Are the Cherry Blossoms Blooming?

A glass box placed in a void of white,

It’s owner and prisoner the same.

The key sat by their knee,

But the jailbird

only wished to stay.

————————————————————

It was raining almost every day now, now that the snowfall had stopped.

Rin preferred it to the biting frost that would come to nip at her nose, and cause her to have a sore throat every morning. Even so, the overcast that greeted the world each day, making it hard to distinct dawn from dusk, did nothing to lift anyone’s spirits.

Some days were better than others.

Her friend (or rather someone who insisted that they were Rin’s friend, but was actually just a nuisance) would sometimes give her a call, to check up on how she was doing, making sure she wasn’t laying in bed all day… which was often the case.

Once everyone switched over to online classes, Rin would get out of bed only if she absolutely had to. That lasted for months on end. Then years.

That was then, but things were getting better. Or at the very least, things would get better, in due time.

When the fog finally lifted, it was as if the world came back to life. Not immediately for Rin, however.

Before all this, she was already a shut-in, someone who refused to go anywhere, and was more than happy to not be invited to anything. The fog had made it worse.

So there she lay, after her last online final exam (even when in-person classes were now available), in a nest of unmade covers and way too many pillows for one individual, perfectly content to sleep for the rest of the day.

Because it was one of the bad mornings.

A thunderstorm had started early in the night, and was still raging on outside of Rin’s peaceful sanctuary.

All she could do to prevent herself from panicking at the sound of each thunderclap was to put on her headphones, but even through the loud comforting music, she could still hear it, still could see the flashes of lighting.

Oh how she had loved these storms when she was a child. How captivated she was by the world’s natural light show, a show better than any human could recreate with fireworks or music concerts. How she would run to the windows each time a storm began, causing her to be filled with pure joy, each flash of light reflected in her crinkled happy eyes, bringing her a sense of comfort and bliss.

That was then, but now things were worse.

Instead of how it was, Rin was only reminded of the night she had to leave her home, how her grandparents helped her load her things into the back of their small car, petting her on the head, telling her everything would be okay.

“Your mama is a little sick right now,” Her grandpa had said, “I’ll take care of it, but it’s probably better for you to stay with us for now.”

Reyna, her younger sister, had begged Rin to stay, or at least take her with her. It was one of the only times Rin had seen the child cry.

She promised she’d return for her.

She never kept that promise.

Rin didn’t completely remember the details, she had only been eight when she moved to their grandmother’s house. Apparently, her mother was under a lot of stress at the time, being only recently divorced, and being the family’s only breadwinner.

And that day something had been been the last straw.

Rin always suspected it was her. That maybe she had been whining to her mother about something trivial, or making a mess, really it could have been anything-

Even though everyone told Rin it was not her fault, she knew it probably was. After all, why did they only send her away, but leave Reyna with their biological father?

That thought would come back to her in the darkest of the nights, gnawing away at her like a dry bone, until she was left numb, empty of every thought and emotion.

Lost in her self-pity and on the verge of another panic-attack, Rin didn’t even register the knock on her bedroom door, thinking it was just a smaller sound left behind by the storm and her memories.

Rin could here hear the creaking of the bedroom door, followed by a stream of yellow light flooding her dim room.

“Sweetheart?” A hoarse yet warm tone carried itself across the small room.

With no response, Rin hoped that she would leave her alone, but her grandmother spoke once more.

“There’s someone here to see you,”

“Tell ‘em to go away.” Rin mumbled from her cave of covers.

The elderly lady placed a stern hand on her apron wrapped waist, and sighed.

“I don’t know, they seemed very insistent on seeing you.”

Rin sat silently, thinking of an excuse, before deciding to fake a sneeze.

“You can’t fool me, I raised you,” Her grandmother tutted, picking up a dirty shirt from the floor and playfully throwing it at Rin. “And clean your room, it’s becoming a pigsty again.”

“But gran-”

“No buts, your poor friend is waiting at the door!”

Rin groaned, sitting up.

“I don’t have friends.”

Her grandmother looked nothing short of amused. “Then why did the poor boy look so worried about you?”

Rin slumped over, already guessing who it was, and groaned at the prospect of having to interact with that specific golden retriever of a human being. Today of all days. What could he possibly want?

Getting up, Rin trudged out of her room, dragging her blanket behind her, as if it could shield her from the dreaded social interaction.

