To Have and To Hold
Sumi
PinksPosies they won’t care if you serve the wagashi properly or not.”
She nodded again, forced her mouth into a smile, and followed Yuriko to join the group.
Sumi didn’t know why she was surprised.
He hadn’t returned her calls in days, and her text messages remained unread.
She knew she could have simply gone to his shop, staked him out in the parking lot or in front of his house, but that would have been forcing a final draw, and her bravery had run out.
Her DMs, too, had been quiet.
Since she’d sent that last message to ChaoticConcertina, there had been no reply.
That she had not handled with nearly as much grace as she was attempting to pretend for the ceremony.
She had gone to bed that night tight with anxiety, too nauseous to sleep, too aware of what she was risking.
You might lose both of them.
Even then, knowing what she knew to be true, it was nearly impossible to separate them in her head.
When no reply came, she had sobbed.
Cried over her silent laptop, wept under the hot blast of her shower, chest heaving at the thought of not having him there, notification appearing on her phone in the middle of the day.
The thought of her days and nights being silent of that little chime, the notification that there was someone in the world thinking of her, someone who understood her to her core.
A little chime, a message from him.
And her whole world felt brighter.
She had felt the moment he’d flinched away from her in her bed.
He’d asked if she was a teacher, only it hadn’t come out of his mouth as a question.
An accusation.
His body had flinched, the same sharp reaction in her store over her knowing too much about his daughter’s schedule.
A pull-back, a ripple in the surface of the their two existences, and Sumi had known the time had come to meld them permanently.
And then he sent her that message.
Asking Pinky to meet, to solidify her existence, as if he were begging her for it to not be true.
The realization that she may have lost them both was one she was not yet willing to face.
Not until she got through her tea ceremony.
The group entered, bowing low to their guests, who bowed low in return.
Each member of the group played a part in the ceremony.
She was relieved that she had not been given the task of whisking the matcha, certain she would have slopped it on someone’s shoes with her shaking hands, barely holding her composure together.
The chakin was just a little napkin, inconsequential and unimportant in the grand scheme of the world.
But in this context, to this ceremony, it was a venerated tool, one worthy of study and mastery.
She was responsible for wielding the napkin throughout the ceremony that afternoon, ensuring that it had achieved the appropriate level of wetness, that she wiped out the tea bowl fully, and that she didn’t accidentally whip Yuriko in the face.
He wasn’t there.
She didn’t need to dwell on his absence during the ceremony itself, being fortunate enough to have a bored-looking tween seated in front of her, the younger sibling of the teen kitsune in their group.
She didn’t need to focus on his absence as she wiped out her tea bowl, and didn’t have the embarrassment of an empty seat before her.
Afterward it was different.
Yuri gripped her wrist, putting on a bright face.
“Come on, you’re coming to dinner with us.
We have a reservation.
They can add in another —“
“No.
I think I just want to go home.”
Her friend pulled a face.
“I don’t want you sitting at home dwelling on this asshole.
Come out with us, take your mind off —“
Sumi shook her head, already feeling the tears burning their way into existence.
“Later, maybe.
Later this week.
I really just want to be alone right now.”
She had parked at the shop.
The benefits of having her own storefront in the downtown landscape meant that she wasn’t forced to use the municipal lot, often crowded on weekends, as it was then.
She had parked in her own little lot and walked up the hill, and now she was relieved for that as well.
Sumi didn’t want to face any happy families in the park, see couples strolling hand-in-hand, getting ice cream and sushi, being disgustingly in love.
Love is a fucking racket. So fucking Ohio.
She had never considered her own rizz to be mid, but she supposed she was going to be forced to take the L in this case.
Too bad the L meant a broken heart.
Letting herself into Pink Blossom, Sumi closed the door in relief, slumping against it.
She might not even bother going home.
May as well just stay.
After all, she owed the demise of both her relationships to this place.
May as well stay and work on tomorrow’s orders, just sleep under one of the tables in her cinder block sweatshop. Making money was all she had to look forward to now. Never mind that she didn’t have anyone to spend it on. This is how billionaire sociopaths probably start. This time in ten years, you can have your own rocketship.
She had just moved to the front of the store, when she saw it.
Something near her front door, moving low against the floor, a great creeping beast.
Grabbing a broom, she approached slowly .
.
. When a hand landed on her elbow from behind, making her scream.
Ranar scrunched his nose, wincing at the noise.
