The Seventh Thing I Hate About You

I used to think the standards for happiness were the same for everyone. I never imagined that by the time I met happiness again, I would already have forgotten your face.

On a drizzly afternoon I lay sideways on the soft, comfortable sofa in Ryo Kitagawa's living room while he played DOTA in his study. Every time a match ended he would run out to kiss me or rub my cheeks and ask delightedly, "Sao, is Maruko any good?" I would take the chance to pop a few black currants into his mouth and answer, perfectly content, "It is." Outside, the rain gleamed like crystal and the air was freshly washed. In that moment I felt, from the bottom of my heart, that I was happy. On TV, little Maruko said she wanted to go out, so her mother packed her a rice ball for when she got hungry. Then she went out carrying it, believing she had gone very, very far, when in truth she was still in the alley just outside her own door. When I got to that part, I suddenly started crying. The sounds of battle from the game came from the study, but for no reason at all they seemed very far away. I sat on the sofa and sobbed. Hearing me, Ryo threw down his game and came running out. He crouched in front of me, tipped up his face, and asked patiently, "Sao, what's wrong?" I sniffed and said, "Maruko is so pitiful." When he learned I could cry over Maruko, he could not help laughing. He looked so handsome when he laughed, even more than when he did not, his eyes curved like crescents. He ruffled my hair, his voice thick with indulgence. "You little idiot." But only I knew what lay behind those tears. I felt like that foolish, smiling Maruko. I had thought I had already gone very far, far enough to forget you, and yet all I had to do was turn around and there you were, your shadow cast long across my heart. Zen Kamiya, how long had it been since I last spoke your name? In all that long, long time, your name rolled in my throat and choked me. What came out was still only silence. I bent my whole life into the posture of waiting. I was afraid you would not come. Even more frightening than that was the thought that you might come again. As far as you know, the last time we met was the night before you left for England. You stopped me outside my apartment. We had both been drinking hard, our faces flushed from alcohol or anger, I could not tell which. You twisted my wrist and kept demanding, "Do you really hate me that much?" You were gripping me so hard that I hardened my heart and bit down on your hand. If you truly love someone, you cannot bear to bite him like that. I really did hate you. Even after you went to England you still would not let it die; you messaged me on LINE, "Sao, do you really hate me that much?" I could not even be bothered to answer. I shut the chat window. Of course I hated you, Zen Kamiya. I hated you so much that I felt ashamed and furious even over the love and trust I had once given you. If I could not forget, then the only thing left was to hate harder. Did you understand that at all?

The first thing I hated about you was that, like some spoiled bully from an old tale, you spotted a girl you wanted on the street and, without caring what she wanted, seized her by force as your own. I was that luckless girl.

I was absurdly bold back then. I darted down to the first floor in a flash and started making eyes at Shizuka Kawashima. "Look behind you. Look behind you."

That apartment complex required some kind of pass just to get through the gate. I muttered bitterly, "Rich people just love making a show of things. Why don't they hang up a sign that says Poor people and dogs forbidden?" Shizuka rolled her eyes at me. "Rich people's dogs are allowed in."

We waited until dark and the boy in white still had not come out. That traitor Shizuka forgot several times that she was the one who had encouraged me in the first place with stories about the Foolish Old Man Moving the Mountain and Jingwei Filling the Sea, and kept whining that we should just leave.

Much, much later, I often thought that if I had listened to Shizuka then, if I had simply withdrawn like a good girl, maybe we never would have met. If I had never known you, then my youth, my life, might have taken on some completely different shape.

Two minutes later, your girlfriend said unhappily, "I'm going." Even an idiot could tell she was hinting to you, but you took it as an ordinary goodbye, did not even turn your head, and perfunctorily answered, "Okay." On the way to treat Shizuka and me to shaved ice, you learned we had been staking out the place because of a boy and at once sneered at us. Tilting your eyes at me, you said, "What good is handsome, anyway? Besides, is he as handsome as me?" I shot back, "Handsome my foot." You stared at me, speechless, then after a long moment counterattacked with something you had learned in politics class: "Classmate, an objective fact does not shift because of subjective consciousness." I could not be bothered with you, but Shizuka cut in, "That girl just now, was she your new girlfriend?" At once you forgot all about "objective facts" and forcibly subjected them to "the distortion of objective reality by subjective will." "No, she's just a good friend." You lied so naturally, the way celebrities deny gossip to reporters, blurring that girl's identity until it dissolved. Celebrities are afraid of losing fans. What were you afraid of?

