[fic] MH: Crossroads Schemata 2/3
(Return to Part One.)
- Part Two -
Before finals, Shizuru’s mother had asked her to come home for spring break. The request had been so unusual that Shizuru had agreed to a week’s visit during the month she had off. Risa, learning of her plans just a few days before Shizuru planned to leave and intrigued by what she suspected were aristocratic origins, joked that Shizuru should take her home with her.
“I’ll keep you entertained,” Risa reasoned. “You can introduce me as your nice friend Risa and then use me to prevent your parents from asking you awkward questions-unless they’re into embarrassing you.”
Shizuru laughed and put down the shirt she had been folding. “Don’t you have to work?”
“I’ll keep you entertained for a small fee.”
Shizuru laughed again. Risa made a face. “You think I’m kidding.”
“I know you’d charge too much,” Shizuru corrected her.
Risa pursed her lips in an affronted pout but didn’t manage to hide the surprise in her eyes. After a moment she smiled slyly. “Depends on what kind of entertainment you want.”
It turned out Shizuru was the entertainment. The moment she arrived home, her mother greeted her with a reserved hug and then proceeded to shuttle Shizuru from one social visit to the next, meeting with family, friends, and business associates, all of whom wanted to know how she was doing, what she was planning to do after college, and other sundry details, like if she was dating (her aunts), what the weather was like in Fuuka (their neighbors), or how she liked her okonomiyaki (a shy businessman at a lunch with her father). She almost regretted not bringing Risa with her.
Between these social outings, though, the days moved slowly. She took refuge and delight in Natsuki’s messages and calls, the beautiful countryside she had grown up in, and the fierce, almost irrational joy of some of the townsfolk, the shopkeepers who thrust small sweets and candies into her hands as if she were still a child and, like then, refused her money. She savored these treats as she picked out souvenirs to take back to her friends, pressing the coins into hands that clutched at hers.
Her last night home, her father took her out to dinner. He met her straight from work at a small restaurant that he had helped finance in its infancy, almost as long ago as Shizuru was old. Since her arrival they had barely exchanged ten words, talking to each other through the questions her mother posed over their family dinners, but now his gentle smile emerged and he spoke to her in his quiet but carrying voice.
He waited until dessert and tea to say, “You’re entering your third year.”
Shizuru refilled his cup. “Yes.”
“Are you enjoying Fuuka University?”
She smiled. “Yes, I am.”
“And you plan to continue in your studies of business and law?”
Shizuru nodded. “I think I can do well in those areas.”
“Your grades are very good,” her father agreed. He held his teacup suspended in the air, his expression grave. “You enjoy your studies?”
Shizuru ran her spoon through her bowl of jelly. “I like doing well in my studies.”
He glanced away and frowned, just slightly. Then he said, “Are you happy?”
Shizuru would have choked if she’d had anything in her mouth. “I . . . I’m not unhappy.”
Her father nodded slowly and then broke out into a smile. “That is a good thing to hear.” He shifted in his seat. “Now why don’t you tell me your opinions of the men your mother has been taking you to meet, as I understand she has been.”
Shizuru refrained from pouting, knowing full well her father must have approved of those meetings, if not had a direct hand in arranging them. They were a fearsome business duo, her father and mother. She sensed, though, the abrupt change in topics and wondered why her father had bothered asking only perfunctory questions about school. He’d wanted to say more. She recalled his last visit to Fuuka, about the things they had never addressed a second time, and now the obvious attempt to broach the possibility of marriage in her future. She admitted to herself then that she had been afraid that he had been going to ask more about her personal life.
It was with relief, then, that she answered his question. She expressed her honest opinions because he appreciated frankness and the flair of her humor. They stayed late assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the men she’d met (though which were potential suitors, Shizuru wasn’t sure and her father didn’t clarify) and then aspects of her father’s business dealings.
When they arrived home, her father handed her out of the car and then said lowly, “Your mother wanted that I discuss certain things with you tonight that we did not.” He patted her hand. “For now I’ll just say that you should be aware that you only have two years left at university. We’ll talk of the other things in time.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then looped her arm through his and led her into their home arm-in-arm. Her mother greeted them and, though she looked for it, Shizuru saw nothing pass between her parents that betrayed the conspiracy of their thoughts.
That night she lay awake in bed early into the morning and then said goodbye to her parents at breakfast the next day. On the solitary train and ferry rides back to Fuuka, Shizuru sat watching the landscape transform and transition, thoughtful and quiet.
*
Shizuru missed Natsuki. It was knowing that Natsuki wasn’t in Fuuka that made the island city somehow lonelier. But Shizuru had wallowed in her room the previous semester and now, going into a new term, it was easy to let herself be pampered and courted, smothered in the attention of friends glad to go out, study together, and, if she let them, flatter her ego.
Not that Natsuki disappeared from her life. She was still with Shizuru in her phone calls and messages, but it was hard sometimes to hear about the things she couldn’t see with Natsuki, the meals she didn’t share, the nights spent far away. And there was something emerging in Natsuki’s voice, a subtle change that Shizuru couldn’t identify. It wasn’t like the passion that Shizuru had not seen in Natsuki for two years now, but it was something as seismic, coming on slower and surer.
It gave Shizuru pause. She listened but with concern and curiosity that passed without comment.
*
Shizuru was quiet. She’d been quiet during the last two or so times she’d visited Yamane since her return from home and the start of the semester. As a result, their time together had taken on a new quiet punctuated mostly by the chatter of the television. It might have been sad if Shizuru hadn’t felt too tired to care.
She didn’t stay long these visits. Yamane’s answering silence made her feel like she was imposing but there was something comforting about it, too: with Yamane, she didn’t feel pressured to talk. When Shizuru glanced at her now, she tried to gauge the older woman’s moods or how she felt about Shizuru’s reticence. But Yamane only smiled in her sort of hesitant way when she noticed Shizuru gazing at her and she never said no if Shizuru wanted to come over and she wasn’t busy. To Shizuru, Yamane always seemed to be waiting, patient and undemanding.
That was why Shizuru was surprised this particular visit when Yamane stood up during a commercial and said, “Want to go for a walk? It’s a beautiful night.”
Shizuru gaped up at her for a second. “Sure.”
They turned off the TV, shuffled into their shoes, and Yamane helped her into her jacket, making Shizuru start when she felt the brush of Yamane’s hands along her collarbones. Shizuru tensed but Yamane didn’t seem to notice. The architect shrugged into her own jacket and then held the door open for Shizuru as she flicked off the lights. As she stepped out, Shizuru hid her face in her collar, wondering if she imagined feeling heat in cheeks.
The night air invigorated her sluggish senses. Shizuru raised her face, forgetting her embarrassment, and enjoyed a deep breath. She waited for Yamane to lock the door and then looked expectantly at her to lead the way.
“Want to go downtown?” Yamane asked as she slipped her keys and hands into her pockets.
Shizuru swung her arms wide. “Wherever you want, Yamane-san.”
They rode the train down, sitting side by side but barely touching, Yamane keeping her hands shoved deep within the pockets of her jacket. Once downtown they meandered around familiar streets, gazing into shop windows displaying spring fashions and trends. In one of them Shizuru pointed out a cute dress.
“Why don’t you try it on?” Yamane asked.
“What?” Shizuru asked, smiling in puzzlement, but Yamane was already pulling the door open and holding it for her.
“Come on,” Yamane said, smiling with an impishness Shizuru hadn’t seen in the older woman before. “Let’s go inside.”
Shizuru hesitated; Yamane raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Well?” With a little shake of her head, Shizuru stepped into the store with Yamane close at her heels. It was a small store and it was easy to find the dress in her size, but Shizuru didn’t like it much when she tried it on.
But she liked the way Yamane looked at her when she stepped out of the dressing room. It was the same look that Shizuru had seen on Yamane’s face as she had worked at her drafting table, the same level of focus and concentration. It made Shizuru shiver, to be looked at so intensely.
“No,” Yamane agreed with Shizuru’s assessment. “It has an odd fit at the top-not very flattering.” Yamane smiled and the intensity was gone. She met Shizuru’s eyes. “Now you know.”
After that, Shizuru tried to get Yamane to try something on but Yamane only laughed, especially when she held up a little black dress.
“You can’t always wear pants,” Shizuru said.
“I don’t,” Yamane agreed.
“Really?” Shizuru said, putting the dress back and forgetting it.
“Really,” Yamane said as she led them back outside.
“So you have dresses?” Shizuru asked, cocking her head to try and get a full-bodied view of Yamane. “And skirts?”
Yamane put her hands in her pockets. “A few.”
Shizuru pursed her lips. “I’d like to see you in a dress.”
Yamane gave her a half-smile. “Maybe you will one day.” Then, without warning, she stepped into another shop.
Shizuru stared at the closing door for a second, then hurried after the older woman. No sooner had she stepped through the door when a sudden weight fell on her head. Shizuru started, ducked, and reached up to feel soft knit under her hand. Shizuru blinked her bangs out of her eyes and then straightened up with a slight laugh of embarrassment. She patted the top of her head to flatten the pageboy and shoved it back so that it sat higher on her forehead. The sight of hats from floor to ceiling greeted her.
Yamane was leaning against a rack by the door and looking at her, considering. “Cute.”
Shizuru whipped the hat off her head and lunged at Yamane, trying to hang it on the older woman’s head, but her target ducked away with a grin.
