AT THE CASTLE CHRISTMAS PARTY, Rion arrived with a cake. The group gave a ‘Wow!’ when they saw it.
‘It looks so delicious!’ Kokoro chimed in.
It was a chiffon cake, with a hole in the middle. The icing was uneven. It didn’t look as though it had been bought in a shop. The fruit decorations on the top were a little irregular too, but that gave the cake its charm.
‘Is it homemade?’ Masamune asked.
‘By a girlfriend?’ Aki asked, and Kokoro’s heart beat fast for an instant. All eyes were on Rion.
Boys who played football were always popular with the girls. Maybe that was why he was studying abroad. They hadn’t talked about it, but it certainly would make sense if he had a girlfriend.
But Rion shook his head.
‘Nope. It’s my mum’s,’ he said. ‘She bakes one every year. She came over for Christmas, stayed in my dorm and gave it to me, so I brought it.’
‘Can she stay in your dorm?’
‘Yeah. Parents can stay for a few days. They have rooms with kitchens for them.’
Kokoro glanced at the clock on the wall and vaguely considered the time difference.
It was midday in Japan. So in Hawaii it would be the late afternoon of the previous day. It was Christmas Day in Japan, but for Rion it probably still felt like Christmas Eve.
Kokoro had the impression that it was more usual for people from other countries to spend Christmas as a family than in Japan. Kokoro’s family was the same – they’d gone out for a meal the night before, but today, Christmas Day, her parents had, unusually, gone out together, which allowed her to come here.
‘Rion,’ she asked, ‘are you – coming back to Japan for the break?’
It wasn’t as if she was asking to meet him outside the castle, but his living so far away in Hawaii made it impossible for them ever to meet outside, and just the idea that he might come back to Japan, and be somewhere nearby, made her happy. But Rion shook his head. ‘No, I’m not going back,’ he said. ‘My mum was only in Hawaii for two days, and then said she had to go home. She said she was busy.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘Um. Let’s eat,’ Rion said. He’d brought a cake knife to cut it into slices. As he unpacked it, Kokoro considered something.
Rion’s mother had brought the cake, but hadn’t stayed to actually eat it with her son.
Maybe she thought he’d share it with his friends. But it was Christmas, and the other kids in the dorm would have gone back home to their families. That must be what Rion meant when he’d said so emphatically, I’m not going back.
Kokoro remembered that it was Rion who’d come up with the suggestion to have a Christmas party in the castle, saying that he’d bring a cake.
What was he feeling when he made that suggestion?
She recalled his voice. The words Rion had spoken to the Wolf Queen. My school isn’t Yukishina No. 5, and yet here I am. Why did you summon someone like me?
And the Wolf Queen’s response: But you badly wanted to go, didn’t you? To the public junior high in your area?
What did that mean? Going to school in Hawaii – just the sound of it made them single him out as wealthy. It’s not that great, he’d told them.
‘Hey, let’s invite the Wolf Queen, too. Wolf Queeeeen,’ he called, slicing into the cake. He put the knife down. ‘I can’t cut even slices. One of the girls have a go.’
Ureshino said, ‘Kokoro should do it. She peeled an apple for me once. She’ll be good at it.’
‘Eh? I’ve no idea if I can do it properly.’ Kokoro smiled wryly as she remembered what trouble peeling an apple had led to. But she was happy to be asked to be in charge of the cake.
‘You called?’ a light voice spoke, and the Wolf Queen materialized.
‘We have cake,’ Rion said. ‘But can you even eat it with that mask on? Do you ever actually eat?’
The Wolf Queen moved her head slowly to the side and studied the homemade cake, chiffon with ripples of icing on the top. The tableau was surreal, but the combination of her dreamlike dress and mask, and the sugary cake, seemed to work together somehow. She finally answered.
‘I won’t eat it here.’ She lifted her head slowly at Rion. ‘If you cut me a slice, I’ll take it back with me.’
The group looked on with bemused smiles. They’d never imagined that the Wolf Queen, whom they’d taken to be a completely fantastical character, would show such appetite, like some little girl.
But all Rion said was, ‘OK. And this is for you, too.’ He reached around to take a small package out from his backpack, and handed it to her. ‘We had this at home, but if you don’t mind, I’d like you to have it.’
They’d talked about not exchanging presents, but he’d apparently brought something anyway. The Wolf Queen stared for a time at the package in his hands, before finally accepting it.
‘OK,’ she said, placing it behind her back.
Kokoro had expected the Wolf Queen to unwrap it immediately. Rion made no comment.
‘So, let’s have some cake,’ he said.
✦ ✦ ✦
DESPITE THE DECISION NOT TO bring gifts to their Christmas party, Aki, too, had brought something: pretty patterned paper napkins like the ones she’d brought before. She handed one out to each of them. These were part of the same series as those she’d given Fuka on her birthday, though in a different pattern.
‘Jeez, I should have brought something, too!’ Ureshino said loudly.
What surprised Kokoro most was the moment when Masamune laid out a pile of manga products for boys and told them they were presents.
‘Take as many of them as you want,’ he said.
Kokoro was stunned. A lot of them were freebies found in the back of manga, but there were some gift tokens for books, too.
‘Wow! Tokens for the One Piece series!’
Kokoro loved manga, too. She turned the gift token over and noticed there was the maximum amount of 500 yen on it. Masamune always brought in lots of video games, and seemed to own so many things. But he didn’t seem to consider money and possessions as particularly important.
‘These are all manga for boys. So I don’t know what they are, and I don’t need any,’ Aki said, making a face.
But Subaru said, ‘Hey! Are these new? In that case, I’ll take one.’ He reached out for one of the gift tokens.
‘Which ones do you prefer?’ Aki asked him.
‘If you’re not bothered about them’ – Masamune was irritated – ‘then don’t get involved.’
‘It’s such a surprise,’ Aki shot back. ‘Whether I’m interested or not is beside the point. I’m just so astonished that you’d even think of bringing us presents, Masamune.’
‘You’re so annoying. If you’re going to diss them, then give them back. It took time to get all this stuff together, you know.’
‘No, I’ll have one, actually.’
Kokoro moved in to thank him.
‘No problem,’ Masamune said, looking away and blowing out his cheeks.
Rion’s mother’s cake was deliciously spongy, rich with egg and light as air.
Rion was thrilled with the assorted chocolates Kokoro had brought. ‘I haven’t seen these in a long time,’ he said. ‘I used to eat them a lot when I was back in Japan.’
Kokoro had made tea from the teabags Ms Kitajima had given her, and she poured out a cup for each of them from her thermos. Aki and Fuka oohed and ahhed at the strawberry tea flavour and its delicious aroma.
‘It’s so good,’ they said, which made her glad.
‘I’d like to have it again one day,’ Fuka added.
When Kokoro told her she’d got the tea from Ms Kitajima, Fuka said, ‘Perhaps I should go there, too. To that Free School you went to, Kokoro. I’d like to meet Ms Kitajima.’
Fuka had, at some point, also dropped the chan when she addressed Kokoro.
‘OK,’ said Kokoro. ‘I’m sure she’d love to meet you.’