Not something, someone.
Not like, love.
I miss Hisashi. I miss the kind, strong, brave boy who showed so much heart and shared so much of his heart, who did so many things for me that I can never forget.
Except that boy didn’t do those things.
That boy didn’t suffer the punishment in Sensei Madame Yao’s class.
That boy didn’t patiently teach Cricket and choose him as his partner.
He didn’t fight Suki for me over the pearlflute.
Or open my eyes to the cruelty we inflict on living creatures.
He never listened to me when I felt so lost here.
He wasn’t the one who saw me and heard me and understood me.
Someone else did those things.
Someone who tried to help me, who stood against her father for me, and who lost her career in wu liu as a result. As well as everything else she cared about.
My anger fades.
Doi only wanted what everyone wants.
What I wanted.
I can’t give her what she wants most.
But I can be her friend.
* * *
Watching the last Motivation take place without us is hard to describe. I know how I would once have described it. With grand statements and the sweeping, extreme language that I loved to use so much.
The girls’ final Motivation is Drunken Grasshopper Dance. It’s just a simple spinning and jumping exercise derived from an old Shinian children’s game called hops-and-crosses. I was champion of hops-and-crosses for all of Shui Shan Province three times before the age of six, but I don’t like to boast.
Suki takes first place in the sixth Motivation by completing ninety-seven continuous rotations. Doi did one hundred and sixty rotations during the “Dragon and the Phoenix” routine when she was only ten.
As I watch the girls compete and turn their bodies into those beautiful forms, a pain that I can’t describe fills my breast. There’s only one other person who knows how that pain feels. However, when I look over at Doi, she stares straight ahead at the girls on the pearl doing what we are not.
* * *
At the conclusion of the final Motivation, the final wu liu results are announced at an assembly of all the first-year students. My heart bursts when I learn that Cricket is in the top half of his class! Near the bottom of the top half but the top half, nonetheless.
Then the girls are announced. Suki takes first ranking. Etsuko and Chiriko take second and third. In fact, they’ve done so well that their final scores dwarf those of the boys. The three of them will be awarded the top roles in the Drift Season Pageant.
Doi ranks fifteenth. The hall hums with whispers when this is announced. We all know that she’s the greatest practitioner of wu liu at Pearl Famous. I can admit that now.
My final points rank me sixteenth. Unlike Doi, I’ll have next year to make up for my shortfall, and I know that I still have a chance to be asked to devote to the Conservatory of Wu Liu at the end of the second year. But who knows what’s going to happen next year? I came here as part of a goodwill exchange. That goodwill has ended.
What’s going to happen if my plan works and the Empress Dowager is tricked by the letter orb? She’ll be furious. What if Shin decides to invade? Will that give the government here a legal right to take me as a prisoner of war? What about Cricket?
When I think of how I only cared about taking first ranking and the lead in the Drift Season Pageant as the first student from Shin, I burn with embarrassment. What a silly, self-involved girl I was.
* * *
As we leave the assembly, the students race out in a noisy flood, cheering the official end of the term.
They skate past me with unnecessary speed, but I don’t blame them. They’re just happy that the Motivations and rankings are done. Happy, because they have the Drift Season Pageant and Beautymarch to look forward to. Happy, because it’s hard not to be happy when you’re skating on the pearl.
When the crowd blows past, a figure remains on the pearl. She must have slipped as all the other students raced past. She’s kneeling with her legs splayed out to keep her balance, like a fat goose. Niu Doi. Who has never once fallen down in the year that we’ve been here. Except for when she stood on her hands in Sensei Madame Yao’s class. For me.
Two boys skate to her. Hong-Gee and Matsu. Whom Doi defeated at the boys’ third Motivation. They both extend an arm to her. She hesitates. She must resent their pity. But then she reaches out her arms and they lift her to her feet with that grip, forearm to forearm, like pilots of battle-kites. She grasps the balustrade of the path beside them. They bow to her. Nothing comes out of her mouth; nothing expresses itself on her face. The boys leave her.
I take careful little steps over to her, holding on to the balustrade. We must look pathetic together with our bare socks and our hands gripping the rail like drunkards.
“Why didn’t you just let me do it?” Doi says. “Why didn’t you let me destroy Pearl Famous?”
“I had to try to stop you from doing more harm to yourself.”
“I was going to do it anyway.”
“I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.”
“What does it matter? I’m done here.”
“Who knows what the New Year will bring?”
“What do you care what happens to me?”
I don’t say it. She needs to say it. If she doesn’t say it, it’s not true. I was wrong. It’s not something that I can offer, whether she accepts it or not. That’s not friendship. That’s pity.
At last, she turns to me, her lips pressed together to hide their trembling. “You truly are my friend.”
“It takes you a while, but you get there eventually.”
“You’re the friend I’ve waited my whole life to meet. I was stupid to push that away just