“Try this one on,” Yamane said as she wheeled evasively around another rack and grabbed a sun hat that would make Shizuru look ten years older.
Shizuru gave the hat a bleak look and turned the pageboy in her hands. “It’s . . . . You don’t think that’ll look good on me, do you?”
“No?” Yamane asked but she was eying another hat. Reaching behind Shizuru, she grabbed a neon green snakeskin cowboy hat and dropped it onto her own head, tipping it at a jaunty angle. “How do I look?”
Shizuru schooled her face into a neutral expression. “I don’t think that color suits you.”
Yamane winked, Shizuru giggled, and then they were trying on the most ridiculous hats they could find. Discovering the sunglasses section only made their amusement worse. By the end of their browsing, Shizuru was tempted to buy Yamane the pair with rhinestones and heart-shaped lenses, along with the beanie with panda ears that Shizuru had managed to shove onto Yamane’s head in a sneak attack from behind.
“I don’t think I have a lot of things in my wardrobe that would go with this look,” Yamane said as she looked at herself in a mirror, panda-eared and heart-eyed. She pouted at her reflection but it looked more like a grimace. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I don’t.” Shizuru laughed.
They left the store with the glare of the counter staff following them and into a night breeze that had picked up. Still, Yamane turned to her and asked, “Ice cream?”
Shizuru looked up at her, feeling the smile on her face. “Yes.”
*
Natsuki was away for more than a month and nothing could have prepared Shizuru for having the younger woman show up on her doorstep, unannounced and in her riding leathers.
Shizuru flung the door open and exclaimed, “Natsuki!”
“Hey,” Natsuki said, as casually as if they’d seen each other just the day before. But she was grinning and when Shizuru didn’t move, she pulled her shocked friend into a hug. Shizuru returned the embrace, then pulled back and held Natsuki by the shoulders, taking in the disheveled and tired sight of her.
“When did you get back?” Shizuru managed.
“Just now. I thought I’d drop by and say hi.”
“You must be exhausted,” Shizuru said. “Come in. I’ll make some tea. Are you hungry? Do you need anything?”
“Nah,” Natsuki said as she stepped out of her boots and tossed her helmet into an empty chair. “I ate something a few hours ago. Tea sounds nice, though, thanks.” She flopped onto the sofa and disappeared from Shizuru’s line of sight. “I need a shower but I’ll just wait until I get home.”
“You could spend the night,” Shizuru offered.
Natsuki made a sound that wasn’t much of an answer. Shizuru shook her head but she was smiling. As the leaves steeped in her small kettle, she asked, “Are you sure you aren’t hungry? I have some manju that I bought earlier today.” She received no answer. “Natsuki?”
Shizuru crossed the room to the couch and peered over the back-then bit back a sigh. Natsuki was out cold. Shaking her head, Shizuru fetched a blanket, which she draped over her sleeping guest. With crossed arms she spent a moment gazing down on her friend, then went and poured herself a cup of tea, passing the cup beneath her nose so that the wafting steam curled its warm aroma around her face.
She smiled.
Still and quiet, she waited for the tea to cool, then drained the cup and set it down with the others things that could be left until morning to be washed. Pressing her lips together, she looked in on Natsuki one last time. With care and fondness, she brushed the hair off the younger woman’s face.
“Good night, Natsuki,” she whispered. “Welcome back.”
*
Hey Shizuru,
Sorry about crashing on your couch like that. Thanks for letting me sleep over. You were gone when I woke up, so I went home to unpack and stuff. Call me later when you’re free.
-Natsuki
Shizuru refolded the note and put it down beside the small glass box that had been weighing it down. She ran her finger over the box’s intricate stained glass design of fish and sea life, then carefully lifted the lid. Inside was a layer of sand, atop which sat a tiny starfish, a smooth pebble, and half a small clam shell, its iridescent inner coating face up.
“Natsuki, what is this box?” Shizuru asked when she called later in the evening.
“Something I picked up in Katakai Beach, in Chiba. I went to some of the beaches we visited last summer but we didn’t go to this one. So . . . I bought you a souvenir-not the stuff inside, but the box. I have pictures, too. I’ll show you.” Natsuki stopped speaking but her only reply was silence. “Hello? Shizuru?”
In the solitude of her dorm, Shizuru took a deep breath and nodded. “Un,” she responded past the hand covering her mouth.
*
There were so many pictures and almost as many stories, questions, and points of interests about each. There were beautiful landscapes of all parts of Japan: temples, beaches, forests, a graveyard, humble homes, and hulking skyscrapers where crowds swirled around the bases in a riot of startling colors, each person’s individuality almost indistinct. But the faces came alive in the even greater number of portraits. Some smiled at the camera, young and old, gap-toothed and close-mouthed, throwing up victory and peace signs or staunchly crossing their arms. Others stood in tableaus of action or contemplation, snapped unawares as they watched waves crash onto the shore at the beach or tried to surreptitiously check their reflection while they passed a window.
Almost every one of these encounters contained a nameless stranger but, looking at those pictures, Shizuru felt she might have known some of them, seeing the echoes of people in her life in an expression or a gesture. Yet Shizuru wondered, overwhelmed by the numbers, what Natsuki had been looking for in these meetings, what had she found so captivating in her human subjects? Yet watching Natsuki as she spoke, Shizuru felt that not even the younger woman knew what lay captured in these pictures by the intent of her gaze.
It was impossible to get through all of the photographs in one night with Natsuki explaining this photograph or that group of related ones while Shizuru interjected with questions for clarification-and every now and again Risa might show up and demand that Kuga-chan start all over so that she could see the whole batch. But from the first session they took their time, spacing their talks over several nights spanning weeks, mixing in familiar activities, new movies and restaurants, and the odd group outing. They spent almost as much time reclaiming their period of separation as Natsuki had spent away.
*
“Shizuru?”
“Hm?” Shizuru hummed as she tried to choose which photograph of two similar-but-just-different-enough shots of a temple to print out.
Natsuki shifted from where she lay on her side on the other side of the laptop, head propped up on a hand. Eyes fixed on the screen, she said, “I thought about what you said before I left. About photography. Like as a career.”
Shizuru stilled and turned to Natsuki with her full attention. “Yes?”
Natsuki didn’t raise her eyes. “I met some people who-they weren’t professionals but they were really into photography. Some of them gave me some good advice.” Natsuki looked up at her. “Some even said I was pretty good and that if I wanted to get serious about it, I needed to buy better equipment and maybe . . . study it.”
Natsuki paused.
“Study it?” Shizuru prompted encouragingly.
“Take classes,” Natsuki said. She bit her lip, looked away, and then met Shizuru’s eyes again. “Will you help me study for the college entrance exams?”
Shizuru reached out and freed a hair clinging to the corner of Natsuki’s mouth, letting her eyes focus on Natsuki’s lips and cheek instead of her eyes. “Do you know where you want to apply?”
Natsuki turned away slightly and nodded. “I’m looking into a few schools in Tokyo.”
Shizuru let her mind process the words, then commanded her lips to smile. It took less effort than she had expected. Under Natsuki’s watchful gaze she leaned down across the space that separated them and rested her forehead against the young woman’s. The tightness in her smile seeped away. “Of course, I’ll help.”
*
Shizuru stared at Yamane. She had been blatantly and silently staring at the other woman for the past five minutes. Yamane, after having checked over her shoulder at least twice, raised a self-conscious hand to her lips and asked, “Is there something on my face?’
“No.”
Yamane’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Is there something . . . about my face?”
“No.”
Yamane’s jaw worked. The older woman rolled her shoulders back and then folded her arms on the table. Leaning closer, with a hint of a smile, she asked in a lighter tone, “Do I look funny?”
Shizuru felt a tug at the corners of her lips. “No.” She relented and dropped her gaze to pour herself another cup of tea. “Yamane-san, do you like spending time with me?”
“Yes . . .” Yamane drew out the word with confused wariness. “Why else would I spend time with you unless I enjoyed it?”
Shizuru raised her cup to her lips and shook her head. “Never mind.”
Yamane opened her mouth as if to say something but then sat back in her seat, silent. She did not look at Shizuru. Shizuru looked at her not looking and sipped the bitter tea.
*
In the end, Shizuru didn’t so much help Natsuki to study as helped her to stay focused and develop a routine of studying a bit every day. Natsuki, in turn, started occasionally dragging Shizuru along in her almost daily runs, which she claimed kept her from going stir crazy. As spring warmth segued into summer heat, Shizuru was convinced that running through the muggy streets, parks, or public tracks was going to drive her crazy.
Nonetheless, Shizuru felt energized by the physical activity. She hadn’t realized how much less active she’d been in the past two years and her body responded to her demands like a dormant but still powerful machine in need of fine tuning. Running, she was convinced though, was not the answer.
“Anything but running,” she panted to Natsuki as she tried to get her breath.
“I like running,” Natsuki said, already breathing normally. She stretched her legs while Shizuru continued to gulp in air. Even in the cooler night the humidity was choking her.
“How about swimming?” Shizuru suggested. “Or tennis?”
Natsuki made a face. “I’ve only played tennis in P.E.”
“Why don’t we just go to the gym?” Shizuru asked, thinking about air-conditioned workout rooms. She ran her hand over the top of her head and tugged at her ponytail, making a face at the sweat that slicked her hand.
Natsuki shrugged. “You don’t have to come running with me if you don’t want to.”
Shizuru straightened up, placed her hands on her hips, and leaned back in a stretch. “I like exercising with you,” Shizuru said. “I just don’t like . . . running.”
