LU Chapter 13

# Chapter Thirteen - "Okaasan no Ai"

    It's dark and hot. Everything is cramped. It's really stuffy, like I'm under the covers and keep breathing in the same breath over and over. I can't really move. I try, but my legs are squished up against something and my arms don't have much space either.

    Mamma told me not to move and not to cry.

    I hear crying anyway.

    *"Be brave for mamma, piccola. Okay? Just stay quiet and hide. No, don't cry. We're playing a game. This is just a game to see how quiet you can be until I tell you the game is over. Remember, Mamma loves you so much."*

    Loud noises are all around me but they sound like I'm hearing them through water. I don't understand anything anyone is saying. They're yelling, and I don't know all those words yet.

    Mamma is yelling.

    Why is Mamma yelling?

    Am I playing wrong?

    Why won't Mamma stop yelling?

    But then she does stop. There's lots of noise. Yelling and shouting. Something breaking. Is it Papi's desk? He doesn't like when I play with his desk. He has lots of important things in it.

    Stop playing with Papi's desk! You'll get in trouble!

    I shout as loud as I can, but my voice is drowned out by more noise from outside. Wood splintering and people screaming.

    Then the noise stops.

    It worked.

    There's no more noise.

    Mamma?

    Is the game over?

    Mamma…?

    There's no sound for a long time. I'm not good at telling time, so I don't know how long, but it feels like forever. Mamma says that it will get easier as I get bigger, but I don't know when that will be.

    I'm here so long that I fall asleep. Why is Mamma taking so long to come get me? Is it because I shouted?

    I'm sorry mamma. I promise I'm being as quiet as I can be.

    I'm woken up to another loud noise. Lots of noise. People are talking, but someone is shouting.

    Papi?

    Papi!

    Mamma said to be quiet, but Papi is shouting things. One of them is my name. I'm supposed to answer when Mamma or Papi call for me.

    I cry out for him. Harder and louder than anything my ears have ever heard. Suddenly there's a bright light and more loud noises. It hurts to open my eyes with the bright lights, but someone picks me up. It's Papi. I can tell from the way he smells even before my eyes adjust to the light. He's saying my name over and over, but he doesn't seem happy to see me. Papi is crying.

    Did I lose the game?

    Why is Papi crying?

    Where's Mamma…?

Mamma...?

Mamma!

    I wake up drenched in sweat, shivering in the January cold. My left cheek is wet. So is my pillow, damp with my tears and sweat. I blink my eyes a few times, trying to bring the world into focus, but it's still dark so I can't tell whether or not I'm successful. My breath is shallow. It's been years since I've had this sort of attack. I close my eyes and try to focus from my head on downward.

    Crown, eye, throat, heart, and so on. Then back up, and back down again, one chakra after another in turn, trying to center my thoughts and calm down. I just need to focus on anything other than the panic racing through my heart. I feel around my neck for a sign that this is real and not just in my head, another part of a terrible dream. I felt like my heart was thumping hard enough to dance to, but sometimes it's hard to tell if your heart is really racing or if it only feels like it is. Or whether you've truly calmed down or simply adjusted to processing everything faster so you feel like you're calm but really you're ready to snap. The rapid beating of my pulse made it clear that it wasn't all in my imagination. I'm wide awake.

    I reach for my phone to check the time. As soon as I press it I'm blinded by the screen. I hadn't been successful in knocking loose all the sleep from my eyes and I finally wiped it away with my fingers, bringing it into focus. I have more than one message. An overly flamboyant line from an acquaintance inviting me to go for a ride in his prized car. It's an admittedly impressive vehicle, and slightly tempting as a result, but the timing is poor, and I'm not sure I trust him enough to accept even if it had been perfect. Not after Ms. Rossi's parable, at least. The group chat has numerous new posts. It always does. I swear some of the younger girls live on their phones, but then again so do Eimi and Dam-Bi, so I can't blame it all on age. Tonight's late-night musings seem to be about whether Ume Takeuchi, Fuyumi Yamada, or Eimi Inagawa is the best idol in the city right now.

    Kanon started it, and Eimi left the chat halfway through the conversation. Normally I would laugh, but I don't think I'm capable right this moment.

    Another email from Lina stressing the importance of behaving on set. One from Absynth Records promoting 12 MidKnight's newest album which premiered at, of course, midnight tonight. A link to an article about hiding combination skin through proper moisturizing and makeup technique from Dam-Bi…

    Rude.

    She's lucky her puppy is too cute to banish her from our room.

    And a single new text message from Ai. Now I remember. I fell asleep while we were messaging. It was nothing important, just talking about what classes we each have next semester, but knowing I'd left the exchange unresolved made me feel agitated. It's rude to message someone at this hour of the night, but she's so sweet I don't want her feeling ignored. That would be an unforgivable thing to do to my number one fan, even though she would probably forgive me anyway.

    \*Fell asleep, sorry. Didn't sleep well. Talk to you tomorrow\*

    I'm almost calm enough to sleep. I checked my Capsule Girls account. Reiko is featured this week, and she's my oshi. I took the opportunity to take my free spins, since I'm conscious this time of night anyway. I got Aimee, Akari, and Keiko… all common or uncommon. What a waste of sleep.

