Backup: Sudden Roommate (6) -- Night Horrors

Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2019/10/sudden-roommate-6-night-horrors.html.
*** Content warning: nudity, questionable education techniques, possible child abuse, inconvenient biological functions generally considered not appropriate for general conversation. ***

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Previous: Bad Date

Things their Aunt Fumiyo had said, to me, and in my hearing, and things she had arranged for us to do back then, came back to me in my dreams that night.

In my dreams, I saw the three of us playing in the Sumaguchi's bath house and attached meditative gardens before retiring in various stages of dress under her watchful eye to the sleeping room. Jun and I were eight, and Teru was four.

In many parts of my country, no one thinks twice about young children of separate families bathing or sleeping together. Children are children, and exploring is natural. And there are still public baths which are not segregated, even for the adults. In the old traditions, it was not a problem.

My dreams shifted, and we were older.

Mixing western and eastern traditions randomly produces random results. In the Victorian western tradition, there are things that should not be talked about in mixed company, because of the excitement and confusion they can cause.

But I am not trying to appeal to prurience, in telling about the dreams.

"Oh, how cute." Aunt Fumiyo looked at the water in the tub. "Did you know, Ryō-chan? According to your Bible, you and Teh-chan are now married."

"Married?" The eleven year-old me was doubtful, but the evidence she claimed was before my eyes, floating in the water of the bath.

Teru was laughing happily, across from me in the medium-hot tub. "Married! But you still have cooties. Don't kiss me!"

Jun laughed a horse laugh from where he was soaking in the hottest tub.

Mrs. Sumaguchi scooped the whitish droplet out of the water and laid it on a clean napkin. "In our traditions, we could present this to the go-between, as evidence that you are Teru are compatible. But I'm afraid it would not persuade your parents. I don't think they understand their own Bible."

My dreams changed again, and again I saw four children playing together in the Sumaguchi's bath house and gardens. But these four children playing under a decade older Aunt Fumiyo's watchful eye were not children any more.

Fumiyo had been deliberately working to bring me under the influence of their family -- into their kumi -- for a long time. It was not yet clear to me why, but it seemed clear I had been chosen by their family as Teru's o-miai aite from a rather early age.

I assumed Jun didn't intend it that way, but he was helping Fumiyo Sumaguchi's plans when he brought Teru to me for protection.

Once again, my dreams shifted, and Teru was sleeping curled up against me, the scent of her hair in my nostrils, her body warm against mine. It felt like a very real dream, and the way my body was responding was very inconvenient.

Part of me wanted to stay in the dream, but part of me struggled to wake up.

My eyes opened, and I saw my room bathed in the light of the full moon.

But I did not see Teru.

She was not curled up with me, but she was also not lying across from me on the futon. My body felt cold where the memories of the dream said she had been.

There was no place in the room for her to hide, so I checked the veranda. I saw her out there, standing with her back to me in the moonlight, looking out over the darkened city.

"Something wrong?" My voice felt strange in my ears.

She half-turned, and her silhouette in the moonlight through my tee-shirt showed me things I had been avoiding looking at.

"You're awake." Her voice was little more than a whisper.

"So are you." I looked away, distracting myself with the clock on the floor. One thirty. I tried getting up, but my legs wouldn't obey my will.

She turned my question back to me. "Are you okay?"

"Not really. Rough dreams. How about you?" I mentally kicked myself for repeating the question.

"I had some dreams, too, dreams that kind of scare me. I think I want to go for a walk."

This time I was able to get my legs underneath me and stand up. I joined her on the veranda and we stood together looking out across the city lights shining in the dark instead of at each other.

I broke the silence. "So, do you want me to go for a walk with you?"

"Better than walking alone. Maybe."

I turned, and she followed me to the entryway without further comment, grabbing her cardkey as we left. We descended the stairs in silence and walked aimlessly for ten or more minutes until we came to a park with a playground.

"I haven't seen this park before." Teru went to the swings and sat in one, kicking herself back. I followed and caught the swing, then gave her a gentle push. She swung away and then back to me and I caught the chains again.

