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Maya woke up for once with little urgency. It was strange to have a day off now that the spring campaign had begun, now that each day was packed preparing for the runway. She dressed in clothes from the Blue Glitter campaign - freebies she got to take home: gray sweatpants and a white long sleeve shirt. Truthfully, she hadn’t anticipated a chance to wear the clothes so soon - she thought they’d remain tucked away in her closet for some time. She sat on the couch reading as she sipped her usual morning coffee.
Claudine joined her less than 5 pages into her novel, pouring her own cup of coffee and coming to sit in the living room as well, still in pajamas, and hair messy from bed. She scrolled through her phone as she sipped, with little more than a good morning greeting for Maya. It wasn’t uncomfortable in the sense that it was rude - she and Claudine had been roommates and coworkers for long enough that she could be comfortable with some silence between them- but it was more that lately, it was hard to tell what was on Claudine’s mind. It was similar to before the Christmas party, and it was making her nervous, even a bit paranoid.
“What are your plans for today?” asked Maya, when she couldn’t bear the silence any longer.
Claudine shrugged. “I hadn’t anticipated a day off. It’s not like we can go out. Watch a new series, maybe? Go online shopping and load up my cart with things, then just leave the website before I buy them? It’s up in the air.” She suggested the second plan with a smirk.
“I’ll join you, if you want, to watch something.” Maya wasn’t sure what it was, why she was so desperate to remain close to Claudine, but whatever their circumstances - an agreement to take things slow, to keep their relationship on the level of friends, a choice to break that agreement - she found herself agreeing. She wanted more, she wanted it all. She was always greedy.
Claudine nodded, and they sat beside each other on the couch, picking through containers of leftovers from the fridge and watching a drama Mahiru had recommended. Around the third episode, the buzzer rang, surprising Maya. “You didn’t order anything?” she asked, pausing the show.
Claudine shook her head, looking alarmed. “Did you?”
“No, let me see what it is.” Maya picked up her cell phone, calling down to the front desk.
The desk attendant seemed to recognize her number, greeting her with, “Good morning, Tendo-san.”
“Good morning. We just had a buzz for a package I believe?” She gave the apartment number.
“Yes, the courier seemed to be in a big rush, so it was just left here with no signature, but you can come get it at your convenience.”
“Alright, thank you.”
She hung up, going to slip on her sandals to retrieve the mystery package, until Claudine stood up from the couch. “Who is it from?” she asked.
Maya shrugged. “I forgot to ask, honestly. She said it’s there waiting for us to pick up.”
“Seriously, Tendo Maya? You have crazy stalker fans, and you’re about to go pick up a mystery package? This could mean they know where we live. Oh my God, should we call Futaba?”
Maya bit back her urge to laugh amusedly at Claudine’s use of her full name - she knew that would do little to diffuse this situation. “The attendant said it came by courier, so I’m sure it’s fine just to pick it up.”
“But what’s inside? Something dangerous, perhaps!”
“If they’re my fans as you say, why would they send something dangerous?”
Claudine looked more and more exasperated, as if she could not tell if Maya was this dumb or was purposely teasing her. Maya, for her part, truly didn’t expect something nefarious out of this package, but she did respect Claudine’s anxieties around their privacy, so she supposed it wasn’t that hard to fix this argument. “Why don’t I call back and check on the sender?” she suggested.
Doing so, she reported back to Claudine the name of one Otonashi Kanae, and Claudine let out a harsh laugh, sinking back into the couch and seeming to lose all of her fight. “It’s fine. You can go get it,” she said, waving Maya off.
Maya did as she was told, bringing up the rather heavy box, which was addressed to Claudine and not to herself. Back at their apartment, Claudine was back on her phone, so Maya cut into the box, revealing daikon radish, burdock root, chinese cabbage, and other seasonal vegetables. “Otonashi-san is the woman who runs the convenience store in the town my parents live in,” Claudine said. “It’s a small store, I would be there every other day. She would share things from her garden with my family. And my mom told me she was sending these and I still…”
“A lot happened yesterday,” Maya said, taking the vegetables out gently and settling them on the counter or in the refrigerator.
“Yes, but… I’m sorry. I just… I get worried. I don’t like the idea of people thinking they have access to your life.”
“Except you,” Maya teased. She meant to continue on with the unpacking, but caught Claudine’s eye on the half-turn, noticing that this comment had caused her to put her phone down and look at Maya fully.
“Maybe,” Claudine said, “If I get to be too much, just let me know. It’s not like I had regular relationships to compare this to…”
Maya put down the cabbage she was holding, moving back into the living room to sit beside Claudine on the couch. “You’re not too much. I like having things I can share with only you,” she said. “I like it when there’s things that only you notice about me, when you worry over me.”
“Even when the threat was an eggplant,” Claudine laughed with self-derision.