The second thing I hated about you was that, for no reason at all, you turned me into the seductress, the other woman, in everyone else's mouth. Your girlfriend attempted suicide. Of course she did not die; I heard the razor only broke the skin on her wrist. But that was enough to thrust me into the eye of the storm. I suddenly became everybody's target, and the worst part was that I myself did not even know what had happened. When you came to apologize, wearing a green shirt and so handsome it was almost unbelievable, you already looked worn down. After only a few days apart, you had changed. You said, "Sao, I've made trouble for you. I'm sorry." Tears spilled out at once. I wanted to speak, but instead two enormous snot bubbles popped out of my nose. At that moment I wanted to die. You went from dejected to startled to doubled over laughing in the space of a second. When we had both calmed down, we sat back to back on the riverside steps and I murmured, "What am I supposed to do?" I was not asking you. I was asking myself. Why had this happened? All those stale idol dramas where the hero and heroine kiss a few times and fall in love, how had that kind of trite melodrama ended up happening to me? But you took the question as if I were asking you. You immediately turned around, seized both my arms, and said with righteous gravity, "I'll take responsibility for everything." My brain must have short-circuited then. Not only did I not think it ridiculous, I was moved. The way you looked as though you would offer up rivers and mountains just to win a smile from me left me too choked up to speak. We went to face Jin Natsukawa together. In front of her, you gripped my hand tightly. Your tone was so certain, your eyes so unwavering. "Jin, I'm sorry. I really am." She slapped you across the face, then meant to slap me. I closed my eyes and thought, Let her. I deserve it. The crack of that slap was even louder than the one she had landed on you earlier, but I did not feel a thing. When I opened my eyes I realized you had taken it for me. Both your cheeks reddened almost at once, and with your head turned aside you did not say a word. You simply bore it. When Jin left, her chin was lifted high. Very lightly she said to me, "A piece of trash like that suits you." I could not understand how she could use such ugly words on someone she had once loved. Even if anger and heartbreak had pushed her to the limit, she should not have said that. Later I realized that was your gift: you could drive everyone who loved you to the edge, drive them until they spoke without restraint. But at the time, all I could do was cry. I felt unspeakably lucky. I had met this person at the best age of my life. I loved him, and he loved me. Nothing had ever made me feel more happy than that. Back then I was too foolish to understand that retribution exists. Not until Shizuka told me later that after you left me, Jin had gone around everywhere saying that Hayakawa Sao had gotten what she deserved. Only then did I understand that fate really is a circle. Whoever incurs a debt must pay it back. We were officially together. No matter how other people looked at me or talked about me, it was enough that I knew the truth. Arguing and explaining would not make things better, and smears and insults could not make them worse. Besides, you were already by my side. That was enough.