Natsuki cocked her head. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you . . . this sweaty before.”
“We never exercised together before,” Shizuru pointed out.
Natsuki looked thoughtful. “You’re right.” She grinned and started jogging in place. “Ready to head back?”
“No,” Shizuru said lowly in a tone that presaged murder, but Natsuki took off and Shizuru was forced to fall into step. When they made it back, Shizuru collapsed into a chair and sat with her head thrown over the back of the chair, towel over her face. She decided right there: No more running.
*
A week after Shizuru hung up her running shoes, Risa walked into her dorm and said, “What is that?”
Shizuru followed her friend’s line of sight and laughed, “It’s a naginata.”
Risa stared as Shizuru crossed the room to where the wooden naginata was leaning against the wall in the corner, ran her hand along its handle, and picked it up. She gave it a perfunctory twirl and cut at the air, feeling for the practice weapon’s balance in her hands and managing to avoid destroying a floor lamp. Setting the butt of the handle against the floor, Shizuru leaned against it and smiled at Risa.
“Remind me not to piss you off,” Risa muttered.
When Natsuki saw it, she said nothing, but Shizuru saw her fingers twitch at her sides, gripping at the air of a memory.
*
Her body still remembered the forms, the shift of her weight in an attack, the angle of a thrust, the blade and handle juggling of a feint. But as Shizuru danced in gyms and parks, she felt her awkwardness in the lunges that lasted too long, in the swings that should have danced snaking and whipping over the grass.
It wasn’t the naginata she was trying to use but a weapon without a name in its impossibility of existence.
The truth was sobering. Yet the feel of the static solidity of the wood in her hands steadied and calmed her, as if with each minute adjustment in technique she was finally moving away from the thing she had thought two years buried within her.
*
In a similar way, it was true what Natsuki said about running keeping her from going stir crazy. Often she would come over to Shizuru’s at night or Shizuru would visit her in the evening toting her reading assignments. Natsuki, whom Shizuru had never known to sit still and focus on one task for a long period of time, was calmer after a run and could settle down for hours at study. Her intellect and drive, which Shizuru had always recognized in Natsuki’s pitched battle against the First District but had never had the opportunity to see wholly redirected to academic pursuits, made Shizuru feel superfluous despite Natsuki’s request for her help.
Shizuru never pointed out how seldom Natsuki asked her advice. She was content to be with Natsuki however much she asked and however much time she could give her, to be as supportive and encouraging as she could. Comfortable in each other’s presence, Natsuki worked through practice tests and study books, days passing into weeks, until one day Shizuru looked up from stopping the beeping timer and gazed down on an unfazed Natsuki reaching for her solution manual. The soft afternoon light caught the slightest frown of concentration on Natsuki’s face and threw the shadows of her falling hair over her eyes.
She was beautiful.
Shizuru felt something inside her tighten and then . . . unclench. She felt light and terrified and then a little sad. She began to frown but a smile seized her lips. She was warm. She continued to look at Natsuki. Her smile stretched into a grin.
She reached out and placed her hand atop Natsuki’s. Natsuki looked up in silent question. Shizuru squeezed her hand and felt Natsuki grip her fingers and squeeze back. Pride filled her heart. She looked at her hand covering Natsuki’s. She felt how it rested there so easily, calm. Then she pulled away, letting Natsuki go.
*
Shizuru relished her fresh cup of tea, inhaling its aroma with a deep sigh.
“How can you be so happy when you have finals?” Natsuki asked, looking up from her workbook with a sour expression. Shizuru raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t studying for the entrance exams that had Natsuki in a bad mood. Shizuru might have credited Risa’s visit earlier in the afternoon if she hadn’t noticed Natsuk’s stony silence from the moment she had arrived that morning.
“Why don’t you join me and take a study break?” Shizuru suggested. Natsuki hunkered down and poked her chin with the eraser of her pencil. She wasn’t really studying, having not turned a page in the past ten minutes.
Shizuru put her tea aside and rearranged her skirts. “What’s wrong?”
Natsuki shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Natsuki, please, you’ve been distracted all day.” Shizuru softened the edge of exasperation in her tone. “But if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
Without moving or looking at her, Natsuki muttered, “I have these friends who are dating and have been dating for a long time. But they’ve been fighting for a while and yesterday he told me that he was getting tired of it and that he was thinking about breaking up with her. It’s obvious that he’s crazy about her, though, so told him he’s an idiot.” Natsuki crossed her arms on the table and rested her chin on top of them, staring straight ahead at the wall. “I don’t want them to break up.”
Shizuru blinked. “You don’t want them to break up?”
“It sounds stupid, right?” Natsuki said lowly. “But they’ve been like, the one constant good thing since-” She shook her head. “Seeing them together made me think that things could be normal. I thought they would last.”
Shizuru was quiet. She knew that they were talking about things they couldn’t talk about. Swallowing to wet her throat, she asked, “They’ve been dating during high school?” Natsuki nodded. “Did they graduate?” Natsuki nodded again. “Maybe adjusting to the change has been too much for them.”
Natsuki’s face darkened. “But their feelings haven’t changed. I don’t get why they can’t just stay together.”
The emotion in Natsuki’s voice surprised her. This meant a lot to her.
“Maybe their feelings have changed,” Shizuru said gently. Natsuki’s lips thinned into a line and she shook her head. “Or maybe-you said they were fighting?-maybe they’ve forgotten to tell each other how they feel because they’re saying all these other things.” Shizuru heard her own words as if from a distance, wondering. “Maybe they don’t realize it and so they’re not talking to each other clearly, hurting each other’s feelings and making things more confusing . . . .”
“Shizuru?” Natsuki asked, sounding concerned. Shizuru blinked and focused on her friend who seemed to have momentarily forgotten about her complaints. Shizuru became aware that her pulse beat in her ears and that her breath rushed in and out in short bursts.
“Are you okay?” Natsuki asked.
Shizuru shook her head and steadied out her breathing. “I’m fine. I wish I could tell you something to make you feel better, though.”
Natsuki sighed. “I know I can’t do anything but that’s what makes me feel bad. I hate having to watch them fight and waiting to see if they work things out or not.”
“Yes,” Shizuru agreed softly, mind someplace else, “but they’re the only ones who can figure out if they want to be together.”
*
Shizuru rang the doorbell and crossed her arms, then uncrossed them, only to re-cross them as her leg bounced at a frantic rhythm. She felt restless, wound up, and nervous. At the sound of the lock flipping, Shizuru raised her head and when the door opened, she immediately said, “I want you stop acting like you have to protect me.”
Yamane, who had already looked startled upon opening the door and had been trying to greet her, did a double-take. Shizuru raised a hand before Yamane could say anything and continued, “You do, we both know it.”
“Fujino-san,” Yamane tried to interject but Shizuru shook her head.
“You listen and you wait for me and you answer my questions, but you’re always so careful not to say something wrong or hurt my feelings-”
“Fujino-san, please,” Yamane tried more forcefully.
“-But what I want,” Shizuru continued, relentless, “what I’ve come to want-is for you to be honest and talk about yourself and to share your opinions. Maybe then I can figure out how you feel about me and how I’m supposed to be feeling without wondering if you think I’m a little kid that you need to watch over instead of a . . . .”
Shizuru trailed off, unsure how she had been planning to finish that sentence. Yamane stood stock still in the doorway, gazing at her with an expression spanning a spectrum of emotions, from shock and confusion, to sorrow and frustration, to care and wariness.
Then someone said, “Hello.”
Shizuru turned in surprise and then started at the smiling face that appeared over Yamane’s shoulder.
Yamane closed her eyes but the thin line of her lips was pained. “I was trying to tell you: this isn’t a good time.”
*
There was a short silence and then the stranger said, “Yamane, introduce us and then invite her in.”
Yamane shot the woman a look that might have been a glare. The woman ignored her and pulled Yamane aside so that Shizuru could see her fully . . . not that that had been a problem given the woman’s height. Shizuru tried not to gawk but her mind was reeling from the unexpected intrusion, her own jumbled rant, and the checked interest in the tall stranger’s eyes. Yamane, though, seemed to revive at the woman’s touch.
“Fujino-san,” she said, with her gaze averted, “this is my good friend, Nishiyama Yuko. Yuko, Fujino Shizuru-san.”
Nishiyama smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Fujino-san. Won’t you join us? We were just having tea.”
“Yuko, don’t make her do something she doesn’t want to do,” Yamane said softly, maybe to her friend’s hip judging by her line of sight, but Nishiyama kept her eyes and smile on Shizuru.
“She knows that I can’t make her do anything that she doesn’t want to do.” Nishiyama stepped back invitingly as if Shizuru had stumbled into her apartment rather than Yamane’s. “Will you come in, Fujino-san?”
Shizuru glanced at Yamane who was watching her and waiting for her answer. She wanted to talk to the older woman about what she had said. She felt embarrassed that her personal thoughts had been spilled in front of this stranger and a little angry that her surprise attack had been defused by the interruption of an unknown guest, but she had only herself to blame. She hadn’t called ahead and she had never imagined that she wouldn’t find Yamane alone.
It was an unlucky night to be wrong.
There was a set to Yamane’s jaw that set Shizuru on edge. Then she realized this was the first time she was seeing Yamane angry-and rather than feeling scared, she found it compelling.
