Chapter 7

The moment his hand connects with the girl’s cheek, it leaves a nasty feeling on his palm. It’s the unsettling aftertaste of violence, like sticky, dirty water seeping all the way into his bones. It’s still not enough, though, Takao Akizuki thinks. His heart is pumping out hatred as if it’s blood. “What the hell, man?!” He hears a voice beside him, and a guy grabs the offending arm. Takao shakes him off but doesn’t even glance his way, glaring at the girl instead. A third-year girl named Aizawa. This girl did that to her. Abruptly, he registers someone looming in front of him, then bearing down on him, and the next moment, a heavy shock sends him crashing into a desk. The desk falls over right by his ear with a loud bang, and when he opens his eyes, the floor is in front of his face. It takes a moment for the heat on the inside of his lip to become burning pain. What? How many of them are in here? His anger clouded his vision so much, he didn’t even see them. The thick taste of blood is flooding his mouth. When Takao lifts his head, a big guy in a T-shirt is looking down at him with a dull expression in his eyes. Before terror and regret can well up too strongly, Takao swallows them down, along with a loogie of blood. Then, keeping his stance low, he charges the big guy’s stomach. It’s like body-slamming a heavy log, and right afterward, a hard elbow sinks into his back. He crumples to the floor again and takes two kicks in the gut this time. He curls up as a stabbing pain spreads through his insides, but somebody grabs his shirt and yanks him to his feet. There’s a thick chest inches in front of his face. A guy like a pillar of iron has Takao by the scruff of the neck. “Dammit!” Screaming, Takao shoves a fist at his face, but the guy blocks it easily, one-handed. He backhands Takao across the face, then hits him on the chin on the way back. The guy is barely trying, but Takao can feel his jaw moving in ways it shouldn’t. As soon as he feels the sole of a shoe against his stomach, he’s kicked across the room. Takao’s back hits the lockers with a metallic crash so loud, he wonders if he’s broken them as his lungs expel a hot mass of air. What the—? It hurts like hell. “What’s your problem? Whaddaya think you’re doing to Shouko?” Mixed into the ringing in his ears, he hears the big guy’s contemptuous voice above him. “Shouko, you don’t know this kid, right?” the girl next to Aizawa asks dubiously. Aizawa doesn’t say anything. What’s wrong with me? I’m so weak. The thought makes Takao want to burst into tears, but he manages to sit up. In front of him, several third-year girls and guys are glaring at him with all the hate they can muster. They’re all smirking, too. “He’s one of those guys, right? Another one of Yukino’s victims.” “Seriously? You fell for that old bitch, too?” “Bet she let him go a round.” “Oh yeah, Yuki’s a total nympho. God, aren’t you grossed out? Do you know how old she is?” “I feel kinda sorry for him. He’s a victim here.” “You might have a chance now. She ain’t a teacher no more.” Aizawa abruptly raises her head and looks at Takao, and her blank expression becomes a twisted smile. “You’d better thank me, kid. I got her out of here for you.” And Takao is blazing with anger right down to his fingertips. With a bellow, he takes a swing at Aizawa, but the big guy blocks his way and hits him again. As the group punches and kicks him, he thinks, Why? Why, why, why? She, The rain-woman, Ms. Yukino, Why didn’t she tell me anything—? * * * She had my heart in her hands, Takao thinks. The moment I touched her cool foot in that arbor, with the rain and light around us, I was hopelessly captivated. That day, he’d touched her feet, changed their shapes into numbers, traced their outlines with his pencil. As he did, it seemed as if the paper he’d traced them onto had acquired her fragrance, as if he’d caught hold of a fragment of her he’d never expected to find, and that alone had sent heat through every part of him. But then the rain had stopped after that day, as if to make him pay for that gift. The rainy season was over. Then summer vacation had arrived, and Takao had lost all his excuses for going to the arbor. One day in early August, his older brother had left their apartment for good. Takao helped him move, starting first thing in the morning. Their mother had run away two months earlier (although she did come home once a week or so to either fix dinner or make Takao fix it, depending on how she was feeling), so for all intents and purposes, he’d started living on his own. He didn’t know what to do with the empty half of the traditional room that he’d shared with his brother, and he ate and slept alone in a deserted apartment. Before he knew it, the blank spaces in the rooms and in between his thoughts had been filled with her. Being alone meant knowing that she wasn’t here. It was a constant awareness that she was somewhere else, spending time doing things he didn’t know about. For the first time, Takao learned