The Moon in My Sky
AS I (QUITE LITERALLY) fled the living room, it finally sank in: Shimamura’s father had just wished me a happy, fun life—with his daughter.
She’s all yours.
As I retreated to the bedroom at the end of the hall, relief and disappointment rose in my chest at the same time. Shimamura was apparently still in the shower. Kneeling in the center of the bedroom, I first contemplated whether we were happy together.
Yes.
We were fairly happy—no, decently happy—okay, pretty happy—maybe really happy? Was that an exaggeration? Personally, I felt I could reasonably argue that we were indeed really happy together. After all…
The memory of Exhibit A came rushing back, and my ears grew hot.
Anyway, yes, we were happy—but was our life together fun? If you could define fun as “lighthearted pleasure,” I was unmistakably having it. Granted, I’d spent my fair share of time crying too, and wailing, and screaming, and throwing tantrums. On the other hand, Shimamura had inspired all those feelings in me. Thus, they still fell under the “fun” umbrella.
There it was: I could honestly say that my life with her was happy and fun. That thought actually made me a little emotional. It seemed to me that I was in fact equipped to give Shimamura the life her dad wanted for her.
Relieved, I glanced around the chilly room. A strange, lumpy rock sat atop Shimamura’s desk like an ugly paperweight—the same one she’d proudly declared a moon rock. I couldn’t tell whether it was authentic, but she seemed to really like it.
To me, the moon was a desolate rock I’d surely spend my whole life never visiting. If I were ever stranded there with Shimamura, though, I suspected I could make it work. I could go to my grave there, satisfied with the life I’d lived. If all my yearning was distilled to one single wish, it would be this: to be alone with Shimamura. The location didn’t matter as long as she was there with me.
At times I suspected that I might pour a little too much of myself into this relationship… Yet part of me was so wholeheartedly devoted, it somehow didn’t feel like enough.
Love and affection didn’t come easily to me. I could tell I lacked the sort of innate curiosity about the world that so many others seemed to possess. That was probably why, when I finally found an outlet for what feelings I did experience, I’d rushed so clumsily to fling them out at full force. Therefore, I couldn’t do anything to change the fact that, like it or not, Shimamura was the moon in my sky. At this point, I couldn’t imagine going back to a life of only ever observing it from a distance.
Then Shimamura burst in with a preemptive strike: “I’m all yours!”
Déjà vu. I wasn’t sure what this “all yours” business was about. Evidently today was just one of those days—not that I could exactly describe what sort of day I meant.
In any case, Shimamura looked like she was having way more fun than I was…so I decided to give her a run for her money.
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