She leaned back into my arms, and we stood there for a moment, giving each other warmth. Then I pulled the swing back and pushed gently again, and she took over, swinging under her own power.

I took the swing beside her, and we raced to see who could get the highest arc, until both of us were flying horizontal at the peaks, synchronized with each other in the moonlight. Then, as if mutually hypnotized, we both left off pushing, letting the swings slow down naturally.

Before the swings stopped, Teru jumped out of hers. "This is not helping me get my balance back."

I used my feet to stop, and stood up. "Me, neither."

She turned to me. "What are you doing out here in your pajamas?"

I looked down at what I was wearing. "You're right. Let's go back.

We held hands as we walked.

I spoke hesitantly. "I dreamed about when we were young and I would spend the night with you and Jun. And then we weren't children any more in my dreams. And there was a fourth."

"Who was the fourth?"

"I didn't see her clearly."

She stopped and leaned back into my arms, shivering. I wrapped both my arms around her and hugged her until the shivering stopped, and we resumed walking.
"And I remembered things that your Aunt Fumiyo said. And things she let us do."

"Did you dream the time when Aunt Fumiyo said we were married?"

"I did."

"What about now?"

"Nocturnal emissions?"

"You say that so casually."

"It doesn't matter, but, no. Although I was kind of on edge when I woke up."

"Oh. She's been trying to put us together since we were children, hasn't she?"

"Apparently so."

"Why?"

"Why? indeed." We continued to walk in silence.

As we neared the apartment, Teru spoke. "I dreamed the same things. Then I woke up curled up against you."

I stopped. "That wasn't a dream."

She came to a stop too, and turned and pulled me to her, with a fierceness in her eyes that should have scared me. "I didn't want to move away. But I could feel your body responding."

"Uhm ..."

"It's only natural." She smiled, and the fierceness changed to tenderness, and the tenderness made my heart pound. "But I know you want to wait. And if I hadn't gone to the veranda, I dont think I could have waited any more."

I didn't know what to say.

"I still want to kiss you, but if I do, ...."

The silence dragged out and I fought my own impulse to close the remaining gap between us.

"If I do, I'm pretty sure you'll have to put me in your family registry."

Finally, there was something for me to say. "We'll both be giving up our right to choose before we make the formal commitments. Dad told me he and Mom made that mistake, and that's what he thinks is driving them apart."

She looked down, deliberately breaking the connection between us. But the connection didn't really break. "In my family, that's the way things have always been done."

"Well, we can't stay out here all night. We both have work today." I was the one who said it, but it was Teru that moved first, and we returned to the apartment still holding hands.

We lay down on the futon, carefully replacing the rolled-up kakebuton between us.

"Are you going to be okay?" Her voice was almost pleading.

"We're going to be okay, but if we don't get back to sleep, I'm afraid we'll be making love even if we don't touch each other."

"I feel like we already are. Can you pray for us?"

Teru's suggestion moved to my knees, and she followed suit, kneeling in front of me and taking my hands. And we both prayed, in words and in our hearts.

For the first time in several days, my alarm went off before I woke up. I reached to shut it off, trying to reorient myself from the jumble that we had fallen asleep in. Teru was lying across my chest, my legs were bent awkwardly away, and the partially flattened kakebuton underneath us felt lumpy.

Teru rolled off of me and reached my phone first. She handed it to me. "Did we make it through the night okay?"

"I think so." I shut the alarm off.

"I was lying on top of you."

"Crosswise. But we have avoided deliberately getting each other excited. That's enough that the devil can't legally tell us we are bad."

She looked at me in confusion.

"Yeah, that's bad analysis and bad allegory. Anyway, we haven't creaetd the possibility of a pregnancy, and we are still trying to give each other room to make decisions."

"That much I can agree with. So, should we go to the pond park again today?"

"I need something to work the kinks out, even if you don't."

"I think I do, too."

"Want to try a new route?"

"Got something in mind?"

"We could explore some of the roads along the tracks past the mall."

"Okay."

So we ran a different direction, around the mall to the tracks and past the station.