Before her sense could stop her, Shizuru bowed-“Excuse the intrusion”-and stepped inside. Nishiyama smiled and led Shizuru to the low living room table while Yamane locked the door after her. As she knelt down, Shizuru’s eye caught on an envelop that rested among the cups and the tray of sweets, but Yamane was suddenly next to her, swiping the letter off the table and tucking it beneath her cushion before Shizuru could even think to wonder what it contained.
“Yamane has told me about you,” Nishiyama told her. Yamane realized that they needed an extra cup and disappeared into the kitchen to fetch one.
“Then you have me at a disadvantage,” Shizuru said, “because I don’t believe Yamane-san has ever mentioned you by name.”
“It seems like Yamane hasn’t been mentioning a lot of things,” Nishiyama remarked lightly, throwing a knowing look at Yamane who had reappeared in the middle of this observation. Shizuru didn’t comment; she felt slightly embarrassed but fully in agreement.
“We could punish her by talking about her as if she weren’t here,” Nishiyama suggested, accompanying her words with a devilish smile and then a sigh. “I wouldn’t do that, though.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Yamane said to Shizuru, voice somewhat strained, as she set the extra cup down, “because I know as many secrets about her as she knows about me.”
“Do you have many?” Shizuru asked, directing the question at Nishiyama.
“Just enough to keep people interested,” Nishiyama answered. Yamane shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Nishiyama picked up the teapot and poured Shizuru a cup. “So, Fujino-san, you’re a university student . . . ?”
*
Within an hour, several things became apparent. Of the two friends, Nishiyama was the more outgoing, the more cheerful, and the more talkative. She balanced her inquisitiveness about Shizuru with efforts to draw her friend out, but Yamane remained quiet and withdrawn, making sparse comments or corrections to Nishiyama’s stories and “facts.” As Nishiyama disclosed, the two were old friends, having known each other since elementary school, and Shizuru could see it in the way they spoke in looks and glances. Yamane still had that set to her jaw and she avoided looking at Shizuru. Nishiyama, however, seemed oblivious to her friend’s ire and kept conversation lively about her work as a botanist, the countless stares her height attracted (she was 173 cm), her husband (Shizuru belated looked for her ring), and her attempts to get Yamane to adopt a kitten from her mother-in-law’s new litter.
“I can’t even take care of a plant,” Yamane said as she heaved herself to her feet.
“It’s true,” Nishiyama confirmed for Shizuru’s benefit.
“What would I do with a cat?” Yamane finished and gathered up the empty tray of sweets.
“No, see,” Nishiyama said as she got up and followed with the teapot. “A cat would tell you when it needs water and food instead of sitting around quietly wilting.”
They disappeared into the kitchen. Shizuru heard the water running in the sink and the clink of dishes, which reduced Nishiyama’s arguments about pet adoption to a low murmur. She noticed a plate on a corner table that was probably from before she had arrived and grabbed it, thinking she should bring it to Yamane if she were already washing dishes. She stopped outside the door, however, when she heard Nishiyama say, “‘Yamane-san?’ How long has she known you that she’s still calling you that?”
“Can we not talk about this right now?” Yamane retorted in a low, clipped tone.
“She’s a sweet girl.”
“Don’t forget young,” Yamane said sharply.
“Young, yes,” Nishiyama replied in a drawl that was teasing and suggestive, but her voice softened as she continued, “But she seems very mature for her age. And she likes you.”
Shizuru held her breath.
“Amane-”
“And you like her.” Shizuru’s fingers spasmed on the plate. “I don’t see where the problem is.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“What can be simpler than two people liking each other? I know you’ve been having a hard time-”
“Don’t.”
“If you can yell at me because you think I’m giving up my research to start a family, then I should be able to tell you to get over yourself, Yamane Aki.”
Something clattered in the sink. “She likes someone else, alright?”
“What?” Nishiyama said and listening outside Shizuru gave a start. She’d never explicitly admitted liking anyone to Yamane.
“She likes someone else,” Yamane repeated, sounding tired. “And, yes, it still hurts when I think about Rin. And, no, I don’t want to talk about that either.”
The sound of the faucet running cut off abruptly. Yamane stormed out of the kitchen-and almost ran into Shizuru. They stared at each other. Shizuru held out the plate.
“I was bringing this to you,” Shizuru said softly. Yamane took the plate between lifeless fingers. “I’m sorry. I’ll be going.”
She fled for the front door. Yamane didn’t see her out.
*
Shizuru paced the streets and advanced back toward her dorm in increments of retraced sidewalks. She kept hearing Nishiyama’s, Yamane’s, and her own voice repeating and rehashing the past hour. With each successive replay she felt worse and more uncertain than when she had set out earlier that night with the intent to talk to Yamane.
Upon arriving at her dorm, Shizuru burst into her room, grabbed the naginata, and rushed out again without bothering to change. Out on the green and under the moon, she tried to silence the conversations in her mind by lashing out at enemies that weren’t there.
*
The Friday later that week, Shizuru stepped out of the university library and saw the last person she’d expected to see: Nishiyama Yuko. The tall woman was eye-to-eye with her companion, an older man whose rumpled business casual apparel suggested professor to Shizuru’s eye. Curious but unsure, Shizuru stood watching them for a minute. All smiles, Nishiyama and the man shook hands when they reached the main walk that cut through the center of campus and then parted ways. Nishiyama headed in Shizuru’s direction.
Shizuru hesitated, thoughts and questions racing through her mind, before raising her hand and shouting, “Nishiyama-san!”
Nishiyama started and looked around bewildered. Waving her hand in the air to catch the woman’s attention, Shizuru approached her at a quick clip. “Nishiyama-san!”
Nishiyama leaned forward in wary suspicion. “Fujino-san?” When the dwindling distance confirmed that it was her, Nishiyama smiled. “It is you. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Shizuru raised an eyebrow. “I think I should be saying that to you, Nishiyama-san.” The botanist laughed. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not stalking you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Nishiyama said impishly. “I had a little business to take care of here at the University. The truth is that while I did come to Fuuka to visit Yamane, the ‘real’ reason I came is because Fuuka is looking for a new botany professor.”
Shizuru blinked. “I wasn’t under the impression that you taught.”
“I don’t,” Nishiyama confirmed. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Ah.”
Nishiyama adjusted her purse strap. “Are you busy? Studying for finals?”
“I just finished studying right now,” Shizuru answered, “and I was about to head home when I saw you.”
“If you want, then,” Nishiyama said, “you can join me as I take a stroll around your campus. I need to walk off the huge lunch they just gave me-and I have to admit, it was better food than I’ve had on some dates.”
Shizuru nodded and fell into step as Nishiiyama set off at a slow pace in no particular direction. Nishiyama was quiet, enjoying the weather and the sight of the greenery on campus. She paused every now and again to inspect a plant or flower. While she was bent over a bird of paradise, Shizuru asked, “Is Yamane-san angry?”
“Yes,” Nishiyama said without looking up from her scrutiny, “but she’s angry at me.” She straightened up and gave the plant a little chuck beneath its “beak.” “If you’re wondering how she feels about the other night, the better word is probably ‘upset.’”
Shizuru looked Nishiyama in the eyes. “I didn’t mean to overhear your conversation.”
The other woman raised an eyebrow. “But did you mean all those things you said to Yamane?”
Shizuru clenched her jaw but didn’t look away. Nishiyama held her gaze and then shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s really not my business. Yamane would be even angrier with me if she knew I’d asked you that.” Nishiyama raised her eyes to a passing cloud. “But it’s hard not to interfere when I feel like I should be looking after her like one of my little sisters. I don’t want to see her get hurt again.”
Shizuru wondered what Nishiyama meant by “again” and recalled the name she’d heard Yamane say-Rin.
“I’ll say this, though: whatever you feel for her, Fujino-san, you should speak to her,” the older woman told her. “If you’re honest with her, she’ll be honest with you. But wait a little bit. Yamane probably won’t want to talk any time soon and she’s not going to be around this weekend because I’m stealing her.”
The last part sounded so unusual that anything else Shizuru might have said was superseded by “Stealing her?”
Nishiyama grinned. “Not really stealing her, but every summer we go to the beach for some sun, volleyball, and-”
“Volleyball?” Shizuru interjected.
Nishiyama laughed. “Yamane’s sport of choice. Mine, too, now, though we only started playing on the beach . . . wow, was it really eight, nine years ago?” Nishiyama shook her head and waved a hand. “It was some time in college. Anyway, we played indoor volleyball together in high school, but Yamane has been playing since junior high. She’s the one that convinced me to try it instead of basketball. After that, it was all about the Yamane-Amane conbi.”
“Amane? Is that your maiden name?”
Nishiyama nodded. Shizuru bit back a laugh but not a smile.
“I know,” Nishiyama said, smirking ruefully. “We sounded practically like sisters.”
“Volleyball . . .” Shizuru mused as they ambled around a sakura tree. “I didn’t picture Yamane-san to be into team sports.”
“Oh, she’s competitive on the court.” Nishiyama stopped walking and caught Shizuru’s eye. “Ask her about it.”
Shizuru nodded, understanding that Nishiyama meant more than just volleyball. Nishiyama smiled back, eyes crinkling. Under her gaze, Shizuru felt young, but encouraged, like a little sister receiving advice. Then Nishiyama harrumphed and the almost awkward intimacy of the moment relented.
“I feel like I need a nap,” Nishiyama grouched. “Is there some place where we can get a decent cup of tea before I fall asleep?”
