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Chapter 3: A Day to Remember

Winter break was almost over. There were two days left and that little number saddened Kisa very much. The winter cold got worse as more snow began to appear on the sidewalks and roads. Kisa sat on a dusty wooden stool in the factory. The smell of dead rats and rusty iron metal became more compelling than before. Kisa had on her winter coat, school uniform, and her gloves. She felt like she was going to freeze, even though inside wasn’t as bad as outside.

“Let’s go through this one more time,” Ken paced back and forth in front of her. She was getting dizzy with the smell and his moving. She rubbed her eyes.

“No, we’ve been through this a hundred times! Can’t we stop for a break?” she whined. Ken pretended to not hear her.

“When we go to my house today, we’re going to have to hold hands. My mother wont believe that we’re a real couple (even though we’re not) if she doesn’t see some proof that we like each other and crap,” Ken explained, for the thousandth time. He stopped pacing. “Kisa, give me your hand,”

“No way, it hurts from yesterday,” Kisa whined and shielded her hand from him. “I can’t believe you made me walk through the park with you,” she massaged her right hand after taking off her black gloves. Ever since school ended, Ken had become wild in making sure Kisa and he did whatever couples did the right way. He wanted everything to convince his mother of their relationship, though it was a sham. Kisa was reluctant at first to be his fake girlfriend but she, for some reason, quickly adjusted to it.

“C’mon Kisa, this has to look real or else I’ll be in big trouble,” Ken told her and extended his hand. Kisa groaned. She angrily took his hand. Then she let him drag her to his house on the streets that seemed to bore her lately. How many times had she walked on these sidewalks? Too many times.

Meanwhile, she thought on what she was going to say to Ken’s parents. ‘Hi. My name is Kisa. I’m pretending to be your son’s girlfriend so that he doesn’t have to marry his fiancé. It’s nice to meet you. I hope we have a nice time together.’ Yeah right. Though, if she wasn’t going to say that, then what was she going to say? She couldn’t go to his house and just say “Hi”. It felt too impolite for Ken’s mom.

“It’s the first house on the next block,” Ken pointed out to her. It was a rather large house with windows that were clear as crystals. It was painted in a brilliant shade of blue. Ken opened the door with a key that seemed to come out of nowhere to Kisa. The door opened into a small room that smelled of shoes and peppermint. “Take off your shoes here,” He pointed just below the stair that lead up to another door. After she took off her shoes, Ken opened the door to a long hall way and led her through it to the living room. In there, there was three blue comforter chairs, a large LCD TV, a collection of DVDs and movies to go along with the sleek silver VCR/DVD player, a small antique coffee table with some remotes placed on it, some framed pictures of Ken when he was smaller, and some gold painted apples on top of the antique coffee table in a wicker basket.

“Stay here,” Ken told Kisa. He walked out the room and left her by herself. Kisa—not knowing what to do—sat down on one of the blue comforters. She noticed some buttons hidden beneath an arm that opened up. Her fingers moved over the buttons curiously. She pressed one and the comforter started to shake violently. She quickly pushed it again to make it stop. If that was supposed to be a massage, it wasn’t a very good one. Someone could break a bone using this thing.

Not much later Ken walked back in with a man and a woman, presumably his mother and father. His father stood proudly on the soft carpet underneath his shiny black brand name loafers. He wore an orderly gray suit over a very white and stainless over shirt and a red tie with black swirls on it. His hair was slicked back, trying to hide a small bald patch, and a neatly groomed mustache grew over his tan lips. Kisa thought that they didn’t look a like one bit. From an outsider’s perspective, Ken would have been seen like a total stranger, like Kisa.

His mother however, possessed the same mauve eyes Ken had. She wore a simple tan dress that looked extravagant on her. Her hair hung loose in golden brown curls that fell lightly to her shoulders. Her smile was radiant, and her eyes looked as if they were smiling too as they sparkled. “You must be the girl Ken has told us so much about,” His mother smiled.

“Mom!” Ken glared at her, his cheeks slightly pinker than usual.

“It’s nice to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Ito. Ken has been telling me so much about you,” Kisa returned Mrs. Ito’s smile but a hint of anxiety glowed through hers, unlike Ken’s mom. She tried to sound convincing. She didn’t know whether she had already failed at that or not.

Mr. Ito grunted. He barely looked at her. Kisa realized that he, apparently, disapproved of her. A small speck of anger and hurt appeared in her chest but she ignored it; if she didn’t, she would have punched him right there and then and start yelling at him about the nonsense Ken had to put her through. She was supposed to be appealing to the parents, not to force them into marrying his arranged marriage even faster.

