When she went to work, she would tell anyone she could, “My sister is getting married,” as if she herself had achieved a feat, but when someone told her, “You better hurry up and get married, too. You need to keep up with your sister,” she found herself annoyed, even though this was a consequence of her own actions. On the whole, however, Kozue was just half-annoyed; the other half was excited. She spent her days in bliss as if she were the one who was getting married. While her neighbors’, coworkers’, and aunt’s responses bothered her, there was something curious her mother said that really got her attention.
“Now that I think about it, I remember seeing a lot of mail from that Kawagoe guy.”
“Like letters? For Midori?”
“Yeah, there were times he was sending around three a week, even.”
“Seriously? I had no idea.”
In Kozue’s household, her mother was always the first to get home from work, so she would always be the first to check the mail. She would then place mail for her daughters in each of their rooms on the second floor, which was why Kozue had no idea her sister was getting so many letters.
She felt genuine envy when she first heard about the letters.
What’s so important that he needed to write three letters a week to say?
When she thought about it even more, Kozue became confused and disgusted. Midori started looking more and more like an intimidating grown-up woman, receiving all these correspondences from a man without saying a peep about it. Meanwhile, Midori continued to compliment Kozue.
“This food you cooked is seriously delicious.”
Then she started trying on the wedding dress she’d made. “It’s finished. What do you think?”
The simple white satin dress looked perfect on Midori’s tall, slim figure. It was a piece meant for mature, adult women, but Kozue still felt incredibly envious. Perhaps for a dreamer like her, actually seeing something in real life awakened her jealous impulses, unlike when that same something was still but an abstract idea. Nevertheless, Kozue wanted to maintain her dignity, so she’d never let anyone find that out. She was probably annoyed by what her aunt said because there was an element of truth to it.
Kozue wanted to wear her sunglasses because she wanted to hide how flustered she was.
“He’s coming over this Sunday,” Midori said, which only distressed Kozue even more. “You should check him out.”
She sounded as if she was talking about an object. She said she’d bring him over, have him meet Kozue, and then they’d have tea with their mother.
“Why not have him stay for dinner? I could cook something up,” Kozue fervently suggested. Just knowing that man was coming over made her giddy with excitement. Thinking about what to cook for him made her happy.
“Really? You’d do that for us?”
Midori’s smile made her look like she was reading Kozue like a book, although perhaps that was Kozue’s negative skepticism at work.
Midori never spent the night at her fiancé’s place, but ever since she announced their engagement, she’d started coming home even later than usual. She returned in the middle of the night when Kozue was already asleep, using her spare key to get in before climbing to the second floor and heaving a sigh of relief.
“Phew…”
A strong, exotic odor filled the air, perhaps the smell of foreign liquor or perfume. Midori turned on her bedside lamp and started getting undressed. Kozue was usually the one to lay out the futons, since the closet was in her room. Midori was sloppily removing her clothes; maybe she was drunk. She pulled off her light-purple pantyhose and practically tossed them into Kozue’s room. The stench of perfume, liquor, and foreign cigarettes permeated the air, so potent it seemed like something that mature women exuded from their very pores. Midori exhaled again.
“Phew…!”
Kozue thought it sounded like Midori’s pantyhose had sighed.
Silence ensued, so she gently turned her head to see what was happening. Midori had tossed her suit and bra onto the floor and was fast asleep on her futon. She was wearing only the top half of her pajamas, as if she got annoyed and gave up putting on the rest. Her thin white cotton panties looked no different from a tiny bikini, and a shock of glossy hair conspicuously peeked through from underneath. Midori had her lower half splayed out across the futon. Her smooth, tanned legs looked muscular and athletic, and the tufts of hair that framed her groin were just as conspicuous as the rest of it. Midori and her pubic hair were similarly shameless. Kozue flinched as if she had been punched in the nose.
It was a stark reminder that she had nothing on an adult woman.
The weather that Sunday was sunny and hot, marking the first real day of summer. The beaches were open for swimming and mountains for climbing, although it rained on and off for the next few days or so.
Midori returned home with her fiancé Sunday night before it got dark. Kozue had cooked a seemingly random assortment of dishes. Egg foo young, salt-grilled sweetfish, pumpkin soup—it was a smorgasbord of Chinese, Japanese, and Western cuisines, and she worried how they might take it. She had high expectations for this fiancé, which was why she was doubting herself and thinking maybe she should have gone with something that had a little more punch to it. This was their first time hosting a young man for dinner, and the anxiety was making her head spin.
It was a little past six thirty, the agreed upon time, when Kozue heard Midori’s voice. She rushed out of the kitchen in a panic and sprinted straight for the bathroom in the back. They had turned a small yard into a bathroom when they remodeled the place, so the vanity was in the hall. Kozue hurriedly put on her makeup and ended up using far more face powder than usual. She felt like her lipstick was too deep a shade of red as well.
She grinned in the mirror out of habit to see how she would look smiling, but this time, her heart was pounding as she wondered how this Mr. Kawagoe—this partner—this lumberjack would see her.
“Over here?” came a man’s voice as the glass door to the hallway slid open. The bathroom was right next to the tub.
He honestly looked like an alien to her. He was tan and much taller than she’d expected. Kozue’s startled face as she stood in front of the vanity took him by surprise.
“Pardon me,” he said with a bow of his head. Kozue ran past him, escaping into the kitchen while smiling through her tears. After the man finished his business, he left the bathroom and went into the living room. Kozue heard him talking to their mother.
“Sis, will you come out already? You thartled me. Are you being shy or something?” Midori called before turning to the young man. “She’s a little shy,” she told him, smiling.
“She’s just like me, then. Glad I get to meet someone I can relate to,” he replied nonchalantly.
Kozue hadn’t noticed his masculine, chiseled features moments ago in the hallway. They perfectly matched his cheerful voice.
“Hurry up, Kozue. Come on, get over here, you silly goose,” Midori teased. Then their mother started chuckling. Kozue was far too embarrassed to come out now. She’d always been interested in men like this one, and she felt as if she had been waiting for someone like him her entire life. His young energy was phenomenal, as if he had brought life to this little old house. Blood rushed to Kozue’s dizzy head.
But this man was her sister’s fiancé.
Perhaps the dreamer Kozue would simply continue dreaming until she drew her last breath, never to meet such a man.
Kozue always had a feeling that would happen, and yet there was nothing she could do about it.
“You’re so funny, Sis. Hurry up and get over here.”
“Hmph,” Kozue mumbled weakly as she prepared to carry dinner into the living room.
This was just who she was. Maybe when she stepped foot into the living room, she’d ramble on and on, unable to stop herself from getting excited. She could even imagine herself doing that in a past life.