"Your woman on the train ..."

"My woman on the train?"

"I've done one date. It's your turn. I'm ready to meet her now."

"Okay, I'll see what she says."

"Is this a park?"

"Huh? Yeah. Just a kids' playground, mostly."

"Exercise stations?" Teru stopped by a situps board.

"And I guess it has exercise stations. Want to try it?" I jogged backwards to where she was reading the instructions plaque.

She sat down on the board and swung around, hooking her feet under the foot pegs, then leaned back and did twenty situps. "Feels awkward."

"One size does not fit all."

We traded places, and I leaned back. My head and shoulders hung off the top of the board. "This will be a slightly different exercise for me." But I did twenty myself before we started running again.

"I don't know if I can get through another night like that." Teru's voice finally revealed how tired she was.

"I'm going to have a hard time staying awake on the train."

We kept running.

"I've said that, if my mom or my sisters were close, they'd let you stay with them. Maybe we should actually ask if they've got room."

"Good idea. Maybe we should call them when we get back."

So when we returned to the apartment, I sent them texts via our family group on Line:

Ryō: Need to do a conference call.

We ate breakfast while waiting.

"You're on the early shift today, right?"

"Regular shift, starting at nine. Don't know if I'll have time to run before the early shift when they let me start that. Oh, and the night shift is a killer."

"No time to make lunch together today," Teru said wistfully.

"Yeah. But we'll have time after work to do something."

"Set your computer up for real?"

"That'd be useful."

"I can buy something from the sōzai corner for lunch. What do you plan to do?"

"It's my turn to be the lunch taster, so I've got lunch covered."

"Is it good?"

"Generally pretty good, but not really to my taste."

My phone pinged, and I checked it.

Haruo: I've got about thirty minutes I can give
you. What's up?

The phone pinged again while I was trying to think where to start for Dad.

Misachi: I can join the call anytime within the
next hour. Dad, if Ryō says he needs a conference
call, I assume he wants to talk with us all at the
same time.

I figured it would be good to make myself explicit.

Ryō: Yeah. And I'm sure I don't trust this to
text messages.

Haruo: Okay, I'll wait.

Finishing breakfast, I pulled out my scriptures. "Are you up for some of this?"

"I'm not going to be a good listener this morning."

"That's okay. Sometimes I get my best instruction when I read even though I don't feel like listening to the Spirit."

"Okay, I'll try."

"There's this guy named Nicodemus, and he's a rabbi among the Pharisees."

Teru gave me a blank look.

"He's like a teacher and a priest."

"A sensei?"

My phone pinged again.

Horoyo: I'm here whenever. Now we just need
Mom. Should I ping her by phone?

Fuyuko: I have a premonition this is a call
I don't want to be in on.

Horoyo: Mom, Ryō is your son.

Fuyuko: I have no son. There was some little
boy ran away to be with God for two years when
I needed him most, but I have no son.

Ryō: I love you, too, Mom. And I need you to
be in on this call, even though I'm sure
you'll think you didn't want to be.

Fuyuko: Hmph. I assume her name starts with
Teh.

I ignored Mom's intuition and her bait, and initiated the video call session in the group. Mom did accept the connection and the screen divided in four.

Teru moved to sit beside me, so she would be in the camera range.

"Hi."

"Oh, Teru, it's so nice to see you." For some reason, my mother's voice did not betray the cattiness I expected. "Awfully early in the morning, though." The words could well be catty, but the tone was not.

"Nice to see you, too, Mom. Nice to see all of you."

"So, Ryō, you move to the city and spend the spring dating your nemesis?"

"Dad, just shut up and listen to your son." Horoyo took my side.

Misachi chose an inappropriate time to tease. "And to your daughter-in-law-to-be." Maybe she knew she wasn't teasing.

"Have you betrayed your covenants to God?"

"Haruo, just shut up." Even with the change in tone towards Teru, my mother's sharpness took me by surprise.

"Angel got a new boyfriend who would not keep his hands off me. Jun brought me here because he knew Ryō would take care of me."

"Ryō still needs his freedom."