“It’s so nice that Ken has found a nice girl like you, right honey?” She elbowed him in the ribs deliberately. Mr. Ito stumbled a bit, and then mumbled: “Of course,”

“We should really get going, now that you’ve met her, or we’ll be late—, “

“Dinner should be ready in just a moment, you should join us. I know you probably want to go out with Ken right now, but I promise you won’t regret it. I’m making rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes with my special herb and garlic butter gravy. Don’t you think it’d be nice if she stayed for dinner honey?”

Grunt.

“That’s ok Mom. We were going to eat dinner on our date—“

“I’d love to.” Kisa replied without delay. She didn’t want to go out with Ken anymore. On their dull tenth “date”, some of the girls from school caught them in the act. Her face was permanently cherry for a week after that horrible night. She could still see the two girls with their dates giggling at her.

“Great! I’ll just go set up another plate. Come with me honey,” Ken’s mother took his father’s arm and dragged him into an unknown hallway. He replied with another grunt.

When they were gone, Ken pulled her close and whispered in her ear. “What do you think you’re doing? ‘Having dinner at Ken’s house’ wasn’t part of the plan.” He whispered angrily.

“I’m supposed to be your girlfriend, right? It’d be more convincing if I sat down and talked to them too. Besides, your father clearly doesn’t approve of me. The way this is going, you might still end up marrying what’s-her-name.”

Ken sighed and led her to the dining room, defeated. Kisa had thought about it. If she stayed, that meant talking to Ken’s parents more about their “relationship” and that was a good thing. If the parents were convinced on their first meeting, then Kisa wouldn’t have to work any harder as the time went by or as the “relationship” progressed; plus, seeing Ken infuriated was pleasing. Also, there were rotisserie chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy involved—one of her favorite meals.

They navigated around the maze of Ken’s extraordinarily large house, though it seemed rather plain and small from the outside. They took three turns to get to the dining room, right next to the humid kitchen. There, Ken gentlemanly pulled her seat and tucked her in at the table. It was odd but they had done this millions of times. It would make her sick if her next boyfriend…no, actual boyfriend (who’s not Ken) does the same thing. It’s a tragedy that Ken had worn out this romantic technique just to use Kisa in his outrageous plan. She sighed quietly to herself as she sat down. No one noticed but Ken did nudge her a bit on the shoulder when his parents weren’t looking. Kisa gave him the evil eye when he sat down beside her.

“Dinner’s ready!” Ken’s mom sang as she brought out the dishes. She placed the food on the large table rather swiftly and sat down next to her bored husband. She began to fill the plates with the wondrous food. She gave Kisa an extra large piece of chicken and fill of gravy as she saw her large eyes sparkle intensely. It delighted her to have such a thrilled guest who wanted her food. Her husband and son simply didn’t care anymore for such things; they wouldn’t even say “Thank you” or “I love you” anymore.

She gave Kisa her plate.

“Where are my manners?” She asked, sitting back down. She didn’t bother to fix Ken’s and her husband’s plates; that made Kisa feel special. “My name is Emiko Ito and my husband is Soujiro Ito,”

“Where are the drinks?” Ken asked with his dull plum eyes. Emiko hurried to the kitchen to fetch them some drinks. Soujiro sat there, swirling his fork into the batter of gravy and potatoes. He had a plain expression on his face, bored and lifeless—the same as Ken’s. Now, Kisa could tell that they were related. She almost laughed but decided not to, especially in front of Soujiro.

“So…where do you work at…Mr. Ito?” Kisa asked, stripping some meat off her chicken with her small fork. It shined brilliantly. He didn’t take his eyes off his plate.

“…an office…,” he mumbled. Kisa could barely hear his voice now.

“What do you do?” Kisa tried to continue. He shrugged at the question.

“He works on the computer…nothing special,” Ken entered, ending the conversation with a mere “Oh,” from Kisa. This was even harder than Kisa thought it would be. It was going to take some time for Kisa to appeal to Soujiro. Emiko brought in the drinks of soda, tea, orange juice, milk, and water. There were about ten glasses on the tray she carried; only one glass was filled with the unadorned water.

“Here you go,” she placed a variety of drinks next to Kisa and a mere two drinks with the rest of the three. They watched her decide which drink to take. It seemed to be a test. Kisa could feel the sweat roll down her forehead. Would she take the tea or the soda? Or was it the milk that Emiko wanted Kisa to take? Which one? Which one would please Ken’s mother? She saw the drink Soujiro took, soda. She took the soda.

“Good choice,” Soujiro mumbled, inaudibly. Ken smiled; Kisa had made the first right move.

“Wouldn’t you prefer tea?” Emiko asked, sipping the tea from her cup.

“I’m fine with soda,” Kisa reassured. She took a sip to bolster her decision. The smile on Ken’s face gave her confidence. The smile on Soujiro’s was both doubtful and hopeful to believe in since he didn’t approve of her.

