Chapter 6:
and
MNCH. MNCH. MNCH.
The sounds she made were highly unnatural, but oddly enough, they still conveyed how much she was enjoying herself. As she stood beside me, a donut in each hand, a flower of sheer delight was visibly blooming on her face.
Then again, flowers were blooming all over the place, since springtime was in full force—I could identify the season from the lukewarm exhaust of the cars passing on the street. We leaned side by side against a building, a soft breeze tickling our noses.
“What a day it has been!”
“Indeed…”
As I was wandering around town, Yashiro had suddenly turned up beside me, as she was wont to do. Today she wore a bird onesie; I gazed at her, trying to pinpoint the species, until at last, the word heron rose from the dusty encyclopedia of my memory.
Yashiro’s sense of sartorial coordination left something to be desired, though; in place of the onesie’s hood, she wore a yellow helmet. Well…perhaps “wearing” wasn’t quite accurate, since it appeared to merely rest atop her head. It looked fairly old, given the scuffs and grime, yet she wore it proudly over her luscious locks. Contrasted with her blue sparkle, the helmet’s poor condition almost seemed an intentional fashion choice.
My opinion of her attire aside, I couldn’t help noticing that she was awfully aggressive today, demanding not one but two donuts. She was normally willing to walk past the donut shop, but this time, she’d all but dragged me inside; now here we were.
“We had a deal.”
“I don’t remember that at all,” I told her.
“That sounds like a problem.”
Still, she moved on to her second donut with an enthusiasm that suggested that she wasn’t terribly concerned. Unlike her first, which had been chocolate, this one was custard-filled. I watched, chuckling, as her fingers turned sticky with sugar and oil. Yet the longer I looked at the hands poking out from her wingtips, the more surreal the sight seemed. Were her arms really that long, or did she extend and retract them as needed? It wasn’t like I’d never questioned these minute details, but I suspected the spring sunshine had put me in a more inquisitive mood.
Mmncccch!
The sound had changed slightly—in response to the new flavor, maybe? The more time Yashiro and I spent together, the more silly observations I found myself making.
“These sweet treats truly taste like destiny, do they not?”
“That’s destiny, all right.” My shoulders shook with a suppressed giggle. It was such a silly concept, but coming from her, it carried mysterious weight.
“It must be impossible for someone to feel angry while eating a donut.”
“Yeah…maybe.” If they tried scowling with a mouth full of custard, it would melt away pretty quick.
While she made her slurping sounds, I tried to think of what our “deal” might’ve been, but I hadn’t the faintest idea. Was she putting one over on me? Hmmm… I snuck a peek at her, but she looked happier than I’d ever seen, so I was tempted to shrug it off.
Her head was at the perfect height for me to reach out and slap a palm onto her helmet, causing a flurry of blue motes to rise up. I caught one on the tip of my index finger, but before I could examine it up close, a gust from a passing car whisked it away, and it vanished.
“Aren’t you hungry, Shimamura-san?”
“Oh, it’ll be dinnertime soon enough,” I replied after gauging the sky. The sun’s brightness had calmed a bit, the sinking vestige of spring blotting me and the wall behind me into an oil painting. As I took in the seasonal scene, I felt my throat get dry and sweat bead on the tip of my nose.
“I see.”
“You could offer me a bite, though.”
“Ha ha ha!”
“That wasn’t a joke.”
Was it just me, or was she slurping faster now? Little punk, I thought, watching her finish.
“Mmm. Nothing beats the taste of a promise.” Both hands now empty, she gleefully raised them skyward, opening and closing her fingers in scissorlike motions.
“Your face is a mess.” I ran a napkin over her lips, then wiped her hands while I was at it.
“Ho ho ho! I owe you.”
“I’m used to it by now.”
Her skin was so smooth that the donut crumbs came away with no resistance. She patted her stomach, then put her hands on her hips and let out a proud, satisfied sigh, her gaze pointing skyward. I followed suit but couldn’t see anything of interest, save for the falling flower petals. Could she see things invisible to the human eye, like a cat or a dog could?
“Well then, let us be on our way!”
Cheerfully waving her arms—er, wings—she toddled off down the street. With each step, her hair bounced, and my eyes followed the trail of blue particles she left in her wake. “Um…to where?” I asked, since she was headed in the opposite direction from my apartment and showed no sign of stopping.
“Somewhere nice,” she replied. At a distance, she stopped and turned back. “Care to join me, Shimamura-san?”
At that moment, as if on cue, the scent of cherry blossoms engulfed me. Petals and blue sparkles danced together on the breeze, spiraling wildly around her—and the beauty of it captivated me so much that I scarcely noticed how unnatural it was.
“Welllll…hmm. Somewhere nice, you say?” What sort of place could it possibly be, besides a bakery?
