Between Him and Her

The Silent Treatment

The cell phone rang suddenly while Liya was having her lunch at her desk. She immediately put her chopsticks down to pick it up. Her caller ID showed Marlene. She was a French correspondent working for the prefectural government office that Liya had met a couple of weeks ago at a drinking party that she was forced to attend to meet other foreigners in the prefecture.

"Hello." She answered quietly.

"Hey, Liya. This is Marlene. We met at that enkai last month. Do you remember me?" Marlene's French-accented English rounded through the speaker of the phone.

Vaguely, Liya thought. "Oh hi, Marlene. Yes, I do remember you. How are you?"

"I'm doing good. A little boring now. We don't have any festivals, so we have no information to translate. How about you?"

"It's good. Slow, but good." Liya didn't want to go into details about the scale of tedium she went through on a daily basis to be overheard by anyone else in the teacher's room.

"Well, I am calling to call you to invite you to a concert, this Friday around 6 PM, they have happening in the city."

"Oh, a concert? What or who is playing?"

"They are all garage bands. All Japanese. I remember that you like music, so I thought you would enjoy."

"Thank you for remembering me. I would love to come with you. If you mail me the time and the venue, I will meet up with you there."

The word "concert" itself had raised its inquisitive head inside Liya's mind. So she immediately latched on to the idea to listen to some Japanese garage bands.

"Ok, then I will send you the information. Talk to you later."

"Yes. See you."

Hanging up the phone, Liya picked up her chopsticks to continue with her lunch. She scrolled through any missed messages or emails. Finding none, she put it away.

It had been some time since she had seen Matsumoto-san. Since that extraordinary meeting and introduction, they hadn't seen or spoken face to face. That was not to say they hadn't mailed each other.

She couldn't help herself but think about the last time she had seen him at his work.

"Thank you, Google translator," Liya whispered under her breathe as she typed her message to Matsumoto-san. He hadn't given leave for her to use his first name, so she continued to refer to him by his family name.

Their conversations were easily simple enough as if distant acquaintances were forming a relationship. The fact that their chance meeting had created this form of communication was a hilarious thought she relayed to her sister by phone.

"Is he cute?" Her sister's voice crackled through her landline.

"He is for an old guy, I think." Liya laughed.

"Be careful, okay. I worry about you sometimes." Stella was the fearless one in their family, and she was the baby that was never let to grow up on her terms or shoulder any responsibilities. Not that she was spoiled, but her parents never thought of her in any way. In her memories, it had been Stella who had always been there for her.

"Yes. You know I will." She said.

After a few more minutes of gossiping and laughter, they mutually hung up promising to talk next month. If Liya's mother had agreed to this, he would have been more receptive towards her mother. But Sheila was not an easy woman to please. She hardly spoke with her father. He was never there when Liya called. He complained that she never called him. Interestingly they had never thought to pick up their phones to call her.

Liya shook her head in resignation as she dialed her home phone number. Sending messages to Matsumoto-san took a bit of effort, but it wasn't much. Sometimes he answered right away; sometimes she felt he ignored her messages because she wouldn't get any replies for days.

It had started to become chillier than before. Because of the location of the village in a valley surrounded by mountains, the cold air swept in the wake of early December. She blew into her fingers as she waited for her train in the morning. She wanted to carry a cup of coffee as she did in New York. But she didn't want to offend anyone here by doing so. If she weren't a proper role model for the students, someone would call up the school to let them know about their foreign teacher breaking their rules. Since she was the only foreigner in this small town, it was easy for everyone and anyone to know who and what she was.

The train arrived at her platform, and she got on. Ryuuhei was there as well in his uniform. She smiled at him, but he didn't return it. Not thinking anything about it, she went to her position by the door and listened to music. Approaching her stop, she turned towards Ryuuhei again to smile at him. But he ignored her without the making eye contact. She looked down a frown marring her face.

She didn't want to disturb him at work. She opened her messages and went through how often they had messaged each other. Not so many times, what could have happened?

The school bell rang to signify the end of lunch break. She had a lot her appetite so she dumped the rest of her lunch in the garbage and went back to work. The Saturday concert couldn't come any sooner to take her away from this funk.