In contrast to Shoko with her striking features and brisk manner, the bride was a rather ordinary girl who seemed to have turned into an equally ordinary office worker.
They had been on the same team during training and the bride had become attached to Shoko, who was anything but shy and had made various friends and connections at the office. The bride was the quiet type who always seemed to stealthily insert herself into Shoko’s circle.
For the life of her, Shoko couldn’t recall why or how. During training, she had felt like the quiet-type bride was dependent on her, and then before Shoko knew it, she was already cosied up with her. Shoko didn’t find anything to dislike about being around her, and at work the bride neither sprinted ahead nor dragged anyone down, so they had remained friendly. Shoko hadn’t paid much attention to her, though the bride continued to stick close to Shoko.
Then, when Shoko started dating the groom, the bride must have heard about it through the grapevine, because she had asked Shoko, ‘You’re seeing X now?’
‘Yes, well,’ Shoko had replied, not wanting to publicize her personal life.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ the bride had asked, in a gently chiding tone.
‘We aren’t friends.’ Pressed to explain herself, for just a brief moment, Shoko had thought,
In retrospect, that’s when Shoko ought to have distanced herself. But since they worked together and she did not want to spark any conflict, she had opted for prudence.
‘A
She heard a woman in a nearby seat exclaim. Her tone of voice as well as the incongruity of the word made Shoko glance quickly over at the couple sitting there. They were both dressed casually but Shoko took them to be career types. What stood out about them was that they were both carrying bags that were full to bursting.
‘What gives you that idea?!’
‘Well, if you read it as the word for “life” …’
The young woman was consumed with curiosity, while the young man appeared to be more aware of his surroundings, so he had lowered his voice in an effort to mollify her. It worked quite well. Shoko could no longer hear their conversation from where she was standing.
Shoko let out an involuntary snort.
Perhaps she too had engaged in a skirmish of sorts – using the white dress she was wearing to cast the spell of her own curse.
In the fifth year of their relationship, the subject of marriage increasingly came up in conversation. They both seemed to suffer from premarital anxiety – they argued more frequently and were often at odds with each other.
It won’t last, just hold out until the wedding, her married friend had advised, and Shoko had believed her.
However, that advice had been based upon the assumption that there wasn’t someone waiting in the wings, someone who would prey upon that premarital anxiety and use it to her own advantage.
He wasn’t a very good liar, and Shoko’s instincts told her that he was having an affair. Though since they were both going through a period of uncertainty, she had thought she’d be able to forgive him – whether he chose to confess or not.
But then, she had been gobsmacked to see that very same quiet type sitting beside him at the restaurant to which she had been summoned.
‘We should break up.’
Why were those words being directed at her? It made absolutely no sense.
‘You owe me an explanation.’
Shoko’s response was not meant for him but instead for the quiet type, who drew close to him, looking frightened.
In silence, he produced a pink notebook. It was a pregnancy planner – and it had the quiet type’s name on it.
Shoko was utterly speechless.
‘… you mean to say that you cheated on me while we were planning our wedding – and that you did it in the raw?!’
Shoko blurted out this vulgar phrase – there was no time to choose her words carefully – and the quiet type spoke up, in tears.
‘I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I was the one who said he didn’t need to use anything. I told him that, if I got pregnant, I’d have an abortion so it wouldn’t cause any trouble.’
And this fool, he’d believed what she said.
In that moment, it dawned on her, calmly and clearly. That the man she’d been with all this time, the man she’d thought she was going to marry, was this much of a witless chump.
‘So you just leapt at the offer, did you? Because she told you she’d get rid of it if she got pregnant. Do you have any idea how disgusting that makes you?’