ON New Year’s Day, Dad and I joined Mom at Grandma’s house while my brother stayed home to hold down the fort. To my relief, Grandma assured me her injury wasn’t as severe as I’d imagined. Instead of a cumbersome cast, she sported only a stiff wrist brace that permitted some movement in her fingers.
“Thank you for your concern, Haruka,” she said, “but it’s my nondominant hand. It’s really not that bad.”
“Really? But what about, like, bathing?” I wondered.
Though it pained her to put weight on the hand, and the doctor had warned healing would take time due to her age, Grandma was as spirited as ever, her smile reassuring.
Mom, however, didn’t seem to share her optimism. “You can’t wring out your towels, and you can’t very well clean or do laundry with just one hand, can you? You’re also lucky you haven’t gotten much snow, or else how would you manage that?”
“The Hayashis next door said they’d help with the snow,” Grandma answered.
“And your gas heater? How would you refill it?”
“Kenji can refill the heater when he comes with a delivery.”
Living alone, Grandma had cultivated a network of caring neighbors ready to lend a hand. While I believed in her ability to look after herself, I also understood Mom’s urge to help Grandma in her time of need. They lived apart, and she was her daughter, after all.
I was nodding along to their back-and-forth, maintaining neutrality, when Grandma rather eagerly changed the subject. “Haruka,” she said, turning to me, “would you like to walk Momo with me?”
Momo was my grandmother’s beloved dog, a very well-behaved Shiba Inu she’d adopted when I was in kindergarten. “Sure!” I said immediately.
“Mom, we’re in the middle of a conversation!” my mother grumbled. “Fine. Then, Haruka, could you grab some tofu on your way back? Silken, two blocks.”
With a perfunctory “okay,” I tugged on my coat and headed outside, where I was instantly assailed by winter’s chill, the sharp air needling my lungs and stinging my face. Dark, ominous clouds loomed to the west, no doubt ready to blanket the earth with snow.
As I clipped the leash onto Momo’s collar, Grandma asked from behind me, “Where’s your scarf, Haruka?”
I gave a nervous chuckle. “I forgot mine at home,” I said sheepishly. That wasn’t exactly true. I hadn’t forgotten it; my favorite scarf simply wasn’t available, and I couldn’t bring myself to wear anything else.
“Oh no, that won’t do, dear. Here, and put on this hat as well,” she insisted.
“Okay. Thanks.” Grateful, I obediently wrapped myself in Grandma’s handstitched scarf and hat, recalling in my mind what had happened on Christmas Eve.
After the oaties’ enchanting surprise, Towada and I had departed for my home, our path one I’d traversed countless times by then and knew like the back of my hand. For some reason, I couldn’t look at him without my face growing hot and my heart racing, so I did my best to distract myself by blabbering on and on about the magical spectacle we’d just witnessed. As a result, I didn’t notice how lightly Towada was dressed until we were over halfway there. His duffle coat hung open, revealing a mere shirt underneath. His uncovered neck looked uncomfortably breezy, and his hands were bare as they grasped the bike’s handlebars.
“Aren’t you cold? Where are your gloves?” I’d asked.
“I, um, forgot them at the door,” he said.
A pang of guilt struck me. In my excitement over the night’s events, I might have unintentionally rushed him. “Sorry, that’s my bad,” I mumbled.
“Not really.”
“Still… Oh!” Hurriedly, I began to unwind my scarf. It was Black Watch tartan, the colors dark and gender neutral, so I was sure he wouldn’t mind. Before he could protest, I rose on tiptoe to drape it around him.
He stilled, holding his bike steady while I crudely knotted the scarf, and although he didn’t shrink away, he appeared perplexed. “What are you doing?”
Examining his newly snug neck and chest, I sighed in relief. “I’d feel terrible if you got sick walking me home. I have plenty of scarves; you can use this one,” I asserted, trying to sound confident.
He looked a little uncomfortable swathed in the scarf I’d shoddily foisted on him, yet nodded reluctantly. “Thanks.”
A bit more at ease, I switched topics. “Are you taking any extra cram school classes over break?”
“No, just the usual ones,” he said. “What about you? I never took you for the cram school type.”
“I’ve been looking into a few options,” I replied. “It’s just that all the cram schools here are so exam-centric, and it’s hard to decide which high school to attend when I just moved here, you know?”
Tons of cram and extracurricular prep schools surrounded the main station in town, and they were all hyperspecialized for specific schools’ entrance exams. To choose one before determining a target high school seemed ill-advised.
“Do you know where you want to go?” I asked.
“Kinda, yeah.”
“Really? I’m still kind of undecided. It doesn’t help that there are so many options…”
Our discussion outlasted the trek to my house, and in a kind gesture, Towada parked his bike to hear me out.
“Don’t girls like to try for the same school as their friends? What are Kagami and Kudou doing?” he asked.
I hummed in thought. “Yeah, I guess. But Mao is Mao, and Honomi is Honomi. I’ve asked them, for sure, but I think this is ultimately something I need to choose for myself.” And though I’d requested their advice and their read on certain schools, I hadn’t dared reveal just how anxious I was feeling about it all.
“Hmm. Well, I don’t see any problem with going your separate ways either.”
“It’s always better to have friends, of course,” I sighed. “Have you…ever thought about what you want to do in the future?”
My question might have been too sudden, because he merely looked at me, appearing slightly stunned.
“S-Sorry, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I just have no idea what I’m doing. I was curious what you were maybe thinking,” I clarified.
“Me?” he said, still confused.
“Yeah, it kinda seemed like you have it all figured out, so I thought… But anyway, sorry. Forget I asked.”
“I’d like to work with animals,” he said.
Wow, that’s a fantastic answer. And it made all the sense in the world. I only had to glance down for evidence: the ever-skittish Koro sat at Towada’s feet, not mine. He certainly had a gift with animals. “You mean like a vet?” I asked.
“If at all possible. I’m aware it’s not easy by any means.”
He spoke as though he were unsure, but I could already picture him, a bit older, in a white coat, cradling a dog in one hand and a cat in the other. The image was so fitting. “I think you can make it happen,” I said.