Phantom

Beneath the eye of the midday sun, two lovers lay in a meadow. Their tote bags were in a crumpled heap beside them, straps laced together like pale fingers. The girl’s head was tucked in the boy’s lap. Her eyes did not cast upward to meet his, though his own combed her intently, lingering on her partly buttoned shirt, and her grey skirt which was pooled around her thighs. His fingers threaded through her dark hair, pushing away the strands that hung before her distant eyes. He bent his head, first kissing her left eyelid as it fluttered shut. Then he brushed his lips against her right one. His kisses were like tentative whispers.

“Do you feel different?” asked the boy, lingering above the girl’s face like a phantom, like a curse. 

Yuko shook her head. Her fingers raked the grassy blades that swarmed them, curling around a bunch and wrenching them from the soil. As Shoji’s head drew back, her eyes flickered towards a point in the sky, just beyond his spellbound gaze. A single cloud lingered in the boundless blue sea. She wondered if it was an obstinate act, a conscious decision to desert. She wondered if the cloud was lost, and so it hung, unsure of what to do or where to go, doomed to do nothing more than pray she might be found and welcomed back. 

“I feel…expectant,” admitted Yuko. What did eighteen years old feel like? What was it supposed to feel like? She felt no different than the child she was yesterday. That morning, she had loitered in her bedroom, posing before her mirror, searching for something she could not define. Nobody had told her what to look for. Her skin remained unlined, her lips full, her thighs timid. Only her eyes were dark, but they had been dark for some time, now; eighteen years had underlined them with lead. 

Shoji replied, “What did you think would happen?” His chest trembled with faint laughter. She knew he thought she was charming. He often called her “earnest” and “simple”. They were strange words, she thought, to label one’s girlfriend; others called their partners things that were adorned with ribbons and imprinted with diamonds and sugar. Shoji told her, plainly, that she was too thoughtful, as though it were a curse. It was baffling because he always smiled when he informed her of such things, like they were compliments. Almost a year had passed since Shoji asked Yuko out; she knew now that his worldview was more puzzling than she had anticipated, and that he was stranger than anyone else she knew. 

Deciding she did not feel like answering his question, Yuko offered him one of her own. She asked him what she could do now that she was eighteen. Shoji shuffled, indicating that his pocket was obstructed by her head; obediently she sat up, letting him fish inside to retrieve his phone. As he began to type, a crow’s miserable shriek crept from somewhere in the trees. 

Yuko drew her knees to her chest, squeezing her eyes shut as her boyfriend recited: she could now vote. She could get a credit card without her parents’ permission. As he narrated his findings, Yuko felt her heart sink, lower and lower, out of reach. She couldn’t feel its dutiful thud, nor her fingertips. Dazed, she tucked her head in his shoulder. His arms encircled her instinctively, like wings. 

When she heard his unsteady breathing, Yuko finally turned to look at him. Their eyes met only for a second before he drew her close to him, his fingers grazing her cheek, his throbbing lips pressing against hers. “We can get married,” he murmured gravely. 

Yuko shoved him. When she stood, she found her cheeks were warm and wet with tears. She hadn’t noticed their arrival; hadn’t anticipated blood to clog her throat when he spoke those words. Yet, still her heart did not beat. Her shoulders were slumped, not with dread but unexpected composure. 

She did not wait for him to interrogate her. With her hands fisted by her sides, she marched away from him, aiming for the trees that fenced the meadow. A piercing screech arrested her attention. 

That damned crow. 

Yuko’s eyes swivelled furiously as she searched for the engineer of that awful, hoarse shrieking. She was compelled to shield her eyes, for the sun was equally contemptuous and insistent—it blinded her, and she could’ve sworn she heard its triumphant cackle. As she neared the treeline, the cry of the crow became clearer and shriller. She grimaced. At last, as the trees reached over her to guard her from the sun, she found the crow. It was perched on a nearby branch. She had never seen a crow in a tree before, only on the ground, and oftentimes in some detestable horde. This crow was lonely and spiteful. It was silent, now, and she felt it fix its solemn gaze on her. A small smile teased at the corners of Yuko’s mouth. She had initially wanted to haul a branch or a stick at the bitter beast, but she no longer felt inclined to. 

Behind her, she heard the wet noise of feet sinking into mud. Her shoulders stiffened; she did not turn her head. 

Last week, Yuko had decided she should break up with Shoji. He was her first boyfriend, not counting the boy she had briefly dated when she was six years old—the most they had ever done was hold hands. 

Shoji and Yuko, however, had done far more than hold hands. When the thought had sprung to mind—a sudden urge to bolt, to cut her hands free—she recalled the first time he had touched her breasts. It had been almost two months since they had first started dating. November was warmer than usual, and Shoji was insistent they sit somewhere outside during their break, rather than confine themselves indoors. Yuko complied. 

He had taken her to an alley and pushed her, clamping his mouth over hers and kissing her with bizarre urgency. Yuko had shoved him almost immediately, delayed only by fleeting astonishment. Regret laced her chest when she beheld his expression, which mirrored her puzzlement. She thought: I wasn’t supposed to do that. She recognised the gesture from romance dramas and books, the hand pressed above her head, his body trapping hers. Watching or reading did not warn victims of the oppressive warmth of this imprisonment, the way her chest had tightened and heart had stuttered. 