The third thing I hated about you was that you lured me into running away with you. You were a young master who knew nothing of ordinary life, and your mother, who knew as little as you did, happened one day to drive her red Audi TT to pick you up from school. She saw her precious son grinning beside a girl at a little stand by the school gate, eating cheap snacks, and that was apparently intolerable. She slammed on the brakes in front of us, rolled down the window, glared at me, and said in a cold, severe voice, "Zen. Why are you eating this filthy stuff? Get in the car. Your rebellious streak is truly unmatched." You froze for a second, then grabbed me and ran the other way. It was just after school, with crowds and traffic everywhere. By the time your mother turned the car around to chase us, we had already vanished into the sea of people. Whatever else I may say, I have to admit that in those days there was a certain fierce recklessness in the way you loved me. No matter how many years pass, I cannot deny where it came from. It came from love. It was ridiculous, the way you were, hair whipped into a mess by the wind, suddenly brave over my affairs because you loved me. When you stood before me with a huge bag on your back and said you were taking me away, my reason was destroyed down to ash. I did not think of anything at all. I just said yes. We took a train overnight, the cheapest hard-seat tickets we could buy. By nightfall everyone in the carriage was slumped asleep. You pulled me into your arms and circled me with your own, as if that small ring of your body were the place where I belonged in the world. Under the pale light from the ceiling, your face looked young and yet resolute. Your lips were pressed together, your eyes fixed on the night beyond the window. How much confidence did you really have in the future, though? That so-called elopement was probably nothing more than a moment of youthful impulse. I was innocent, but I was not stupid. When we reached that seaside city, your extravagance appeared at once. You wanted the best hotel, the most expensive food, the liveliest bars. I wanted to talk you out of it, but when I saw how happy you looked I swallowed every word. Your happiness came first. Of course, the little money you had brought ran out quickly. On the last day the two of us sat facing each other on the hotel window ledge, looking down from twenty-some floors above. The pedestrians were like ants, the cars like matchboxes. Just as when we ran away, you said nothing. But the whole room could hear the unspoken line in your heart, so I said it first before you lost face. "Let's go back." You looked at me and stopped yourself several times. The light in your eyes had clearly already agreed with me. I could see your retreat, but your mouth still would not yield. It did not matter. I loved you, so I laid the road flat for you. When you opened the hotel room door and saw your mother with her eyes swollen from crying and your father's face iron-blue with anger, your expression must have gone blank. And while that was happening, I was squeezing through the train station to queue for a ticket. The crowd smelled sickening. I cried and smiled at the same time. Zen, I could be brave too. For you, there was nothing I was afraid of. I was the one who called your parents and told them where you were. I was afraid you cared too much about pride to go back with me. We each returned to our own homes. Your whole family flew. I rode a packed train by myself. That night I lay with my eyes wide open like a wary animal, afraid that if I fell asleep I would wake up sold off to some remote mountain village as somebody's bride. When I got home, my father whipped my back with a belt forty-six times. I remember it clearly. My mother tried to stop him and he flung her to the floor. Forty-six times. I have never miscounted them. You do not know what kind of pain that was. But faced with a father heartsick over having such an unfilial daughter, lamenting the disgrace I had brought on our family, I did not offer a single word in my own defense. A week later you finally came to see me. You wanted to hold me, but the moment your hand touched my back I could not help crying out. When you saw the welts, you cried. You said, "Sao, I'm sorry." I smiled and said, "It doesn't matter."

The fourth thing I hated about you was that you betrayed me. You were the sort of person people call free-spirited if they are being kind. But I wanted to borrow the ugliest words Jin Natsukawa had once used on you: you were an ungrateful, irresponsible wretch. After we came back from running away, you slowly began to drift away from me, and because I did not want to hurt my parents again, I rarely went to see you. Then one day Shizuka came to me, grave-faced, and asked in a taut voice, "Sao, have you and Zen Kamiya broken up?" I jumped. We just were not glued together morning and night, that was all. How had that turned into breaking up? I was such a fool. I thought that after all we had been through, our love had risen from wild passion into calm waters. Do they not say plain and ordinary is what lasts? But you bastard, you fell for someone else.