"So does Teru, Haruo."

My father's expression visibly darkened at my mother's words.

"Okay, let me tell you what is before we start arguing about what should be. I needed to be where Jun couldn't find me, and that's why I didn't stay when I got home. You know how he used to try to take over my life. I've been working here about three and a half months in elder care, with no contact with the Sumaguchi family."

"But there you are with Teru." Dad interjected.

"Three days ago, Jun caught up with me and brought Teru, for her safety. It's the first I've seen either of them in over two years."

"Dad, I know about this." Misachi took her turn. "What I have heard about Angel's new live-in boyfriend is anything but good. Jun was right in getting Teru out of there."

"And who put Angel together with this new boyfriend, I wonder."

"Yeah, Dad, I know." I swallowed. "Believe me, we know. Sometimes you have to play through check to protect your queen." I shut my eyes at the slip. "Or king or whatever."

Dad chuckled. "So, your queen is in your apartment. It looks like a really tiny apartment. Is there even a second room?"

"No."

"How can you maintain your covenants and your freedom in this situation?"

"I know, Dad. I'm doing what I can to help him."

"That's a bit hard to believe, Teru."

"Things have changed for me. We know staying together is not going to work, but I need a place to stay so I can finish high school."

Dad's expression loosened and lightened.

"That's, true, Teru. You needed a place to stay a long time ago." Suddenly his tone become apologeitc. "Both you and Jun. I should have let Fuyuko offer you a permanent place years ago, even though I knew what Fumiyo was up to."

Mom and both of my sisters were as surprised as I at Dad's words.

"It's okay, Dad, it really wasn't our place to ask."

"You shouldn't have had to ask. I'm sorry." Dad's face suddenly crumpled. "I've been arguing with God about this for too long. I'm really sorry. Unfortunately, I can't offer you a place now."

"It's okay, Dad."

Mom's face showed her concern. "I'm staying with my parents, and I'm not sure it would be wise to have you come here, honey, but I'll talk it over with them."

"Teru, you know we'd love to have you, but I don't think having you sleep with the boys would be good." Horoyo's two oldest were boys. "The baby sleeps with us, and that's all the rooms we have."

Misachi looked distressed. "Tomu and I only have one room and the kitchen. It's not much bigger than what you have with Ryō."

"Well, thanks. Just knowing you guys know what's going on will help. Anyway, I'm talking with the congregation leader here. Teru's coming to church tomorrow. Hopefully she'll make friends and we'll find something for her."

"Teru, please don't judge me wrong for this, but, Ryō, there's a woman there you need to meet."

Teru didn't wait for me to answer. "I understand about that, Dad."

"We both understand. We are trying to keep things open so that, if we are both still free when Teru graduates from high school, we can get together of our own free will. And we know that we have to keep dating others until she does."

Dad looked down. "Well, now I feel like a heel for interfering, but her name is Fumie Masamichi. I understand she attends a congregation near there." He looked back at us with a bit of a helpless expression. "From what I've heard about her, you would understand each other implicitly."

"Starting with the same opinions, Dad, is not always the best course." Horoyo came to Teru's defense.

"I think I've met her, Dad."

"If it's the woman Ryō has been talking to on the train, I'll meet her, too, soon."

"Teru, I'm so sorry you have to go through this. I'd almost tell you to just take my son now, but I guess that wouldn't help."

"Mom!" My sisters were practically in unison in their objection.

"I'm not sure I disagree with Fuyuko about this."

How silence across a conference call line can be deafening, I'm not sure, but no one but Mom seemed was expecting Dad to say such a thing.

"She did say almost, you know."

"I did," Mom agreed. "Go meet this Fumie and trust God."

"Thank you guys. No matter which directions things go, having you guys as a proxy for the family we don't have really helps me. Jun feels the same way."

After we said goodbye and cut the connection, I wrote some scripture references down for Teru and ran for the train.

Next

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Backed up at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2019/10/bk-sudden-roommate-6-night-horrors.html.
Earlier draft backed up at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2019/10/bka-sudden-roommate-6-night-horrors.html.