- Part Three -
- Part Two -
Before finals, Shizuru’s mother had asked her to come home for spring break. The request had been so unusual that Shizuru had agreed to a week’s visit during the month she had off. Risa, learning of her plans just a few days before Shizuru planned to leave and intrigued by what she suspected were aristocratic origins, joked that Shizuru should take her home with her.
“I’ll keep you entertained,” Risa reasoned. “You can introduce me as your nice friend Risa and then use me to prevent your parents from asking you awkward questions-unless they’re into embarrassing you.”
Shizuru laughed and put down the shirt she had been folding. “Don’t you have to work?”
“I’ll keep you entertained for a small fee.”
Shizuru laughed again. Risa made a face. “You think I’m kidding.”
“I know you’d charge too much,” Shizuru corrected her.
Risa pursed her lips in an affronted pout but didn’t manage to hide the surprise in her eyes. After a moment she smiled slyly. “Depends on what kind of entertainment you want.”
It turned out Shizuru was the entertainment. The moment she arrived home, her mother greeted her with a reserved hug and then proceeded to shuttle Shizuru from one social visit to the next, meeting with family, friends, and business associates, all of whom wanted to know how she was doing, what she was planning to do after college, and other sundry details, like if she was dating (her aunts), what the weather was like in Fuuka (their neighbors), or how she liked her okonomiyaki (a shy businessman at a lunch with her father). She almost regretted not bringing Risa with her.
Between these social outings, though, the days moved slowly. She took refuge and delight in Natsuki’s messages and calls, the beautiful countryside she had grown up in, and the fierce, almost irrational joy of some of the townsfolk, the shopkeepers who thrust small sweets and candies into her hands as if she were still a child and, like then, refused her money. She savored these treats as she picked out souvenirs to take back to her friends, pressing the coins into hands that clutched at hers.
Her last night home, her father took her out to dinner. He met her straight from work at a small restaurant that he had helped finance in its infancy, almost as long ago as Shizuru was old. Since her arrival they had barely exchanged ten words, talking to each other through the questions her mother posed over their family dinners, but now his gentle smile emerged and he spoke to her in his quiet but carrying voice.
He waited until dessert and tea to say, “You’re entering your third year.”
Shizuru refilled his cup. “Yes.”
“Are you enjoying Fuuka University?”
She smiled. “Yes, I am.”
“And you plan to continue in your studies of business and law?”
Shizuru nodded. “I think I can do well in those areas.”
“Your grades are very good,” her father agreed. He held his teacup suspended in the air, his expression grave. “You enjoy your studies?”
Shizuru ran her spoon through her bowl of jelly. “I like doing well in my studies.”
He glanced away and frowned, just slightly. Then he said, “Are you happy?”
Shizuru would have choked if she’d had anything in her mouth. “I . . . I’m not unhappy.”
Her father nodded slowly and then broke out into a smile. “That is a good thing to hear.” He shifted in his seat. “Now why don’t you tell me your opinions of the men your mother has been taking you to meet, as I understand she has been.”
Shizuru refrained from pouting, knowing full well her father must have approved of those meetings, if not had a direct hand in arranging them. They were a fearsome business duo, her father and mother. She sensed, though, the abrupt change in topics and wondered why her father had bothered asking only perfunctory questions about school. He’d wanted to say more. She recalled his last visit to Fuuka, about the things they had never addressed a second time, and now the obvious attempt to broach the possibility of marriage in her future. She admitted to herself then that she had been afraid that he had been going to ask more about her personal life.
It was with relief, then, that she answered his question. She expressed her honest opinions because he appreciated frankness and the flair of her humor. They stayed late assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the men she’d met (though which were potential suitors, Shizuru wasn’t sure and her father didn’t clarify) and then aspects of her father’s business dealings.
When they arrived home, her father handed her out of the car and then said lowly, “Your mother wanted that I discuss certain things with you tonight that we did not.” He patted her hand. “For now I’ll just say that you should be aware that you only have two years left at university. We’ll talk of the other things in time.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then looped her arm through his and led her into their home arm-in-arm. Her mother greeted them and, though she looked for it, Shizuru saw nothing pass between her parents that betrayed the conspiracy of their thoughts.
That night she lay awake in bed early into the morning and then said goodbye to her parents at breakfast the next day. On the solitary train and ferry rides back to Fuuka, Shizuru sat watching the landscape transform and transition, thoughtful and quiet.
*
Shizuru missed Natsuki. It was knowing that Natsuki wasn’t in Fuuka that made the island city somehow lonelier. But Shizuru had wallowed in her room the previous semester and now, going into a new term, it was easy to let herself be pampered and courted, smothered in the attention of friends glad to go out, study together, and, if she let them, flatter her ego.
Not that Natsuki disappeared from her life. She was still with Shizuru in her phone calls and messages, but it was hard sometimes to hear about the things she couldn’t see with Natsuki, the meals she didn’t share, the nights spent far away. And there was something emerging in Natsuki’s voice, a subtle change that Shizuru couldn’t identify. It wasn’t like the passion that Shizuru had not seen in Natsuki for two years now, but it was something as seismic, coming on slower and surer.
It gave Shizuru pause. She listened but with concern and curiosity that passed without comment.
*
Shizuru was quiet. She’d been quiet during the last two or so times she’d visited Yamane since her return from home and the start of the semester. As a result, their time together had taken on a new quiet punctuated mostly by the chatter of the television. It might have been sad if Shizuru hadn’t felt too tired to care.
She didn’t stay long these visits. Yamane’s answering silence made her feel like she was imposing but there was something comforting about it, too: with Yamane, she didn’t feel pressured to talk. When Shizuru glanced at her now, she tried to gauge the older woman’s moods or how she felt about Shizuru’s reticence. But Yamane only smiled in her sort of hesitant way when she noticed Shizuru gazing at her and she never said no if Shizuru wanted to come over and she wasn’t busy. To Shizuru, Yamane always seemed to be waiting, patient and undemanding.
That was why Shizuru was surprised this particular visit when Yamane stood up during a commercial and said, “Want to go for a walk? It’s a beautiful night.”
Shizuru gaped up at her for a second. “Sure.”
They turned off the TV, shuffled into their shoes, and Yamane helped her into her jacket, making Shizuru start when she felt the brush of Yamane’s hands along her collarbones. Shizuru tensed but Yamane didn’t seem to notice. The architect shrugged into her own jacket and then held the door open for Shizuru as she flicked off the lights. As she stepped out, Shizuru hid her face in her collar, wondering if she imagined feeling heat in cheeks.
The night air invigorated her sluggish senses. Shizuru raised her face, forgetting her embarrassment, and enjoyed a deep breath. She waited for Yamane to lock the door and then looked expectantly at her to lead the way.
“Want to go downtown?” Yamane asked as she slipped her keys and hands into her pockets.
Shizuru swung her arms wide. “Wherever you want, Yamane-san.”
They rode the train down, sitting side by side but barely touching, Yamane keeping her hands shoved deep within the pockets of her jacket. Once downtown they meandered around familiar streets, gazing into shop windows displaying spring fashions and trends. In one of them Shizuru pointed out a cute dress.
“Why don’t you try it on?” Yamane asked.
“What?” Shizuru asked, smiling in puzzlement, but Yamane was already pulling the door open and holding it for her.
“Come on,” Yamane said, smiling with an impishness Shizuru hadn’t seen in the older woman before. “Let’s go inside.”
Shizuru hesitated; Yamane raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Well?” With a little shake of her head, Shizuru stepped into the store with Yamane close at her heels. It was a small store and it was easy to find the dress in her size, but Shizuru didn’t like it much when she tried it on.
But she liked the way Yamane looked at her when she stepped out of the dressing room. It was the same look that Shizuru had seen on Yamane’s face as she had worked at her drafting table, the same level of focus and concentration. It made Shizuru shiver, to be looked at so intensely.
“No,” Yamane agreed with Shizuru’s assessment. “It has an odd fit at the top-not very flattering.” Yamane smiled and the intensity was gone. She met Shizuru’s eyes. “Now you know.”
After that, Shizuru tried to get Yamane to try something on but Yamane only laughed, especially when she held up a little black dress.
“You can’t always wear pants,” Shizuru said.
“I don’t,” Yamane agreed.
“Really?” Shizuru said, putting the dress back and forgetting it.
“Really,” Yamane said as she led them back outside.
“So you have dresses?” Shizuru asked, cocking her head to try and get a full-bodied view of Yamane. “And skirts?”
Yamane put her hands in her pockets. “A few.”
Shizuru pursed her lips. “I’d like to see you in a dress.”
Yamane gave her a half-smile. “Maybe you will one day.” Then, without warning, she stepped into another shop.
Shizuru stared at the closing door for a second, then hurried after the older woman. No sooner had she stepped through the door when a sudden weight fell on her head. Shizuru started, ducked, and reached up to feel soft knit under her hand. Shizuru blinked her bangs out of her eyes and then straightened up with a slight laugh of embarrassment. She patted the top of her head to flatten the pageboy and shoved it back so that it sat higher on her forehead. The sight of hats from floor to ceiling greeted her.
Yamane was leaning against a rack by the door and looking at her, considering. “Cute.”
Shizuru whipped the hat off her head and lunged at Yamane, trying to hang it on the older woman’s head, but her target ducked away with a grin.
“Try this one on,” Yamane said as she wheeled evasively around another rack and grabbed a sun hat that would make Shizuru look ten years older.
