jealousy

Aina and Kazuo had both lost their parents when they were small children and sent to live with relatives in a small village in the northern island of Japan. When you're kids, sometimes that's all it takes to be best friends. That was certainly all it took for the two of them. The two were inseparable, and Aina's grandparents had taken to teasing the two about just how cute they were together, despite the cries of horror from their granddaughter at the mere thought of being with her friend. 

  During the cold winter months, the ponds and lakes would freeze over, just thick enough for them to be safe. The rice farm Aina lived on never froze over; the water was always moving, something that she had learned to use to her full advantage from a young age, when her grandparents had taught her the skill that went into caring for it all. Kazuo one day took Aina to a pond just a few kilometres away from his aunty's house, with an excited grin on his face. The two of them were only eight at the time, but they both had always talked about being destined for more than what their tiny little town would allow them. Whilst Aina was more willing to take calculated risks, however, Kazuo bet everything on one little thing. If that wasn't getting him out, then nothing was. 

  He put on the ice skates his aunty had bought them and stumbled onto the ice. His balance left something to be desired, Aina told him, but Kazuo just laughed her off. He'd developed somewhat of a habit of doing so in recent weeks, but Aina hadn't thought much of it: Kazuo could be a little strange in the most ordinary of times. The moment he had both feet on the solid ice, however, he began to glide around with a sense of grace and ease that made it look like he'd been born with the blades a part of his feet.

  He danced and twirled and posed, artfully dodging every low-hanging branch and jumping over every bump in the ice, as if he'd memorised the patterns of the pond. By the time his performance was finally over, Aina found her hands raw from clapping and her voice sore from cheering. She hugged him hard in spite of her bug bites, picking him up and spinning him around in the way she knew embarrassed him. "Kazuo, that was amazing!" she yelled as if the heavens just had to know, laughing along with him as they tumbled to the snowy ground beneath them, the powder cushioning their fall.

  "I'm glad you think so," Kazuo said, smiling, "my aunty is taking me to a competition. It might be my big break. I could get a life in Sapporo, or something. Wouldn't that be amazing?" There was child-like glee in his eyes, on a level unparalleled by anything Aina had ever seen in him before. It was something she would never see in him again, she would later remark, not after her jealousy took over her and they began to fight almost constantly. 

  The reality was that their dreams had always been impossible. But you never know that, as a kid. You don't know about property prices or taxes or bills. You don't have to worry about affording an education or how much money you make, because you have adults to do it for you. Aina had found her talent quickly, it came to her naturally, as if she was born amongst the rice crop she so tenderly cared for. But Kazuo? Kazuo was meant to go places. Places he would never afford, not with contest money and most certainly not with a single aunty looking after him. 

  There was one major downside to Kazuo's stay, once he became famous; the fans. Aina quickly found that their small, quiet town was being filled with fans of her best friend, the only friend she'd ever known, all begging for his autograph, for a picture, for anything to write about. They were just kids; there was no way Aina could've seen what was going on for what it was. She had never even thought herself a jealous person, until that point. The point where the tourists overran the residents of her sweet little town.

  Nobody cared about the Ultimate Rice Farmer. It was all Kazuo this, Kazuo that. People had even begun printing his face on their shirts. On his ninth birthday, Kazuo forgot to invite Aina, too busy basking in his own newfound fame and glory to bother. They were only kids. You can only imagine the field day the tabloids had when Aina punched Kazuo out by the pond where he'd first told her the best news of his life. They never spoke again after that.