“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it. You and Tsuru-san are always treating me and my squad mates at the mess hall; it’s the least I can do to treat you to something nice for once.”
“…Are you sure?” I asked. He nodded.
“Of course. Go ahead—order whatever you like.”
“Well, if you insist…” I said, then looked back at the menu, the menu which I, unfortunately, still couldn’t even begin to decipher.
Thankfully, Akira noticed my indecision and threw me a bone.
“If you can’t decide, maybe we should just get shaved ice?” he suggested.
“Wait…” I said. “They have that here?!”
As my eyes went wide, Akira gave me a dubious look.
“Of course they do…” he said. “It’s a sweets shop.”
“Whoa… No way…”
How was that even possible in an era without proper refrigeration?
“Okay, yeah!” I said. “Let’s do that, then!”
I could feel my cheeks stretching as I smiled from ear to ear.
Akira couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight.
“Wow,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy before.”
He might have been right, now that I thought about it.
I’d been so frazzled and hard at work every day since I arrived in this era that any brief moments of happiness I’d had here were far outweighed by painful or depressing ones. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been this elated—either in this time period or my own. Not that I’d always been an easily irritated stick in the mud, of course—I could certainly remember being full of childlike whimsy when I was much younger—but it had been years since I felt like I wasn’t stuck in a perpetually bad mood.
“Guess it was worth bringing you out here after all,” Akira said with a smile.
How could he always have such a soft, warm expression on his face, I wondered? He was like the complete opposite of me—somehow able to stay positive and chipper, despite all the pain and suffering he encountered every day just by living in this time period. There was something genuinely astounding to me about that.
“…If you keep staring at me like that, you’re going to bore a hole through my head, you know,” said Akira, chuckling awkwardly.
It was only after he pointed it out that I realized I’d probably been ogling him like an idiot for several seconds now without a word, to the point that I’d even forgotten to blink. Embarrassed beyond belief, I averted my eyes as fast as I could.
“Now then,” he said, still chuckling, “do you want sleet or snow? I’m guessing they’re all out of adzuki beans, so we probably can’t get the kintoki…”
“Pardon?” I said, tilting my head. “Snow?”
I knew he was talking about the shaved ice, of course. I’d heard of sleet before; it was shaved ice with honey on top, if I remembered right. And I believed I’d seen kintoki before at old-fashioned sweets shops as well. But what in the world was “snow”?
“Wait…” said Akira, eyes wide. “Have you never even had shaved ice before?”
“What?! No, of course I have… It’s just, well…”
The flavors of shaved ice that I was most familiar with were things like strawberry, lemon, melon, and Blue Hawaii—but I knew that if I told him that, he’d probably just be confused, so I just kept my mouth shut.
“…You know, Yuri…” said Akira. “Sometimes, when I talk to you, it almost feels like I’m trying to have a conversation with someone from a totally different country.”
There was a curious amusement in his tone—but in a way, he wasn’t wrong. I had been born and raised in a country very different from this one, even if it was still technically Japan.
“Well, not that it matters, I guess,” he said, changing the subject. “So basically, sleet is just shaved ice with syrup or sugar water on top.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I knew that much, at least.”
“Ah, okay. Well, kintoki is shaved ice with sweet boiled adzuki beans on top. But like I said, those beans are hard to come by nowadays, so I doubt they’ll have any here.”
“Right.”
“And then snow is just plain shaved ice with sugar sprinkled on top.”
“Oh, I see… Yeah, I’d never heard of that before.”
I was fairly certain that wasn’t really served anymore in my time. But I did like the name—the idea of eating “snow” in order to cool off in the summertime felt rather fitting.
Curious, I decided to give it a try. Akira, meanwhile, ordered the sleet.
The cafe was completely empty aside from the two of us, so the old lady running the place brought out our orders in no time at all. As she set the black lacquerware bowls in front of each of us, I noted that our orders looked almost identical—just large mounds of white, with no food coloring whatsoever. At a glance, it really did look like a pile of snow that could have been scooped out of someone’s backyard. And yet, it still looked surprisingly delicious—maybe because I hadn’t seen a cool dessert like this all summer.
