As I’d feared, Shiyo tagged along everywhere we went.
I thought about pushing Shiyo onto Mr. Hojo, but he was so busy with research and school visits like he had been the previous year that he was always separated from us. With Mr. Hojo out of the picture, Ema was left in charge of all tourist activities. She stayed up all night mapping out efficient routes and schedules, to make sure our guests could visit as many famous places as possible.
The Rila Monastery. The Rose Valley. The Museum of History. It was almost the same as last year’s tour, but this time we included a visit to Aldimir’s Kaleto, a fortress where Aldimir, a 14th-century Bulgarian leader, defended against attacks from the Ottoman Turks. The previous year we hadn’t been able to fit it in.
There is a tragic legend about the Kaleto. When the Ottomans poured in, two beautiful girls decided to throw themselves into a river, preferring suicide over falling into the hands of the enemy. They tied their hair together so that neither of them would back out. The moment they dropped down from the cliff to their death, their bodies turned to stone. The two stones are still at the fortress, grieving their spilt blood and the loss of their souls…or so the legend goes. Rumor has it that you can sometimes still see their ghosts, which helps make this a popular tourist destination.
Itsumi seemed to be extremely touched by this legend. Tears formed in her eyes when she saw two stones that looked like they were huddling together, and she eagerly listened to Ema’s stories about the Ottoman invasion. Everywhere we took her, her eyes shone with interest and curiosity. She asked so many questions that she even almost made a professional guide like Ema falter.
Shiyo, on the other hand, looked bored everywhere. The massive Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which can hold over five thousand guests, is overwhelmingly beautiful, but Shiyo barely glanced at it before just starting to play with her camera and mobile phone. She carried a superb single-lens reflex camera, but only used it when Itsumi prompted her to. She clearly had no interest in Bulgarian history, culture, language, or even in the country itself. I was furious. Why had Shiyo chosen to study here in the first place? Sometimes I felt the urge to play a nasty trick on her, like hiding her camera and pretending it was lost. But there was no way I could get my hands on it while it dangled, completely unused, on its strap around her neck. If she wasn’t interested in scenic landscapes and historical buildings, then what did she like to take photos of?
In any case, Shiyo was selfish. For instance, Ema arranged for her to stay at our neighbor Bessie’s house, but she complained that she didn’t like the food and forced Ema to move her to a different location. Then, Shiyo got mad and complained that her homestay there was a mess, leaving us no other choice but to put her in a hotel in Kazanlak.
The first requirement in the agreement between Ema’s travel agency and St. Mary’s Academy for Girls is that students in the study abroad program must stay at a local residence. This makes sense, considering that the purpose of the program is to have a so-called “international exchange.” Ema explained this to Shiyo many times, but she wouldn’t listen. Shiyo even threatened to report Ema to the academy and claim that her services were inadequate. If Shiyo complained to the school, Ema would lose her job. We were left with no choice but to put her in a hotel and ask Itsumi and Mr. Hojo to keep it a secret. Although I dreaded Itsumi’s departure, I was counting down the days that Shiyo had left on my fingers.
Even though Shiyo behaved terribly towards me and Ema, she was always friendly to Itsumi and smiled whenever they talked. But I could see the strain in her smile and noticed her eyes didn’t have any laughter in them at all. At first, I just thought that Shiyo was nervous hanging around an upperclassman like Itsumi, but as time went on I realized that she always had something cruel up her sleeve.
Shiyo played childish tricks on Itsumi. Once, Itsumi dropped her earring on the floor of a tour bus. I saw Shiyo snatch the earring from the ground, hide it in her backpack, and pretend to help Itsumi search for it.
There was something else, too. Itsumi bought us good-luck bracelets from the Rila Monastery. Ema and I immediately put our bracelets on our wrists, but Shiyo simply smiled, thanked Itsumi, and then shoved the cute pink bracelet into her pocket. When Ema took Shiyo to her room the next day, as she always did, Ema apparently found the pink strings of the bracelet in the garbage. My sister and I weren’t surprised; it wasn’t unlike her at all.
Even though Shiyo’s nastiness was obvious to everyone around her, Itsumi still bought her presents, checked up on her health, and took care of her like a sister, as if she was the only one who didn’t notice. Itsumi was so innocent, so naïve. My dear Itsumi. She was the perfect woman. At first, I couldn’t understand how Shiyo could hate someone so incredible.
However, after I’d spent a few days with them, I finally put the pieces together. Itsumi was the club president of the Literature Club, meaning that she had a special aesthetic appreciation, or an “eye,” for literature. While we drove to different tourist attractions, she often discussed her literary theories in the car and criticized what she didn’t like about all kinds of literature, regardless of their popularity. Itsumi was generally soft-spoken, but whenever literature came up, she spoke rapidly and passionately. She even bluntly listed off the flaws of Shiyo’s debut novel, Kimikageso:
“Realistically, the main character wouldn’t have gotten mad in that situation. I feel like a Japanese person would cry before they got angry.”
“The parent-child relationship lacks depth. Foreigners become independent early on in life, but Japanese parents and children still depend on each other even when they become adults. You should’ve delved deeper into that aspect.”
Whenever Shiyo was criticized, she faked a soft smile and never argued back. Itsumi always finished off her criticisms by making an excuse for Shiyo, saying that she couldn’t help make a few mistakes about Japanese culture because she had grown up in France. Shiyo played along, nodding and silently smiling because she knew it would shut Itsumi up. She pretended everything was fine on the surface while playing sinister tricks on Itsumi in the shadows; I found her behavior disgraceful, and my hatred for her intensified.