“Well they are a deadly nightshade,” Maya teased.
“There she is, the scientist nerd,” Claudine bit back.
And they were once again close, a rare instance of closeness since Claudine asked for space, her smile just inches from Maya’s face, close enough that Maya could smell her shampoo and see just how deep the red of her eyes pooled. “I’ll take care of the rest,” Claudine said, pulling away before their tension escalated any further, before it sucked them into an inescapable vacuum where the only answer was to seek further connection.
She spent the rest of the day and night alone, at a safe and respectable distance from Claudine - whose role in her life she could not quite define. It was necessary, she told herself. It was what Claudine requested, and she needed to respect her boundaries. But Maya had needs, as well, deep aching needs, a desire for closeness and connection that only seemed to grow each time she was pushed away. She would not push past the invisible line, but she could not lie and say it didn’t hurt, that her hand didn’t tremble with this enforced isolation.
This is how it has always been, she told herself. You’ve always been independent, on your own. But she couldn’t delude herself. Now that she had tasted the forbidden fruit, the sweet nectar of the love of another woman, let alone one who seemed to be made for her, it was impossible to go back. There was the sweet bliss of love, and then there was the darkness, the void when that love is rescinded, and she had no idea what to do with those feelings. So she tucked them away, continuing with her work as she always had, feeling as though she was covering up a hole which was gradually being hollowed out inside of her.
The next morning, she received a message from her father to meet him during lunch. It was an irregular request, and it made her uneasy all through morning meetings which she attended with Claudine at the Ginza offices. She hadn’t seen her father since the Christmas holidays, after all, and now it was nearly February. Claudine decided to stay at the cafeteria for lunch, not risking public exposure so soon after the article released, while Maya left to meet her father at a nearby restaurant for lunch.
She found her father already seated at the restaurant, and she sat across from him, grateful the dining room was mostly empty despite its location. “Hello, father,” she greeted him, sitting down and accepting the glass of water and menu from the staff.
“Maya, thank you for meeting on short notice,” he said, business as always. He was dressed a little more casual than the executives that worked in the business districts, but was still dressed well, befitting of his job in anthropology at the university. “I wanted to discuss a couple of things with you.”
“Certainly.”
The waiter returned and they placed their orders quickly, and her father returned to business. “I couldn’t help but see the news about your partner,” he said, “In the Fashion*Butai magazine…”
Maya nodded.
“It’s most unfortunate that you’ll probably have to make a statement on that issue… I had the family lawyer draw up a draft of something you can use, ahead of everything. It’s always better to be prepared.”
Maya took the sheet of paper from her father and read it over, surprised at what she was reading. “I don’t understand,” she said, working hard to keep her voice down. “This almost makes it sound like I’m apologizing to Suzuki Rinsho-san.”
Her father bit his lip, taking a breath before replying. “Listen, Maya, I’m sure you must be close to the Saijou girl, but the fact of the matter is, that article borders on defamation. I would be surprised if he doesn’t come back with a defense and ‘his side’ of the story. And if you consider who has more ‘sway’ in the industry, who is more likely to be trusted, to be believed… it’s better to be on the right side of these things.”
Maya didn’t reply, merely nodding and folding the letter from the lawyer, tucking it in her bag. It wasn’t that she didn’t anticipate a response from Kirin - she had heard as much from Kaoruko. But the implication that she should remain neutral, or worse, make a statement siding with Kirin… it made her stomach churn.
“There was another matter?” she asked.
“It’s related, I suppose,” he said. “About your career in general. I know you’re having tremendous success right now, but there’s already been this scandal, and I can tell how stressed you’ve been. I miss working with you in academia. I thought we had a plan about your future - the reason we funded your university studies. You don’t have to continue modeling,” he said. “You can come back to the museum, to the university. You can leave all of this public speculation.”
Maya thought about the things she suspected her father didn’t know about - about the fan encounters gone wrong, about her relationship with Claudine causing her intense anguish, about her anxiety over her perception of the pinnacle. At that moment, she thought she understood just a glimpse of Claudine’s desire to hide away in Yokohama, and also of her irresistible pull back into the world of modeling.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve chosen to start on this path, and I will see it through. I’m in the middle of a contract currently. I am using my skills from university, in the way I interact, in my networking, in the way I wear traditional pieces. I may reconsider when this contract is up in the summer.”
The food arrived then, and they changed the conversation back to casual topics: the subject of her father’s current research, Maya’s commute to work, vacation wishlists. Maya looked at her father as he ate, both as a distraction from her own meal since she had fittings that afternoon and wanted to save her largest meal for the evening, and just as a chance to properly look at her parent. She remembered spending time with him as a child, going to museums, going to the theater, traveling to old shrines. Time she never spent with her mother, because of her mother’s duties to Sarazashi. Perhaps her father resented her choice, after the time he invested in her education, but she would not be guilted out of her career.