Just as you had openly twisted the truth about you and Jin Natsukawa in the beginning, you used a few casual words to wipe my place beside you clean when it came to your new target. She asked you, "I heard you two ran away together?" And how did you answer, shameless thing that you are? You said, "What running away? That's just a rumor. We were only good friends who went away on a trip." The nerve of you. Who cuts class right before final exams to go on vacation? When I came back, the school gave me a major demerit. And you? Your family had money and influence. You spent a little, called in a few connections, and everything was settled. If that was a vacation for you, then what on earth was it for me? My heart did not hurt. It truly did not. I no longer even knew what hurt felt like. That was how completely I had grown cold toward you. The one slightly comforting thing in that misery was that you were not as cruel to me as you had once been to Jin. You did not bring your new love to flaunt her before your old one. We sat in a cable car on the mountain watching fireworks. One blossom of fire after another burned to its brightest and then fell apart at once. You had become so affected, so false. You said, "Sao, fireworks only scatter. They never wither. That's how you are in my heart." Then you said, "Sao, do you think the air up here is good? I think it's much better than the air in the city. The city doesn't deserve air this clear, just as I don't deserve someone as good as you." Thinking back now, I really should have spit in your face. But at the time I did nothing. I did not cry, I did not make a scene, I did not curse you, I did not slap you. I did not even do what so many girls do at a breakup and recite, bead by bead, every grievance they suffered along the way. You betrayed me. You hurt me. But I had my pride. I said lightly, "You'll regret this." Either I overestimated how much weight I carried in your heart, or I underestimated the poverty of your character, because you refuted me on the spot. "I won't." I stared at you stupidly. It felt as if I had never known you at all. Retribution is real; there has always been sense in the turning of cause and effect. You were willing to hurt Jin for my sake then, and one day you were bound to hurt me for someone else. Such a simple truth, and I had to live through it before I understood it. Suddenly I started laughing. My hysterical laughter startled you. "Sao, are you all right?" you asked. But really I had only thought of a bad joke. I asked you, "Do you know why someone cries so hard when they're sick with disgust?" You shook your head, baffled. I gathered all the strength in my body and shouted, "Because disgust can kill. Zen Kamiya, you disgust me to death!"

The fifth thing I hated about you was that after I met Ryo Kitagawa, you had the audacity to say to me, "A prodigal son who returns is worth more than gold." I once read a story about Solomon. Solomon was heaven's darling, a sovereign among men, beloved by the gods and revered by the people. But one night he dreamed a sentence that filled him with terror, and when he woke he had forgotten it out of fear. So he summoned the sages of the world and ordered them to recover those words for him. After three months of racking their brains, they presented him with a ring. On the ring was engraved a single line: All things shall pass away. Isn't that how it is? Those beautiful memories, the heart of the one you love, the bloom of youth, all those precious things are destined to be lost in the end. I skipped evening self-study and went alone to a pub for a drink. Long Island Iced Tea. The name is beautiful; only after you drink it do you realize how fierce it is. A man with a blurred face and an uncertain identity came over to chat me up. "Little sister, you're very pretty. Drinking alone? Feeling lonely?" Yes, Zen, after you left me I was lonely. Other than loneliness, there was nothing that could make me feel that fallen. But no matter how low I was, I would not make a joke of myself. From the day you betrayed me, I ground my teeth and told myself that one day I would live happily, arrogantly, fiercely happy. The man laid a hand on my shoulder. In that setting his smile looked especially vulgar. "Little sister, how about I drink with you?" I looked at him coldly. "And then what? You make me sick." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "And then, if something happens, that'd be only natural, wouldn't it?" I threw a glass of ice water in his face, clean and quick, and said coolly, "No matter what happens, you're not worthy of it." Zen, you know I have always been bold. But I had never done anything so out of bounds. I had gone mad, using drink to pour out the pain and grief inside me that I could tell no one else.

Ryo Kitagawa appeared at precisely that wretched moment. I was hardly sober by then. I even thought that if I died there, so be it. In the dim light I saw him coming toward me in clothes white as snow. Inside the pub feet crossed, voices clashed, everything was noise. I closed my eyes and stopped thinking. It was that kind of story, terribly cliched. He pulled me out of it. Whether it was out of pity or something else, I do not know. In any case, he became my savior. Later I asked him why he had helped me. He narrowed his eyes and laughed for a long time before saying, "I couldn't stand watching it." I must have looked awful beyond description back then, otherwise Ryo would not have looked so astonished a week later when he saw me, transformed, coming to thank him. He said, "So you were this pretty all along." Pretty? I do not know. Was it because I was pretty that you wanted to be with me in the first place? Was that why you left Jin Natsukawa? And later, did you meet someone prettier than me and leave me for her too? It was when I understood that clearly that my hatred of you began to grow. I even hated myself. How could I have offered love to a person like you? How were you worthy of something as noble as my love? My love with Ryo Kitagawa was nothing like what I had with you. It was not groundless, thrown together out of pure impulse, so wild that it wounded innocent people. Ryo was better than you in every way. He was steady, generous, gentle, kind. He was the sort of person who, when he saw a beggar on the street, would give money whether the story was true or false. Sometimes I thought he was too easy to fool. But his eyes were so clear. He would say, "They're already so old. Even if it's a scam, life can't be easy." It really did not seem difficult to fall in love with him. And yet, after hearing from Shizuka that Ryo and I were together, you came rushing over in a rage to say you regretted everything. Like some petty brat, you clung to me and refused to let go. "Sao, I was wrong. I still love you." I did not move. I let you babble on. In the end, you were tired, and so was I. Then you said, "Sao, I'm going abroad."

