Chapter Three: “The Clod of Earth Dreams of Snow” — Part Eighteen
“What, what are you doing?”
“There was sweat, so…”
That wasn’t a reason at all.
That was hardly an excuse. Kai dragged her tongue across places where she had no permission, escalating the danger.
Before Kai’s advance went any further, I had to refuse, completely, thoroughly, so nothing of this lingered afterward.
Before whatever was left on my neck could fill in the emptiness on its own.
“We can’t do this.”
I pushed against Kai’s slight shoulders and forced myself upright, my body suddenly as heavy and rigid as if I were carrying a slab of stone. A girl who’d felt like she was in complete control of me just moments ago moved easily at the lightest push.
Kai rolled onto the bed, didn’t try to block my way, just turned onto her side. Her cheeks were still flushed. And she stayed curled there, tense, as if holding back something about to break loose.
“I’m not coming back.”
I said it as a final break. My feet on the floor felt waterlogged, sunk in something like a bog.
“I want to see you.”
“That’s just what you want.”
I couldn’t say it while looking at her face. I gathered my things in a hurried, fleeing motion and headed for the door. Kai made no move to stop me. Just stayed there on the bed. That would be the last image of her I carried out with me. Glancing back threatened to undo me completely, so I refused to turn around, ears burning, and kept walking forward.
Out into the quiet hallway, and just before the door swung shut, I heard Kai’s voice.
“The Santa costume. I really was happy. Thank you.”
My heart lurched hard enough that no words came for a moment.
The rush of my own blood was loud enough to feel like drowning, and some part of me wished I could simply be carried away by it, anywhere at all, how happy that would be, and yet I forced the real words out.
“………..I’m not coming back.”
Leaving that weak refusal behind, I closed the door. I nearly collapsed right there in the hallway, catching myself against the wall, nails scraping. My knees shook, for reasons I couldn’t fully name, and I struck them once with my hand.
A man-eating creature was waiting in that room.
If I’d stayed five more minutes, I wouldn’t have made it home tonight. And if that had happened, it wasn’t hard to imagine where it led: suspicion from my family, worry, instability, erratic behaviour, chasing an escape route straight into ruin. But all of that stayed safely hypothetical, and having avoided every bit of it, I was, wonderfully, happy.
Which was why I would never open that door again.
I would never come back to this hotel to see Kai.
Deliberately visiting a girl who’d just told you she loved you, wasn’t that, functionally, infidelity?
…Infidelity?
No, that was absurd. Infidelity requires two directions. Whatever this was on Kai’s side, it was unreturned, unrequited, meant nothing at all. And I was running from something that meant nothing.
The relentless pounding in my chest was almost painful, and yet that pain, too, had been given to me by Kai.
My own reaction to something Kai had thrown at me.
“…Kai.”
Half-unconsciously, the name slipped out, and I froze, appalled at myself.
I hurried, nearly running, toward the car park.
Mama got confessed to today, sweetie, by your classmate, but I turned her down properly and came straight home. Oh, and my foot got licked absolutely everywhere, mind if I go wipe it off first?
“As if I could ever say that.”
Half-laughing at myself with a strained, cracked mouth, I was grateful for the winter air rushing in with every breath.
Thank god it was winter. Thank god the night was this cold. The chill helped harden whatever was threatening to dissolve inside me. I hoped the sea wind would wash away whatever still clung to my feet too. Leaving nothing behind. I had to go home without carrying any of what had happened in that room with me.
I’d only wanted to make Kai happy.
I’d only done what I could, to that end.
How had it turned into this instead?
Reaching the entrance to the car park, I looked up at the hotel. The curtains in Kai’s room were still drawn.
On the off chance our eyes might somehow meet, I ducked into the shadow, hiding.
For everything I’d said, all my careful reasoning, all my excuses.
I never once said I didn’t like her, not at all.
Kai’s imagined voice, impossible for me to actually be hearing, shook through my head anyway, and I fled into the car like an escape.
I got home still in the Santa costume, no time left to change. What do I do? I thought, looking down at myself in the garage, and gave up, opening the front door regardless. I told myself this outfit had been meant for my family all along. Not for a girl I’d never see again, whoever she even was. The lie mixed into the cold night air and cut at the edge of my ear on the way in.
“I’m home.”
Did the greeting come out sounding normal? I couldn’t tell why, but my lips and eyes felt dry enough to crack, aching. Standing there alone for a moment, something made me want to claw at my own chest.
My family, drawn by the sound of my voice, appeared at the entrance.
“Whoaaa!”
My husband and daughter reacted with almost identical astonishment.
“First time in my life a Santa’s ever walked in through the front door!”
My husband welcomed me with real delight, shouting something, bouncing on his feet, far too excited.
“I’ve seen Santa try to come in through the window before, though!”
“Did you actually call that in?”
“Ha, that was me, forgetting my keys and trying to climb in!”
My overexcited family flanked me on both sides and marched me toward the kitchen. Waiting for the abducted Santa was the usual dinner table, warm and familiar in colour. Something in me nearly buckled at the sight of it.
“Look at this.”
My husband gestured proudly toward an elaborate Christmas cake.
I recognised, instantly, which shop it had come from, and the world went briefly dark in front of me.
“…A cake from Grandeur.”
“As expected of a real Santa, you have good taste.”
“Their cakes are so good.”
“Yeah… I know…”
Even the cake matches, I thought, my vision threatening to blur.
“Sit, sit,” they urged, and I sat with my things still in hand. My husband leaned in close right away.
The same distance as always, and yet something in my chest ached at it, for no clear reason.
“Mama Santa… can I have my present?”
He beamed, a smile far too innocent for someone in his late thirties. I managed an awkward laugh back, and mimed crumpling up an imaginary notepad on my tongue.
“First I need to check whether you’ve been good this year.”
I managed to return his joke, and he responded with wide, exaggerated shock.
“Just kidding, obviously.”
“Sure.”
Maron, as always, was pressed against my husband’s leg where he sat, deflated. Watching Maron’s unwavering devotion to him, something nearly surfaced in me. I pushed it down, quickly, whatever it was, this house had no room for it.
“Great work staying so late, Santa-san!”
Our daughter offered her innocent thanks, and for a moment I couldn’t respond at all.
“……….Yeah.”
The delayed answer came out clumsy, poor.
“What are you talking about, the real Santa work is only just starting!”
“Right, Mama?” My husband made a fist, more fired up than anyone, and I laughed again despite myself.
Bit by bit, whatever had frozen solid in that sea wind began to thaw.
Warm. Warm enough that my tilted head felt like it might simply melt and spill onto the floor.
The gap in temperature between this and the hotel felt like it might break something in me, and it did, and I let myself get swept up in the noise of it regardless.
It was fun. Fun enough to nearly bring tears, genuinely.
And this was, probably, the last time I got to spend an evening with my family entirely, fully, forgetting everything else.