Chapter Text
How long it took, in the beginning, didn’t come as a surprise. Or maybe I shouldn’t say “the beginning.” Maybe I’ll call it what it was. Not starting. Starting over. Starting again.
Even though none of the rest of us were startled, it still came as an inevitable shock to you – like a pool frozen solid, instead of warm and dancing. Like choking on the water. It was like being told to wait, the moment you heard the starter’s gun.
But you wouldn’t stand for it, Haru.
I remember the day you woke up, so many voices swarming around you. I’m sure as hell your head was spinning. But you just blinked patiently. The first thing you had to ask anyone – “when can I swim again?” Forget “when will I be able to walk again?” Nah, let’s just skip that part. Typical Haru. But the therapist didn’t know better. Had the nerve to chuckle. You glared at her with dragon eyes so that she shut up pretty quick.
I remember you muttering at everything. Tilting away the trays we held for you. Asking why the hell you couldn’t pick your own food. Actually having it explained didn’t help you. You tolerated the first PT remarkably; but on the second week, the day the nurse informed you it would be another week or so before you’d be approved to get out of bed on your own – you hollered aloud and threw back the bedding right then. Your feet hit the floor before she could cross the room. You only made it five wobbly half-steps before crumbling, but the determination never went out of your eyes. I watched, as Makoto caught you, as they tucked you back in, scolding mildly. A flame like that is hard to extinguish. In my view, it deserved none of the shaming it earned you.
For the next few months, during PT, you were always one (or three) steps ahead of the therapist. It didn’t matter how much she corrected you. You couldn’t stand to be babied. You only wanted to come back again. I didn’t blame you.
You even had your way. Before you were allowed to climb the stairs in your own neighborhood, they had you back in the water. The PT said floating is a great therapy. Didn’t comment, when you were kicking, in a hurry.
I didn’t have time to observe much of it, myself. Most of the time, I was at home, crying in the shower for an hour, or watching TV, or trying to cook something. Whatever distraction suited me, when it came to trying to absorb a relief so overwhelming.
I told myself that gradually, things would open up more. Isn’t the universe always expanding? And wouldn’t we get around to it? Make up for some lost time? Actually talk about our feelings? The kind of things, that might be rougher admitting, when we didn’t know for sure how much life you had left to be living?
That was almost two years ago now.
Time crawls and flies at the same time. Having both wrapped up our studies, we both have found other ways to keep busy now. Me, with my lousy attempts at social justice campaigning – defend-the-innocent essay writing, online equal-rights blogging. A side hustle of some variation of landscaping (looking after people’s feng shui: garden pots and flowers and trees, and stepping stones and other such frilly things. Last week, the old woman who paid me said, she thought I was "a very sweet lady." I decided on a polite nod; losing a customer was too high a price to pay for visibly cringing). At home is where I arrange my own flowers – solely because it makes me happy.
I still swim – nothing could ever stop me, as you understand deeply. But after that year, and a missed race categorized for “men’s” teams, there was something so much less appealing about that glittering, flashy identity. People recognizing me by my muscles. Labeling me by my body. Not seeing me. These days, I never mind if the lines can become softer. If I can splash and spin and lose myself in privacy, a sweet solitude, where nobody’s staring at me, nobody’s judging how the way that I look must mean a particular something.
Your time is spent in the quiet ways you always loved so much. Walks by the river, under the trees. In the kitchen, fiddling with old and new recipes. Behind the pages of so many books at the library. You swim in the same way you always used to, just as you deserve. Nothing changing. Except that, your company is also always lonely. Except that no one is watching you, either.
They can’t, even when they want to, so badly. You tore up all the letters, a while ago now. Rolled up your cap, slipped it into a drawer neatly. No one can find you on a TV screen now. No one ever will. You’re only at the local pool, late nights, when someone lets you in for free. Only at a friend’s, or at the beach. You tell us, you enjoy it. You’re an introvert, after all. Prefer it that way.
All of us know the real reason. None of us say it out loud.
It just kind of sucks to verbalize a thing so ugly, I think.
But getting older – trying to swallow that we are already halfway through our twenties – trading in childlike fantasies for the simple aim of living contentedly, are not the only changing things.
I have a nephew now. Mizu. He’ll already be turning two soon. On top of that, Gou announced three months ago that she is expecting again. Perfect. Now I’ll have double (maybe triple?) the babysitting opportunity.
It’s not that I’ll mind it, I tell myself. Their kid’s adorable (in that sort of over-the-top way, that almost kills you… but whatever). Normally, I’d be more than willing to lend a hand. Gou’s been needing it, too. Having to sit down every half hour because of her back. Chasing around her walking little monster, trying to pull him off the walls and all the furniture, whenever Mako isn’t home – having a blast, I’m sure. I should feel awful about myself, I know. I don’t doubt that.
But somehow, whenever Makoto is home – when the seemingly-eternal forty-eight-hour shifts (mostly at the firehouse, the times he’s lucky) let up, I manage to remind myself, he’s sleeping for long hours, too. Trying to catch up. I tell myself that it’s just that, I would hate to be a disturbance. What I don’t bother is considering this has less to do with caring, and more to do with providing a false comfort to me.
When Mizu was born, at the hospital for photos, in the months that followed… there was never much discussion. It was only earlier this year that we went over it. Gou sat me down with her deceitfully bright smile. Served me and her husband cookies in the living room. Said, with obnoxious serenity, that it was time to choose what said nephew (who had recently obtained both teeth and words) was going to be calling me.
What do you mean, I asked. She said, Rin. I said, What? She said, are you going to want to be his Aunt, or his Uncle?
I remember I was proud of myself that I did not remark on how stupid it was. I even glared only a little.
“What about just like, ‘honorable family’?” I offered. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing – ” Makoto widened his smile, clearly defending me, and Gou reached over and touched his shoulder gently.
She doesn’t frequently do that kind of thing.
“Your name needs to be Uncle. Or Aunt,” she said, firmly. “Not both.” (before I could add anything).
When your sister is working her butt off to preserve the rigid and damaging gender norms perpetuated by society’s archaic fancies (the very same ones you spend your time undermining) trying not to look offended can be taxing.
I told her I’d better go home and take some time to think it over.
When I sent her a message the next morning there was only one word. The same one she expected.
“uncle.”
I followed it up with a short, crisp reminder that she’d better not always refer to me with words that were disproportionately masculine-leaning. Hoped maybe that would cut the sting.
It didn’t do much. Still, I managed to somehow convince myself that this wasn’t compromising. That I wasn’t holding on to a stale, obsolete perception of identity. That I was just trying to be loving. Ha.
It’s still weird to think about (after everything I’ve let go of) all the normalcies, all the memorized scripts and predictable stories that still hold on to me. Still, I can’t be too hard on myself for it.
It’s hard to let go when you expect something. Or when someone else is expecting something of you.
No matter how misplaced it might feel, or however embarrassing it might seem. No matter how pointless you tell yourself it is.
Brains seem to have a way of disliking forgetting.