Mistake

I stopped crying after a certain point in my life. It was like my emotional well had run dry not long after the night my mother yelled at me about Kibō.

It had been years.

My eyes were so puffy I could barely see, and some kind of gunk had clouded my vision.

The girl and I were, in her words, "Bout half way there."

I had on her shoes. At first, I had refused them. They fit me, kind of. I'd never worn anything outside of geta, and I'd rarely had the chance to wear those. Western shoes were a very foreign concept.

"Whatever, it's fine. I walk without shoes all the time. No needa worry bout me."

Or so she said. She seemed to have bigger feet than me, as the shoes felt clunky on me.

We walked side by side. Her hand gripped mine in a way I wasn't at all used to.

I couldn't wait to get in a house, all this space was beyond overwhelming. My heart couldn't take the hugeness of a world I'd never gotten to see. At least not this quickly.

"So, where'd ya get that fancy kimono from? Were ya at some sorta festival?" Her brown eyes were a shade closer to amber. They shifted from the ground in front of her, to me, in wait of my answer.

I nodded. "Sort of."

"Well," she squeezed my hand in a way that seemed to be meant to comfort. "it's cute. My ma's good at puttin' my kimonos on fer me. She's good at cookin' too. I think you'll like her. And I know she'll like you, cos I like you, and she likes what I like." She swung our hands together as we walked and I felt at ease. She didn't ask about my birthmark and I was thankful. I wouldn't have known what to say without crying more.

"My name's Amai. What about you?" Embarrassment filled my stomach and threaten to spill from my mouth.

"...Chigau." I spoke in such a little voice, I almost hoped she didn't hear me.

"Chika..? That's a cute name. How's it spelt?" Chika... I yearned for anything other than the name I was given. Lucky.

"I'm not sure." She lit up at my vague response.

"Cool! Ma can help you with some pretty kanji later. She loves stuff like that."

~

When we got to Amai's house. I felt afraid in a peculiar way. She, of course, didn't notice, and pulled me into her home. One of my worries were dealt with in that instant.

The comfort of being in a closed space spilled over me.

"Ma!" I jumped, as Amai yelled into the rather simple modern home. Everything in her house was so... Western. Not at all like the kind of home I'm used to.

I heard rustling somewhere further in the house. Amai continued yelling. "Ma! I brought a friend home! She's cool! And she's hungry! And cold!" I suddenly felt embarrassed, being mentioned like that.

A wavy head of hair a few shades lighter than Amai's peaked around the doorway of what appeared to be a kitchen."Huh?" Her eyes, the same exact shade as Amai's, fell on me, on my face. I wanted to hide. "Who's this?" The way she spoke wasn't the same as Amai, though she had the same informal tone. Her eyes went from my face, to my clothes.

"Oh! What a pretty kimono! Where did you get it?" Amai jumped up and laughed. "Ma, that's what I said!" They smiled at one another and I felt pained at the exchange for some reason.

"This's Chika, and she doesn't got shoes." I blushed and looked at the floor.

"Doesn't have, Amai." She looked at my feet in Amai's shoes and smiled in a strange way. "Take those off and come in, how old are you?" I took them off and counted how many times my grandmother told my my birth story. It was exactly the amount of fingers I could count, which pleased me.

"I'm ten, I believe." Amai's mother looked at me strangely before going into another room. Amai and I sat on a couch in a biggish room with a glass box in it. I pressed down my questions and her mother came back with a tray of warm tea. She took a seat on the loveseat closest to me after placing the tray on the coffee table. Amai grabbed a cup and pressed it into my hand.

"There ya go. Warm." She smiled and I noticed she was missing a few teeth. I gasped.

"Amai, you don't have teeth." I almost dropped my tea. Her smile faltered and her hand went up to her mouth, feeling.

"You lied... I do have some." She smiled a bit before probing the empty gum. I felt sick.

"Honey, she meant you have some teeth missing." Her mother turned to me. "Amai lost a few teeth this week." She pinched Amai's cheek gently. "But she'll be getting those big adult teeth soon, won't she?" They smiled at eachother and I thought I might faint.

Is losing teeth normal here? That doesn't sound possible. What does she mean "adult teeth"? Do people here grow another set? I didn't understand. The topic changed before I could ask the important questions.

"Chika... Where are you from?" Amai's mother seemed to ask the question as if walking on eggshells. I ignored the feeling that she was probing me. I wasn't sure how to answer.

"Here. I'm from here." She didn't seem satisfied, but she didn't pry further.

"Can Chika spend the night?" Amai cut in, erasing my tension and cleansing the topic of stiltedness.

"Sure, but don't stay up too late. I'll run a bath for the both of you around seven." She fanned her nose, made a face, and laughed.

That was the first of many nights I stayed at the Akiyama house.