Shizuru gave the hat a bleak look and turned the pageboy in her hands. “It’s . . . . You don’t think that’ll look good on me, do you?”
“No?” Yamane asked but she was eying another hat. Reaching behind Shizuru, she grabbed a neon green snakeskin cowboy hat and dropped it onto her own head, tipping it at a jaunty angle. “How do I look?”
Shizuru schooled her face into a neutral expression. “I don’t think that color suits you.”
Yamane winked, Shizuru giggled, and then they were trying on the most ridiculous hats they could find. Discovering the sunglasses section only made their amusement worse. By the end of their browsing, Shizuru was tempted to buy Yamane the pair with rhinestones and heart-shaped lenses, along with the beanie with panda ears that Shizuru had managed to shove onto Yamane’s head in a sneak attack from behind.
“I don’t think I have a lot of things in my wardrobe that would go with this look,” Yamane said as she looked at herself in a mirror, panda-eared and heart-eyed. She pouted at her reflection but it looked more like a grimace. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I don’t.” Shizuru laughed.
They left the store with the glare of the counter staff following them and into a night breeze that had picked up. Still, Yamane turned to her and asked, “Ice cream?”
Shizuru looked up at her, feeling the smile on her face. “Yes.”
*
Natsuki was away for more than a month and nothing could have prepared Shizuru for having the younger woman show up on her doorstep, unannounced and in her riding leathers.
Shizuru flung the door open and exclaimed, “Natsuki!”
“Hey,” Natsuki said, as casually as if they’d seen each other just the day before. But she was grinning and when Shizuru didn’t move, she pulled her shocked friend into a hug. Shizuru returned the embrace, then pulled back and held Natsuki by the shoulders, taking in the disheveled and tired sight of her.
“When did you get back?” Shizuru managed.
“Just now. I thought I’d drop by and say hi.”
“You must be exhausted,” Shizuru said. “Come in. I’ll make some tea. Are you hungry? Do you need anything?”
“Nah,” Natsuki said as she stepped out of her boots and tossed her helmet into an empty chair. “I ate something a few hours ago. Tea sounds nice, though, thanks.” She flopped onto the sofa and disappeared from Shizuru’s line of sight. “I need a shower but I’ll just wait until I get home.”
“You could spend the night,” Shizuru offered.
Natsuki made a sound that wasn’t much of an answer. Shizuru shook her head but she was smiling. As the leaves steeped in her small kettle, she asked, “Are you sure you aren’t hungry? I have some manju that I bought earlier today.” She received no answer. “Natsuki?”
Shizuru crossed the room to the couch and peered over the back-then bit back a sigh. Natsuki was out cold. Shaking her head, Shizuru fetched a blanket, which she draped over her sleeping guest. With crossed arms she spent a moment gazing down on her friend, then went and poured herself a cup of tea, passing the cup beneath her nose so that the wafting steam curled its warm aroma around her face.
She smiled.
Still and quiet, she waited for the tea to cool, then drained the cup and set it down with the others things that could be left until morning to be washed. Pressing her lips together, she looked in on Natsuki one last time. With care and fondness, she brushed the hair off the younger woman’s face.
“Good night, Natsuki,” she whispered. “Welcome back.”
*
Hey Shizuru,
Sorry about crashing on your couch like that. Thanks for letting me sleep over. You were gone when I woke up, so I went home to unpack and stuff. Call me later when you’re free.
-Natsuki
Shizuru refolded the note and put it down beside the small glass box that had been weighing it down. She ran her finger over the box’s intricate stained glass design of fish and sea life, then carefully lifted the lid. Inside was a layer of sand, atop which sat a tiny starfish, a smooth pebble, and half a small clam shell, its iridescent inner coating face up.
“Natsuki, what is this box?” Shizuru asked when she called later in the evening.
“Something I picked up in Katakai Beach, in Chiba. I went to some of the beaches we visited last summer but we didn’t go to this one. So . . . I bought you a souvenir-not the stuff inside, but the box. I have pictures, too. I’ll show you.” Natsuki stopped speaking but her only reply was silence. “Hello? Shizuru?”
In the solitude of her dorm, Shizuru took a deep breath and nodded. “Un,” she responded past the hand covering her mouth.
*
There were so many pictures and almost as many stories, questions, and points of interests about each. There were beautiful landscapes of all parts of Japan: temples, beaches, forests, a graveyard, humble homes, and hulking skyscrapers where crowds swirled around the bases in a riot of startling colors, each person’s individuality almost indistinct. But the faces came alive in the even greater number of portraits. Some smiled at the camera, young and old, gap-toothed and close-mouthed, throwing up victory and peace signs or staunchly crossing their arms. Others stood in tableaus of action or contemplation, snapped unawares as they watched waves crash onto the shore at the beach or tried to surreptitiously check their reflection while they passed a window.
Almost every one of these encounters contained a nameless stranger but, looking at those pictures, Shizuru felt she might have known some of them, seeing the echoes of people in her life in an expression or a gesture. Yet Shizuru wondered, overwhelmed by the numbers, what Natsuki had been looking for in these meetings, what had she found so captivating in her human subjects? Yet watching Natsuki as she spoke, Shizuru felt that not even the younger woman knew what lay captured in these pictures by the intent of her gaze.
It was impossible to get through all of the photographs in one night with Natsuki explaining this photograph or that group of related ones while Shizuru interjected with questions for clarification-and every now and again Risa might show up and demand that Kuga-chan start all over so that she could see the whole batch. But from the first session they took their time, spacing their talks over several nights spanning weeks, mixing in familiar activities, new movies and restaurants, and the odd group outing. They spent almost as much time reclaiming their period of separation as Natsuki had spent away.
*
“Shizuru?”
“Hm?” Shizuru hummed as she tried to choose which photograph of two similar-but-just-different-enough shots of a temple to print out.
Natsuki shifted from where she lay on her side on the other side of the laptop, head propped up on a hand. Eyes fixed on the screen, she said, “I thought about what you said before I left. About photography. Like as a career.”
Shizuru stilled and turned to Natsuki with her full attention. “Yes?”
Natsuki didn’t raise her eyes. “I met some people who-they weren’t professionals but they were really into photography. Some of them gave me some good advice.” Natsuki looked up at her. “Some even said I was pretty good and that if I wanted to get serious about it, I needed to buy better equipment and maybe . . . study it.”
Natsuki paused.
“Study it?” Shizuru prompted encouragingly.
“Take classes,” Natsuki said. She bit her lip, looked away, and then met Shizuru’s eyes again. “Will you help me study for the college entrance exams?”
Shizuru reached out and freed a hair clinging to the corner of Natsuki’s mouth, letting her eyes focus on Natsuki’s lips and cheek instead of her eyes. “Do you know where you want to apply?”
Natsuki turned away slightly and nodded. “I’m looking into a few schools in Tokyo.”
Shizuru let her mind process the words, then commanded her lips to smile. It took less effort than she had expected. Under Natsuki’s watchful gaze she leaned down across the space that separated them and rested her forehead against the young woman’s. The tightness in her smile seeped away. “Of course, I’ll help.”
*
Shizuru stared at Yamane. She had been blatantly and silently staring at the other woman for the past five minutes. Yamane, after having checked over her shoulder at least twice, raised a self-conscious hand to her lips and asked, “Is there something on my face?’
“No.”
Yamane’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Is there something . . . about my face?”
“No.”
Yamane’s jaw worked. The older woman rolled her shoulders back and then folded her arms on the table. Leaning closer, with a hint of a smile, she asked in a lighter tone, “Do I look funny?”
Shizuru felt a tug at the corners of her lips. “No.” She relented and dropped her gaze to pour herself another cup of tea. “Yamane-san, do you like spending time with me?”
“Yes . . .” Yamane drew out the word with confused wariness. “Why else would I spend time with you unless I enjoyed it?”
Shizuru raised her cup to her lips and shook her head. “Never mind.”
Yamane opened her mouth as if to say something but then sat back in her seat, silent. She did not look at Shizuru. Shizuru looked at her not looking and sipped the bitter tea.
*
In the end, Shizuru didn’t so much help Natsuki to study as helped her to stay focused and develop a routine of studying a bit every day. Natsuki, in turn, started occasionally dragging Shizuru along in her almost daily runs, which she claimed kept her from going stir crazy. As spring warmth segued into summer heat, Shizuru was convinced that running through the muggy streets, parks, or public tracks was going to drive her crazy.
Nonetheless, Shizuru felt energized by the physical activity. She hadn’t realized how much less active she’d been in the past two years and her body responded to her demands like a dormant but still powerful machine in need of fine tuning. Running, she was convinced though, was not the answer.
“Anything but running,” she panted to Natsuki as she tried to get her breath.
“I like running,” Natsuki said, already breathing normally. She stretched her legs while Shizuru continued to gulp in air. Even in the cooler night the humidity was choking her.
“How about swimming?” Shizuru suggested. “Or tennis?”
Natsuki made a face. “I’ve only played tennis in P.E.”
“Why don’t we just go to the gym?” Shizuru asked, thinking about air-conditioned workout rooms. She ran her hand over the top of her head and tugged at her ponytail, making a face at the sweat that slicked her hand.
Natsuki shrugged. “You don’t have to come running with me if you don’t want to.”
Shizuru straightened up, placed her hands on her hips, and leaned back in a stretch. “I like exercising with you,” Shizuru said. “I just don’t like . . . running.”
