Chapter Text
There is an unutterable relief in the cool dark of a lonely apartment, after so trying a day. Tsutomu strips away her coat, shakes the snowdrops from her eyelashes. Lays her back against the wall, lets her ramrod spine unravel.
She sighs, slipping from her shoes. It is a little devotional of hers to care for them, to unlace them proper every time, but she doesn’t. Not tonight. She is too tired.
Tsutomu doesn’t have a driver’s license. Cars unnerve her like an old minefield, like a disaster in waiting. Tsutomu takes the train back and forth from practice, from matches. It runs on time. She likes that.
Tonight the train was a cold, rough ocean, schooling overfull with life. With humanity, sweat-scented, jockeying for space. Salarymen with shadowed eyes, babies wailing above the thrum of traffic. Girls in high school uniforms, twittering, with laughs that stung like citrus to the eyes.
Tsutomu felt like a delicate thing--like a clear-bodied frog, guts on show.
None of them are looking at you, she told herself. None of them know.
She has never been quite able to convince herself of this. But Tsutomu bites her lower lip, she breathes a reset, she makes loose fists. Turns the light on, only halfway. Still, it makes her squint. The world outside is fogged with winter, it is dim for the hour.
Tsutomu yearns for that low light as soon as it’s gone. She pines for her bedroom, the hum of the white noise machine. Her fingers curled in the bedclothes, a gentle alarm-tone far in the future.
She has been longing for it since she tore from bed this morning, like stripping off a bandage. Since she forced a decent breakfast down her throat, since she was nearly late for practice.
It was as if she’d fixed her arms on the wrong way, as if she’d shaken loose. As if she’d never palmed a volleyball before, the way she played. Tsutomu knows it will do her no good to wind the events back again, to watch all her sickly, lurching moves. She knows what she did wrong.
And yet--there she is, with her head leant against the wall. There she is, under the hum of the dimmed ceiling lamp, thinking of this haywire receive, this missed spike. This tension, a nauseous thing, tangled at the back of her throat.
It hasn’t gone away, yet. Tsutomu tries to make it--she goes about business. There is a fire in it, something that she must deliberately stoke. She washes her face in the kitchen sink, runs wet fingers through half-frozen hair. She performs the emptiest ablutions, pushing through the laundry, folding up tomorrow’s gym clothes. Feeding the cat.
Tsutomu rattles the food bowl, and Mike comes trotting. Her little face is satisfied, smug. Her world hasn’t got a hair out of place.
Tsutomu strokes her back, gently, as she eats. Asks her soft questions, sweet-voiced, oh, Mike, what would you do?
Mike looks up, her eyes a winter-melon green. She makes a face as if to say she simply would not make any mistakes in the first place.
She eats heartily, happily. It reminds Tsutomu to do the same, that there is leftover grilled salmon in the fridge. Surely, that would be the first step toward sweeping herself up. A meal, a long cool shower. Tsutomu never does feel as if she gets completely clean, when she showers with the team after practice.
She tries not to think of how that feels. How it felt today--it is not always so bad. There is a camaraderie to it, sometimes, in all that sweat and boisterous talk.
Today, Tsutomu was silent underneath the water. She turned her back, washed quickly, she was an infiltrator in this brotherhood of men.
So. A shower, on her own. She likes the ritual of washing and conditioning her hair, she likes the slow circling of soap across skin.
She won’t touch her phone, after that. She’ll plug it in on the counter, she will have some peace. She will put on an old drama, perhaps, something soft. Something she likes, and it will feel like tea to a soured stomach, and she will sleep and tomorrow will be kinder.
Tsutomu knows that that isn’t going to happen. That there is a definition of foolishness, of doing the same thing time and again, of expecting new results. There is something that she has to do.
It hangs like a thunderhead over her, heavy with snow; Tsutomu is a small thing with fear of freezing. She quails, decides to eat first after all.
She gives a little sliver of her fish to Mike, even though she isn’t meant to. And she showers, and afterward almost feels better.
She curls on the couch, knees drawn almost to her chin. Her planner, beloved, meticulous thing, perches on the armrest.
It is a dull, distant satisfaction--the sound of her pen as she crosses things off. Practice. Feed cat. Feed self. She has planned for an extra workout, gouging out late evening, but she simply, simply can’t.
Tsutomu can almost see it through the page, that red-lettered day. Next Friday, when it is really, truly over.
