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silk
From a place tucked away in the corner of Ishikawa Prefecture all the way to the metropolis jungle of Tokyo, two women by virtue of their joint pursuit of a singular noble goal come together, then drift apart.
“Nao-chan.” Mika heaves her laundry basket into the washing machine. “I don’t think it’s that dramatic.”
“Omika, Omika, Omika,” the voice on the other line tuts. “You have to understand that it is that dramatic.”
Mika can think of a dozen retorts (or just one), but she settles on dumping the right amount of fabric softener into the machine and humming over the call. She shifts the phone to her other ear. “Is it alright to be there by 12? My mother needs some help in the morning.”
“Better be there by 12:30 kiddo! Be seeing you.”
The call goes silent. Mika stares at her phone for a second too long before shoving it in her pocket and getting to her knees. It’s her turn to clean the bathroom, and so help her mother, she will do a good job of it so she doesn’t get to hear a peep from Mrs. Egashira. Nao-chan had wheedled her over their call earlier for being a “very good young companion for gallery visits” because Mika took such meticulous care of her visual appeal. But didn't Nao-chan know by now? Intricate patterning and arduous labour are all she knows.
asa
The plaid overalls are laced with linen, sewn with hemp, and fraying at the edges. Twice, stray threads get caught on the edges of metallic seats and ticket turnstiles.
“No, I’m not going on a date.” There is a vague headache Mika’s nursing. Her mother is not making it go away.
“Well, dear,” the co-passenger sitting next to Mika hears, or would hear, if he strained. “I’m starting to get worried. You hang out awfully lot with this Nao-chan. Are you sure it’s not a fictional Nao-chan? You don’t have to hide if you are dating, you know. Just balance your studies well.”
“I’m nearly there now, so.” Yep. She definitely has a headache. “Talk to you later!”
“Mika! I know you’re not there yet–talk to me or so help me I will feed you only gyoza and tonkatsu for the next week.”
“Fine.”
“So.”
“So.”
“What’s the purpose of this visit?”
“Cultural education? I don’t know. Mother, Nao-chan is a grown woman. She is Mitsumi’s aunt. What could possibly be suspicious about that?”
“I guess I’m just a little hurt you wouldn’t consider going to this gallery with your mother.”
“What?” Sunday morning seems too early to be having this conversation with her mother. “You’ve never wanted to take me to galleries.”
“You never said you wanted to visit galleries!”
“It’s not about the galleries… Look, can we talk about this later?”
“Sure, my dear, if this later ever arrives.”
“I assure you it will.” Her co-passenger has definitely been listening in this entire time. Mika makes a mental note to call her mother back when her day is done with and she is on her way back home, resplendent in the aftermath of time spent with Nao-chan.
How did she become friends with someone twice her age?
Masculine clothing is in vogue, Mika thinks for the umpteenth time that day, making her way down Shibuya Crossing. It’s already been revealed to her that her choice of clothing was immaculate, as usual; the other thing it reveals to her is how easily clothes can transform excess. A chubby woman who could easily be around her mother’s age walks down past her and she marvels at the way the oversized shirt and capris fit her–making her sleek and stylish and not unlike the way Mika imagines her own mother, sometimes. Can even imagine herself.
She meets Nao-chan next to the Trading Museum Comme des Garçons as they’d promised. Nao-chan’s wearing something so dazzling Mika stares at her for a whole minute as Nao-chan gives her a little twirl and a show. A patchwork jacket so beautiful Mika can’t believe she’s never thought of layering a simple white turtleneck this way before. But where did she even get this jacket from?
Self-conscious now as they walk in the general direction of the gallery, Mika keeps sneaking glances at her companion. Her figure. Her gait. They way a small smile seems to always be playing about her face. A swift jealousy for something this woman represents overtakes her.
It comes easy to her, being bitter. At others, at things, at herself. What embitters her the most is the fact that she doesn’t even have some grand reason to be bitter. When she considers Nao-chan, and everything she must have to go through, it shames her. She knows she shouldn’t—she’s young! She’s pretty! She can be greedy, right? She can want what she wants. But the wanting is so rotten.
This isn’t Harajuku. This is the general percolation of a certain fashion sense through the masses. Oversized tees and plaid shirts and bootcut jeans and whatnot. Her own fashion sense has had years cutting its teeth on a certain demure, risqué-on-demand, girly apparel. She rises day in and day out and remakes herself anew, striving after a certain ideal.
