The high-pitched shriek from the garden was unmistakable.
“No, no, no! I’ve just about had it! Your father, he doesn’t get it at all. They won’t grow like this!” Michiyo’s voice was growing more heated by the moment, so with a sigh, Azusa closed her open book and stuck her head out through the patio door.
“What’s the matter, Mother?”
“Oh, Azusa. Listen to me. Yesterday, your father wanted to help in the garden, right? So I asked him to plant the beds, but he’s being so careless!”
Michiyo wore a pink gardening smock, and the round face under her wide-brimmed straw hat became even rounder as she pouted. “Look!” she said, pointing with the tip of her trowel toward her carefully tended garden plot. The plot was neatly divided into sections for flowers, vegetables, and herbs. Michiyo was pointing at the herbs. It looked like there were a great variety planted there, but Azusa couldn’t tell one from another. Look as she might, she had no idea what was wrong.
“Careless, you said? Did he forget to cover them with dirt or something?” Azusa didn’t see any exposed roots, but she couldn’t think of any other reason. Michiyo raised her volume as if she had utterly lost her patience and said, “It’s about compatibility, of course! Isn’t it obvious? I taught you about compatibility in herbs, didn’t I, Azusa? Just look at the positioning of the lemon balm and rosemary here. It’s just like your father. He says, ‘Leave it to me, I’ll take care of it,’ but what was he thinking?”
Michiyo was talking as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, but Azusa still didn’t see the problem. She was about to ask again, but she thought better of it and stopped. It would just fan the flames of her mother’s fury. When Michiyo’s horticultural pursuits were treated lightly, her anger could flare up instantly, without warning. Sparks flew in all directions, and Azusa had been the victim of secondhand burns this way more than once in the past. But she had to say something. “Dad’s a total mess,” she blurted out, “it really sucks, doesn’t it?” Then she fled to her room.
Azusa flopped down on her bed and took up her phone. As she lay there on the bed, she tried searching for “herb compatibility” on the phone.
“Hmm…it’s about preferred growing conditions, maybe?”
Apparently herbs had preferences. They liked different conditions—dry or damp, sunny or shady—and if you planted things with different preferences together, they might wither or fail to grow properly. Right, of course, so that was it. Azusa kept scrolling aimlessly, then paused.
“Wow, mint is intense!”
She had landed on a feature titled “Dangerous Herbs.”
“Mint is an herb that grows with excessive vigor. It can cause great trouble when planted together with other species. If not controlled properly it may overrun neighboring herbs, leaving only mint in the pot. Moreover, when planted in the ground, its rhizomes spread densely, rapidly expanding its breeding area.”
Hmm, she murmured to herself, and jumped to a different site. There was a dramatic story about how someone had planted mint in their garden. It had overrun the gardens next door and caused trouble in the neighborhood. It was known, somehow, that while mint had amazing benefits—including possible uses as an insect repellent, antibiotic, and anti-inflammatory—it was also a difficult plant to manage.
When Azusa pictured mint in her mind’s eye, she imagined it perched daintily atop a slice of cake, or else on a bowl of ice cream. It was a leaf with an assertive, breezy flavor that completely cleared her palate. Also, her toothpaste tasted like dried mint. It made sense to her that with a presence like that, it would also have a strong life force. Azusa exited the browser and returned to the lock screen on her phone. The image there was a photo of Azusa striking a pose in front of a tulip field, together with another girl, the two of them leaning cozily in toward each other. She gazed at the pretty face next to hers.
“It’s a little like Mizuki.”
Mizuki Murai did everything properly. Nothing she said was ever wrong, and sometimes she even corrected the teacher. Her grades were always at the top of the class and she was the star of the volleyball team. Every semester she was assigned some important role at school. She was a central figure in the class. Whether it was the annual talent show, the music recital, or some other event, everything always went well, so long as they did what she said. So everyone deferred to her. Mizuki wielded immense influence over the top class in middle school, which was also Azusa’s. Mizuki is like mint, Azusa thought.
Next, Azusa thought of another classmate. Nayuta Taguchi. If Mizuki is mint, then what is Nayuta? Will she be overrun by mint? Or will she and mint be able to coexist as friends? No, Azusa thought, probably neither one. Those thick eyebrows and dark eyes were too willful to be affected by mint in any way.
“Yeah, it’ll be okay.”
Because that girl, she’s strong. Talking to herself, she felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach. It was a sudden pain she had been experiencing frequently for a while now. Clutching her stomach, she curled up like one of the rhinoceros beetle grubs they found sometimes in the garden. In her mind’s eye, she saw Mizuki’s face, Nayuta’s face, and then a third face, a man’s kind face. She shook her head, saying No, no, no. The pain persisted for a surprisingly long time, and as Azusa lay there in its grip, she seemed almost about to cry. I’m no good, she thought.