Reunited – Chapter 20

I’m living in an alternate reality. Living in someone else’s house, in someone else’s town, on someone else’s world.

“Let’s go, Sanaa. The stars are out. It’s time to relax a little.”

Jiro stands at the open door to our room, our largest blanket in his hand, waiting for me, while I sit on the edge of the bed and watch the kittens in Momo’s belly dance around. I don’t respond because I have nothing positive to say. I sat at dinner mute, picking at my noodles, and not eating. Why bother?

The bed sinks next to me, and Jiro rubs his shoulder against mine.

“I know what you’re thinking…”

“No, you don’t.”

“I bet I do.”

“I’ll surprise you then. I was thinking of Joshua. I was thinking about how I attract people in my life who want to punish me. I thought Joshua was the first of my punishers, but now I’m certain I’ve been doomed from the beginning.”

“Possibly,” Jiro says, sighing and setting the blanket behind him. “I think you get stuck with people you can’t control because you want control.”

I smile despite the tears leaking from the dam I constructed around my emotions. “I married a wise man.”

“Joshua was mentally ill.” He turns towards me, and when I wipe off my cheeks and actually look at him, I find truth in the way he avoids eye contact. “I worried about you, and the way you were treated, so I sought him out. I was just going to make sure he had forgotten about you, but I found him in the psych ward in Ku 2. I can’t even imagine what you went through with him. I’ve tried to be a better man than him…”

“You have been, Jiro.” I grasp at his hand and squeeze it hard. “You have never punished me, even through the lonely times before we left. It’s punishment that I’m with you, and I won’t live to enjoy my life with you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.” My voice is a slap to his face, certain and unyielding, without emotion. I fill my lungs to capacity and let out the anger. “Thanks for telling me about Joshua. I’m glad he got help.”

“Come outside. There’s nothing you can do about being punished by others. Let’s, at least, spend time together,” he says, picking up the blanket. How can I resist? I shouldn’t. I’m not sure how many more times we’ll be able to do this together.

Out in the garden, Jiro set up one of the lounge chairs and a lantern. The blanket is huge so he drapes it on the chair, sits down, and I sit with my back to him, between his legs and lean back, pulling the blanket around us both. I kick off my shoes and tuck my feet up to keep them warm.

Voices from in the house behind us filter into the garden, and I jump.

“No one’s going to join us tonight,” Jiro whispers, smoothing my hair down and across my neck. “I’ve asked for privacy.”

“Never stopped them before,” I mumble, as I settle back and slip my hand up behind me to Jiro’s neck. “I’m scared, Jiro. Please don’t let them take me away.” The tears fall faster, the dam broken.

He turns his head and kisses my palm. “Never. Not if I can help it.” He squeezes me around my chest, and my tears drip down and land on his arms. “What do you want to do? We have options. We should discuss them.”

“Let’s hear them.”

I blink away a few tears, take a deep breath, and concentrate on the stars above us.

“We could abandon this house and move into the mountains. Hide.”

“And stay there forever? Always wondering when they would come for us? I don’t like that option. We would look like cowards.”

His chest shakes under me, a quiet laugh. “I knew you’d say that. So option one and possibly option two are out as well. Go back to orbit and wait while Sakai and Lucy go to Fujiwara and negotiate some sort of deal.”

“No way. First, we look like cowards, and what’s to stop Fujiwara from taking Sakai and Lucy hostage and forcing me back down? Nothing.”

Jiro quiets as I wait for option three, but when he stays still, I rub the back of my head into his chest, reach back and let my hair out of its knot. There is no option three except to give myself up, which is not an option as far as Jiro is concerned.

“We need to find allies here,” he says, twisting my hair in his fingers and blowing on the ends to watch them sway.

Gentle Jiro. Some days he kicks my ass in the dōjō or scolds me for being too harsh. Some days he’s soft and easy, quiet and loving. Jiro is at once a raging, violent river pummeling me, drowning me in passion and fierceness, and also a trickling stream, slinking around my hard edges and lifting me up.

I rub my sweating palms on the fabric around his knees. “We need Arata Sasaki. He strikes me as being personable and liberal. He didn’t blink twice at my sword. In fact, he told me where we could be safe in the city being out at night. I forgot about that part of the conversation.”

I turn my body to the side, slip my left arm under Jiro and my right arm up to his chest.

“We have things to attend to here, but Mark and I will head back to Izumo after Izakaya Tanaka’s opening two nights from now. In the meantime, we stand our ground. We wait for them to come, and hopefully when they do, we can sit down and figure out a deal.”

“I don’t like that idea at all.” I run my finger down the thin fabric over his chest. He pulls me closer.

“I need to do everything I can to secure your place here.”

“What if…” What if I don’t want a place here? It doesn’t matter. Other people have made decisions that guide my life. When I don’t continue, Jiro kisses the top of my head.

“I know. I know. It’s not hopeless, though. We’ll figure it out. The gods have plans for us, Sanaa. You and me. Together.”

I turn my back to his chest again and concentrate on the stars. “Since when have the gods and the stars decided my fate? They don’t, Jiro. No one controls me. No one.”