She flips to it, though she knows. Knows that it says, in thick, shaking strokes, wedding.
Wedding--Ushijima’s. Ushijima’s and Tendou’s, the offbeat pair, the high-school strangehearts. The ones who know each other’s minds from just a glance, who cradle every idiosyncracy in their broad hands.
Ushijima’s wedding. The Athena, wise and pragmatic and brave, whose shirttails Tsutomu has always chased after. To whom she has never, ever been near enough.
Tsutomu knows that she has only one recourse. She has known it since her first year of high school, since that graduation day that spilled with sakura petals, when she saw them walk off hand in hand. Since Tendou came home from France, a bright ring gleaming on his slim finger. Since six months ago, when a glossed-paper card came in the mail, cordially inviting.
She has polished her resolve, over and over again. Sometimes it feels as if she has done nothing else, as if her adult life has only been a cycle of the same tragicomedic thing. She taps Ushijima on the shoulder. She clears her throat, her eyes rim with wetness.
She says anything, everything but the truth, and the time spills away like thin silk on the breeze.
Tsutomu lives her little life. She practices, she strives hard in her matches. She makes herself brave. She makes herself strong, worthy of expectation. She comes to this near-empty apartment, slips into her private camisole. Sometimes, it is alright.
Sometimes, there are days like this.
A sigh. She asks herself, again, what Ushijima would advise her. What she would say, to hearten her, to fix this.
The only way out is through. The only way of life is truth.
Tsutomu has always been bathed in her cowardice. Always, since she was a small and shaking thing, since she first glimpsed Ushijima’s hard thighs in the club room. Since her first blush of Ushijima’s smile, Ushijima’s great gentle hand on her shoulder, Tsutomu has been spellbound. Speechless.
She can’t afford to be that, anymore.
It is nearly an hour of paralysis before Tsutomu stands, before she smooths the front of her robe. Before she crosses to the kitchen, takes up her phone.
Another moment, just staring at the lock screen. It is a picture of herself with Ushijima, old and poorly-lit and blurred and the very best she has. They are standing in the waning sunlight, under the barred window of the Shiratorizawa gym. Tsutomu’s grin is as messy and bright as a cracked egg. Ushijima is nearly smiling, too.
Tsutomu’s old gym bag sits at her feet. It’s not visible in the photograph, but she knows that there’s a confession letter inside. Apologetic, formal as a wake.
She knows that letter lies now in some landfill, never unsealed.
Finally, there is enough steel in her to place the call. She makes it so, it is like striding out onto the court. Taking up, even if just for a moment, something Herculean.
Ushijima picks up. She always picks up.
She greets Tsutomu warmly, in that rumbling tone of hers. “Yes, Goshiki? Is there something that you need?”
There are half a hundred things--more--that Tsutomu needs from her. Tsutomu needs her time, and her touch, her tenderness. Tsutomu needs to spill on her, cough it all up in her lap, and to be gentled down, after.
Tsutomu needs her own courage, her own hope that there might be some glimmer, that something might be possible. That Ushijima might lay her hand on the small of Tsutomu’s back, might call her by her name, might softly sigh her affection.
The dead air stretches, a great yawing thing. Tsutomu’s palm waxes with perspiration; it slicks her neat plastic phone case. She bites her lip.
“Goshiki? Are you well?” Ushijima’s voice is wonderful like this, absolutely devastating. Steady, shot through all the same with concern. But it never loses that evenness, it never fails to make Tsutomu think that things will turn out fine.
But Tsutomu is not well. Tsutomu is thinking of Tendou.
Tendou, who is her friend; Tendou who ruffles her hair. Tendou, who sings her exuberant little songs, who plies her with chocolates and a senpai’s adoration.
It’s not that she bears him any ill will. It’s not that she would deceive him. Ushijima wouldn’t, either, she is so honest, she is so unshakable and true.
The bottom falls out of Tsutomu’s bravery; it splatters, stains the carpeting. “I-I’m fine,” she says, in an unconvincing voice. “I just--wanted to say hi?”
It is a blessing, that Ushijima takes the world at face value. “Of course,” she says. There is a shifting sound, as if she’s settling into her sofa, underneath her kotatsu. Tsutomu wants to be there with her, melted shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.
“So… how was your day?” It is nearly as wretched as naming the weather, the outcome of a match. Oftentimes, Tsutomu imagines herself having long talks with Ushijima that do not feel like this. Her words flow, though she is uncertain what they are, and Ushijima nods. Holds her.
