowing that if he looked at her, something would happen. He might start laughing at her, he might get angry and scream at her... either one would be bad, so he glued his eyes to the road and said nothing.
“You haven't slowed down,” she pointed out.
He still said nothing. I'm not a bad person, he reminded himself. All guys hate their girlfriends.
“You drive like your father,” she said. “You've gotten a lot from your father—his blunt way of addressing people, his stinginess, his self-centered nature... I take after my mother: we're both very practical.” She said all of this with light disinterest, as though it meant nothing at all.
He burned inside. He really did not like it when she insulted his family. It was bad enough that she neglected to treat his parents respectfully in person—although of course they were too polite to complain—but talking badly about them in front of him was... Well, how did she expect him to react?
But then, he had seen the way she treated her own mother, and it was not very respectful. How could he expect her to behave properly with his parents, if she had never been taught otherwise? It was a difference of family culture, he expected.
“Miaka's wearing an evening gown to the reception,” she said abruptly.
“Okay,” he ventured uncertainly, not sure where this was going.
“That means I have to have one,” she said.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because otherwise Miaka will look better than I do,” she shrugged.
He looked at her sideways. “I think you're pretty no matter what you wear,” he said.
“You have to say that. You're my boyfriend.”
“No, actually, it's true.”
“No, it's not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Well, then you're stupid, because I'm ugly.”
“No, you're not.”
“Yes, I am! Look at my nose!”
He looked. “It looks fine to me.”
She rolled her eyes. “It's all misshapen.”
“Okay...”
“Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I'm really angry at Miaka right now.”
He was confused. “Why?”
She looked at him like he was an idiot. “I just told you! You really don't listen, do you? I'm angry with her because she's wearing an evening gown, and now I have to buy one, and I don't have the money!”
“I'll buy it for you,” he said automatically.
“That's not the point, either. I don't want to have to go shopping. I hate shopping. Nothing ever fits right. It's not fair of Miaka to make me have to do this.”
He decided not to point out that she was being completely unreasonable. Not answering seemed equally dangerous, though, so he decided that the safest thing would be a noncommittal grunt.
“I have to pee,” she said suddenly.
He looked at her in amazement. “We just stopped! Why didn't you go then?”
“I didn't have to pee then,” she said. “Obviously.”
“Fine,” he said, trying not to let his voice sound snappish.
He pulled over at the next gasoline stand. While he waited for her, he looked through the candy in the convenience store. It wouldn't be right to use the toilet without buying something. When she came out, he was still searching.
“What are you doing?” she asked impatiently.
“I'm trying to find Pocky,” he said. Pocky was cheap.
“Why?” she asked. “You can't possibly still be hungry.”
“I'm not,” he said, looking over another shelf and finally locating it.
“Then why are you buying it?” she asked sharply as he paid for it and they left. “We're in a hurry. And you shouldn't eat when you're not hungry, anyway. This is why you keep gaining weight.”
“I didn't buy it because I wanted it,” he said. There was no use explaining, and he wished she would quit asking him about it.
They got back into the car and he pulled back into traffic. “You have to go slower, Tetsuya,” she said. “Remember, this car is full of my stuff, and I don't want any of it to knock against anything and break.”
“Right,” he said, nodding with a decisive focus that he certainly did not feel.
“I'm going to read out loud to you,” she announced, fishing a book out of her bag. He glanced at the cover. It was written in English. She began reading, and it was very boring—some dull romance about some girl in some time and place he knew nothing about, so he turned his thoughts elsewhere.
He wished she would die. He really did. If she would only die, all of this would be over. He briefly considered that he could also die, but then, he realized, she would be left alone, and she would be very hurt and lost without him and probably unable to function. No, he decided, it would be much better for her to be the one who died.
“Tetsuya, you're not listening,” she said.
“Yes, I am,” he replied.
“No, you're not,” she insisted. “What was the last thing I just said?”
Shit, he thought. I have no idea what she just said. But he couldn't admit that he wasn't listening, because that would prove that he was indeed as selfish as she had said. How could he get out of this?
“I'm not sure,” he said quickly. “I'm... I'm not as good at English as you are. I don't understand what's going on.”
Better to seem uneducated than inattentive, he thought.
“You are so stupid,” she laughed.
He hated her in that moment. But he would never, never tell her so—never, never abandon her. He loved her, and he would love her until the day he killed her with his own two hands.
Taking his sunglasses off carefully, he glanced at her. The pale yellow hair, the ice-cold eyes, the proud chin, the blue earring... For a moment, he thought she looked like someone else.
He slid his sunglasses back on and pushed them firmly onto his nose with one finger. After all, what could he know about her pain?
He had never been the victim of an abusive relationship.