Between Him and Her

The Call

For the next few days, Liya went about her normal routine. It was what she craved. She didn't maintain any deep friendship. Making a relationship, any type of relationship, was hard for her. Only her sister knew almost all of her secrets, almost being the keywords. She shared bits and pieces with different people. Things that are so mundane, people would often overlook or not give a second thought to them. Even now, while on her way to her base office she had befriended other foreigner teachers who were also there to teach English, yet with the very impassionate vocalization of "yes, let's keep in touch!" she knew it was not going to happen.

As Liya got ready for work, she couldn't help but grimace at herself.

Her face was not pretty or cute. It was brown — a mix of coloring that she got from her father's dark tone and mother's fair tone. She had high and broad forehead with arching eyebrows common among the South Indian people along with broad nose and wide lips. She was confident about her eyes. They were pretty. The rest of her face was average. Sometimes after brushing her teeth, she would smile widely. But she was told by her parents that if she smiled like that people would run away in fear. So she never smiled in her pictures. Another feature in her body that she liked were her hands. When she was young, she had studied classical Indian dance - Bharatanatyam. Her hands with its long fingers were made to display various mudras or hand gestures. She did have long legs - family called it chicken feet. Any semblance of physical confidence was stripped away inadvertently by her parents.

She sighed. Inside she knew what they said was not true but when the only people whom she could rely on never gave you praise it was hard to have any piece of inner confidence. She thought to herself; This is why you came here. To be away from them and make your future, remember.

Knowing there wasn't anything to else to do to help her appearance, she went to the genkan to change into her sneakers. She made her last minute check upon her person to see if she had everything. Locking the door, she slowly started her way to the station.

Will he be there? She wondered to herself. It has been a couple of days since she had last seen him. Now it was Monday.

As the train arrived, she looked for the familiar head, but no it wasn't him.

Getting on the train, she started to scroll through her music. Her neck had been bothering her lately, so she began to roll it slowly, and when it cracked, she paused and let out an audible sigh.

"Sumimasen," a deep voice behind her uttered. She jumped a little to the side apologizing for blocking the way. "Gomen nasai."

She kept her eyes down with her cheeks hot from embarrassment. She didn't like to be one of those uncaring foreigners who took over everything. She hated whenever she saw foreigners making an ass of themselves in a country that is culturally sensitive.

Liya felt the odd tickle of someone watching her. She was the only foreigner on board, but Japanese generally stick to themselves and never rudely stare at people.

She couldn't help but look up from her phone at her surrounding. The usual travelers were present in the last car sitting at their usual spots. Only one seemed different or new.

He had a ski cap on his head along with round glasses that are fashionable among the Asians. His clothes were all dark, and he had a guitar case leaning against his legs. his face bore a little bit of scruff. Upon closer inspection, Liya realized it was her Matsumoto-san. Well, not her's. But, it was Matsumoto-san out in his casual clothes which fit him very well.

Liya didn't realize that she had said his name (apparently loud enough) until he turned his attention to her. She gasped slightly and looked down immediately to her phone.

Ryuuhei knew she was there. It was him who had asked her to move out of the way earlier. She had looked distracted -preoccupied with something in her mind. Upon entering the compartment, he had given his greetings to his colleague on duty. He then proceeded to the opposite side of the door. When the girl had started to look around, he decided to turn his attention to the passing scenery. But it wasn't hard to mistake the small squeaked out - Matsumoto-san da! (It's Matsumoto!)

How does she know my name? Ryuuhei thought to himself. He straightened immediately and looked at her. She had gasped and looked down. But with the way she was breathing, he knew that she was as surprised as he was. He didn't want to embarrass her or give his colleague something to ask later by approaching her, so he leaned against the wall and went back to looking at the passing scenery.