“I’m sorry,” mumbled Yuko. 

As though she had imagined his hurt, Shoji’s face softened into what Yuko guessed was a lustful mask. His eyes were half-lidded, and his jaw was unfastened, mouth partly agape. “Can I kiss your neck?” he asked. Yuko nodded. When he bent his head and began to slather his tongue against her neck, the most peculiar phenomenon occurred, in which Yuko felt herself climb out of her body, and stand beside the scene, surveying it nonchalantly, albeit with some distaste. As Shoji moaned obscenely and kissed her neck, Yuko simply stared. She felt no frenzied stir of desire; no thrilling ecstasy. She wondered if she should moan, too, if she should comb her hands through his hair as they did in the movies. 

Shoji did not seem to heed Yuko’s detachment, for when he drew his head back, lips swollen and eyes flashing, his tongue flicked and he asked, “Can I touch your breasts?”

Perhaps if Yuko’s shoulders could stiffen into rock, they would. She shook her head. “Someone might see,” she pointed out, shifting her eyes left and right to highlight her concern. 

Surprising her, Shoji moved closer, his chest thrust tightly against hers. Though she wore a coat, she hated being pinned to the brick wall; could imagine how many other couples had wedged themselves against it, or how many dogs and drunken men had pissed on it. “They won’t see,” Shoji reassured her. His voice was heavy and husky and hot on her face. She didn’t like how Shoji looked when he was so close to her. Although she found him handsome, Yuko always felt repelled when he pressed his nose to hers, and his eyes seemed to converge into one. 

Gently, she clutched his shirt and pushed him away. As that single staring eye split into two, she felt relieved to rediscover her attraction to him. His shirt was vaguely crumpled, the top two buttons undone; his thick brows were knitted and his lips were almost scarlet. She liked imagining how he saw her, when his lips were this red and his expression dazed beyond consciousness. Again, she climbed outside of her body, and stood beside him as she examined herself. Her hair was faintly tousled, her cheeks flushed, her lips plump and puckered. She never buttoned her shirt all the way up, and her skirt had hiked up her thighs. 

Almost lightheaded, Yuko accepted. She felt as though she were suspended above herself, like that crow perched on a tree branch. There was no excitement in her admission, no glee, no inquisitive flame. She flinched as he tore another button from her shirt free, wondering if perhaps there was some gentler way to go about her blossoming. Nobody but her mother had ever seen her breasts before, and no one had pinched her nipples or cupped her breasts. Before he could touch her, Yuko unshackled herself from her body one final time. She did not want to stay to watch him grope her. She wanted to bolt away from the scene, to pound her feet against the ground and keep running, fleeing, scrambling until her feet found the doorstep of her home, and then the carpet of her bedroom, where she might sink and weep and coil into a quivering mess.

Yuko’s body had hardened as Shoji kneaded her breasts. Her eyes did not meet his, unhinged with rapacity. Her chest did not shudder, nor did her heart thunder. Her blood did not swim to her lips. She had stood that day, numb and void, until it was over. 

The crow’s hoarse croak dragged Yuko back to the present. Finally, she could hear her heartbeat, dense and somewhat hurried. As she forced herself to turn, she felt amused by the crow’s omniscient timing: it was silent, as though it had only cried out to get her attention. 

Clutching their tote bags, Shoji hovered limply before her, his brows furrowed in concern and palpable confusion. Perhaps he was squinting, besieged by the cruel sun. 

Suddenly, Shoji began to cough. It took Yuko a moment to realise he was attempting to laugh. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Does getting married to me scare you that much?”

Yuko felt her cheeks sting, her bottom lip wobble. She hated that she had wept, that she might cry once more. She hated that, when she had first considered breaking up with Shoji, she hadn’t seized her phone and printed the words immediately. She hated that he presumed he knew her, except it was no concrete reality, but the faded outlines of a real person. She hated that it was her eighteenth birthday, and she felt no different to the frightened, uncertain, unassertive child she had been yesterday. 

Slowly, Yuko shook her head. “I’m sorry for getting upset,” she whispered, although she hadn’t meant for her apology to be inaudible. She thought Shoji hadn’t heard; in fact, she declared it would have been impossible for him to have deciphered her murmur. Yet, he still held out his free hand, offering her a smile. She forced her lips to stretch as she closed the distance between them, lacing her fingers together with his. They were clammy with sweat, but she forced herself not to retract her hand, as though a whip had kissed it. 

As they deserted the woods, Yuko tilted her head to search for the crow, only to find it had vanished. Her heart clenched. 

“Are you alright?” asked Shoji, squeezing her hand. 

Yuko hummed. When her legs faltered, she quickly buried her head into Shoji’s shoulder. How many more birthdays would she spend with her head in his lap, on his shoulder, on the grass beside his? How many birthdays would she spend in this fractured body, with this ruptured mind, and her paralysed heart? She hoped she would not need to count them. 

Yuko’s eyes snapped shut; she let Shoji lead her out of the meadow, his fingers locked with hers.