the true meaning of loneliness. Not being able to see her was painful, nearly physically so. I’m sitting here like this, and at this very moment she could be with someone I don’t know. Maybe he’s listening to her sweet, unsteady voice, and enchanted by her hair ringed by a halo of light, and inhaling her scent that seems to go straight to your heart, and maybe—gently touching her pale-pink toenails. Before he went to sleep, he prayed for rain, and he was praying for it again before he woke. But no rain fell. I’ve been so stubborn and selfish about praying for rain that the gods decided to never let it rain again, out of spite. Before he knew it, he was seriously believing it, and he was genuinely scared for the future if this kept up. There was no meaning in this pain; he was only bearing it for his own sake. He still had enough of his wits about him to know that. Yes, I’m in love. But if it makes me weak, I’ll never measure up to the adults around her… So I won’t let it make me weak; I’ll make these feelings give me strength. Takao had nearly worn his brain out considering the problem, but he finally formed a resolution. He’d kill the part of his heart complaining that it hurt too much. Then he’d gauge what he could do, how he could reach her, and then he’d get to work. And so during summer vacation, he devoted as much time as possible to his part-time job. The rain he’d been longing for finally fell, but even on that day, he was at the restaurant in the morning, shaking free of the hold it had on him. Now that Xiao Feng had left the Chinese restaurant, there was plenty of work to be done. He focused on his tasks, thinking only, How would Shao Hon do this? He put 70 percent of the money he earned in the bank, saving up to pay for school after he graduated. He was planning to go to a shoe trade school. The remaining 30 percent went into his shoemaking materials fund. “I can’t walk very well anymore,” she had said that day. …So I’m going to make her shoes that will help her want to walk a lot. This may be the one thing I can do to reach her, Takao would tell himself as he worked late into the night after work was done for the day, alone in the apartment. With the help of the outlines of her feet on that piece of paper, the soft shapes whose sensation still lingered on his hands, he carved wooden lasts and put together a mass of putty, creating molds for the shoes. He drew page after page of shoe designs in his notebook and, after racking his brain, narrowed them down to one. He made a paper pattern. He put it over leather, tracing the outlines with a silver pen. After several mistakes, he cut the shapes out with a leather knife. Assembling the cut pieces of leather like a puzzle, he stitched them together in three dimensions. All the sounds of his work faded into the empty apartment. Like a dry cloth soaking up water, the night air softly held all his sounds. This deserted apartment is so quiet—but this loneliness is going to make me an adult. Takao’s thoughts were almost a prayer. Summer vacation wasn’t long enough to make shoes while working part-time. August was over in a flash, and all he had to show for it was less than ¥150,000 in savings, a mountain of ruined leather, and cuts on his hands. He hadn’t even been able to sew the uppers to his satisfaction. At this rate, he had no idea when he’d manage to finish the shoes. But still, the start of another semester buoyed Takao’s feelings. Now, if it rained, he’d be able to go and meet her openly again. I told her I only skip on rainy mornings. What should we talk about, next time we meet? Should I tell her I’ve almost memorized it? I bet she’ll be surprised. “Huh?” she’ll ask. “Memorized what?” “The book you gave me,” I’ll tell her, and maybe I’ll actually recite some of it. That’ll give her a shock. Maybe it’ll make her happy, too. With all these thoughts in his head, Takao’s heart was light as he went to school on the first day of the second term. So when he passed her in front of the staff room during the lunch recess, Takao didn’t realize who she was. Several seconds had passed before he thought, Huh? “Ms. Yukino!” Even before Takao turned around, Hiromi Satou, his companion, called her name and ran over to her. He turned slowly, following Satou’s back with his eyes, and there she was, standing next to his homeroom teacher, Mr. Itou. …Ms. Yukino? As he stood there, stunned and bewildered, students were flocking to her. Every one of them was treating her as a teacher. “I’m sorry, guys.” The moment he heard her voice, a shudder ran through him. I know that sweet, trembling voice. Why is she here, at school? Takao was confused. “I’ll be at school until after fifth period, so come talk to me later. I’ll have time then.” After she spoke to the students around her, her gaze lowered to the floor, then briefly flicked over to Takao. Their eyes met, and hers were threatening to well up with tears. It is her. The joy of seeing her burst up inside him, but it was promptly swept away by something