Life is good.
I repeat the words again and again. Mind over matter. Motion before emotion.
Up on stage, the best thesis winners from each department walk across to receive their awards from the dean, and one by one, their person meets them at the center. A mother who can't stop hugging. A father who shakes his daughter's hand and then pulls her in anyway. A best friend who screams so loud the microphone picks it up. Each time, the audience cheers, and each time, I clap along and smile, and each time, the empty chair beside me stays empty.
But when I hear my name being called—best thesis, advertising department—and my knees are already wobbling as I rise from my seat—
Oh no.
It's my first inkling that I may not be as composed as I thought I'd be, and as I start walking toward the stage, my fingers gripping my clutch so hard the seam bites into my palm, and my eyes start stinging—
No, oh no.
I have a feeling when I walk up the stage, reality's going to hit me like a tornado the moment I reach the center and the dean looks past me for the person who's supposed to be there and finds no one, and oh no, oh no, it's finally going to happen, and—
Huh?
Who's that guy walking straight toward me like he has all the right to do so? And why does he look like this younger, less serious version of—
"Congratulations, Kitty."
He knows my name? He's also Japanese American? And he's tall, not quite as tall as Dr. Collington but close, and he has the same dark hair except his is cropped short in a way that makes him look like he just stepped off a magazine cover for a sport I probably can't name, and he's wearing a suit that fits him the way suits fit men who've been wearing them since they could walk, and oh, okay, he's actually displaying the same lazy confidence as he reaches for my award from our dean to hand it to me himself, and oh, we're actually going to pose for photos together?
Am I being hypnotized? Am I being scammed? Am I—
"I am here on behalf of my older brother, Kazeyuki."
—living the dream because this is my future brother-in-law standing next to me?
The camera flashes, and I have no idea what my face is doing. He's standing close enough that I can tell he smells expensive but different from Dr. Collington, sharper, less cedar, more open air, and the hand he places on my shoulder for the photo is brief and polite and somehow makes me feel like I've just been formally welcomed into a family I don't belong to yet.
We walk down from the stage together, and I'm in such a daze that I don't even register the rest of the ceremony. It's only when the final name is called and the gymnasium erupts into cheers and the air fills with tossed caps that I actually recover my senses, and I start to panic, realizing that he might've left without me being able to say—
Oh, phew!
I see him waiting patiently by the gymnasium doors, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets and the easy posture of someone who's used to waiting for things to come to him rather than the other way around. Everyone filing past keeps glancing at him. A few girls do actual double takes. He doesn't seem to notice, or maybe he does and just doesn't care, and there's something about that, about the way attention slides off him like it's beneath his interest, that tells me this man has been looked at his whole life and decided a long time ago that being looked at wasn't worth thinking about.
All I can do is smile shyly, awkwardly as I come to stand before him.
"I was asked by Kazeyuki to drive you to your next destination."
Oh my goodness.
That courteous, grave way of him speaking is so like Dr. Collington's. They're practically identical with everything...except for the glint of amusement in his dark eyes that I'm not quite sure how to describe. Not evil, not malicious, not even wicked, but maybe jaded? Can one be weary and amused at the same time? If so, then I'm seeing clearly, and that's exactly how he is.
EishunCollington.
He tells me his name later on, once we're inside his car, which, no surprise, is a limousine with leather seats the color of black coffee and the kind of quiet that only comes from very thick glass. It's properly fitting of someone who I'll learn later on is even more famous than Dr. Collington, and someone I should've recognized if I were the type to follow professional golf. Or any kind of sports for that matter.
Eishun asks where he can drop me off, and the glint in his dark eyes marginally softens into something less jaded when I ask if he can drop me at Stanhope Vancouver.
"Did I say something funny?" I ask uncertainly.
"I'll let you know the next time we meet."
Oh. Okay. Why am I even surprised he loves dropping bits of verbal Sudoku, too? They reallyarerelated by blood.
Eishun politely says goodbye after dropping me at the hospital entrance, and the whole thing still feels rather surreal as I wave goodbye and watch the limousine cruise away. Did that really just happen?