What do people even wear in Ishikawa?
“Hm? Oh? You’re wondering what people from my tiny village tucked in the middle of nowhere even wear?”
Mika wants to swear out loud.
“I’m not a mind-reader kiddo,” Nao-chan chuckles, “you,” and here she flicks Mika’s forehead, “simply wear your heart on your sleeve.”
She glares at the older woman while rubbing her head. Mika wants to disagree, but she knows it will earn her another blithely ignorant remark that will somehow make her feel peeled raw. So. Layers. For now. She pulls the light scarf around her neck tighter in, venturing another glance at the taller woman.
Turtlenecks suit Nao-chan. They’re also very useful for her to hide… Well. Mika doesn’t think too much about what isn’t her business. She’s talented like that; compartmentalization is her forte. How else has she survived years of schooling in Japan? She can see how Yuzuki can’t survive, doesn’t know how to ward off the insincerity of people and blend in, just as saccharine sweet. She just hasn’t tumbled around in this concrete jungle long enough.
“My mother, Mitsumi’s grandmother,” Nao-chan says, smiling down at Mika, bringing her out of bitter thoughts, “wears the brownest shirts ever. They’re browner with the earth that keeps getting on her in various ways, not least of which is Maharu and Kippei fighting with each other.”
They’re passing a row of patisseries. Mika’s chest has that hollow hunger that rankles.
“She made this jacket,” Nao-chan reveals, as if it’s that simple. “I like to think it’s the best thing she has ever done for me. It’s very me, don’t you think?”
Her own mother understands her, probably, but not with the startling depth and clarity Nao-chan’s single glance can pierce. It is what it is, she thinks, while crushing a flower on the footpath. Then she grinds it in for equal emphasis. Her mother still offers her sweets, knowing she loves them, knowing she must not. Her mother still reminds her to take makeup off every day as she returns home, though Mika’s own skincare routine would definitely embarrass Mrs. Egashira to a degree. It’s not as if the love isn’t there, as if the intention doesn’t count – it’s more like despite the intention, all she craves is someone to look out at the same scenery with her. Not at her, trying to understand her.
How paradoxical that this woman and her stupid blue beautiful jacket and her stupid stories about a far-flung prefecture make her feel like this.
“So this Shima-kun.” Nao-chan tries to go for casual but comes across as severely constipated, if you ask Mika. “Is he, uh… A good kid?”
Mika decides to string the other woman along for now. “I don’t know, there’s been rumours lately that he’s a former yankee. With tendencies to relapse.”
cotton
“Here, you baby,” Nao-chan croons, handing over a Comme des Garçons shopping bag when they’re outside the gallery. Mika stares, not knowing which to react to first.
“I’m sixteen, you know.”
“Sixteen year-olds sure are a handful these days! And,” Nao-chan flicks her nose, making the baby squint, “they could be doing better things than hanging around with an auntie the whole day.”
Mika rubs her nose, glaring. “Who’s the auntie? All I see are a fashionable young teenager and a more fashionable much older woman.”
“You didn’t have to emphasise that bit.”
“Not a baby.” Mika gets her revenge as Nao-chan is looking away, pinching her cheek. It immediately embarrasses her, as Nao-chan appears stunned then breaks out in peals of laughter. Mika pouts.
“Okay, alright, Ms Not-a-baby.” Laughter subsiding, Mika notices the strangers milling about. Staring, then moving on. It takes her a brief moment to understand what the deep sounding boom of joy has indicated to people. The thrown neck and the shape of it.
Before she can stop herself or even think for a moment, she has taken Nao-chan’s hand.
“Omika?” The question arrives, gentle. Her own gaze is burning through the concrete ground. She doesn’t know why she can’t look up.
A hand, much larger (and warmer, she notices), covers her own. They stand like that with sandwiched hands on the side of the footpath, letting people pass them by, Mika trying to disintegrate the ground with the force of her glare and Nao-chan having closed her eyes, breathing.
There was a person crying among the high-grown weeds once, beside an ocean. Hiccupping. Swallowing sea sounds and smells. Waiting. That person would have waited forever, unchanging, if not for the touch of a child not marred by silly notions.
“The first time Mitsumi told me to my face that I have a bad personality,” Mika looks up to see that while Nao-chan isn’t looking at her, she’s listening, “She also said it’s fine, because at least I speak my mind where others would fail to.”
