People can fall in love for no real reason…or so they say, anyway. But in Minato’s case, it didn’t apply. He had his reasons—firm, unshakable reasons.
He loved that Hinako was always laughing about something, that she loved the ocean, and that she was good at surfing. He loved her big, expressive brown eyes and her healthy, tanned skin. And he loved her personality—the way she could be quiet and attentive one minute and spontaneous the next. Nowhere was her good-natured optimism more evident than in the words she’d said to him at the café: There will always be another wave. All you have to do is keep trying!
He found her inability to cook and clean kind of adorable, as well as her desperate attempts to hide this from him…and the fact that she wasn’t actually any good at hiding stuff either. In short, he was nuts about her. Head over heels. Absolutely besotted. Call it whatever you like—he was willing to admit it.
Following their day trip to Chigasaki, Minato and Hinako messaged each other daily, arranging dates whenever their free time lined up. Thinking back, the ocean had sparkled just a little bit brighter the day Minato watched her surf from the station roof… Maybe it had been a sign of things to come.
One day, Minato was on cooking duty in the kitchen when he received an email from Hinako, who was at school. When he opened it, he burst out laughing. He had just sent her a photo of himself and Wasabi prepping for dinner (they were having barbecue, for the record), and she had responded with a group photo of her and her friends.
“Who’s that?” Wasabi asked, peering over Minato’s shoulder at the phone screen with a frown.
But Minato didn’t blame Wasabi for not recognizing her. The three college students had a palette of paint all over their faces, like some kind of surrealist Picasso portrait. Sandwiched in the middle, Hinako looked a little miffed; clearly her friends had seen her looking at Minato’s email and decided to tease her a little.
The young woman in glasses was “Ai-chan,” and the one with the dark hair was “Jun-chan.” Both shared a class with Hinako, and both dearly loved to give her a hard time about her new boyfriend. Still, she was clearly having a fun time at college, even if she did regularly complain about the coursework being too hard.
If only she realized her mere presence could light up a room…
Hinako was radiant, like a sunbeam, and Minato was crazy about her.
Spring was almost over, and the weather at Kujukuri Beach was getting hotter with each passing day. The surfers turned out in such large numbers, you’d have thought summer was already upon them.
On his days off, Minato waited for Hinako to get out of class, then picked her up and took her to the beach to go surfing. Over time, he had shown dramatic improvement on the water—possibly because Hinako was a good teacher, or possibly because he had the aptitude for it, but in reality, probably both.
Together, they paddled out to the open sea. A wave approached from directly ahead; Minato leaned his weight onto the nose of the board, submerging it under the water to pass under the wave. Then he brought it right back up again. Duck dive: mastered.
He was going to catch a wave. Any wave, even a little one.
He shifted to the front half of the board to accelerate. He loved the feeling of the wind against his face. Beneath him, a little porpoise glided through the water, popping up occasionally to say hi. Soon the sea turtles would climb ashore to lay their eggs.
Hinako had once called him a “total hero,” but she was wrong. If anything, she was the real hero.
She swam up beside Minato and hopped over onto his board for some tandem surfing. Her skin smelled like the sea and the sun, and he wondered what it would be like to hold her in his arms.
—You finally caught a wave.
—Yep. And we did it together.
Their shakas did all the talking for them. Meanwhile, Hinako’s empty surfboard floated alongside them, glittering like snow in the sunlight.
And that’s the story of how my hero became my girlfriend… Although it seems she hasn’t realized who she is yet.