Author: Amanda Miller

Hannah Streett

Gone Again

Roku’s fingers drummed on the wooden counter, tapping out the seconds. Once. Twice. Twenty times they repeated the motion, trapped in the rhythm, locked in the impossible task of wearing holes in the surface beneath them.

She hadn’t come yet.

Already sun streamed into the shop, bouncing off the dust hovering in the air and waging war on his eyes. Throughout that glittering mist, at least a dozen people were dispersed, jabbering both to each other and to themselves. Normal day, normal job, normal customers.

Except that she always came before noon. Every day, without fail, even when she had to fabricate something she needed. Every day… except for today.

Roku huffed, straightening as an elderly lady approached the counter. He smiled at her, exchanged a few pleasantries, and traded an armful of food for several cold, clanking coins. She left with a promise to come again, earning Roku a smile of approval from his father. No one doubted that management of the shop would one day pass from father to son.

But Roku only cared that five more minutes had passed with no sign of his friend.

Disgruntled by this break in his predictable and cherished routine, he returned to tap, tap, tapping the counter. If she was trying to drive him mad, she had thoroughly succeeded. He didn’t appreciate being forced to wait.

Resigned as he was, Roku barely noticed as the door swung open furiously. As it slammed into the wall. As hurried footsteps bustled off the street and clattered into the shop. Everyone else glanced toward the disturbance with raised eyebrows, but he didn’t even twitch.

Until someone joyfully shouted out his name.

Roku’s head jerked up. His neck twisted around.

Scattered hair. Bright expression. Rumpled clothes. A young lady, hanging on the doorframe while she caught her breath, training her twinkling eyes on him.

Only on him.

She gave a small, embarrassed smile, pretending like fixing her hair and straightening her clothes would actually return a bit of her dignity. She was so naïve.

But she was Oseki.

And he smiled back.

~~~~~

He couldn’t breathe. He wouldn’t breathe.

Then his fist slammed into the wall, and his lungs gave in with a gasp.

Chest heaving, Roku glared at the floor, growling under his breath. He felt neither the pain nor the relief he expected from his brief, hopeless fight against the wall. No, he was poisoned only by a growing anger at the madness diffusing throughout his life. One thing. He had distinctly planned out one thing in his life, and now it was irretrievably lost to him.

He’d been too slow.

It was his fault.

His fault.

In the back of his mind, he recalled his father’s voice, most of it just a meaningless mishmash of syllables. Just one line kept repeating itself, taunting him, laughing a cruel laugh because he could do nothing. It was the last spoken word he would ever truly care about.

His routine had been disrupted again. Permanently.

She was young. She was beautiful. She was fun. She was friendly. She was happy. She was loyal. She was Oseki.

But she’d never come again.

She was gone.

Taking a deep breath, Roku straightened, leaving his room and brushing past his parents. He saw their relieved smiles, their expectance that he had come to terms with life’s definition of fair. They just wanted him to go back to work—back to acting like the son they loved and adored.

As if.

With a strained smirk, Roku dodged around the counter. Without a single word to a single soul, he marched out of the shop.

Oseki was getting married.

And it wasn’t to him.

~~~~~

Same place. Same people. Same nonsense spewing from his father’s mouth.

“A wife,” he insisted. “You need a wife.”

No one, Roku snarled to himself. I need no one.

He argued at every turn. He rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, poured every ounce of his being into showing his dissatisfaction. They couldn’t force something this ridiculous on him when he was so blatantly against it. Roku wouldn’t believe it. Surely they understood that he would make a horrible husband. That he had no desire to have a family of his own, and therefore lacked to character to do so. That he would refuse to love the woman. That he wouldn’t stay faithful. That he might even abandon her once he had his fun.

Surely they knew these things.

Surely.

~~~~~

Empty words, empty eyes.

Roku stared at the letter in his hand as he would a blank piece of paper. It meant nothing to him. He didn’t even know why it had come. Perhaps most fathers would like to know about their child’s death, but Roku didn’t bat an eye. She was just a girl.

A silly little girl.

Why should he care? He had dismissed any and all association with his wife and daughter long ago, before he married. Because of his indifference, he never established a real relationship with them, and they eventually went their separate ways. Roku was lost to them. He always had been. He had found a new path in life, and since it caused him far less trouble, he liked it much better.

He did.

Ever so lightly, something pricked the corner of his heart, begging him to acknowledge it. But Roku had long since ceased to care about petty things like feelings.

He spent his days pretending to work, quitting when it bored him. He spent his nights dishing out every spare coin on whatever sensual pleasures were available.

He had abandoned his wife.

His parents had abandoned him.

All because she had abandoned him first.

Clenching his jaw, Roku flung the paper into the inn’s fire, stubbornly watching as flames viciously consumed it. No more evidence, no more truth. No more truth, no more reality. No more reality, no more life.

He had escaped.

~~~~~

She came back.

For a few, blissful moments, Oseki came back to him again. She talked to him. Helped him. But not like she used to, and now she was gone.

Gone.

Gone again. Gone to the house of some stupid rich man who didn’t care for her, who she didn’t care about, but who she would continue to survive with. She made that much evident. She wasn’t happy, but she would fulfill her duty like a proper woman.

He always had said she was loyal.

Just not to him.

Over the years, Roku had imagined running into her so many times, but none of his fantasies turned out this. Reality was far more basic, far more cruel. They only exchanged news with simple, careful words, pretending they were both content with their stations in life. That was all.

But it still hurt to see her strained face, her hesitance to go home. She was still so young, but just like him, she looked so old.

Now he was walking away, leaving her behind, the same way he did before. Because that’s what was proper. That’s what people did. That’s what was considered right in this situation, and with Oseki, he had always wanted to do things right. After all, there was nothing left for him to do anyway. He had lost, for sure and for certain. He just had to accept it and move on. In walking away from her, he would leave behind everything in his past and never bother with it all again.

Never.

He’d accept it.

He wouldn’t look back.

He wouldn’t.

…He turned around.