Her grandma lightly smacked her back, grumbling for her to fix her posture unless she wanted to be a hunchbacked old lady someday.

Rin passed the dining room, where the window was wide open despite the wind and rain, a half-used cigarette sticking out of the ashtray, and a newspaper laying half-read by an empty cup of coffee. Her grandpa must have left already, despite how early it was.

Behind the half-open front door (god knows when was the last time Rin approached the front door), stood a lanky young man, his blue eyes concentrated on his cellphone, his other hand holding onto the strap of the black backpack slung over his shoulder.

His ginger hair was soaked, as was his windbreaker.

Rin squinted in disbelief. ‘Did the idiot not think to bring an umbrella with him?’

The boy’s head shot up the moment he heard the door open the whole way.

A beaming grin bloomed on his face when he saw Rin, but it became lopsided and confused when he saw the state she was in. Though really, what was there to be confused about? Rin always looked like she crawled out from under a rock after a millennia of hibernation.

“Wow, you look awful,” He said in a light tone.

“And you’re still as rude and brainless as ever.”

He pouted.“Hey, don’t be like that!”

“Then maybe say ‘hi’ before commenting on my appearance?” Rin cringed.

“Sorry,”

She stood silently for a moment, just to make him stew in his guilt a little, because that’s the type of bastard Rin was sometimes.

“Apology accepted,” Then, she moved to the root of the issue. “Why are you here Aiden?”

“Uhh,” He shifted around awkwardly. “I was kind of worried, a bit. It’s exam week and you weren’t responding. You usually text back something like ‘leave me alone’ when you’re busy, but you didn’t even read my messages, so, I thought-”

He didn’t finish the sentence, cutting himself off. Rin knew what he was trying to say, but the topic wasn’t easily broached.

It was no wonder now why he had no umbrella; he must have ran over from his house the moment he felt something was off.

It happened only once before, when the two of them were in high school.

He was the one to call the ambulance, and call her grandparents who had been away to a family friend’s house for dinner (and Rin had claimed she was too tired to go, blaming her fatigue on school).

The whole thing is an unpleasant memory, and yet another source of guilt that came back to haunt Rin ever so often. She may have had been the victim of her own unhealthy mind then, but what hurt more about the memory was not her own pain, but the trauma she forced her close ones to go through. She would not even want to imagine what it was like seeing someone you know bleeding out on a bathroom floor.

So they always left the topic half spoken of, only prodded but never dug up from the past.

“My phone was on do not disturb,” Rin explained.

“Ah, I see,”

Lightning struck, followed by an almost immediate thunderclap. The storm was getting closer, and Rin didn’t want to keep standing out in the cold.

“If that’s all? If yes, then imma go back to sleep.” Rin’s hand went back to the door, ready to shut it close, but Aiden shook his head, putting his foot in the door frame.

“Wait,” He dug around for something in his pocket, and brought out two tickets, which were a little crumpled and folded.

“What are those?”

“Train tickets.”

“For?” Rin asked, confused.

“There’s this festival happening in the next town over today, it’s in this big cherry tree grove, or garden thing. I tried to text you about it this morning, but, you know.”

“Well have fun then—” Rin was still trying to close the door, making the boy wince.

“Not alone! Please come with me?”

Rin really couldn’t stand him.

Or at least that’s what she told herself, while trying to bury the warmth in her chest from the fact that someone still cared for her, no matter how much she tried to push that said person away.

“What’s in it for me?” Rin asked.

“Food. There will be lots of different vendors at the festival, I’ll buy you any food you want, however much you want—”

The hopeful look on his face was almost adorable.

“I like your funny words magic man,” Rin quoted, and his face immediately lit up.“Fine, you win. Give me, like, twenty minutes.”

—————————————————————————————————————

The train ride wasn’t long, and the compartment they were in was nearly empty of other people, putting her anxiety at ease, even more so after they got further and further from the storm.

There was something nice about the quiet hum and the soft lighting; the foliage and fields that they passed were damp with rain, illuminated by the late morning sun.

In all honestly, Rin thought she probably preferred the train ride itself more than the destination, in most cases.

But today she was pleasantly surprised.

The garden was quite the walk from the train station, and it was refreshingly different from the past times Rin was forced outside of the house (or from when she had forced herself go outside for health reasons). The golden morning sun was bright and warm, but not overbearing, just like the person walking beside her.

