"Takahashi, please stay behind after class," Mrs. Ito voices.
Kiyomi had packed her belongings and laid a farewell palm on Hana's shoulder with a thin smile. Hana nods back. Kiyomi leaves the classroom along with the rest of her classmates to go to lunch, leaving Hana alone with Mrs. Ito.
Mrs. Ito begins cleaning the board with the eraser. They've been analyzing a new passage. Specifically, a poetic passage which requires lots of writing. All of which Hana wrote, also making sure to add little verbal details her teacher spoke of to the unenthusiastic students.
"How is the poem coming along?" she inquires.
"I've finished it," Hana replies. It's true. The wide range of emotions that pulsed through her every night made it easier to describe. In fact, she finished the majority of it within a week or two.
"In such short time?" Mrs. Ito is taken aback.
"Yes."
"That's marvelous." A thin upward curve appears on her slightly wrinkled complexion.
"That is also why I asked you to stay. I have noticed a difference, Hana," she says as she lays the eraser flat on the metal ledge of the board before taking a seat at her desk, gesturing for her to come closer.
"What difference is there, Mrs. Ito?" she asks.
"I've been reading your analyzation work in your notebook in a more thorough manner recently. I can't help but find a noticeable difference in the way of your words." She pauses.
"It seems that there is a drastic amount of emotional change that allow you to look at things differently. In contrast to your work in January, your words are noted with heavier weight and significant detail."
"I haven't noticed that," she says shakily, knowing exactly what her teacher is talking about.
"This brings me to my point. I can't help but ask about this change. Is everything okay? Are you okay, Takahashi?" she says, deeply concerned.
"I," her throat stops short. She's keeping a straight face and is ready to answer confidently, but it fails on her. The façade fails on her. She expects her throat to answer ordinarily and brush it off. Instead, her throat throbs and lumps, her eyes prickle, her hands shake, she knows what follows.
Mrs. Ito is asking her best student a serious question out of motherly concern. No child should go through such a vigorous change full of exhaustion and depression. This disciple, with all her solemnity, begins to tear up. The brightest tears she's ever seen.
She can see, in her eyes, that she's been through too much for an eighteen year old who works so hard. The way her entire face is slimming, the bones in her hands carved out, the change of her tone. Mrs. Ito rarely notices the change in writing, it's an excuse to ask about the physical changes in her well being. She's worried for Hana's mental and physical health.
Those tears are ones of affliction, pure pain. And it's all visible, the strong wall of titanium creases with a cry for help. She clears her throat before speaking with a raspy voice.
"Yes, I'm okay," she mumbles slowly, blinking at a faster pace. Those blinks are meant to conceal her tears, bottling them in again. Forcing them back in, as they scream to stay and to plummet. She even itches the outer corner of her right eye, sneakily wiping a drop threatening to fall.
Mrs. Ito can see right through her, right through her favorite girl. She's in pure grief and she's falling apart faster than the blink of an eye. All because of a question. She's falling apart because that's what she clearly wants to do, but she doesn't allow herself to. She never will.
YOU ARE READING
Lavender | Wakatoshi Ushijima
Fanfiction'Everything seems to wash away with the tide and it's just two naïve kids staring at each other again, making promises to a future that isn't promised. A world they haven't seen, a life they haven't lived. A journey that's uncertain except for these...