The sixth thing I hated about you was, in fact, myself. I hated that I had loved you. Zen Kamiya, what could I do? We are never able to command our feelings with perfect ease. Even though you hurt me so cruelly and betrayed my love, I still had no way not to love you. Everything about you was carved into my bones. From the chance that brought us together to the ruthless way we parted, the stretch in between became a memory I will never forget as long as I live. I knew from the start that sooner or later we would separate. The moment I saw the disgust and contempt in your mother's eyes when she looked at me, I knew our love would eventually lose to something. But even so, I had never expected it to lose to your fickleness, to be ended by another love. When you came to beg me at the end, it was probably only your proud vanity speaking, that strange possessiveness which says that even if I no longer want something, I still will not give it to anyone else. You were selfish. You were awful. But when I loved you, that was already who you were. What is love, really? I truly do not know. But before I understood it, I had already been defeated by it. It was almost funny. The first time I went with Ryo to visit his home, I discovered that he lived in the very place where you had first intercepted me. Do you remember? That apartment compound I had grumbled about so much, that upscale complex you could not enter without showing identification. I looked at Ryo for a very long time, until he started feeling uneasy under my stare. Suddenly I remembered something and asked, "Do you always wear white?" He nodded. "From summer to winter, almost everything I own is white." In that moment I felt as though fate had snapped a trap shut around me. It was him. The one who, in some dim arrangement of destiny, had led me toward meeting you in the first place. Some mysterious force had made me travel a vast circle, only to bring me back to the starting point.

I never told Ryo any of this. He was such a clean, simple-hearted person; I wanted to protect him well. The night before you left for England, you came to find me drunk. That night I had also been drinking because I did not know what else to do with my misery. Shizuka said something trite but solid to me. She said, "Cherish the person in front of you." I hated you so much. You were about to leave, so why come to me at all? You were like Peter Pan in the fairy tale, a Peter Pan who refused to grow up. You never knew how to think about anyone else. You asked me to forgive you, and then you said something even more ridiculous. You asked me to wait for you. I threw you off and told you to get out. We fought like two beasts. At last you said, "Sao, do you really hate me that much?" Without hesitation I answered, "Yes. I hate you. As long as I live, I will keep walking toward one goal: becoming happier than you." A lot of people saw you off when you left. Shizuka said even Jin went. Everyone took turns hugging you and telling you to take care of yourself. But your eyes kept searching the crowd. You did not see me, and you left with disappointment all over your face. And I will never let you know this: I was at the airport that day. Hidden in the crowd, I cried until I could hardly bear it, saying in my heart over and over, goodbye, my love.

The seventh thing I hated about you was that I did not hate you at all. Zen Kamiya, I do not hate you. I love you. We cannot choose what kind of person we will meet, and we cannot choose what kind of person we will love. But some wrong people can destroy, for an entire lifetime, our longing and hope for love. In the end, I forgave you. You were only too young, young enough to wound people, too young to know how to love one person with your whole heart. I once believed naively that you would make me happy. After you left me, I suddenly understood something: happiness is not something someone gives you. It is something two people create together. Thank you for teaching me that. Sometimes happiness needs an opening in fate. In the course of one life, we will never be short of chances to encounter happiness. Don't you think so? After you, I met Ryo Kitagawa. After me, what beautiful girls did you meet? I do not care, and I am not curious. I loved you and I hated you, and in the end I still forgave you. To forgive you was to forgive myself. Only by forgiving all those old days could I finally live the way I once swore I would: proudly, fiercely, happily.