The next week was the closing reception for the Blue Glitter campaign. She thought it appropriate to wear a navy blue cocktail dress to the party, which took place at a club just outside of Akiba. Koharu was just inside the entrance when she arrived, soon after dark, in a semi-formal maroon gown and sipping on a glass of white wine.
“Maya, I’m glad you’re here!” she said. Koharu’s smile was infectious. They got along, they could talk easily and they liked the same things. It was enough to fill in the hole in Maya’s gut, at least a little bit. “You’ll never believe who Hisame brought as her plus-one, by the way!”
Maya glanced to where Koharu gestured, and to her surprise, Nana was sitting at a nearby table in the private room with Hisame, both of them sipping on drinks and talking with two others. Maya wondered what this meant, if anything, for Nana’s relationship with Junna, but she didn’t think it was appropriate to speculate with Koharu at this moment. “Where’s Suzu?” she asked.
“She caught a cold. I told her to visit the doctor if she needed to, but she refused. She said she was already starting to feel better, she just didn’t have it in her to come to the party after feeling unwell all day.”
Maya got a drink and a plate of food and they joined the table with Hisame and Nana. “Maya-san, good evening!” Nana greeted, her normal smile on her face.
“Hello, Nana-san, Hisame-san.”
They chatted about the campaign, about their next projects, and about what they had been doing in their free time - all casual topics, though Maya didn’t mind. When driving around Tokyo was oppressive, with worries about seeing her face and Claudine’s face and Akira’s face everywhere, when going to work became difficult with fans stalking her every move, and when just being in the apartment felt like being punched in the gut, being out with friends for a casual dinner was a welcome relief. Maya had a couple glasses of champagne, watched Hisame and Nana shyly take to the dance floor, and sat back in her chair at the table, mentally trying to review her schedule for the next day.
“Maya, you seem distracted.” This was Koharu, who had excused herself to give greetings to the director of the campaign, but had returned, her usual knowing smile on her face.
“My apologies, I was trying to remember what time I needed to set my alarm for tomorrow.”
“You really never stop thinking about work, do you?” Koharu asked, laughing lightly.
“I could say the same thing about you. Besides, we’re at a work function right now, aren’t we?”
Koharu shook her head in mock disbelief, but still she didn’t sit back down. “This is an optional work celebration.” she said, enunciating each of the last three words. “Now come on. There’s an art gallery in the back, you should see it.”
Maya’s interest was piqued, so she followed Koharu out the back of the dining hall and down a half-flight of stairs into a gallery. It was empty, likely due to the party itself mostly having cleared out at this late hour, and it was quiet, save for a fountain running through the center.
“It’s beautiful in here,” Maya commented. “Though I admit, I have very little knowledge of European paintings.”
“Well, I brought you here under false pretenses, anyways,” Koharu admitted, suddenly looking more nervous than Maya thought she had ever seen her. “I actually wanted to talk to you, and this room was available.”
“Sure, of course,” Maya said, an inkling starting to form in her mind of where this might be going. What she couldn’t decide, however, is whether she wanted it to be what she thought it was, or not.
“Maya, we’ve known each other a long time. I know we get along well. I know I like you.” She bit her lip, taking a deep breath, and for the first time since Maya had met Koharu, Maya could see her getting tearful. “I wonder if your heart is already gone. I just- I loved you from the beginning. Of course I did,” she laughed, quietly. “If there’s a chance you like me back, I need to know, and if there’s not… I’ll leave you alone.”
Maya considered her words, really thought about them. She could feel the stinging behind her eyes, as well, because she knew what she craved was for someone to tell her blatantly that she was wanted; to delineate their relationship with official words. She wondered if accepting Koharu would fill in the hollowed out pit inside of her, and if Koharu’s love would ease the aching that seemed to be caused by the loneliness, the ‘not-quite-enough’ of her life with Claudine.
But she knew the truth. She didn’t want ‘someone’, she wanted Claudine. And though she cherished Koharu as a friend, she didn’t want a more intimate relationship with her. But turning her down would mean Koharu leaving her alone, and she could not ask her to stay close if that meant it would be painful for Koharu: she knew that pain all too well. So rejecting Koharu would make her even more lonely than she is now.
She considered, briefly, selfishly accepting Koharu’s confession, but knew a relationship built on such a principle would be doomed. So instead she smiled sadly, nodding that she understood the words Koharu had said to her. “I’m sorry, Koharu. You are my dearest friend, but my feelings do not extend further than that.”
Koharu nods, and still she holds back the tears that Maya can see in her eyes. “Thank you for listening to me.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll go home ahead of you.”
And she was gone, walking from the gallery and leaving Maya alone, the hole inside of her growing wider still.