Those tears I thought I wanted prick my eyes. My head is empty again, everything is just blank. I ache to close the space between us, melt against him. How can this person—the kindest, warmest, most infuriating person I’ve ever met—love me?
He can’t. He shouldn’t. He doesn’t. He’s saying that because we spent the night together and he’s just so noble, so good . . .
And that means I have to shove him away as hard as I can.
The door to my heart slams shut.
“You don’t get a say in that,” I say, sounding as steady as I can even though I want to fall apart. “I know you’re probably used to girls pledging their undying devotion to you after sex, but that’s not me. I just want you to leave me alone.”
I turn and stomp away, still clutching my dress to my chest, tears streaming down my face.
“Rika . . .” he calls after me, his voice breaking.
I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see everything I’ve destroyed.
I walk until I can catch a bus, dragging my giant princess dress behind me. I don’t know why I still have it or why I even took it with me in the first place. I imagine how I must look, a sad girl hauling a mass of sparkly tulle down the streets of LA.
It takes three buses and the whole morning to get back to Little Tokyo. When I finally get there, I start to instinctively walk home.
But then I see the huge mob assembled outside Katsu That. There are paparazzi, cameras at the ready. Clusters of girls craning their necks to try to see inside. I swear I see the denizens of the Becky table in there. A buzz of excitement floats through the air, surrounding the restaurant like an overeager swarm of bees. For the first time ever, the windows are dark. The place is closed.
After struggling and sacrificing and fighting like hell for so many years, Auntie Suzy and Auntie Och actually had to close their beloved restaurant for the day. All because of me.
Before all this, I was a scandalous mistake who could disappear into the shadows. Now I’m a scandalous mistake who’s going to ruin her family.
My Aunties, who worked so hard for their place in this community. Belle, who yearns for her own happy ending. Rory, who is destined to do something brilliant one day.
I will never belong here. It would be better if I left, if they didn’t have to deal with me anymore.
I don’t know exactly where I’m going, so I start wandering in the opposite direction of the restaurant. In the back of my mind, I’m all too aware that this giant-ass dress makes me super conspicuous and I probably need a place to hide while I plan my next move.
I need a good shadow to sink into.
My legs take me to the place they were meant to go all along: the JACCC garden and the onryo tree. A place where I feel hidden and safe—and where my mother apparently did, too, all those years ago.
Luckily, the building and the garden are deserted today. I guess everyone’s too busy trying to ferret out the Secret Love Child.
I crawl under the tree, trying to let its long, drooping branches soothe me. For some reason, I wrap my Cinderella dress around me, like some kind of shield. I sit there for a long while and make myself very, very still—completely hidden from view. And I wait. For what, I’m not sure. I just know that I can hide here. I watch the patterns of the sun change as light filters through the tree, casting shards of brightness on my dark little nook. I don’t know how much time passes. Seconds. Minutes. Hours.
Before I know it, my body starts to feel heavy, all the adrenaline from the day leeching into the soft grass beneath me. Then my eyes are fluttering closed and I’m asleep, my beautiful ball gown spreading over me like a blanket made of fairy dust.
It’s dusk when I wake up. The light has stopped filtering in through the tree, and the sky is beginning to darken. My head feels muzzy, like it’s stuffed with cotton. I rub my eyes and note that my cheek probably has some very interesting patterns dented into it after being pressed to the grass for so long.
I pull my phone out and check the screen. Endless messages. A long scroll of notifications. I dismiss them all.
I decide to check social media, just to get a read on what’s happening. Unsurprisingly, the story has blown up there, too, speculation flying about the SECRET LOVE CHILD. Uncle Taki and Craig Shimizu have already posted long, rambling comments on the Nikkei Week website about how Grace Kimura’s entire family should be banned from the festivities for this disgraceful scandal.
That ban should start NOW, Craig’s comment reads. Belle Rakuyama and her family do not embody our values or the Japanese American pride that our sacred festival is supposed to celebrate. She should be decrowned immediately and should not be allowed to claim the title in any way whatsoever. Rest assured that my father and the rest of the board are taking this matter very seriously.
We cannot allow our traditions to be tarnished, Uncle Taki’s comment insists. The Rakuyamas should not simply be banned from this year’s Nikkei Week. They should be banned FOR LIFE.
And there’s more. Of course there are plenty of comments about me, how I’ve always been a disruptive force, a sour mark on the community. I don’t care about that. It is, after all, nothing new.
But there’s also stuff about how Belle doesn’t fit the image Nikkei Week is trying to project, does not seem like the classic Japanese American princess for reasons. A snarky comment about Rory’s failure to make perfect mochi at the demonstration and how she always “dresses like a weirdo.” A very pointed screed about my Aunties’ restaurant, how