    Shortly after Rinko and I became idols, I started keeping count of how many spins I'd made trying to win my oshi, until I lost track and gave up. Like a lot of games like this, there's always a featured character, and in the past I would save up my spins trying to pull Reiko. You get three free spins every six hours, but you miss out if you forget to collect them, and I usually remember to claim more than half of them during breaks or when I'm bored. Counting our training period, we've been idols for about nine months, and I picked up the game after hearing some of the girls in our training class talking about it. Adding in rewards from in-game events and the free rainbow quarters you get from successful jobs, I've probably made just over twenty-five-hundred spins, most of those when my oshi was the featured girl. What have been the results of my dedication?

    I have three Super-Super-Rare idols. I even have a zero-point-oh-one percent odds Ultra-Rare idol. Most players never pull one of those. I've met some who don't even know they exist.

    It's Aimee.

    What a waste…

    My Reiko is still an Uncommon.

    A few months ago I did the math.

    It's actually statistically less likely that I'm missing a Rare level or higher Reiko after all these spins than it is that I have an Ultra-Rare idol.

    The moment I closed the game and turned off the screen I nestled into my pillow. As I should have known, it was cold and damp. I flipped it over. I'll have to find the time to do laundry this week even though we're working long hours. One more reason why taking on even more work is probably not a great idea.

    I bet Rinko's pillow is dry. Rinko barely even sweats. When I was younger, before we started to really become women, I would have thought nothing of crawling into Rinko's bunk when I had that dream. Goodness knows she did it to me enough times. A roll onto my right side, a quick jump down to the floor, and another quick roll into her bed. She wouldn't even complain. Rinko loves cuddling. If I could bring myself to do it, she would actually probably enjoy it.

    But we're young women now, not girls.

    So how could I be that close to her all night feeling how I do?

    *I wish she could tell how I feel.*

*It would be so much easier than this.*

    My phone buzzed, lit up, and played music at some point after I closed my eyes, still entirely alone here in my bed. Six seconds of city pop.

    \*I can't sleep either. Do you want to talk for a bit?\*

    It's almost funny how so small a question can be so complicated. I know she just wants to help. She probably wasn't even sleeping poorly. Most likely she was soundly asleep until I messaged her, at which point she was awakened and felt like she had to message me back.

    Still, Ai is unusually easy to talk to for me. She has been, ever since she got comfortable enough to actually talk at all. I wish all my fans were like her, because then being an idol would be easy. It is a good distraction though.

    \*How's training going?\*

    \*Really well! Are you having fun on set? I'd be so nervous!\*

    \*We start filming tomorrow. I don't think it will be that bad…\*

    To this day I've never really spoken to anyone about what happened. I guess I probably talked about it with some of my nannies when I was young, but for as long as I can remember it was one of those things you just don't talk about. Even now, dad won't have a real conversation about it, just cryptic mutterings. I understand, to an extent. He lost the love of his life. But I lost the only mother I would ever have.

    How long can it fester inside of me like an abscess on my soul before it erupts?

    That's part of the reason why I've created such an air of mystique around myself. Why I don't let anyone know who I really am, in more than one way. When nobody really knows you, you don't need to have uncomfortable conversations. You don't have to admit that you're doing anything less than great. Your life can seem perfect, even if it's anything but.

    I could tell that despite my meditation I hadn't actually managed to convince myself of that nearly enough to sleep. Fifteen years of confusion and fear had pumped me full of anxiety that hasn't gone away since Ms. Rossi brought it up, and I imagine my aura isn't dissimilar to a swollen tick, full of my life force and waiting to pop at the slightest prodding. My friend Megumi would probably say that I'm afflicted by an oni or yokai of some sort, while a pragmatist would probably look at it in the most basic terms.

    Those being, simply, that I have issues…

    Even Rinko has never really understood how much it hurts. She's been disowned, but her parents are still there. Even if she can't see them, she knows that they're there. As strained as they are, Shiki would surely tell her if anything happened. They're like moons orbiting Rinko's world, never touching but still able to glimpse each other now and then. Then again, how could Rinko understand how I feel? How could anyone? This is just another thing I've been unable to bring myself to talk to her about. I'm sure she knows. She must have wondered why she's never met her at some point. Even she can't be that oblivious.

    \*I wish I could sleep. My dreams have been bad lately. My dad's birthday would have been this week, so it's always a little rough\*

    \*Oh no! Ignore that! You don't want to hear about that kind of stuff!\*

    \*You should try to get some sleep!\*

    \*Goodnight!\*

    One after another, her messages popped up into the chat, another one appearing before I'd even managed to read the one before it. I had no idea Ai had gone through something like that, but then there's a lot about her that I don't know.

    \*It's okay. My dreams have been pretty bad lately too. I'm really sorry you had to go through that\*

    \*Thank you. It's been years since I lost them but it's still hard sometimes. I really miss them\*

    \*Is there anything you do that helps?\*

    \*Sometimes when I talk about them with Mariya, but she's asleep and I don't want to keep you up\*

    \*It's okay. If it helps, go ahead. What were they like?\*

\_\_\_\_

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