Chapter 8: Versus Crow Ranger Red!
THE morning after his shift ended, Misaki was lying sprawled on his bed, lifelessly staring at the ceiling. There were plenty of opportunities to meet someone nowadays: arranged marriage, speed dating, school, work… Of all the possible ways, Misaki had met Sayoko on the Internet.
Misaki was a bonsai enthusiast. With bonsai being a more mature hobby, he feared if his friends or family found out about his interest in it, they would no doubt all laugh and ask him, “what are you, ninety?”, so he enjoyed his hobby in secret. The potted microcosm existing just under a foot tall let him feel one with nature and savor the changing seasons. The time he spent pruning his bonsai on his days off let him fully relax and recharge. However, as time went on and he continued to practice his hobby in solitude, he started feeling lonely. So, he did a quick search on the Internet and stumbled upon a community comprised solely of bonsai lovers.
There, amid exchanging opinions on different matters, Misaki found the pleasure and warmth that human contact can bring. Whenever someone shared stories of some new type of bonsai Misaki had never worked on before, he felt a whole new world open up before him. Among all the different types, the one called “moss bonsai” piqued his interest the most.
Until then, Misaki had preferred the traditional trees and shrubs for potting, but moss was a new and intriguing discovery. Out of all the people in that community, the person he hit it off with the best was Sayoko. She had devoted all her spare time to growing moss bonsai since high school, and sent him several pictures of her treasured plants, each one tastefully arranged and obviously very well-tended. Sayoko’s love of bonsai was clear as day from those photos. For her part, Sayoko’s heart was stirred by the refined beauty of Misaki’s maple and black pine trees, and the loveliness of his plum and cherry trees.
The two became fast friends and eventually moved on to exchanging private messages. Before they knew it, they started calling each other on the phone all the time, and one year after they had first met online, they progressed to visiting each other in real life. It didn’t take them long to begin dating after their first face-to-face meeting. Maybe it was because they had talked so much over messages and on the phone, but they clicked almost immediately. Misaki was twenty-six, Sayoko was twenty-four.
They both envisioned marrying each other, but there was a very big obstacle standing in their way. Sayoko was the youngest daughter of a company president; her father’s company was not very big, but still a significant player in its market. Misaki had graduated from a local university to become a police officer; he only had four years of service under his belt. It wasn’t as if his salary was very low, but he wasn’t a high earner either. He was nothing more than a humble public servant. Naturally, the woman’s parents did not look upon their relationship favorably and openly opposed it. Misaki thought they were being reasonable.
If he waited one more year, just a year more, he would get a raise and be able to afford a little luxury here and there, earning enough to support Sayoko… He spent his days entertaining these vague hopes, and then it all inevitably came crashing down. The sudden arranged marriage—it was clear what drove Sayoko’s father to do this. When Sayoko told him about it at the police station, he had been overcome with two distinct feelings: a quiet resignation of “I knew it was coming,” and a bubbling resentment in wondering, “Why did Sayoko choose her father over me?”
And then the painful realization struck him that in the end, he couldn’t muster the courage to take the plunge, pushing the ultimate decision onto Sayoko instead. He couldn’t blame her. He had no right to. Besides, marrying a rich man might very well afford her happiness. He couldn’t deny those obsequious thoughts. He found himself hating his own pathetic brooding self that only ever looked for excuses like a wimp, so much so that he wanted to punch himself.
Misaki turned over in his bed so that he was lying faceup, a sleepless morning ahead of him.