He would comment on things they passed on the way, occasionally cracking a joke, but otherwise their walk was filled with a comfortable quiet.

Maybe it was good to step outside once in a while like this, even if it's difficult to even step out of bed most days. When was the last time she went outside, anyway?

“Hey, look—” Aiden pointed out, in the near distance, their destination.

‘Pretty’ would be an understatement for the place.

It was the historical district of the city, with old traditional homes, and a small palace and general’s quarters at the far end. There was the old shopping district, now filled with makeshift stalls to look like the early ages, with vendors even dressed in their country’s traditional clothes from those times, filling the atmosphere with something akin to nostalgia. Maybe that was because it reminded her of one of the movies she loved so much as a kid, of the one where the main character was trapped in the spirit world, and escaped with the help of a shape shifting dragon.

But aside from the buildings, the food and the atmosphere, there were also the cherry trees. Dozens and dozens of them.

When had they began to bloom?

The last time Rin ventured outside there was only snow covering leaf-barren trees, but now everything was bursting with life. The snow was replaced with soft pink and white petals, and the gray skies with pleasant weather.

There was such a familiar fragrance in the air, perhaps of a certain food mixed with the smell of flowers and petrichor, that she could almost imagine herself here, at a different time.

A small memory greeted her mind, in which her once long dark hair flowed freely down her back, and simple white robes embroidered with lilac thread wrapped around her body. Her small hand clutched the warm and calloused one of an adult’s, a woman with tired eyes, whose hair was held up with an intricate ornament, far to detailed for Rin to remember, except for the single butterfly in the middle of it that glittered.

Her sister Reyna, barely a toddler, had her tiny arms around the woman’s, perhaps their mother’s, neck, and was sleeping soundly in the safety of her guardian’s embrace.

Could it have been the last time her family celebrated together?… But when was this?

Rin could not pinpoint the exact age she had been.

It was like a lifetime ago.

Fumfum !

A loud noise interrupted her thoughts, bringing her back to the present.

For a moment Rin feared that the storm had caught up to her, that the lighting and thunder would return.

But it was simply the drumming of the musicians starting a new performance on the stage in the center of the festival. A cello joined in their tune, carrying a heavy cloud of sound through the air and ground. Rin could feel the earth shake beneath the rubber soles of her running shoes, and see the tiny grains of sand and dirt shift with the rhythm.

Sensing her distress, her friend was at her side in a split second, her hand now in his own.

“You okay?” His eyes searched hers for an answer. “Can I help? Do you want to go somewhere quite? There’s a park bench on the other side of the festival…”

“I’m okay,” Her response was accompanied by a strained smile. “But, maybe could you help me get my headphones from my backpack?”

In another moment her backpack was opened and closed, and her headphones placed in her hands. And onto her ears they went, blocking out the sound in seconds, but she could still feel the music move though the earth below her.

She did not bother to turn on her own music, instead deciding to listen to the muffled version of the concert. An action that surprised even herself.

When did she ever enjoy music that she did not pick?

Leisurely they walked through the festival, taking in the sights. Aiden, a man of his word, bought Rin all the food she could want.

They visited every stall, buying something from at least every other one, even picking up a few trinkets. In the end they must have walked three circles around the event before getting tired.

As night fell, they sat down at the park bench, taking in the sight before them, as the festival the whole district glowed with lanterns and stars.

“I’m sorry for dragging you out,” He said once it was quiet again, and her headphones where back in her bag. “If this whole trip made you uncomfortable, I won’t force you to go anywhere with me again.”

“No,” She answered. “Thank you for getting me out of the house for once.”

The boy was stunned into silence.

She continued. “I think I needed this. I can’t promise I will always be okay with going places, especially when I don’t feel well. But I’m genuinely grateful.”

Aiden stared in silence, before mumbling. “Who are you? What have you done to my Rin?”

And she chuckled, a good full-hearted chuckle that turned into a laugh, which melted into a smile as sweet as the ones buried of her in the old family albums.

Aiden never thought he would be able to see that smile again, and when he later told Rin’s grandparents about what had happened that day, her gran had nearly wept with joy.

—————————————————————

Then came music, light, and warmth of loved ones by their side,

and instead of sitting idly, they now wished to dance and stride.

“Here, if the key does not work, take my hammer—

Take my word, take my hand,

and break out of the slammer.

You are no doll, nor a puppet that must adorn a shelf,

so drop the facade,

and bloom into yourself."