Natsuki cocked her head. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you . . . this sweaty before.”
“We never exercised together before,” Shizuru pointed out.
Natsuki looked thoughtful. “You’re right.” She grinned and started jogging in place. “Ready to head back?”
“No,” Shizuru said lowly in a tone that presaged murder, but Natsuki took off and Shizuru was forced to fall into step. When they made it back, Shizuru collapsed into a chair and sat with her head thrown over the back of the chair, towel over her face. She decided right there: No more running.
*
A week after Shizuru hung up her running shoes, Risa walked into her dorm and said, “What is that?”
Shizuru followed her friend’s line of sight and laughed, “It’s a naginata.”
Risa stared as Shizuru crossed the room to where the wooden naginata was leaning against the wall in the corner, ran her hand along its handle, and picked it up. She gave it a perfunctory twirl and cut at the air, feeling for the practice weapon’s balance in her hands and managing to avoid destroying a floor lamp. Setting the butt of the handle against the floor, Shizuru leaned against it and smiled at Risa.
“Remind me not to piss you off,” Risa muttered.
When Natsuki saw it, she said nothing, but Shizuru saw her fingers twitch at her sides, gripping at the air of a memory.
*
Her body still remembered the forms, the shift of her weight in an attack, the angle of a thrust, the blade and handle juggling of a feint. But as Shizuru danced in gyms and parks, she felt her awkwardness in the lunges that lasted too long, in the swings that should have danced snaking and whipping over the grass.
It wasn’t the naginata she was trying to use but a weapon without a name in its impossibility of existence.
The truth was sobering. Yet the feel of the static solidity of the wood in her hands steadied and calmed her, as if with each minute adjustment in technique she was finally moving away from the thing she had thought two years buried within her.
*
In a similar way, it was true what Natsuki said about running keeping her from going stir crazy. Often she would come over to Shizuru’s at night or Shizuru would visit her in the evening toting her reading assignments. Natsuki, whom Shizuru had never known to sit still and focus on one task for a long period of time, was calmer after a run and could settle down for hours at study. Her intellect and drive, which Shizuru had always recognized in Natsuki’s pitched battle against the First District but had never had the opportunity to see wholly redirected to academic pursuits, made Shizuru feel superfluous despite Natsuki’s request for her help.
Shizuru never pointed out how seldom Natsuki asked her advice. She was content to be with Natsuki however much she asked and however much time she could give her, to be as supportive and encouraging as she could. Comfortable in each other’s presence, Natsuki worked through practice tests and study books, days passing into weeks, until one day Shizuru looked up from stopping the beeping timer and gazed down on an unfazed Natsuki reaching for her solution manual. The soft afternoon light caught the slightest frown of concentration on Natsuki’s face and threw the shadows of her falling hair over her eyes.
She was beautiful.
Shizuru felt something inside her tighten and then . . . unclench. She felt light and terrified and then a little sad. She began to frown but a smile seized her lips. She was warm. She continued to look at Natsuki. Her smile stretched into a grin.
She reached out and placed her hand atop Natsuki’s. Natsuki looked up in silent question. Shizuru squeezed her hand and felt Natsuki grip her fingers and squeeze back. Pride filled her heart. She looked at her hand covering Natsuki’s. She felt how it rested there so easily, calm. Then she pulled away, letting Natsuki go.
*
Shizuru relished her fresh cup of tea, inhaling its aroma with a deep sigh.
“How can you be so happy when you have finals?” Natsuki asked, looking up from her workbook with a sour expression. Shizuru raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t studying for the entrance exams that had Natsuki in a bad mood. Shizuru might have credited Risa’s visit earlier in the afternoon if she hadn’t noticed Natsuk’s stony silence from the moment she had arrived that morning.
“Why don’t you join me and take a study break?” Shizuru suggested. Natsuki hunkered down and poked her chin with the eraser of her pencil. She wasn’t really studying, having not turned a page in the past ten minutes.
Shizuru put her tea aside and rearranged her skirts. “What’s wrong?”
Natsuki shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Natsuki, please, you’ve been distracted all day.” Shizuru softened the edge of exasperation in her tone. “But if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
Without moving or looking at her, Natsuki muttered, “I have these friends who are dating and have been dating for a long time. But they’ve been fighting for a while and yesterday he told me that he was getting tired of it and that he was thinking about breaking up with her. It’s obvious that he’s crazy about her, though, so told him he’s an idiot.” Natsuki crossed her arms on the table and rested her chin on top of them, staring straight ahead at the wall. “I don’t want them to break up.”
Shizuru blinked. “You don’t want them to break up?”
“It sounds stupid, right?” Natsuki said lowly. “But they’ve been like, the one constant good thing since-” She shook her head. “Seeing them together made me think that things could be normal. I thought they would last.”
Shizuru was quiet. She knew that they were talking about things they couldn’t talk about. Swallowing to wet her throat, she asked, “They’ve been dating during high school?” Natsuki nodded. “Did they graduate?” Natsuki nodded again. “Maybe adjusting to the change has been too much for them.”
Natsuki’s face darkened. “But their feelings haven’t changed. I don’t get why they can’t just stay together.”
The emotion in Natsuki’s voice surprised her. This meant a lot to her.
“Maybe their feelings have changed,” Shizuru said gently. Natsuki’s lips thinned into a line and she shook her head. “Or maybe-you said they were fighting?-maybe they’ve forgotten to tell each other how they feel because they’re saying all these other things.” Shizuru heard her own words as if from a distance, wondering. “Maybe they don’t realize it and so they’re not talking to each other clearly, hurting each other’s feelings and making things more confusing . . . .”
“Shizuru?” Natsuki asked, sounding concerned. Shizuru blinked and focused on her friend who seemed to have momentarily forgotten about her complaints. Shizuru became aware that her pulse beat in her ears and that her breath rushed in and out in short bursts.
“Are you okay?” Natsuki asked.
Shizuru shook her head and steadied out her breathing. “I’m fine. I wish I could tell you something to make you feel better, though.”
Natsuki sighed. “I know I can’t do anything but that’s what makes me feel bad. I hate having to watch them fight and waiting to see if they work things out or not.”
“Yes,” Shizuru agreed softly, mind someplace else, “but they’re the only ones who can figure out if they want to be together.”
*
Shizuru rang the doorbell and crossed her arms, then uncrossed them, only to re-cross them as her leg bounced at a frantic rhythm. She felt restless, wound up, and nervous. At the sound of the lock flipping, Shizuru raised her head and when the door opened, she immediately said, “I want you stop acting like you have to protect me.”
Yamane, who had already looked startled upon opening the door and had been trying to greet her, did a double-take. Shizuru raised a hand before Yamane could say anything and continued, “You do, we both know it.”
“Fujino-san,” Yamane tried to interject but Shizuru shook her head.
“You listen and you wait for me and you answer my questions, but you’re always so careful not to say something wrong or hurt my feelings-”
“Fujino-san, please,” Yamane tried more forcefully.
“-But what I want,” Shizuru continued, relentless, “what I’ve come to want-is for you to be honest and talk about yourself and to share your opinions. Maybe then I can figure out how you feel about me and how I’m supposed to be feeling without wondering if you think I’m a little kid that you need to watch over instead of a . . . .”
Shizuru trailed off, unsure how she had been planning to finish that sentence. Yamane stood stock still in the doorway, gazing at her with an expression spanning a spectrum of emotions, from shock and confusion, to sorrow and frustration, to care and wariness.
Then someone said, “Hello.”
Shizuru turned in surprise and then started at the smiling face that appeared over Yamane’s shoulder.
Yamane closed her eyes but the thin line of her lips was pained. “I was trying to tell you: this isn’t a good time.”
*
There was a short silence and then the stranger said, “Yamane, introduce us and then invite her in.”
Yamane shot the woman a look that might have been a glare. The woman ignored her and pulled Yamane aside so that Shizuru could see her fully . . . not that that had been a problem given the woman’s height. Shizuru tried not to gawk but her mind was reeling from the unexpected intrusion, her own jumbled rant, and the checked interest in the tall stranger’s eyes. Yamane, though, seemed to revive at the woman’s touch.
“Fujino-san,” she said, with her gaze averted, “this is my good friend, Nishiyama Yuko. Yuko, Fujino Shizuru-san.”
Nishiyama smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Fujino-san. Won’t you join us? We were just having tea.”
“Yuko, don’t make her do something she doesn’t want to do,” Yamane said softly, maybe to her friend’s hip judging by her line of sight, but Nishiyama kept her eyes and smile on Shizuru.
“She knows that I can’t make her do anything that she doesn’t want to do.” Nishiyama stepped back invitingly as if Shizuru had stumbled into her apartment rather than Yamane’s. “Will you come in, Fujino-san?”
Shizuru glanced at Yamane who was watching her and waiting for her answer. She wanted to talk to the older woman about what she had said. She felt embarrassed that her personal thoughts had been spilled in front of this stranger and a little angry that her surprise attack had been defused by the interruption of an unknown guest, but she had only herself to blame. She hadn’t called ahead and she had never imagined that she wouldn’t find Yamane alone.
It was an unlucky night to be wrong.
There was a set to Yamane’s jaw that set Shizuru on edge. Then she realized this was the first time she was seeing Yamane angry-and rather than feeling scared, she found it compelling.
