Seijin: A Coming of Age Love Story [girl x girl]

Chapter 4

Spring holiday had begun and I found myself alone in the big city for the first time. Naho had gone back to Akita Prefecture to see her parents, and Satsuki had mentioned that his family was taking a trip to South Korea to do some traveling while the rates were in their favor. Dad was back in Hiroshima and Mom had her part-time job at the publishing company to keep her busy. The first day of my vacation, I had tried to spend the day with my grandparents. But I quickly got bored and restless, and not even television could hold my attention.
    I don't know why I took the train all the way to school. The campus was close to dead during vacation, with the exception of some athletes and the graduate students working hard on their research. My first spring break as a twenty-year-old was spent in the library, poring over books that I had read time and time again and books that I had never even heard of.
    It didn't matter when I got to school, or how late I stayed. Sometimes I would give up after rereading the same line eighteen times and just go home, or I would go to Shimokitazawa and browse the used clothing stores. But no matter what, I never missed lunch. I never missed the chance to see her.
    She worked the lunch shift, I knew that much. She took weekends off, but during the week she was always there, her beautiful hair tied up into the same neat ponytail. I would go into the store to buy lunch, or sometimes I would pretend to flip through a fashion magazine while I watched her from the corner of my eye. I wondered if it was because my friends were all out of town that I was able to indulge my curiosity and interest to such an extent. If they had caught me acting like that, they would have told me I was being creepy and desperate. I didn't know why I wanted to see that girl so badly, but I was fascinated. It was like finding a new favorite book; I wanted to know more and immerse myself in that world. Her world. Whatever world that was.
    This went on for three weeks. I stopped coming on weekends -- it was too much work to explain to my mother where I was going -- but every weekday, I was there. Valentine's Day had come and gone without any excitement and I watched as she took down the heart streamers. She worked hard, I noticed, without complaint or goofing off. Actually, she rarely smiled, and greeted customers with a perfunctory "welcome". I had never seen anyone take a convenience store job so seriously, and I was fascinated by the utmost care she used when exchanging the Valentine's Day decorations for Girl's Day banners.
    I never spoke unnecessarily. When she asked if I wanted my bento heated up, I would say yes and stare at my money sitting in the dish on the counter. I never made eye contact if I could help it. For some reason, I was terrified of her acknowledging me. What if she had pieced together what I was doing and wanted nothing to do with a pervert like me? I didn't have any explicitly dirty thoughts and honestly I just wanted to be her friend, but peering out from behind a magazine seemed like the actions of a pervert to me.
    And then one day, it changed.
    Something came over me, but I don't know what. It was a sunny day in early March, one of the first days of the season that really felt like spring. The train had been delayed because of an accident on the Yamanote Line, and I had run all the way to the convenience store so that I wouldn't miss her shift. For a moment, I thought I had missed her, but then I saw her emerge from the back room and I let out a sigh of relief.
    As it was a quiet day, she was the only one there. I entered the shop and began my normal loop around the store by getting a drink. She stood in the middle of the snack aisle, stacking boxes of chocolate on the shelves. "Welcome," she called out to no one. Normally I would have gone somewhere else, but this time, I subtly slipped behind her to get to the chips, pretending that I was trying to decide between normal or cheese flavored Calbee. Not bothered at all by me, she kept working silently.
    "Hello." The word slipped out before I knew what I was doing. I immediately froze and let it echo in my ears. Hello. Hello! What an idiot. I was the biggest idiot. If only I could become a bag of seaweed potato chips and never feel another thing again.
    "You come here a lot," a husky voice replied. Glancing over my scrunched shoulders, I saw nothing but her back, her arms still moving methodically.
    "...I'm sorry?"
    "You buy your lunch here like everyday. You're a student, right? It's funny, you keep coming even though it's break."
    I was stunned. She knew I was a student? And had noticed me? "Are you..."
    "A student? No way, but I know what spring break looks like. This job gets way easier without all you university students rushing the place during lunchtime."
    "Oh... I'm... sorry..." The apology came out like a reflex.
    She laughed. It was a breathy laugh, surprisingly high and girlish for someone with such a rough voice. My heart skipped a beat and I was possessed.
    "I'm Juri," I blurted out. Finally, her movements stopped and I panicked. "I m-mean, my name. My name's... Matsuzaka Juri and..."
    She turned, her ponytail whipping behind her, and placed her hands on the shelf behind her. Her expression was serious, but her eyes had a gleam to them. Was it amusement? Was she laughing at me? I could feel my face turn red as she analyzed me. "I... I mean... I..."
    "Have you eaten yet?" she asked, tilting her head to the side and consuming me with those dark eyes of hers.
    "Eh?"
    "My shift ends soon and I'm starving. If you haven't eaten, I was going to suggest we eat lunch together."
    I didn't understand. "Uh, no, I..."
    She kicked the crate of chocolates out of her way and began to make her way to the register. "You look like you want to talk about something. Come on, grab your lunch and let's eat together."
    "I.... okay." Obediently, I picked out a tempura bento and took it over to the counter. She scanned my items gracefully and I tugged at my fingers nervously. I desperately tried to think of something to say but nothing was coming to mind.
    As she held up my bag for me to take, I noticed that a small smile curved the edges of her mouth. "My name's Fujibayashi, by the way," she pointed to the name tag on her apron, her surname printed in two neat characters. Wisteria Woods. Even her name was elegant and classic. "But," her voice cut through my thoughts, "you can call me Kurumi."
   
