Her tirade complete, Mizuki turned to Azusa. “Okay, we’re leaving now.” She grabbed her wrist and gave it a tug. “For your sake, I’ll look the other way just this once. I don’t want to have to tell Auntie Michiyo about the snacks. Come on now, let’s go.”
Her wrist was in a tight grip, her cheek burning. Even from this far away Azusa could see the nasty grin plastered across Kanako’s face. It was an ugly look. Mizuki herself was still angry, and behind her, Nayuta just looked sad. Mizuki’s barking voice was still echoing in her ears. It was too much. Azusa shook off Mizuki’s hand.
“I’m with Nayuta because I want to be, Mizuki,” Azusa said quietly. “I can’t do what you’re telling me to do.”
“What? Did you not hear what I said?”
“Mizuki, you need to apologize to Nayuta. Apologize for saying she’s a bad influence. I invited her to join me because I like her.”
Azusa knew her voice was shaking. She had never talked back to Mizuki before. And she had certainly never imagined asking her to apologize. Mizuki, for her part, was equally confounded and gave her a long, hard look, as if trying to determine the true identity of the person talking to her. Without breaking eye contact, Azusa said once more:
“Apologize, Mizuki.”
“Take your fight outside.”
The deep voice came from the man who had been eating his lunch so happily earlier. He picked up the cream puff, which had fallen to the floor, and said, “Take all that outside. There are other customers here.” He gestured toward the side door with his chin and tossed the cream puff in the rubbish bin. The man called “Old Red” had appeared in the doorway. The three girls stared at him.
“Now, now, friends,” he said with a mischievous look on his face. “No fighting, no biting. All you need is love!”
“Outside, I said!” The man who had thrown out the cream puff flapped his arms as if he were shooing away flies. Mizuki was the first to move.
“I’m done looking after you! Since you won’t let me, anyway.” She stormed out the door and raced past Kanako, who hurried after her, while Azusa watched through the window, stunned.
“Uh…um…I’m sorry,” Nayuta apologized to the man, and he turned to her.
“It’s a public place, keep that in mind,” he said calmly, and left it at that before turning to the other man. “Hey, Old Red, it’s about time you got here! Or actually, you should have stopped them a while ago.”
The man spoke as if he knew him well. Entering the room, Old Red replied lightly, “If I’d done that, those girls would be crying now.” He turned to Azusa. “You okay, missy?” he asked, as if he had been watching the whole interaction from somewhere. “You took a real smack on the cheek, didn’t you? You weren’t about to let her get away with that a second time, were you!”
His raucous laughter roused Azusa from her daze. Nayuta, too, peered at her face and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Oh, Nayuta…I’m sorry,” Azusa stammered. “About Mizuki, I mean.”
“There’s nothing to apologize about, Higaki. But are you okay? Talking to Murai like that.” Nayuta spoke worriedly, thinking about the way Mizuki had run off. “You shouldn’t have tried to protect me.”
Azusa’s whole body began to shake. She felt like her heart was beating at twice the usual rate. Now I’ve really done it, she thought. By tomorrow she would have lost her comfortable spot at school. And at the juku. And become a target for Mizuki’s attacks.
“Thank you.” Nayuta took Azusa’s trembling hand. She wrapped it in her own, slightly hardened hands. “Thank you for sticking up for me before. It made me happy.”
Nayuta, who never wavered anywhere, anytime, even in the face of the most malicious attacks, was looking at her with tears in her eyes. Azusa started to believe that she had made the right choice. She had finally taken a path that didn’t lead to regret.
“I’m really sorry, Azusa, but I can’t go back to school yet. So you might be on your own.”
“No, it’s all right. I’ll be okay.”
I acted of my own free will, Azusa thought. She tried to smile at Nayuta, but somehow it didn’t come out properly. It just looked like her mouth was twisted upward at the corners.
“If you can get through your hard time, Nayuta, then I think I can get through mine.”
“Well, I…Oh, that’s me.” Nayuta wiped her tears and pulled her phone from her pocket. She looked at the screen and her face changed hue. She quickly pressed the button to take the call.
“Hello, Mum? Uh-huh. Yes, I understand. I’m coming now.”
After hanging up, Nayuta lowered her head. “Sorry,” she said. “I have to go home now. I’m sorry to run out, especially now.”
“Don’t worry about it. But what’s wrong?”
Nayuta returned her phone to her pocket and pulled out a bicycle key. She bit her lip tightly, then managed to squeeze out a few words: “He’s in critical condition, she said. It’s my dad. He’s got terminal cancer. He said he wanted to be at home with us near the end, so Mum and I are his caregivers, just the two of us.”
The words were so foreign to Azusa she had a hard time understanding them. Critical, cancer, terminal, caregivers. She’d read them in books and heard them on television dramas, sure enough, but Nayuta was describing her own father.
“Anyway, I have to go. Sorry.”
Nayuta exited the Tenderness and jumped on her bike to leave. Suddenly her recent behavior made a lot more sense to Azusa. Nayuta must have been carrying such a heavy load; it was more than enough to bring anyone to copious tears, wasn’t it? Azusa’s heart ached to imagine it.
“She said she looked forward to Tuesdays.”
A man’s voice. The bearded man was standing there, together with Old Red. His voice, half-obscured by his beard, seemed kindly somehow, and, strangely enough, Old Red’s eyes were a little red, too.
“We’re her break buddies,” the bearded man continued. “When I asked her if she liked having coffee with a couple of old dudes like us, she said what she really looked forward to were the big dessert Tuesdays with her friend.”
“Did you know about…her situation?” Azusa asked.
“Well,” the man said, “there’s a certain look that people get when they’re caring for a sick person. A weariness. It was starting to show through in her face, so I figured maybe his condition wasn’t going the way she wanted.”
“I knew,” said Old Red, “but it wasn’t the sort of thing to go jabbering about all over town.”
The two men sighed heavily. Azusa looked in the direction in which Nayuta had disappeared. “I…I didn’t realize at all.”
“At your age, that’s the way it is. That’s just how it goes.”
Now it was Azusa’s turn to get teary.
“I am the worst.”
I didn’t know, she didn’t tell me. What in the world was that? Nothing but excuses! I sat back and watched while they all attacked her, just because her behavior was a little out of the ordinary. And I did nothing to stop it! I sided with Nayuta’s bullies.
Her stinging cheek and her usual stomach pain were nothing compared to this. Now Azusa was ashamed. And angry at herself. It was the pain in her heart that was going to destroy her.