She breathes in sharpish, tries to focus on what Ushijima is saying. “I enjoyed my day,” she says. “Mock trial went well. I cannot say for sure, but I think my team is going to win.”
That, too, is something beautiful about her. That she crumpled Japan’s ace, great Ushiwaka, that she cast it all aside. She told the world who she was, in her same measured, marble tone.
Tsutomu remembers how she looked in the interview. The pillar of her spine, the impeccable crispness of her bow-necked blouse. Perfect lashes, where Tsutomu has never learned to make her mascara stop caking.
Ushijima retired, just after that. Didn’t even try to join the women’s league. She buried her entrance exams, took her place at the highest-vaunted law school in Japan.
Someday, she tells Tsutomu, she will make a space in sport for people like herself. For people like Tsutomu.
Tsutomu loves her most for that.
“That’s,” she says, and tries to stifle breathlessness. “That’s great to hear!” And it is. As trivial as her support must be, she aches for Ushijima to know that it is there.
The conversation turns, eventually, to the wedding. She twists to hear it, she bends nearly to breaking. The words crowd her throat, like swallowed pins. A great prickling morass, still unspeakable.
She listens, still. About the centerpieces, the last-minute changes. Ushijima is the levellest bride to have ever been wed, she panics not at all. Everything is in hand.
It always is, with Ushijima.
Eventually, the conversation unwinds itself completely. This does not take long; Ushijima is a laconic woman at her best.
Tsutomu always wishes she’d speak more. That she could wash away on that low, warm tone, stretch out on it like a hearth. But this is enough.
More than she should have, really. More than she should want--interrupting Ushijima’s day like this, gorging on her words--it’s gluttony. That’s all it is.
She recognizes this; recognizes this chance to speak her truth. Knows that it is in reach, gossamer thing that it is. Still, there is no taking it.
Tsutomu stammers, trips over herself to end the conversation. “Uh,” she says, “I w-was thinking of going to bed early, so… I’ll stop bothering you now!”
She can just about see the shake of Ushijima’s head, the way her bob-cut hair sweeps at her jaw. “You are never bothering me, Goshiki. We are friends, and I am fond of you.”
Tsutomu’s heart is a long-rotted can, swelling. Soon, she thinks, it will burst. It will splatter, and smell wretched, and no one will ever look away.
Her moment is past--a relief, she’s no idea what she’d say. The truth, maybe, or some meager dilution of it. Sickly, like drops of milk in water.
Ushijima doesn’t give her the chance. “Before you go,” she says, “I have a question for you.”
Hope is a thing with feathers, screeching.
But Ushijima doesn’t say… that. That, or anything like it. Her words are simple, companionable, they fall like thick snowdrifts on Tsutomu’s ears.
“Would you like to wear a dress to the wedding?”
Silence, like the snow outside. White and wide and bare, there is nothing in Tsutomu’s mind. Nothing but a bitter wind, a sense of wetness to the skin.
Tsutomu could count on one hand the people who know she’s transgender. Ushijima, Tendou, Oohira. That’s all, that is everyone, she shrouds it even from her therapist.
She can’t say she has not thought of telling everyone. No--it is every waking hour, to her, she aches and twitches to claw from her skin. To howl her truth from the city’s great spires, but the courage is not in her.
It never has been, she is not the way that Ushijima is. She isn’t so strong.
But it is Ushijima, fostering this in her. It is that hand, broad and familiar, at her back. It is that phrase again, tacit, the only way of life is truth.
“I,” says Tsutomu, in a tremulous voice. “I don’t know.” It is the highest she can aspire to, just then. That she can speak it at all, that she can open her lips and something other than no can fall away.
Ushijima hems down the line. “I would make certain that you would encounter no problems. Everyone will be there to see me,” she says, “they know what a transgender woman looks like. I would not invite anyone who did not understand.”
Her voice is stalwart. She knows how to speak and be believed, it is a talent and a skill, it is something blinding to Tsutomu. Like Polaris, always in the same place.
“And I would look in on you,” Ushijima says, “to make sure that you were alright.”
The breath is knocked from Tsutomu’s lungs. That Ushijima might take that time, might afford her that notice. That protection, Tsutomu has always leaned against that shoulder.