like fury, which was in turn crowded out by bewilderment and questions. It was suddenly hard to breathe, as if a strong wind had sucked away all the oxygen around him. “Wow, Yuki came to school.” Beside him, Matsumoto’s comment sounded terribly far away. Satou and Matsumoto told him what had happened to Ms. Yukino—to the teacher. How the girls in her homeroom class had been harassing her ever since the year before. How they’d unfairly blamed her for “stealing” a girl’s boyfriend, boycotted her lessons as a group, involved their parents, and bullied her right out of school. How she’d finally decided to quit her job. How the beginning and center of everything had been a girl named Shouko Aizawa. He was livid. He wasn’t sure whether he was angrier at the Aizawa girl, or at Ms. Yukino for not mentioning that she was a teacher, or at himself for his own ignorance. But for the moment, he kept his raging emotions locked up inside and managed to survive the rest of his classes. At the chime that encouraged students to head home, he looked down silently from a second-floor classroom, watching her as she passed through the school gate. As before, several students were trailing after her and crying. The setting sun was a venomous red. He went straight to the third-year classroom, by himself, found a girl named Aizawa and told her he’d heard Ms. Yukino was quitting. He hadn’t thought about what he’d do afterward. “Who cares about that slutty old hag?” Before he could think at all, his hand had slapped Aizawa’s face. * * * Takao realizes that he’s made a wrong turn, but he just keeps walking. He’s on a residential street with very few streetlights. The lukewarm wind rustles the power lines and the trees along the road. A thin white moon hangs high in the colorless night sky, but when he stares at it, it splits into two or three thanks to a swollen left eyelid. They look almost like nail clippings, and he thinks he can hear the soft, lonely click, click sound of her cutting her toenails. The fact that he isn’t part of that scene, that he never has been part of it and probably never will be, plunges him into inescapable sorrow. His homeroom teacher came running to the classroom and half dragged him to the hospital. By the time they released him, night had fallen. The Sobu Line was packed with homebound commuters, and when he grabbed the ceiling strap and looked up, the dark window reflected his swollen, gauze-bandaged face. His cheek throbbed and pulsed like a different creature altogether. Saliva that tasted like blood kept pooling in his mouth. Before long, Takao had had enough of the pain and the crowds, and he got off the train after Nakano. After that, he walked west, following the tracks. He’d be home in an hour or so. Walking on his own two feet, out in the wind, was a better distraction from the pain in his face. From time to time, he spit bloody saliva onto the asphalt. It felt as if he’d climbed out of the audience into a play when he hadn’t even known what it was about. He had no idea what he should do next. He was only now realizing that nobody had wanted him to make an appearance, and yet he’d acted as if he were the protagonist.—He was so mortified that he wished he could disappear. When I was still in middle school, she was building relationships I didn’t know about with Aizawa and her group. Maybe they ended up causing trouble, but those relationships must have been much deeper than our little encounters. We never made any promises or anything. I wasn’t even a part of her life until three months back, and I was just a passerby who skipped school on rainy days. Nobody ever asked me to make shoes for them. She never once said she wanted to see me. She only murmured that we might meet again. I didn’t even imagine what might have happened to her. I really was just thinking about myself. When he rounds the corner of the residential street, he comes out onto a bridge over the railway tracks. He stands in the middle, calculating his current location. On his left, the distant lights of the skyscrapers of Shinjuku look even larger in the thick darkness. That means he should head into the blackness on his right in order to get home. The tile roofs along the street gleam faintly, as if they’re wet. Far above them is her thin nail. Gazing at the trailing clouds that drift across it, Takao absently thinks, I wonder if it’ll rain tomorrow. The next morning, there’s a thin cloud cover. The sky above Tokyo is a seamless, endless blanket of gray over a very, very quiet morning. Those clouds are absorbing all the city noise, Takao thinks as he crosses Koshu-Kaido Avenue, where the colors are even more muted than usual. When he walks through the park’s Shinjuku gate, he remembers he’s forgotten his annual pass. Takao sighs a little. It’s not raining, and I don’t have my pass. There’s no way she’ll be here. He really shouldn’t have come, he knows, but he puts ¥200 into the ticket machine for admission. If he went to school now, he’d be late anyway. Besides, if