“All right,” I said, placing my hands together. “Let’s give it a try.”
“Enjoy, you two,” said the old lady, smiling as she walked away.
I dug my bamboo spoon into the shaved ice, and it made a light slushing sound—like snow crunching beneath one’s feet in wintertime. And as soon as I took my first bite, my whole mouth filled with a pleasant coolness, along with a sugary sweetness.
“Wow…” I said. “That’s really good…”
When was the last time I’d had a nice, cold treat like this? I honestly couldn’t even remember. I could almost feel myself flashing back to simpler times as a mild brain freeze set in.
“It’s so sweet and yummy… It tastes like pure bliss… Like happiness, you know?”
It sounded strange, I knew—but it was the only way I could think to describe it.
“It does, huh?” said Akira, smiling. “I’m glad.”
Then he just kind of looked at me for a moment and quietly added:
“You’re very cute, Yuri… You know that?”
“…Pardon?” I said, dropping my spoon on the table.
I could have sworn I just heard the word cute. Surely though, he couldn’t have been talking about me, of all people. I must have misheard him. I just kind of stared, my mouth hanging wide open—until eventually he snapped out of it and looked away.
“…Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “Forget it…”
He cast his gaze downward slightly and covered his face with one hand—but through the gaps in his fingers, I thought I caught a glimpse of the slightest hint of red on his cheeks and the tips of his earlobes.
“Akira… Are you blushing?” I asked.
Called out, he lowered his hand and smiled sheepishly at me.
“Just do me a favor and pretend you didn’t hear that, okay?” he said.
Now that he was looking straight at me again, there was no mistaking it—his face was bright red. Heck, I was probably blushing up a storm too; my heart had been racing a thousand beats per minute since he called me cute.
“…Let’s eat, shall we?” I said. “Before it melts.”
Desperate to shatter the awkward tension, I picked up my fallen spoon and stabbed it back into my shaved ice.
“Right,” said Akira, doing the same. “Good idea.”
For a moment, we both just sat there eating our shaved ice in silence. But the vibe had become so unnatural and awkward that after a beat, we both burst out laughing at almost the exact same time.
“Jeez, Akira!” I said. “It’s not like you to be so quiet!”
“I could say the same thing to you, Yuri!” he retorted.
“Well, granted—but can you really blame me?!”
As we stared into each other’s eyes, trying as hard as we could to contain our laughter, I could say one thing for certain: I’d never known a simple bowl of shaved ice could taste so sweet.
After leaving the cafe behind, the two of us strolled around town for a while.
We didn’t have any particular destination in mind; we just kind of went around in circles, wandering wherever our feet decided to take us.
It was crazy to think I’d been so nervous this morning that I couldn’t even make simple conversation with him, yet now the ice between us had been completely shattered and we were talking just as naturally as we always did down at the mess hall.
As we were walking down the main drag, a horse-drawn cart came racing past us down the street at incredible speed. It startled me so badly that I nearly lost my balance—but Akira swooped in and caught me before I fell over. From that point on, he insisted we hold hands, “purely for your own safety, of course.” And just like that, I once again found myself hopelessly flustered, feeling as if my heart might burst right out of my chest.
But I knew I was happy.
Just holding his big, soft hand in mine.
It made me feel calm, even though my heart was racing.
It felt so natural, somehow—as if we’d been this way for years.
As if we’d still be holding hands like this for many years still to come.
I was truly, genuinely happy. Maybe for the first time in my entire life.
I wanted nothing more than for our time together to never end.
Even though I knew that was the one wish that could never, ever come true.
And still, when I was with Akira, I felt so content—so full inside.
Why was that? What was this funny feeling in my chest?
I was almost afraid to find out. Afraid of what it might mean.
And so I bottled up my emotions and tried my best not to think about it.