“A fun place!” The way she flapped her wings up and down, she looked very excited indeed. We surely weren’t going back to the donut shop, were we?
“Eh…okay. But only because I don’t have any other plans.”
The moment the words left my mouth, a thought struck me: Wait. Do I really not have plans? Something told me that I’d come into town for a reason, but my mind was hazy, like I was soaking up to my shoulders in the warm weather.
When I hurried up beside her, she met me with a soft, warm smile—one of pure, undiluted happiness without ulterior motive. It was the same smile she had maintained for the entirety of our friendship, and I liked that about her.
“Not sure where you’d find ‘fun’ in a town like this,” I remarked. All my life, I could never think of anywhere to go, which was why I’d always ended up at the mall.
“I would describe it as fun, and charming, and soothing, and nice, and dreamy, and quite aromatic, and I think you should visit.”
“Oh really…?” If Yashiro liked it that much, it could only be… “An all-you-can-eat cake buffet?”
“That would be wonderful.” Her tone was as light and springy as her gait—so giddy, in fact, I half-worried that she was about to get herself banned from the establishment. To her credit, though, it did sound fun.
We passed a handful of people on the street—old ladies on a walk, housewives pushing bicycles laden with grocery bags—and each time, they did a double take at the blue-haired alien. When she met their gaze, she’d greet them jovially, as if she were any other neighbor. Then again…maybe she was.
Although she didn’t blend in among other people, she looked right at home in the spring scenery. Given her sky-blue color palette, summer and winter would suit her too. Whenever she wasn’t stuffing her face, she was pretty, and pretty things had a way of fitting in just about anywhere.
We moved from the downtown district toward an area with more green hues. The modern buildings melted away in favor of farmland, with only the wide-open roads preserving the image of a town. As I walked, I glanced all around, wrestling with a strange sense of déjà vu. Some part of me seemed to have this confused with a different spot I’d spent a lot of time in.
“How far away is this place, anyway? I don’t want to be out too late.”
“Do not worry.”
That…didn’t seem like an answer to my question. I started to press the issue, but then a stream of flower petals passed in front of my face, as if to gently stop me. I reached out a hand and caught some on my palm. When I looked up again, I realized that the ground beyond the utility pole ahead was dyed pink with an entire carpet of the petals—far more than typically fell on a spring day. Looks like blossom-viewing season is nearly over, I thought.
My pace must’ve slowed while the petals distracted me, because Yashiro was now far ahead. She turned back and shouted, “What is the matter?”
“Oh, just the flowers.”
“The flowers?” she repeated, as petals fell onto her head.
“It smells like flowers.”
Where were all these petals coming from? Now that we were heading out of town, there were seemingly many more of them. Yashiro marched silently past the supermarket and gas station as if heading straight for the blossoms’ source, and I followed beside (or sometimes slightly behind) her.
After a while, we reached an embankment with a clear view of the river, the surface of which gleamed like a mirror. I shielded my eyes reflexively; once they’d adjusted, I gazed at the rocky riverbed, thinking of how it looked in summer and winter. It was the same landscape, yet rendered in completely different colors.
“Must you be so difficult, Shimamura-san?”
The unexpected critique made me scowl. “Huh? What’re you talking about?”
“Ho ho ho! On second thought, you might say this is part of our deal.”
She was clearly dodging the question, so I reached out and pinched her cheek. “What! Are! You! Talking! About?!”
“For the record, it is my first time here as well.”
“What? That can’t be true…can it?”
I glanced around, but everything looked perfectly familiar. We must’ve walked through this area together at least once before…possibly on the day of the festival all those years ago. Had she forgotten?
Yashiro eventually came to a stop in front of a plain-looking bridge that cut straight across the river. It was quiet here, with no sign of any cars approaching, and we had only the flower petals for company; it was almost like we were strolling through the silence of outer space, surrounded by falling stars. I couldn’t even hear the wind…yet the petals still danced in the air. Beckoning.
“Could I have a moment, Shimamura-san?”
“What’s up?”
The flow of the petals guided my gaze to Yashiro’s, her eyes twin glittering night skies. My reflection in them wore a school uniform and was tinged with a hint of the cosmos.
“From here, you must walk straight ahead.” As she spoke, her body retreated.
I beg your pardon? “More to the point, may I ask why you’re suddenly sliding backward?!”
She merely laughed that off. “Ho ho ho!”
This creature truly contained multitudes…and now those multitudes were slipping away from me.
“As promised, this is where I leave you. As promised, you must go straight forward.”
“What in the world is this about?” “Deal” this, “promise” that… I surely couldn’t have forgotten, yet somehow I couldn’t remember. Spring was a season of hibernation, so perhaps that was to blame.