“You’re right, Kozue. That looks good on you. Cutesy dresses like that actually suit you really well,” Midori admitted. “Different strokes for different folks.”
Midori was sharp like that. She knew when to back down, even if she didn’t necessarily agree. Kozue thought Midori was just humoring her, but it nonetheless made her feel instantly better.
She’d gotten complacent living in an all-female household and being complimented on her food and clothing. The days kept on passing her by. Kozue’s family lived in bare-bones municipal housing built right after the Second World War. The city had sold these houses for a bargain around the time Kozue’s parents got married, so everyone on the block was fortunate enough to have their own property. Plus, being in the suburbs of Osaka was extremely convenient. The houses weren’t very big, but they’d all been rebuilt in the ’50s and ’60s and eventually added additional floors. Kozue’s house had been remodeled three times, and after her father passed away, they’d decided to add a second floor with two eight-square-meter rooms, one for each sister.
Kozue was comfortable with her tiny personal space because she believed that one day, she would get married and move out. The dream alone was enough to fulfill her year after year. There was a sliding door that divided her room and Midori’s, and sometimes, they opened it during hot summers and slept side by side. Kozue enjoyed this peaceful, cozy lifestyle, although perhaps Midori didn’t share the sentiment.
“Sis, can you not open my drawers whenever you feel like it?”
Midori had been smiling when she said that, but her tone was firm. Kozue shared a dresser with her mother on the first floor, and Midori had brought a dresser with her when she moved back from Tokyo and placed it against the wall. Kozue had opened one of the drawers.
“Sorry. I just wanted to borrow a pad.”
Kozue had seen Midori put menstrual pads in that drawer before, so she’d gone ahead and opened it.
“There’s plenty of pads downstairs in the bathroom,” Midori grumbled.
Kozue immediately shrank back whenever her sister got mad at her, but she could never retort with something like What’s your problem?! Instead, she always felt bad, like she’d messed up somehow. She knew very well that her sister was more mature than her, so she blamed herself entirely. She figured that if Midori was that angry, then she must have done something very wrong. And yet…
She didn’t have get that angry. All I did was open a stupid drawer.
Kozue didn’t keep a journal, but she had a feeling that Midori kept one of her own, not that she would ever sneak a peek. But one day, she secretly opened Midori’s dresser drawer when she wasn’t home. Folded inside were handkerchiefs and scarves, with a box of sanitary napkins in the back, and under that was a thin box she had never seen before. Kozue inspected it closely and pulled out the slim, rubber item inside.
Her inherent curiosity got the better of her, and she stared at the object. Is this what I think it is? She couldn’t help but feel it was much smaller and thinner than she’d imagined.
Kozue figured that maybe girls nowadays saw or even owned one of these starting in middle school.
Oh man. This is wild.
She immediately put the item away in a panic.
Kozue had read about these in magazines before, but this was her first time actually seeing one in person—one owned by someone she was close to, no less. She was getting worked up, so she went back to her room and started karate chopping the air.
“Hiiiyah!” she shouted, then added, “Phew, that thartled me…” and grabbed her hand mirror, wondering what kind of face she was making.
When Kozue was a child, she couldn’t pronounce startled correctly. Her father thought it was so cute and used to copy her. Soon, everyone in the family started saying “that thartled me” when they were in a good mood. Kozue hadn’t even thought about that old habit until it slipped off her tongue.
Kozue wondered if Midori ever got the chance to use this thing, and if she did, that made her way more of an adult than Kozue herself. While Kozue had read a lot on the subject, she had absolutely no experience to go along with it, so the whole thing was still somewhat shrouded in mystery. She could certainly imagine the heated passion involved, although she didn’t understand it enough to put it into words.
Kozue felt as if she were covered in a thick fog as she idly dreamed her life away. Perhaps karate chopping the air and shouting “Hiiiyah!” was her unconscious way of trying to get rid of that fog.
When Midori told her she was getting married, Kozue immediately remembered what she’d found in her sister’s drawer.
Guess people who get married are just on a different level, Kozue thought, as if that didn’t apply to her.
She knew nothing about Midori’s marriage—or even marriage in general, really—until it actually happened.
Midori introduced her fiancé to her mother first, at her mother’s workplace. That was very typical of Midori. Apparently, her fiancé was a year younger than her.
“He was so tall. Seemed to be in good shape, too. Looked a bit like a lumberjack, but still really sweet.” Their mother had apparently taken an interest in him.
“Hmm. A lumberjack, huh?” Kozue replied.
Then she started fantasizing about her mother setting her up with that young man. That was why Kozue had been so restless at the office. But it was all a mere fantasy, of course. Kozue felt as if her imagination was constantly slapping her in the face.
Her paternal aunt in Kyoto brought some wedding money over as a gift to congratulate Midori.
“Hey, Kozue. You must be jealous, huh? But your time will come. I’m sure you’ll find the perfect man for you, so don’t get jealous. Just be happy for your little sister.”
She was trying to cheer Kozue up, but what she said was still enough to annoy even someone as good-natured as Kozue.
“I never said I was jealous. How rude,” she replied.
This was what made her blood boil. It wasn’t hatred or envy. She felt all sorts of emotions, naturally: inferiority, despair, resentment, melancholy, gloom, and loneliness. But it wasn’t all negative feelings; she was also giddy and curious. It was like how a beautifully colored marble shone even brighter while mixed with dark-colored marbles. These emotions were like beautiful poisons bubbling in a flask. Kozue was anxious but enjoying the sensation. And then her aunt’s strange attempt at sympathy made Kozue feel like someone had lit a Bunsen burner, boiling the poisons inside her until BOOM! they exploded.
Kozue went to her room on the second floor.
“You moron!” she hissed while karate chopping the air. “Hiiiyah!”
Even her neighbors wouldn’t give her a break. Many of them had lived in the area for decades.
“Your sister’s getting married, I hear? I bet you’ll miss her when she moves out.”
All the marriage talk started to take over the conversation at home as well: who had introduced the couple, how Midori was going to make her own wedding dress because she didn’t want or like the rental dresses, how they were going to live in an apartment in southern Osaka, and when the two families were going to meet. Midori already had everything perfectly planned out. Their mother was indecisive (just like Kozue), so her only response was, “Oh, that’s nice.”
“We both paid for the apartment’s deposit with our savings, so we’re gonna be living paycheck to paycheck for a while. That’s why I’ll be taking some of the old dishes and spoons with me,” said Midori. “Doesn’t matter how many there are or if they don’t all match. It’s not like I can really cook anything special anyway. My partner’s a way better cook. He always cooks when we go to the mountains.”
“Oh, does he?”
An absurd scene popped into Kozue’s head of a giant lumberjack cooking in the kitchen, and her heart started racing as if he were cooking for her.