“Well…,” her beautiful eyes turned to Ken. He returned the beauty with his own eyes. “You certainly chose the ‘right’ girl now, Ken. Maybe you might get out of the arranged marriage…though I highly doubt it,” A fiendish smile appeared on Emiko’s lips.

“You…you knew?” Kisa asked. Soujiro began to laugh.

“Of course we knew…who wouldn’t? You looked so disgusted with Ken every time he tried to be ‘romantic’ with you. You know, with the holding hands, the ‘dinner date’ he mentioned before, and the chair move. It was hilarious; it was hard not to laugh for a while,” Soujiro chuckled. Being exposed made Kisa’s cheeks turn into an innocent ruby color.

“B-but how?” Kisa continued.

“Ken often brings girls here to get rid of his arranged marriage. It’s so often now that we made up tests to have fun with the girls,” Emiko revealed.

“Like with me. I’m usually not that withdrawn and quiet. And I don’t grunt! Emiko made me do it to make you feel uncomfortable and disapproved of,” said Soujiro, almost in a childish way. “Did you know that the girls Ken brought over before never chose soda? Emiko made this test to see if the girls were trying to suck up to her. There actually was this one girl who did chose soda, but when Emiko offered tea, she switched. That was a close call. We never thought that one would actually take the soda, since it shows that the girl isn’t classy, until we met you. Emiko said that whoever took the soda would show that they had the guts to be themselves in front of us. That was a clever test, wasn’t it?” Kisa wasn’t listening but angrily turned to Ken.

“You knew about this and still brought me here? How could you? I did all that stupid ‘practice’ just to find that it was pointless with your parents. What’s the point of bringing me here since you have done this thousands of time and it didn’t work?” Kisa complained. Ken didn’t answer since he was embarrassed, angry, shy, and devastated since his plan didn’t work…again.

“Practice? You both…practiced being a couple?” Emiko asked with eyes full of wonder and playful teasing. Soujiro was looking at his son with a large proud smile—he actually did have some moves on the girls.

“Yes! He made me go out on ‘dates’ with him and watch movies and hold hands with him. If I knew that he had already done this before, I wouldn’t have helped him,” Kisa answered, very ticked off.

“Well, I really don’t want to go through the arranged marriage! It sucks that I’m restricted to a wife I don’t even know right after high school. I don’t want to get married yet but my parents won’t get off my back,” Ken replied.

“Who is the girl anyways?” Kisa asked, furious.

“She’s not important,” Ken lowered his voice and looked away from Kisa. She shouldn’t know…not yet.

“So is Kisa ‘important’?” Emiko added to tease Ken. Her excitement of what was going to happen rose as his face reacted with a bright, intensely bright, crimson red. It made her laugh; Soujiro did the same. Kisa’s own face began to redden.

“You two are hilarious!” Soujiro laughed at them. Emiko seemed like she would have died laughing and couldn’t stop until a minute or two afterwards. When she finally did, along with Soujiro, the bright faces of the two youngsters softened.

“Kisa I—,”

“Just shut up,” Kisa turned her back to him. Emiko stood up and took Kisa by the arm.

“C’mon girl, let’s go do something fun together. I have a game called ‘DDR’ in the next room. We can play that and have some fun tonight,” She dragged Kisa to the door. “Ken, you certainly chose an amusing girl this week. I appreciate it!” She sang towing Kisa along.

“Mom!” Ken yelled at her but they already left. Soujiro sat in his chair, still munching on his crunchy fried chicken, eyeing his son.

“What’s so bad about Sophia?” Soujiro asked. Ken’s eyes dropped to the floor once again.

“I don’t want to marry her…that’s all,” Ken replied, as quietly as Soujiro did when Kisa asked him about his job. In the awkward silence that followed, Ken could hear Emiko shouting at Kisa for missing a step.

“If you don’t tell me, then eat your dinner. Make sure that Sophia knows what you’re doing….Its rude to do this behind her back,”

“I will…” Ken played with his food a little bit. “Hey dad…,”

“What son?” he asked, taking a sip from his soda.

“What would you do if you knew something…bad…about mom before you got married? Would you still have married her?” Ken asked.

“What kind of ‘bad’ thing?” he asked with an expression full of curiosity and worry. Ken couldn’t explain. It was bad enough what he knew about Sophia.

“Nothing, nevermind. I’m going to take Kisa home …mom has probably made Kisa cry by now with her yelling of missing an arrow. She’s murderous when it comes to DDR,” Ken left the room before Soujiro could stop him. Ken couldn’t reveal the secret so horrible and terrifying to his father, or anybody in general. It was devastate them…especially Kisa.