“Being around her feels like a folktale sometimes doesn’t it?”
“It sure does.”
Mika looks into the bag for the reward she’s gotten smack in the middle of this tale. She’s stunned by the ring. Nao-chan begins to explain what it is, what it does, all this knowledge that she has. Mika goes on staring.
“Maybe we should step into this cafe for a bit.”
Inside, Nao-chan excuses herself to the bathroom. Mika wonders.
She considers for a second the mock alexandrite on her finger. What had Nao-chan said? It shifts, it catches light, refracting. “Just like you,” she had said, her impossibly warm smile bearing down on her. It is so unfair sometimes that adults who can understand you, who can see you in all your wretchedness and still love you, are so rare. This one isn’t even hers.
No, Mika reminds herself, staring at her ring again. Not a possession, but a friend. Not a thing you use and put aside. Things you carry till you die. Things you carry till they are a part of you, answering questions you thought you didn’t have.
Is it really okay to have a friend? Who cares? She has a friend, and someone who listens to her, and as selfish as these things might be she finds she does not care.
Nao-chan’s handkerchief at the end of the day is a sodden cotton, with ample promises of being washed and returned to the rightful owner very soon.
blue
Hiroyuki Shindo’s exhibition leaves Mika in tears, and Nao-chan calls her a baby again which turns her cheeks red. With anger, okay?
“Indigo has a rich history in Japan, kiddo. Where I come from, they believe indigo mirrors the hue of the ocean, the life surrounding our islands.”
Mika knows this; she’s secretly fond of picture books. They head back into the cafe again.
“So, does your jacket come from the ocean? Is your entire family secretly ningen? Am I next to Ms. Life herself, right now?”
“Someone should tell you you have the sense of humour of a father.”
“You still laugh at my jokes, so…”
“This,” Nao-chan blissfully ignores Mika’s retort, twirling again for her adolescent’s benefit, “is a boro jacket.”
The alexandrite catches light again as Nao-chan yaps about the apparel, and Mika basks in her voice.
boro
Mika knows something about this fabric. It scratches the back of her mind, like the events of the day so far, fuzzy and warm and incomprehensible. Like emerging from sleep into the warmth of sun. It’s at the tip of her tongue, the cusp of her consciousness.
“This is a boro jacket, then!”
Her sudden exclamation does not leave Nao-chan impressed. “Thank you for catching on, only a few hours after I have explained the entire history and production process of modern-day boro jackets to you and the pitfalls of fast fashion and the capitalist co-optation of a folk fabric.”
Mika easily waves these accusations aside. “Have I told you already how cool it is?”
“Yes, Omika. Want to hear about how indigo is manufactured in the modern day?”
“We went over that already!”
Nao-chan chuckles, perching her chin up both her palms. “It’s just incredible sometimes, knowing so much that I do and have done and am, comes from where I grew up. And yet this is where I belong.”
Mika quirks a brow.
“I shifted to the city because it suits me much better, you know. We’re not always born in the circumstances that best suit us. And it’s not always the fault of those around us.
“That place is constantly being uprooted. People leave, nature heaves its fury, fishing and farming are constantly… Well. You know how it goes. You’ve seen the news.”
Something to be said about disseminating culture, something to be said about carrying on tradition. Mika wants to punch the wall. The café has its walls lined with books – how appropriate – on dystopias, apocalypses, natural disasters.
“It’s not that dramatic, Mikie.”
“You of all people can hardly say that. After this entire talk about. You know!”
“Are you getting flustered?”
“Just worried.”
“Nothing to worry about, Omika.” This woman slides through nicknames with the ease of an actor. She’s been through several lives, Mika thinks. She’s seen some stuff. She’s made it through. Patch by patch, inch by inch. It’s all sewn together, quite random maybe, but entirely hers. “But I think you know that already.”
Mika nods slightly. Then startles. “Do you worry–about not having a home?”
“I do have one.”
“Ugh, you know what I mean!”
“You do know that we are historically a nation of constant ruin?”
“What does that even achieve?” Mika mutters, frustrated. Then louder. “Who cares what happened in the past?”
Nao-chan’s smiling softly, head turned, looking out. “We only keep going forward?”
Mika looks out as well. “We keep rebuilding ourselves.”
“Then no, Mikie dear, I do not worry.”