it had rained, I might not have come here to begin with… So why exactly am I here? Well, whatever. It doesn’t matter now. As if he’s given up, he sticks his ticket into the automatic gate. The metallic clank as the gate opens echoes especially loudly in the deserted park. Keeping his mind carefully blank, he walks through the park. He doesn’t have to think; his feet take the familiar path all on their own. When he passes through the gloomy district of thick Himalayan and Lebanon cedars, the air quickly changes, as it always does. The temperature drops about a degree, and the air is filled with the scents of water and greenery. Small birds cut right in front of him, as if they’re making invisible incisions in the air. Without his umbrella up, the park seems oddly spacious, and the anxiety of a defenseless child is rising within him. More than ever, he senses he’s doing something misguided. For that reason, when the arbor comes into view beyond the maples, Takao is almost relieved to find that no one is there. No problem. This doesn’t hurt at all. He says the words to himself deliberately, as if he’s writing them down on paper. After all, I knew she wouldn’t be coming anymore. The moment he thinks it, a wave of feelings surges up from his feet all the way to his throat, and he nearly shouts aloud. No! No, that’s wrong. That’s not it. I miss her. I miss her, I want to see her, and there’s nothing I can do about it on my own. I wanted to see her the right way. That’s why I stubbornly refused to come here during summer vacation. The truth is, I don’t care if it’s raining or not; I don’t care whether it’s sunny or snowing or cloudy. I just want to see her. I can’t let us end this way. Suddenly, he hears a small, distant splash. A fish might have jumped in the pond. Maybe a twig fell into the water. But just maybe. He’s sure— By the time he’s passed through the dense, hanging curtain of maple leaves and can see the wisteria trellis, he’s already convinced. Her slim figure is there, in the pale-green shadows under the thick leaves. At the sound of his footsteps, she slowly turns. She’s there, right in front of him, with the pond and its deep-green reflections behind her. She’s wearing a form-fitting gray suit, and her expression reminds him of a lost, bewildered child. Softly, she looks at Takao, and her black eyes are so transparent, he can see nearly all the way to her heart. He trembles, as if she’s caressed his own heart directly. She’s summer rain personified, Takao knows. He’s sure no one can stop the rain. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbles. The words he needs to say find their way to his lips. The thunder whispers. Facing her under the wisteria trellis, Takao speaks. “The thunder / whispers. / Yet should rain never fall, / I would stay / at a word from you.” The wind blowing over the pond gently ripples through the wisteria leaves and the water and her hair. She looks down, and her melancholy smile deepens. Out of nowhere, he feels as if he’s seen something like this, a very long time ago. After the ripples on the water recede, she looks up at Takao. “…Yes, that’s correct. That’s the response to the poem I quoted on the day we met.” She sounds almost like a child mimicking the tones of a teacher. It’s just a little funny, and he feels his tension slowly dissolve. “They’re from the Man’yoshu, aren’t they? I found them in my textbook yesterday.” They were soumon-ka, romantic poems sent by a man and woman to each other. If it rains, will you stay here? the woman’s poem said, and the man’s responded, It doesn’t have to rain; I’ll stay if you want me to. He’d heard those poems in class. Takao wants to laugh at himself for taking three whole months to figure it out. Then, summoning his resolve, he says her name. “Ms. Yukino.” As he says it, he looks straight at her. She’s wearing a complicated smile. She tilts her head slightly to one side, gently brushing away the hair that falls over her cheek. “…A little while after you arrived on that first day, I saw the insignia on your uniform and realized we were from the same school.” She pauses for a moment, inhaling slowly. “So I thought if I told you a poem you’d probably learned in class, you might figure out I was a classics teacher. Besides, I thought most of the school knew about me by now… But you never knew at all, did you?” Takao shakes his head slightly. Her eyes soften, as if she’s peering into light. When she speaks, her voice holds a trace of a smile. “I suspect you were seeing another world entirely.” Suddenly, the clear song of a shrike sounds right next to them. Startled, they look for the source and find two of them flying over the pond, nearly tangled together. The two humans watch them for a while, and when the birds disappear into the shadows of the trees, Yukino sounds worried as she asks, “Hey…what happened to your face?” What should he tell her? He starts wanting to make her worry. “I was drinking beer like you, Ms. Yukino, and I got drunk and fell