She dropped the broom.
For what felt like a tiny eternity, all they did was stare at each other.
Her heart crashed.
Crashed against her lungs, crashed against her skull.
She could scarcely believe he wasn’t able to hear it.
“What do I need to do to get you to start locking your back doors? This is pathologically stupid, and I’m sorry to put it that way, but I feel like strong language is the only way to get it through your thick skull.
This is how you get robbed or worse.”
Her hand went to her throat, the laughter that burbled out of her sounding unhinged even to her ears.
“I’ll have to remember that.
At least, I’ll try.”
“You’ll try? You should try to remember to change your clocks ahead of daylight savings.
This isn’t something you try for.
This is something you do.”
“If only I had someone sensible in my life to remind me.”
At that, he huffed, turning away.
Ranar was quiet for a long moment, and when he spoke again, there was a bitterness in his tone that she’d never heard before.
She’d inferred it, through text.
She’d been able to feel the bitterness seeping out of each letter in his messages about his custody arrangement with his ex-wife, his bitterness over the giant that had steamrolled his industry.
And now, bitterness for her.
“You know, I told my friend not long ago that I have discovered I am very suggestible.
It was suggested to me some woman in my store was flirting with me, and I created this whole possibility around that.
Just out of thin air.
And if it had never been mentioned, I probably wouldn’t be standing here, because I wouldn’t have thought about you a second time after you walked out of my shop.
It was suggested to me that I forgive the person who put me out of business, who, coincidentally, is that same woman from the first story. And low and behold, my stupid snake brain latched onto that.”
He stopped, breathing hard.
Sumi felt rooted to the spot, unable to even breathe.
“But I don’t know if I can forgive the person who didn’t invite me to her tea ceremony, because she was inviting some other jerk.
I don’t know if I can forgive my friend for not telling me the truth, however long ago she figured out whatever the truth is.
I don’t know if I can forgive being played with, like a puppet.
Going through the motions, but not in on the joke.
I can forgive a lot, Sumi. But I don’t know if I can forgive that.”
She couldn’t move.
Couldn’t breathe.
She would turn to stone here in this spot, in her shop, a cautionary tale of girl bossing too close to the sun, of being careless with a delicate heart, one she ought to have handled with gentler hands.
But he's here.
He wouldn't be here if there was no chance at fixing things.
"Why .
.
.
why did you come here? Why here, of all places? Why meet me at my sweatshop?”
He laughed tonelessly.
"I knew your car was here.
I figured you'd come back." He paused, long and loaded.
"I was going to go in.
I wrestled with myself over it all morning. I wanted to throw your little invitation away, delete your number block you everywhere. I really wanted to, because how dare you. Fuck you, Sumi." His eyes pinned her to the spot, glimmering black and full of hurt, and she hated herself for putting it there. "You're careless and selfish, and I really, really want to hate you. But I —" He broke off, swallowing hard, looking away again.
Sumi understood.
It was hard to put aside the relationship they'd shared as two anonymous strangers, so much healthier than the tentative truce they'd created in person, full of false starts and disappointment.
"I made it all the way to the door.
But I couldn't do it.
I couldn't face you.
How long have you known?” His voice was low and defeated, and that shook her to move more than anything she might have felt for herself.
She hated hearing that tone from him. “Have you known from the beginning? Has this all been one big game?”
“No.
Ranar, please.“ There were tears in her eyes when she crossed to him.
She tried to remember his mother’s words — his anger burned hot and bright and was always short-lived.
This, though, was an entirely different kind of anger.
Angled away from, looking at the wall, the floor, anywhere but here. This was a cold smolder, and she wasn’t sure if they could survive it. But he's here. He wouldn't have come if he was done.. “I’ve only known for a bit.”
“How long?”
Sumi winced as he snapped.
She would freeze to death in this cold.
Scorching anger was far preferable to this.
“Since just before that day in the rain.” His eyes flicked to hers, full of hurt and recrimination.
That day in the rain that changed everything.
“The afternoon I came to your shop.
That night.
I figured it out. I'd joined the owners' coalition server. I wanted to sabotage you, but then when I clicked on your name . . . I figured it out then."
He didn’t pull away when she stepped into his space, laying hand on his arm.
He was still avoiding her eye, but this was it, she realized, her chance to shoot her shot, and likely the only one chance she would get.
If he left this afternoon still her adversary, that was all they would ever be, and this whole life changing journey would have been for nothing.
