How much longer until we reached the hotel? I couldn’t even make out what lay ahead anymore. Surely we wouldn’t walk right past it without realizing it, would we? How did the locals here ever manage to make it through such harsh winters? It almost seemed too hard to believe. Or had we simply been unlucky enough to come here during a once-in-a-blue-moon weather event? My thoughts grew more and more scattershot as my brain tried everything it could to keep my mind off the cold.
“You okay, Ushio?” I asked. “…Ushio?”
I looked over, but there was no one standing there beside me. My heart sank immediately, and all the blood drained from my bleary head. I turned to look back over my shoulder and could see a lone fuzzy silhouette standing stock-still in the snow.
“Ushio!” I shouted, hurrying back to her. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Y-yeah, I’m fine.”
Her complexion was pale. She sure didn’t look fine. I grabbed her by the hand and started forging ahead once more, trying my best to shield her from the wind.
“H-hey… Let go of my hand.”
“It’s fine. You can deal with it.”
“We’re not even dating,” she grumbled.
Oh, for the love of…!
This did it. She’d officially set me off.
“Now’s really not the time to be worrying about stupid stuff like that,” I said, then tried to drag her by the hand behind me—only for her to wrest herself free from my grip.
“It’s not stupid.” She sped up and stomped right past me down the sidewalk, like a child throwing a tantrum. “It’s not stupid at all…”
I didn’t respond to this. Instead, I stood there a moment, then hurried after her until we were walking side by side again. But it wasn’t long before Ushio fell behind once more, and I had to slow down to keep stride with her.
My phone had claimed it was a thirty-minute walk to the hotel—but that was assuming we maintained the same walking pace all the way there. At this speed, it might even take us more than an hour to get there. Perhaps it would be a good idea to stop somewhere and take a quick breather. Unfortunately, all of the stores we passed by were closed up for the day, presumably due to the weather. And there weren’t a whole lot of businesses around here to begin with.
Eventually, we took shelter beneath the overhang of a large building that appeared to be some sort of community center. It wasn’t enough to block out the cold, but it at least gave us a chance to catch our breath without standing directly in the path of the blizzard for a short while.
“Ugh… What a mess,” I said, patting the snow off of my jacket. When I shook my head, a full snowball’s worth of powder came sprinkling to the ground. I looked over at Ushio to find that she had a huge clump of snow atop her head as well, but she didn’t seem to realize it. So I reached out a hand to dust it off for her, and—
“Wha…?”
She immediately slapped my hand away.
I supposed I only had myself to blame for trying to touch her without stating my intentions beforehand…but this automatic rejection still stung quite a bit.
“You’ve…just got some snow on your head, that’s all,” I said.
“Well, just tell me that next time,” said Ushio. “I can get it myself.”
I averted my gaze. “Okay, sorry…”
The storm showed no signs of letting up. And while I knew we had no choice but to fly home tomorrow regardless, I was starting to worry whether things would even clear up by then. And whether we’d be able to visit Cape Soya at all, for that matter. I’d vastly underestimated just how bad winters could get in northern Hokkaido.
“…Maybe we should just call a taxi after all,” I said.
Ushio cast a dubious glance in my direction. “I thought you said we don’t have enough money.”
“Yeah, but what’s the point if we can’t even make it to the hotel? I mean, worst-case scenario…I guess we can always pool our money to afford a single or something.”
“A single’s not going to sleep two people.”
“I know. So one of us will probably have to spend the night in the lobby.”
“Okay, that’s even more delusional.”
Ushio let out a sigh. Her eyelashes were caked with snow, and her lips were starting to turn a little bit purple.
“We’ve come this far,” she said. “We’ll just have to power through.”
“But…you seem like you’re really struggling already.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got a lot more stamina than you.”
“You were trailing way behind me, though.”
“That’s just my normal walking pace.”
“C’mon, Ushio… There’s really no need to be so stubborn.”
Her pale cheeks flushed red in an instant. “God, would you shut up already? I said I’ll be fine, so have a little faith in me, why don’t you?! Or, what—are you just trying to play my boyfriend again?”
“No, I’m just worried about you…”
“Oh yeah? Well, you know what, Sakuma?!”
She looked me dead in the eyes as she spoke, each word dripping with spite.
“We wouldn’t be in this mess right now if it weren’t for you and your bright ideas… So maybe you should just keep your mouth shut and let me handle things for once. Because all you’re doing is making this stupid trip even worse than it already was.”
I felt like I’d been hit over the head with a sledgehammer.
This was the last thing I wanted to hear her say right now.
The whole point of us coming out here was to try to overwrite the bad memories from our class trip with new and good ones. All I wanted, more than anything, was for Ushio to have a good time. But it seemed I’d blown my one opportunity to make things right… No, I hadn’t just blown it—I’d put her through nothing but total agony.
First, I’d made her spend twelve hours sitting on a bus, only to then force her to trudge through a raging blizzard with me at the risk of both our health. Looking at it objectively, this was more like a funeral march for our dead relationship than a revitalizing adventure. I hadn’t overwritten any painful memories here—I’d only tacked on even more. And it was my fault for getting carried away, wanting to do something just to selfishly prove that I had good intentions and could take ownership for my mistakes. Ushio hadn’t asked for that. She hadn’t asked for any of this. God, I was such an idiot. Just how long was I planning to let this unmitigated disaster spiral out of control?
“…Sorry.” It was the only thing I could think to say.
We had to go. This break had gone on long enough.
I started walking in the direction of the hotel again.
“Hey, wait a sec!” said Ushio.
A few moments later, I heard her follow after me.
But I made sure to stay a safe distance ahead.
Because I couldn’t bring myself to face her.