off the Yamanote Line platform.” “You didn’t!” She puts a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. She’s cute. Takao grins at her. “No, I didn’t. I just got in a fight.” Just then, it happens. The sky flashes pure white, and there’s a clap of thunder. The air trembles like the diaphragm on a speaker. Lightning has struck, and it’s close. The two of them look at each other, then up at the sky. The blanket has billowed up into cumulonimbus clouds like gray clay, and streaks of light flicker deep within like blood vessels. A low rumble slowly rolls around above the clouds like a drum. Cold wind suddenly whips the surface of the water into waves, and several large drops fall, splashing loudly. Oh, it’s going to rain. By the time the words reach his mind, the downpour has already turned their surroundings misty white. The leaves of the wisteria trellis are absolutely useless as a roof, and Takao catches Yukino’s hand and takes off running before he can even think. It feels like sprinting through white, cloudy water. He can’t see what’s ahead of him, and he can’t even hear the sound of his own feet over the roar of the downpour. By the time they run into the arbor, their hair and clothes are drenched. “We look like we swam across a river,” Yukino says. She’s panting, but she sounds like she’s having fun. Takao laughs, too. Somewhere along the way, his heart has grown as exhilarated as his breath. The rain is falling sideways, carrying leaves with it; they give a cheer when it buffets them. The clean, vivid smell of rain surrounds them, and it feels as if all the air in the world has been replaced. The next thing he knows, the rain has washed away their earlier conversation and feelings. The events at school and the loneliness of summer vacation are completely gone. “I love summer downpours,” Yukino says happily, watching the rain streaming from the eaves like a waterfall. “Me too. Summer is my favorite season.” “Even the really hot ones?” “Those too. It makes me feel so alive—the humidity, the sweat, the thirst. I love it. What about you, Ms. Yukino?” “I like summer, too. Summer, and then spring. They’re the seasons when new things begin and grow. I hate the cold seasons, because I get chilly.” What a reason! Takao is amused. “But your name means ‘snow field,’ and you still—” “Hate winter, yes.” Yukino laughs, finishing the sentence. Then she touches the ends of her wet hair with her fingers and glances at Takao, somewhat apologetically. Her plump lips twitch a little, as if she’s started to say something to herself, then decided against it. “What?” “Um…” Yukino hesitates, then speaks with some determination. “What’s your name…?” Takao cracks up; he can’t help it. A warm emotion fills his chest. “It’s Akizuki. Takao Akizuki.” “Hmm. Akizuki,” Yukino murmurs, testing the sound. “Akizuki, hmm?” she says one more time. Abruptly, triumphant realization appears on her face. “But your name means ‘autumn moon’—!” She’s like a kid, isn’t she, he thinks, but he answers her. “But I like summer, yeah.” They pause for a breath, and then they both giggle. It feels like one more secret for just the two of them, and a feeling of ticklish delight settles over the arbor. Neither of them consciously makes the first move, but they take their usual spots on the L-shaped bench after that, with about enough space for two people between them. Somewhere along the way, the places where they sit have gotten a little closer than they were three months ago. The temperature is falling. The gusts of wind have subsided, but the heavy rain brings air down from a very high altitude. An abruptly autumnal chill blows into the arbor, carrying a fine spray with it. Yukino is sitting hunched over on the bench, hugging her own shoulders. Is she cold? Takao worries. Her wet hair hides her profile, and water drips from its ends. Her wet trousers forlornly trace the contours of her round hips. Behind her, a colony of yellow flowers at the edge of the pond is shivering violently under the pounding rain. The heavy scent of the flowers and water mingles with Yukino’s faint, sweet fragrance beneath the dark arbor. Her sky-gray suit seems specially tailored to match the gloom in the arbor. Wet with the rain, Yukino looks perfectly at home here. The sight speaks straight to his soul. When he looks at Yukino, Takao suddenly finds it hard to breathe. His heart jumps and pounds, and the sound of the rain recedes into someplace far away. His face and the core of his body are growing hotter, and he can’t stop it. Slowly, Takao tears his eyes away from her. Suddenly, he sneezes. But I don’t feel cold at all, he thinks, vaguely embarrassed. When he looks up, Yukino is watching him. Slowly, almost as if she’s smelling a flower, Yukino smiles kindly and says in a gentle voice, “If we stay like this, we’ll catch cold.” As they hurry out of the park, the force of the rain gradually lessens, and the warmth of September returns to the air. They go under the elevated Chuo Line, pass Sendagaya