Before her sense could stop her, Shizuru bowed-“Excuse the intrusion”-and stepped inside. Nishiyama smiled and led Shizuru to the low living room table while Yamane locked the door after her. As she knelt down, Shizuru’s eye caught on an envelop that rested among the cups and the tray of sweets, but Yamane was suddenly next to her, swiping the letter off the table and tucking it beneath her cushion before Shizuru could even think to wonder what it contained.
“Yamane has told me about you,” Nishiyama told her. Yamane realized that they needed an extra cup and disappeared into the kitchen to fetch one.
“Then you have me at a disadvantage,” Shizuru said, “because I don’t believe Yamane-san has ever mentioned you by name.”
“It seems like Yamane hasn’t been mentioning a lot of things,” Nishiyama remarked lightly, throwing a knowing look at Yamane who had reappeared in the middle of this observation. Shizuru didn’t comment; she felt slightly embarrassed but fully in agreement.
“We could punish her by talking about her as if she weren’t here,” Nishiyama suggested, accompanying her words with a devilish smile and then a sigh. “I wouldn’t do that, though.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Yamane said to Shizuru, voice somewhat strained, as she set the extra cup down, “because I know as many secrets about her as she knows about me.”
“Do you have many?” Shizuru asked, directing the question at Nishiyama.
“Just enough to keep people interested,” Nishiyama answered. Yamane shrugged, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Nishiyama picked up the teapot and poured Shizuru a cup. “So, Fujino-san, you’re a university student . . . ?”
*
Within an hour, several things became apparent. Of the two friends, Nishiyama was the more outgoing, the more cheerful, and the more talkative. She balanced her inquisitiveness about Shizuru with efforts to draw her friend out, but Yamane remained quiet and withdrawn, making sparse comments or corrections to Nishiyama’s stories and “facts.” As Nishiyama disclosed, the two were old friends, having known each other since elementary school, and Shizuru could see it in the way they spoke in looks and glances. Yamane still had that set to her jaw and she avoided looking at Shizuru. Nishiyama, however, seemed oblivious to her friend’s ire and kept conversation lively about her work as a botanist, the countless stares her height attracted (she was 173 cm), her husband (Shizuru belated looked for her ring), and her attempts to get Yamane to adopt a kitten from her mother-in-law’s new litter.
“I can’t even take care of a plant,” Yamane said as she heaved herself to her feet.
“It’s true,” Nishiyama confirmed for Shizuru’s benefit.
“What would I do with a cat?” Yamane finished and gathered up the empty tray of sweets.
“No, see,” Nishiyama said as she got up and followed with the teapot. “A cat would tell you when it needs water and food instead of sitting around quietly wilting.”
They disappeared into the kitchen. Shizuru heard the water running in the sink and the clink of dishes, which reduced Nishiyama’s arguments about pet adoption to a low murmur. She noticed a plate on a corner table that was probably from before she had arrived and grabbed it, thinking she should bring it to Yamane if she were already washing dishes. She stopped outside the door, however, when she heard Nishiyama say, “‘Yamane-san?’ How long has she known you that she’s still calling you that?”
“Can we not talk about this right now?” Yamane retorted in a low, clipped tone.
“She’s a sweet girl.”
“Don’t forget young,” Yamane said sharply.
“Young, yes,” Nishiyama replied in a drawl that was teasing and suggestive, but her voice softened as she continued, “But she seems very mature for her age. And she likes you.”
Shizuru held her breath.
“Amane-”
“And you like her.” Shizuru’s fingers spasmed on the plate. “I don’t see where the problem is.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“What can be simpler than two people liking each other? I know you’ve been having a hard time-”
“Don’t.”
“If you can yell at me because you think I’m giving up my research to start a family, then I should be able to tell you to get over yourself, Yamane Aki.”
Something clattered in the sink. “She likes someone else, alright?”
“What?” Nishiyama said and listening outside Shizuru gave a start. She’d never explicitly admitted liking anyone to Yamane.
“She likes someone else,” Yamane repeated, sounding tired. “And, yes, it still hurts when I think about Rin. And, no, I don’t want to talk about that either.”
The sound of the faucet running cut off abruptly. Yamane stormed out of the kitchen-and almost ran into Shizuru. They stared at each other. Shizuru held out the plate.
“I was bringing this to you,” Shizuru said softly. Yamane took the plate between lifeless fingers. “I’m sorry. I’ll be going.”
She fled for the front door. Yamane didn’t see her out.
*
Shizuru paced the streets and advanced back toward her dorm in increments of retraced sidewalks. She kept hearing Nishiyama’s, Yamane’s, and her own voice repeating and rehashing the past hour. With each successive replay she felt worse and more uncertain than when she had set out earlier that night with the intent to talk to Yamane.
Upon arriving at her dorm, Shizuru burst into her room, grabbed the naginata, and rushed out again without bothering to change. Out on the green and under the moon, she tried to silence the conversations in her mind by lashing out at enemies that weren’t there.
*
The Friday later that week, Shizuru stepped out of the university library and saw the last person she’d expected to see: Nishiyama Yuko. The tall woman was eye-to-eye with her companion, an older man whose rumpled business casual apparel suggested professor to Shizuru’s eye. Curious but unsure, Shizuru stood watching them for a minute. All smiles, Nishiyama and the man shook hands when they reached the main walk that cut through the center of campus and then parted ways. Nishiyama headed in Shizuru’s direction.
Shizuru hesitated, thoughts and questions racing through her mind, before raising her hand and shouting, “Nishiyama-san!”
Nishiyama started and looked around bewildered. Waving her hand in the air to catch the woman’s attention, Shizuru approached her at a quick clip. “Nishiyama-san!”
Nishiyama leaned forward in wary suspicion. “Fujino-san?” When the dwindling distance confirmed that it was her, Nishiyama smiled. “It is you. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
Shizuru raised an eyebrow. “I think I should be saying that to you, Nishiyama-san.” The botanist laughed. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not stalking you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Nishiyama said impishly. “I had a little business to take care of here at the University. The truth is that while I did come to Fuuka to visit Yamane, the ‘real’ reason I came is because Fuuka is looking for a new botany professor.”
Shizuru blinked. “I wasn’t under the impression that you taught.”
“I don’t,” Nishiyama confirmed. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Ah.”
Nishiyama adjusted her purse strap. “Are you busy? Studying for finals?”
“I just finished studying right now,” Shizuru answered, “and I was about to head home when I saw you.”
“If you want, then,” Nishiyama said, “you can join me as I take a stroll around your campus. I need to walk off the huge lunch they just gave me-and I have to admit, it was better food than I’ve had on some dates.”
Shizuru nodded and fell into step as Nishiiyama set off at a slow pace in no particular direction. Nishiyama was quiet, enjoying the weather and the sight of the greenery on campus. She paused every now and again to inspect a plant or flower. While she was bent over a bird of paradise, Shizuru asked, “Is Yamane-san angry?”
“Yes,” Nishiyama said without looking up from her scrutiny, “but she’s angry at me.” She straightened up and gave the plant a little chuck beneath its “beak.” “If you’re wondering how she feels about the other night, the better word is probably ‘upset.’”
Shizuru looked Nishiyama in the eyes. “I didn’t mean to overhear your conversation.”
The other woman raised an eyebrow. “But did you mean all those things you said to Yamane?”
Shizuru clenched her jaw but didn’t look away. Nishiyama held her gaze and then shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s really not my business. Yamane would be even angrier with me if she knew I’d asked you that.” Nishiyama raised her eyes to a passing cloud. “But it’s hard not to interfere when I feel like I should be looking after her like one of my little sisters. I don’t want to see her get hurt again.”
Shizuru wondered what Nishiyama meant by “again” and recalled the name she’d heard Yamane say-Rin.
“I’ll say this, though: whatever you feel for her, Fujino-san, you should speak to her,” the older woman told her. “If you’re honest with her, she’ll be honest with you. But wait a little bit. Yamane probably won’t want to talk any time soon and she’s not going to be around this weekend because I’m stealing her.”
The last part sounded so unusual that anything else Shizuru might have said was superseded by “Stealing her?”
Nishiyama grinned. “Not really stealing her, but every summer we go to the beach for some sun, volleyball, and-”
“Volleyball?” Shizuru interjected.
Nishiyama laughed. “Yamane’s sport of choice. Mine, too, now, though we only started playing on the beach . . . wow, was it really eight, nine years ago?” Nishiyama shook her head and waved a hand. “It was some time in college. Anyway, we played indoor volleyball together in high school, but Yamane has been playing since junior high. She’s the one that convinced me to try it instead of basketball. After that, it was all about the Yamane-Amane conbi.”
“Amane? Is that your maiden name?”
Nishiyama nodded. Shizuru bit back a laugh but not a smile.
“I know,” Nishiyama said, smirking ruefully. “We sounded practically like sisters.”
“Volleyball . . .” Shizuru mused as they ambled around a sakura tree. “I didn’t picture Yamane-san to be into team sports.”
“Oh, she’s competitive on the court.” Nishiyama stopped walking and caught Shizuru’s eye. “Ask her about it.”
Shizuru nodded, understanding that Nishiyama meant more than just volleyball. Nishiyama smiled back, eyes crinkling. Under her gaze, Shizuru felt young, but encouraged, like a little sister receiving advice. Then Nishiyama harrumphed and the almost awkward intimacy of the moment relented.
“I feel like I need a nap,” Nishiyama grouched. “Is there some place where we can get a decent cup of tea before I fall asleep?”
- Part Three -