Chapter 251: Okinawa Market
*How are you doing that? I’m going to starve. – Mike*
RYE’S MEMORIES
Eleven-year-old Rye sat with her dad and sister in the small restaurant. This was one of her most favorite places in the world. And her most favorite people. She loved her mom, but just like her sister, she was daddy’s girl through and through.
Mike had been away for a few weeks with the Marines, and this was the first Saturday that he was back. This was the final stop of their usual Saturday routine. They wandered through the market where he bought his daughters little trinkets.
Today it was a set of matching necklaces. Smooth, round stones with a hole drilled into them for the black cord to loop through. Leigh Anne had a bright blue stone and Ryanne had a piece of brown petrified wood. In the little bag in the empty chair next to Mike was a third necklace for Donna Leigh. Hers was a deep red with veins running through it.
Leigh Anne had picked the blue stone because it matched Stitch on her pink t-shirt. He was her favorite character because he was different and odd, and he did wrong things for the right reason. Both girls wore jeans and tennis shoes. Rye wore a light gray shirt with Japanese writing on it. She loved the touristy shirt and the restauranter, Izumi, once asked her if she knew what it said.
Grinning at him, she touched each character as she translated it. “Fish two for one.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. He laughed even harder as the child pointed to her dad’s shirt with the island outline on it “Take off before washing.”
Today, Mike wore khaki slacks and a plain black polo shirt. He now refused to wear anything with writing that he could not read. His hair was kept short for military regulations, but he did not shave today.
The restaurant had a modern design with traditional designs and style. Three walls of the dining area were all glass and the fourth backed up to the kitchen. The center of the room had traditional western light wood tables with four matching chairs each. Long bars with stools lined the glass walls, broken in only two places allowing for doors.
Where Rye sat, she could see the teal neon sign reflecting on the window. The sky was unusually dark for the middle of the day. Soon enough, rain would be pouring down, trapping Mike and his daughters inside.
Izumi and his wife, Suzume, would not complain. They enjoyed the family coming in. Izumi and a waiter brought their food over to them. Just before leaving the table, he handed Mike a fork.
Both girls laughed as they pulled out the disposable chopsticks.
“Funny. Very funny, Izumi.” Mike said, trying to keep a straight face. He failed and both men laughed.
In the two and a half years that they had been there, the girls had mastered the use of chopsticks. Donna Leigh had never tried. And Mike failed miserably. Every. Single. Time.
Much to his daughter’s delight.
The flash of lightning and boom of thunder had the two girls jumping. They both laughed at themselves.
“It looks like Raijin and Fujin are out today.” Izumi said as he brought more drinks to the table.
“Oh! We just learned about them!” Rye said excitedly. “Fujin is the God of thunder and Raijin is his beast.”
“Other way.” Izumi smiled. “Raijin is the God and Fujin is the beast.”
Mike motioned for him to join them, and Izumi pulled over a chair and sat down at the end of the table to tell them stories about the Shinto gods.
It was not uncommon for them to hear stories about local legends and folklore while they ate. Both girls enjoyed it. Mike enjoyed it. Their mother very rarely joined them.
As Izumi spoke, he looked at the two girls. He always thought that although they had some similar traits, they did not look like sisters. The younger one shared their father’s gray streak and lilac-colored eyes.
They all had dark hair, his was more of a brown where the girls had inky black. The older girl had light golden honey eyes. There were days that her eyes did not sparkle like they did today. They were sometimes dark and troubled. More than what someone her age should have.
When they would come with their mother, the girls’ shoulders seemed heavy with a burden too large for her. The mother did come often, but when she did, and their father was away, she would meet with someone just outside.
Izumi never saw who it was, but the change in the woman was obvious. Whoever she met with was her dealer.
But that woman, and her issues, were not here today. So, he would not think of her.
The rain started to hit against the windows and the wind howled outside.
“Looks like we’re going to be here for a while.” Mike said as he looked out the window behind the girls.
It was almost black outside now. The teal sign was amplified on the window. The reflection shattered on a thousand raindrops. Rye watched as more raindrops hit the glass, exploding the light before rolling down and allowing another raindrop to take its place.
She was fascinated by the way it looked.
“What are you looking at, little sister?”
She smiled at Leigh Anne. Rye loved it when she called her little sister. It made her feel like her sister would always be there to protect her. No matter what.
“The light on the window.” Rye explained. “It just looks so cool.”
Leigh Anne leaned over to look past their dad and see what her little sister was seeing. She watched and was just as fascinated. “It’s like fireworks.”
“Yeah.” Rye sighed out.
Izumi smiled at the girls and asked if they knew how to say it in Japanese. Leigh Anne replied quickly with the correct pronunciation. They went through other words and the four of them eventually switched to Japanese.
As the years went by, Japanese became a secret language between the sisters that they would use to keep secrets from others around them.