Station and come out onto Gaien Nishi-dori, then turn into a narrow street, and there’s Yukino’s condominium. The high-ceilinged lobby of the old building has a nostalgic scent, like something he smelled at a relative’s house when he was very small. The scent of old air. The elevator is undergoing a maintenance inspection, so they take the stairs up to her apartment on the eighth floor. He’s out of breath, but as he follows Yukino up the narrow stairway, her fragrance surrounds him, and he’s delighted to find he can breathe it in as deeply as he wants. As soon as they enter her apartment, Yukino tells him to go shower and gives him a relaxed silk V-neck shirt and a pair of sweatpants to change into. Then Yukino takes her shower. When she emerges, she’s wearing well-worn madder-red jeans, a cream-colored tank top, and a pale-pink bolero jacket. She smells faintly of soap, and she’s barefoot. His ears burning, Takao secretly follows the patter of her feet on the flooring. Yukino puts Takao’s wet shirt in the washing machine, blots the excess moisture from his uniform trousers with a towel, and irons both items for him. While she does that, Takao borrows the kitchen and makes lunch. He’s a little disappointed that the only prominent item in the refrigerator is beer, but there are onions and carrots and lettuce and things in the vegetable drawer, and as long as he cuts away the brown, discolored bits, everything seems edible. She has eggs as well, so he decides to make rice omelets. Instead of meat, he opens a can of tuna, using it to replace chicken in the rice. He finds a jar of pickled olives in among the spices (she must have bought them to go with her beer), so he cuts them into slices and mixes them with the lettuce, making side salads. There’s only about a teaspoon left in the bottom of the bottle of salad dressing, so he whips up something new from vinegar and pepper and olive oil. The room is filled with the smells and steam of cooking and ironing. This is what “family” smells like, Takao thinks, content. “Yum! I love ketchup!” “High praise for my rice omelets.” Takao smirks. The two of them sit facing each other across a small table. “Be careful, there might be some eggshell in it.” Yukino blinks, briefly puzzled by his remark, then gasps as she puts two and two together. “Oh, come on!” She laughs. “Are you still holding a grudge about my rolled omelet?” “Ha-ha-ha. I’ll never be able to forget it.” “It wasn’t very good, was it?” “Not very”? Takao finds the word choice amusing. “‘Not good’ isn’t quite the, uh…” He glances at Yukino, laughing. “It was bad. Horrible. To be honest.” “I can live with that. Cooking has never been my specialty anyway,” Yukino primly retorts, but then she smoothly shifts into a smile and takes a bite of omelet rice. She gets a little bit of ketchup on her lip, and she licks it off lovingly. “What else do you like, besides ketchup?” Takao asks. “Hmm…” Yukino thinks for a little. “I like the taste of Worcestershire sauce better than soy sauce. And consommé.” “…You sound a little like a high school guy.” “Heh-heh, speaking from experience?” “Hey, do you know how consommé soup is made?” Takao asks, eating salad. “Huh? Is it…from wheat? Wait, no. Barley?” “It wells up from the ground. There’s a big pond of it somewhere in northern France. It’s supposed to be this really pretty, clear amber color.” Yukino looks mystified. “There are fish in it, too. They’re called consommé poisson.” “…You’re pulling my leg, right?” “Obviously. Are you really a teacher, Yukino?” “Th-that’s so mean!” He can actually see Yukino flushing bright red, all the way down her slim neck. Curling her fingers into a fist, she pounds on the table. “Akizuki, that is unkind! You shouldn’t do that! You really shouldn’t!” Her earnest protest is so funny, Takao laughs out loud. They’ve cleared the dishes away, and now the warm aroma of coffee is drifting in the room. There’s a green curtain over the big patio door, and it gives the room a faint green tint. It’s like this room is underwater, Takao thinks as he drinks the coffee Yukino has made him. He’s sitting on the floor by the patio door, and when he looks up, Yukino is in the kitchen pouring a cup for herself. All he can see is her back, but he can tell very clearly that she’s smiling, too. The sad, gentle patter of her bare feet against the floor, the noise of the coffee dripping, and the friendly clicks and clinks of the ceramic cups sound strangely close to him, as if he’s hearing them underwater. He’s surrounded by the sounds of Yukino and the rain. Right now, in this moment, the unfair jealousy and hopeless impatience and even the membrane of nebulous anxiety that’s clung to him for the past few years have vanished completely. This just might be— It occurs to Takao very suddenly. The feeling has drifted up from the very deepest part of his heart, and he’s careful to put it into words in his mind so that it won’t crumble away. Right here, right now… I might be the happiest I’ve ever been.