Soujiro watched his son leave with a large amount of worry in his face. What had Ken seen that made him so terrified and rebellious to marry Sophia? He had trouble eating his supper and sighed. He left the dining room, lonely and tired, to his room. He was going to make a trip today. He had to get ready.

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“Your mom is terrible at DDR,” Kisa said as they walked down to the park. The sky was getting darker as the sun began to lower itself from the horizon. But the sun was high enough to blind them as they sat on the swings with the metal chains. Kisa sat down first.

“I know…I heard you were too,” Ken smiled and sat beside her. Kisa shrugged.

“Never was good at it. I have bad eye-feet coordination,” Kisa admitted. Kisa began to swing slowly as Ken just sat there, with no interest in swinging. His eyes seemed to like watching the plain ground below him today. He did it so often that it worried Kisa, though she was still mad at him. “So…I guess you still have to go through the wedding?” He nodded.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you before…I knew you wouldn’t have helped if you knew about…the others,”

“So you are popular with the girls then,” Kisa teased. Saying that gave a small quizzical feeling of hurt and jealousy to Kisa but she pushed it away. He didn’t respond.

“I don’t know…,” he was rather quiet right now. Usually, he was loud and annoying but right now, he was a different, more troubled man. Then he perked up.

“Do your parents know about your card tricks?” she asked, remembering the talismans.

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered absentmindedly. Kisa became quiet so as to not interupt his rude yet disturbing deep thinking. “You’re free now, remember?” he mentioned, out of the blue.

“Oh yeah!” Kisa leaped out of her seat in mid air and landed on her feet, some paces away. She stood tall with hands to her waist and said, “Free at last! Free at last! Freedom tastes great!” Ken didn’t really pay attention. He was too quiet. Kisa went back to her seat but didn’t sit in it.

“Kisa…,” her name rolled off his tongue so sweetly that she had to remember that she was mad at him, though it seemed like she didn’t. In fact, she didn’t know if she was mad at him anymore or not. “Have you ever wondered if…the life you were given wasn’t the life you were purposed to have?”

“That’s an odd question,” Kisa replied.

“I mean, don’t you sometimes dream of another life that seems so real that it feels like you were there before. There in that very room where you knew everyone and everything about what was happening in that dream?” Ken continued. The dream she had earlier appeared as clear as day in her mind. He was right. She had felt the same feeling. Princess Mitsuki…

“Never mind,” Ken disregarded the subject and stood up from his swing. He stretched. “Here,” He gave her some cash.

“What’s this for?” she asked, holding the thirty dollars in her hands.

“I know you probably don’t want to see me again. It’s for food…or whatever you want to use it for. It’s not much but that’s all I have on me. Thanks for the help you gave me,” Ken said and began to leave. Kisa stared at the money in her hands. Never see him again? She thought.

“Ken!” she shouted after him. He turned, the sun glowed right onto him. He looked so extravagantly beautiful that she hesitated to continue. It took her breath away.

“What?”

“Thanks but,” she ran to him, out of the sand box and down the little grassy hill. “I don’t need this,” She placed the money into his hands.

“Are you sure?” he asked with a concerned look on his face. Her heart panicked as she saw his face up close. It was too much. She nodded. Then, embarrassedly, she ran back up the hill into the sand box. That was her way home. Before she was out of sight, she looked back at him. He was still watching her.

“See you at school,” she yelled after him and ran away. Ken could still see her yelling at him those words which made his heart skip a beat. The sun had made her glow radiantly and made her look like an angel. He was glad that she didn’t hate him, after all he had put her through. If she did, he would have his heart broken. In truth, Kisa was important to him; important enough to make him move to save her that frightful day. It felt routine though, at some times—like he had done that before, been on her side before. It felt nice though. He liked the idea of being next to Kisa, beside her, always within her reach. He was at the bottom of the little hill when he was suddenly stopped.

“Ken,”

It was Soujiro. He had a suitcase and a long coat on with a matching hat. He looked ready to go on a trip.

“Dad?” he asked. “Where are you going?” He was stern and quiet. He just looked at his son with his hand, firmly gripping his suitcase. Strangely, there were two suitcases with him.

“We’re going somewhere today son. You’re mom knows about it so don’t worry. Hurry and get your suitcase,” he picked up Ken’s luggage and threw it at him. He stumbled as he caught it. Soujiro went to the car parked in the icy roads. It was a dirty brown and old car.

“Where are we going then?” he asked, getting into the car.

“Home,” he said, starting the engine.

“Home? But I thought you meant—,”

“You’ll understand when we get there,” he simply answered. “You’ll soon learn the truth about the dream you had. You’ll learn of your true name and who you really are,” With that said, the car moved and father and son headed home. Home to where the truth was going to reveal itself and reveal the unknown past of Ken’s life.