It had always been her impression--ever since she brought in that card from the mail, since she marred its gloss with shaky fingerprints--that after the wedding, it’d be over. That the march would play, a solemn shivering of strings, and Ushijima would never list within her reach again.
Tsutomu’s fingers steeple at the edges of her phone. Hope rises in her again, like bile. That this will garner her affection, that it might steal her moments more under that wing.
That is, of course, not the whole of it. There is a little girl in Tsutomu, down at the pit of her, fitting ill inside her body. She has always wanted to be bedecked, to drip with satin, chiffon, gems. To be as delicate, as indestructible as silk.
“I,” says Tsutomu, breathless, “I couldn’t do it without your help.”
She swears that she can hear Ushijima smiling. “Then it’s a good thing that I am willing to help you.”
“I’ll do it.” Even though she’s got nothing to wear. Even though she never learned to walk in high-heeled shoes. Even though her throat’s bound up in thrumming veins, she’ll do it, she’ll do it for Ushijima.
“Good,” says Ushijima. Her tone is gentle, as if she’d been expecting this. As if she’d looked at Tsutomu, quivering thing that she was, and made the choice to believe in her anyway.
Tsutomu’s eyes feel like peeled fruits, shroudless, dripping.
“T-thank you,” she sighs out, hoarse, the words tumble all over themselves. “Thank you, thank you.”
“I would do no less,” says Ushijima, and even though it comes to her crackling, ricocheting from a cold satellite, Tsutomu feels it like a soft caress.
Tsutomu’s sigh, when she lays down the phone, is long. It reaches to the apex of her register, a girlish sound, a sound at the end of its rope.
For a while, she stands. Sniffles. She doesn’t know how long it is before she crosses her living room again, pencils a shopping date in her planner.
The ritual of it feels good. As if it is a normal thing, to make plans like this. To have a girls’ afternoon, gadding about, sipping milk tea. As if she has done it a thousand times before.
Maybe it will feel that way, with Ushijima.
Maybe then, in some quiet fitting room, in a parked car, maybe then she will tell Ushijima the truth. Once she is something worth seeing.
Tsutomu sighs, underneath a leaden mantle of her own making. She gives Mike a last halfhearted pat, she drags her enervated body to bed.
It’s not the benediction she’d imagined it would be. She finds herself squinting at the texture of the ceiling, as if looking for constellations. She finds her mind turning, whirling in an overwrought waltz with her heart.
Both are dead on their feet, but sleep evades her.
She only thinks of Ushijima. Of the way she holds herself, steady and straight. Immovable.
Tsutomu will never be that way; it is something she’s accepted.
But she can’t swallow that she’ll never lie in those arms, that she’ll never be held fast against that breast. That that safety will never spread across her skin.
She curses her own predictability, she curses her lechery. Of course this ravels her up. Of course there is no sleep without it. Without Ushijima’s touch, heavy-handed and gentle, or some tepid imitation.
Tsutomu drags one hand across her breast, over the sage-green satin of her camisole. Across her belly, her softest, palest part. She thinks of the safety of Ushijima’s palm, shielding that space. Of fingertips reaching the vault of her ribs, wrist resting in between her hips.
Sighing heavy-hot-humid, she wrests herself from shorts and panties, she lets them drift between the sheets. Strokes herself, fitful.
It barely feels good. It isn’t even truly meant to, it is only so that she can sleep. Only to quell the aching, in her jaw and her wrist and the deepest of herself.
She goes on for a while like that, her body listless, her breath breaking down into shards. It is as much a punishment as anything, to lie with her spine bowed like this. To be so suspended, tied so taut.
It doesn’t matter whether Tsutomu likes it or not. Whether she can home to one image of Ushijima--her ankles, her bold calves, the way her spine bends when she spikes. One memory, one tender thing she’s said. Perhaps the times she’s wiped Tsutomu’s tears, with the broad pad of her thumb. It all runs together, watercolor-blurry.
It doesn’t matter if Tsutomu can come. If she can wail with the snap of her tension, quiver sharp into release. The point is that she collapses flat onto the bed, a sprawl on overwarm sheets. That she chases down her breath, half-hearted, that she catches it and goads it back in place. That she can rise, and wash her hands and face, and dress again.
It matters that she can curl in on herself, that she can nestle in the damp of her own sweat. That she can shut her eyes and mill her jaw and rest, hope for a softer tomorrow.
Hope that she’ll find courage, before it all slips like wine between her fingers.