    A light breeze had picked up when I stepped outside and it rustled my dress around my knees. A salaryman stood in front of the trash cans and smoked a cigarette, the breeze blowing the smoke right into my eyes, so I moved to the other side of the door. My food hanging from one hand, I rummaged through my purse in search of a pocket mirror. My heart beat erratically in my chest; I couldn't believe what I was doing. I had spoken to the nameless girl on a complete whim and was now about to eat lunch with her. Honestly, I didn't understand her thought process. If I had been her, I would have replied politely and tried to end the interaction as fast as I could. I definitely wouldn't have invited a stranger who had approached me at my workplace to spend more time together. Mortification finally set in as I realized what insane behavior I had just demonstrated. Part of me prayed that I would never see her again, yet there I was, fretting over my appearance in my compact mirror. Setting my bag down on the ground, I hastily untied my hair, ran my fingers through it to even out some of the frizz, and retied half of it up, held in place with a beige bow clip. My mascara was fine, but my lip gloss had come off long ago and I rubbed my lips in frustration. I wished that I could wave a magic wand and fix everything that was wrong with me: the split ends, my big ears, my long, flat nose that made my face look like a camel's. Even my clothes looked shoddy, laughably girlish, like I was trying too hard. Everything about me, from my hairstyle to my outfit, were unremarkable and plain. Maybe that's why she had felt so friendly towards me. I resembled countless other girls in Tokyo.
    I had just glanced down at my watch when the convenience store doors opened with an automatic whirr and Kurumi materialized. I felt even more conventional at the sight of her in casual clothes; she wore a high-waisted black skirt, the same dark black as her hair, and a bright red top that hung loosely off her thin frame. Paired with platform heels, she towered over me and the salaryman still smoking by the recycling bin and looked like she should be strolling the streets of New York City instead of a Tokyo suburb.
    "Hey," she smiled. "You actually waited for me."
    "O-of course," I managed to get out, "I promised."
    Her smile widened so I could see all of her teeth and she became radiant.
    We took our warm bentos and sat on a low wall by the Arakawa streetcar tracks. The streetcars rolled by with groans and whines and the sound of metal scraping against concrete.
    "They look like pillbugs, don't they?" Kurumi observed through her chopsticks. "Crawling slow and low along the ground like that."
    I nodded and returned my attention to my rice. My mind had gone completely blank and I couldn't think of a single appropriate thing to say. I could feel Kurumi's eyes on me and all I could do was hope I wasn't blushing too much.
    With a soft clack, she set down her wooden chopsticks. "Juri-chan, right? It's no fun if you just sit there, you know."
    "I-I'm sorry..." Terror seized my heart and I was so embarrassed I could cry.
    "You don't need to apologize," she said frankly. "I just thought you had something you wanted to say. You looked like you wanted to say something. Go ahead, you can ask me anything."
    I swallowed even though my throat was dry. I had to think of something to say or I was going to regret it. I had yet to figure out what I wanted to accomplished by reaching out to her, but I knew that I would never forgive myself if I ruined that opportunity before I had my answer.
    "How old are you?" I blurted out. The moment the words left my lips, I felt like all of the air in my body had gone with them. And honestly, she looked almost as stunned as I was. I braced myself for the inevitable, her getting annoyed and leaving.
    Instead, she laughed. She laughed and laughed like she had never heard anything funnier. Her hands gripped her sides and tears sprung to the corners of her eyes and I was left to burn with embarrassment. But my question had done the trick: the ice was broken.
    "You're a weird kid, Juri-chan," she gasped for air and wiped her tears away with the balls of her palms. "But I did say you could ask me anything! I'm twenty-two. Is that all?"
    "Do you live near Waseda?"
    "Nah, I live in Shibuya."
    "Why do you work here, then?"
    "A friend of mine told me they were hiring, helped me get an interview."
    "Do you like it?"
    "It's alright."
    Kurumi set her empty bento tray to the side and slid down the wall so she was leaning against it. Her profile was so pretty, with her slim chin and nose that curved down gracefully.
    "Fujibaya--no, I mean, Kurumi-san," I began again, tracing her profile with my eyes. "Why did you ask me to eat with you?"
    She was silent for a moment and it looked like she was biting the inside of her bottom lip thoughtfully. "I dunno, a whim?"
    I stared at her, at a complete loss for words.
    "Or maybe I should say, I didn't see any reason not to?"
    "That's not much better..."
    "Don't make that face!" she laughed. "Look, most people pretend I don't exist. I'm lucky if they even say 'thank you' when I give them their change. I've never had someone come in and introduce themselves, and if someone had told me it'd happen to me, I'd have thought it'd be some drunk old dude, not a cute girl with a ribbon in her hair."
    Automatically, my hand reached up to touch the bow at the back of my head.
    "And..." she cocked her head to the side and smiled at something I could neither see or hear. "I was interested in what you'd have to say after all this time."
    "'After all this...?'" I repeated.
    "You didn't think I hadn't noticed, did you? You coming in everyday and looking my way. If you did, you're not as sneaky as you think you are."
    I blushed.
    "It's okay, I thought it was kind of cute. I've never had a fan before."
    My posture grew straight and rigid. "I'm not a fan!" I protested in a loud voice, then quickly grew quiet again. "I just... wanted to be your friend. Maybe."
    "Friend, huh..." Kurumi thought about this. "Well, that's good too. I don't really get it, but you seem like a good kid. Okay. Let's be friends, Juri-chan."
The way she said my name echoed in my ears like the ringing of a beautiful old clock, and I tucked it away into my heart forever.