Maybe it’s you.
Maybe you’re the reason things are like this. Maybe you’re just unloveable.
“I didn’t mean to mislead you.
I didn’t know how to tell you.
Either of you.
If you only believe one thing, please believe that.
I never wanted to hurt you.“ The tears overflowed, and she didn’t bother to wipe them away. “How could I? You’re the most important person in my life. You have been for months.” He pulled away, but didn’t shrug off her arm. Sumi tightened her grip, refusing to let go. “If you can forgive the person that put you out of business, how could you not forgive me for this teensy little thing? Didn’t I mean more to you than that? Because she’s guilty of fucking up your life. The only thing I’m guilty of is falling in love with you.”
Ranar snorted, a disgusted shake of his head, but still didn’t pull away.
It was the best warming she was going to get.
“Is-is Ruma home with your mom?”
He looked away.
She could feel the pain in his eyes without needing him to answer.
He telegraphed his emotions so clearly, and Sumi couldn’t understand how there hadn’t been someone to come along all those years and appreciate what a precious gift that was.
Your gain.
“She left yesterday.
I don’t know which of us was more upset.
It makes me question if any of this is good for her . . .”
“I’m so sorry.
I’m sorry that you’re in pain and that you didn’t have anyone to share it with.
I told my friend online he needed to find someone who would take care of him.
I want to be that person, Ranar.
Here, in the flesh. And that’s what I intend on doing. So if you can forgive that bitch who put you out of business, can’t you forgive me? The one who wants to take care of you? Oh, how I wish you would.”
He pulled away from her at last, a slow serpentine away, across the room to the coolers, away from her grasp.
That's that.
You did this to yourself.
You should have learned to bloom where you planted instead of running away.
Instead, you ruined a bunch of lives for no good reason, including your own chance at happiness.
"You told me once," he started suddenly, "that you thought maybe you were the reason for all the unhappiness in your life.
That maybe things were like that because of you."
He'd picked a helluva time to be a mind reader, she thought, tears still slipping down her face, soaking into the neckline of her dress.
"And you are." At that, Ranar finally turned to face her.
"You're a fucking menace, Sumi.
You've been the arbiter of disaster in my life from the moment you came stumbling into it." He twisted before her, faster than his size should have allowed, never not shocking her, but now he faced her, his coils shifting beneath him to propel him forward.
"But in that same conversation, I told you that I thought maybe everything going wrong in my life was because of me.
Because I'm just unlovable."
"That's not true at all." Her voice was little more than a whisper, all the fight in her gone.
"You're so easy to love."
She would never be able to stay here, knowing that he was so close and yet so closed off to her.
She didn't think her heart could bear it.
You ruin things wherever you go.
There's only one common denominator.
"But if I'm wrong about that—" He was suddenly right there, swaying before her, hooking his finger with hers — "Then what else am I wrong about? Because I want to believe you . . ."
Her heart beat wildly, and she was once again possessed of that overinflated feeling, as if she might go floating away.
She hooked an arm around his neck to tether herself to the ground and then a second, and still he did not pull away.
Ranar was silent, and for a long, echoing moment, she wondered if she would be left standing here alone after all, watching him slither out of her life for good.
When he finally met her eyes, they were glossy.
“I am going to develop very expensive tastes, I will have you know.
So just prepare yourself.”
Her own eyes blurred, fresh tears falling anew.
It had always been him.
“Only the best chili ingredients for my baby.” The tip of his tail hooked around her ankle, a shackle she was glad to wear.
“I’d like to ask you out," she began.
"Because we need to do this properly. I don't know you and you don't know me. We're two strangers, who've met on chance."
"Chance.
Yeah, I like that better already."
"A real date," she went on, ignoring his dig with a smile, "for two people who have never completed this rite of relationship passage together.
You can tell me about your interests, and I’ll tell you about mine.
What books I love, what music you loathe.
We'll commiserate over the scourge of well-meaning friends.
And we’ll both hide the fact that we’re plant nerds until at least the third date, when it’s safe to start letting our guards down.”
“If you ask Grace, I act like I’ve never been on a date before, so I can’t promise I’ll know the rules.”
Sumi beamed, stretching up on her toes, pressing the ghost of a kiss against his lips.
“Well, I have the experience for both of us.
We’ll start with coffee.
Then maybe dinner or drinks .
. . For as long as we both shall live.”