After walking straight forward into a raging blizzard for god knew how long, we finally arrived at our destination. The welcome heat in the hotel lobby quickly set about thawing my aching, frozen muscles until they were simply sore and strained. I didn’t want to have to take one step back outside for the rest of the night. In fact, I was fairly certain I’d die if I so much as tried. We hobbled over to the front desk like a couple of malnourished castaways who’d just seen a rescue boat approaching on the horizon, and the young female receptionist looked up from her computer to greet us.
“Good evening,” she said. “Are you two here to check in?”
“Uh, no… We didn’t make reservations,” I said. “Is that okay, I hope?”
“One moment, please.”
Oh man. What were we going to do if there were no vacancies? I’d figured there was no point in calling ahead to make a reservation on the day of, but maybe I should have… Thankfully, my fears were soon assuaged by a warm smile from the receptionist.
“Yes, we’d be more than happy to accommodate you,” she said. “Will it be just the two of you staying with us tonight? What kind of room or rooms were you looking for?”
Phew, thank goodness… Though what were we going to do as far as the rooming situation went? I glanced over at Ushio to get her opinion.
“I’m fine with whatever,” she said.
So she claimed, but we weren’t even in a relationship anymore; I doubted she’d want to share a room with me if she had any other choice.
Or maybe I was just projecting.
The truth was, I didn’t feel one hundred percent comfortable being in the same room as Ushio right now. And if she were to call me out again, like she had earlier for ruining her class trip, I might not recover from the emotional damage this time. So in the interest of self-preservation, as well as protecting Ushio from further grief, it fell on me to make the obvious sensible decision.
“Would it be possible for us to get two sing—”
“Oh, yes—we also have a couple’s room available, if that interests you,” said the receptionist.
“…Pardon?”
“It’s a more economical option we offer for pairs of guests like you. It’s essentially a single room, but with a three-quarter bed that’s just large enough to fit two, if you don’t mind getting cozy. The rate would be less expensive than a twin room or two singles.”
Of all the places for our relationship to be tested, I hadn’t been expecting it here. Until now, there hadn’t been any tangible stakes involved in whether we still referred to ourselves as a couple—but now that we stood to gain something by saying we were, and we could really use the extra cash, I felt like we had no choice but to reevaluate. But setting the financial incentives aside, how would Ushio feel about this, realistically?
“Or, what—are you just trying to play my boyfriend again?”
“We’re not even dating.”
More likely than not, she wouldn’t be okay with it. That wasn’t something I was willing to risk for the sake of a good deal, so I figured we should probably nix the couple’s room option. I couldn’t imagine it would be that big a difference, and Ushio’s comfort and privacy were more important than saving a little money, anyway.
“No, that’s okay,” I said. “I think we’d prefer to do—”
“We’ll take the couple’s room, thank you,” Ushio cut in.
Baffled, I turned to look at her, but her expression was firm; she appeared to have no problem with this whatsoever.
“Very well,” said the receptionist. “Now, since you both appear to be underage, I’m just going to need verification from a parent or guardian…”
Ushio pulled out her cell phone and gave Yuki a call. I was about to call home to my folks too, but they only needed one parental cosign. I assumed it was a formality to cover their legal bases.
In any event, I had no clue what Ushio was thinking anymore.
Not to imply that this was a particularly recent development, but still.
Upon receiving our key, we headed up to the room and set our bags down. The room itself felt surprisingly big, actually—though the bed was a fair bit smaller than I’d expected. There was no way two people could fit on it without sleeping shoulder to shoulder. Now I understood why they explicitly advertised it as a “couple’s room.”
“You can go ahead and use the shower first, if you want to,” I said. “I’ve gotta make a quick phone call.”
“Okay, I think I’ll take you up on that,” Ushio said, then headed into the bathroom.
As soon as she closed the door behind her, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. I only had 5 percent battery remaining, so I grabbed my charger out of my backpack and plugged it in. Then I scrolled down in my call history to the number I was looking for and dialed. The phone rang a few times before the other party picked up.
“Hey, Mom?” I said. “It’s me.”
“Sorry, who’s this?” said my mother. “Because I know my son just got home from his class trip and is upstairs in his bedroom right now. You must have the wrong number.”
Hoo boy… I could already tell that she was extremely pissed.
“Um… No, it’s me, Mom. Sakuma Kamiki… Your one and only son…”
“Where are you right now?”
Phew. It seemed she was willing to hear me out, at least.
“We’re staying at a hotel in Wakkanai. The original plan was to come home today, but then our bus got delayed…”
“And how exactly are you planning to make it home, if I might ask?”
“We were gonna fly back to Narita tomorrow. There’s just, uh…one small problem.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Well, um…I’m kind of all out of money. So if you could do me a huge favor and just…transfer some funds into my account, I’d very much appreciate it, ha ha…”
I sounded like a wheedling swindler, complete with the awkward laughter—but it was the truth. After buying our bus tickets and paying for our hotel room, I hardly had a single yen left to my name. I probably couldn’t even afford lunch tomorrow, or to go to Cape Soya, much less a flight back to Tokyo. Getting my mom to send me more money was simply an unfortunate necessity if we didn’t want to get stranded up here.
“Sakuma… Do you have any idea how much it’s going to cost you to fly from Hokkaido all the way down to Narita?”
“Uhhh… Like, ten thousand yen, maybe?”
“It depends on what airline you’re flying with, but if you want to book a connecting flight from Wakkanai only a day in advance, well…it’s going to cost you a whole lot more than your New Year’s money, I can tell you that much.”
“What?! Seriously?! It’s that expensive?”
“You could save a little money if you were willing to take the bus or train back to Sapporo first, but yes.”
“Dang… How do you know all this stuff?”
“Because I already looked into it. For your sake, bucko.”