“Rara?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Come on. I need to talk to you. Look at me.”
“I don’t wanna talk.”
“If there’s a good reason for this attitude of yours, please do fill me in.”
She should have known just by looking. Knowing my mom, she’d have learned my exam schedule by heart.
I mouthed to her that I was “studying,” and spread the printouts—all of which I was supposed to be memorizing, by the way—out in front of me like a fan. Not wanting to bother explaining further, I shoved my earphones in.
“I won’t interrupt you for long.”
I was genuinely shocked when she pulled my earphones out like it was nothing—like it was her right to do so. Didn’t I tell her that I didn’t want to talk to her? Can we say communication issues? I gawked at her.
Mom sat down next to me like she was totally innocent. Her weight made the couch push up against my butt. “Come on, look at me.” Taking off her ridiculously thick-rimmed glasses with her left hand, she brought her face closer to mine. “Do you notice anything?”
She rarely took off those glasses, so the top of her nose was dented from their weight. There was no ignoring the stubbly peach fuzz underneath her nose either. I didn’t want to point those things out though.
“Look at me,” she said again. “Not just at my face, but my entire body. What do you think?”
I was trying to look away, but she forced her face in front of mine. Still holding her glasses, she pushed her bangs out of her eyes and stared at me with laser-like focus. I looked down at my printouts, ignoring her, but then she suddenly snatched them out of my hands.
“Are these from a textbook? No… Your teacher made them?”
“Mom…”
“Oh, there’s a quiz paper in here. Kannami Rara, seventeen points… Seventeen?” Cocking her head at it, Mom put her glasses back on. Obviously my grade wasn’t gonna change just because she could see it with 20/20 vision now.
“Seventeen…out of thirty,” I said.
“Seventeen out of thirty.”
“Why d’ya think I’m studying right now?” I reached out to grab my papers back, but Mom dodged by flinging her arms dramatically into the air.
“Okay, but first, you need to tell me if you’ve noticed anything.”
“Give those back!”
“Well, Rara? Notice anything? Or not?”
“C’mon, give them back!”
“Answer my question.”
“Oh my god!” I lost it. I’d thought it was weird that Mom was around the house on a weekend, and I was starting to wish she wasn’t. “You’re so annoying! Just shut up! Get outta here! I don’t wanna talk to you!”
“Oh.”
It always amazed me how Mom seemed totally immune to my anger. She was keeping her cool, just like always. She didn’t even pretend to be shocked. Her breathing stayed steady as her perfectly manicured eyebrows went up. Not that it’s super important, but when I was in my second year of elementary school, some bully dumped an entire bottle of ink over my head. My teacher called Mom to the school, and when she saw me looking like an oversized, thoroughly used calligraphy brush, she said: “Oh.” The tone she used and the look on her face back then were the exact same as they were now.
“I’m trying to think about your outburst from two different perspectives,” Mom said.
I bet it was exactly the same when she saw me fresh out of her womb, piping hot and covered with blood: “Oh.”
“The first perspective is the objective one. You told me to ‘shut up.’ Usually, people are only told to do that when they’re being loud. Objectively speaking, you were the one being loud, not me. The second, subjective perspective is that it’s inappropriate to speak to your mother like that. I have a clear vision of your future. The memory of your lack of respect will prove a strong source of regret for you.”
Can you blame me for wanting to scream like a madwoman? Maybe my mom wasn’t even human, like she could have come from another planet or something. It was a miracle that I’d been able to stand her for thirteen entire years.
“I don’t care about your dumb-jective perspectives! I just need you to shut up right now, just like I needed you to shut up like five minutes ago!”
“I’m using an indoor voice. If you don’t trust my judgment on that, then maybe you should interview every person in this room with whom I’ve spoken to in recent years and come up with an index of your own.”
“This is why I want you to shut up! Why d’ya have to pick apart everything I say? You’re so annoying! I feel like my head’s gonna explode just talking to you! Everything about you gets on my nerves!”
“It’s perfectly natural to get hormonal at your age.”
“Huh?! You always think everything I do is because of hormones, hormones, hormones, hormones! It’s like you can’t think of any other possible reason! My feelings are way more complicated than a seven-letter word!”
“It’s eight letters when it’s plural.”
“I. Don’t. Care! How can I get it through your thick skull how annoying you are?! I’m seriously getting ticked off! I was actually trying to study for once, and you had to come barging in! There’s no way I’m gonna get back on track now! It’s gonna be your fault if my grades suck!”
“You really ought to study in your room. This is the living room. It’s for the family to gather and make conversation.”
“My room’s probably the most old-fashioned bedroom in the entire country!”
“Can you show me your basis for making such a claim?”
“No!”
“I am your mother, so I will be more than happy to accept any amendments or withdrawals you’d like to make to your statement.”
“Yeah, right! Anyway, how am I s’posed to study in my room when it doesn’t even have AC?”
“If you wish to devote yourself to your studies in an air-conditioned space, then you should go to the library. Though I can’t say I approve of our taxes being consumed by an extravagance like air conditioning…”
I was practically screaming. “I’d have to get up at the crack of dawn to get a seat in the self-study space on a Sunday! You talk like you’re the authority on everything, but you don’t know jack!”
“Though I may have given birth to you, I am unable to manage your cortisol secretion for you.”
“The heck?! I dunno what you’re babbling on about, but it sounds gross! Look, I’m done! I’m gonna go to the oldest bedroom in all of Japan and stab myself all over with the splinters from my tatami! I’m even gonna put them in my eyes! Is that what you want?!”
Completely drained of patience, I leaped to my feet. I managed to snatch my printouts out of Mom’s hands and started to head for the door.
“Stop right there, Rara. I haven’t finished talking to you. In fact, I haven’t even started on what I need to tell you.”
“I don’t have time! You’re the one who’s always biting my head off about not studying enough! Yeesh!”
“It’s about a phone.”
I was a step away from the hallway when her words hit me like a bullet, stopping me dead in my tracks. Did she just say a phone? As in the thing that I’d been dying to have for ages, begging for constantly, only for Mom to tell me every time that, for some reason, I had to wait till I was eighteen?
“You said you wanted one, didn’t you, Rara?”
There was no time to waste. I rewound my steps, walking backward till I was standing in front of her again, and turned to look at her.