Chapter 8

Right here, right now, I might be the happiest I’ve ever been. Yukino can feel it. But she knows this happiness won’t last much longer. It will end, and it will end soon. She realized it while she was taking her shower, as if the hot water had opened her eyes. But this moment of bliss isn’t over yet. She’s warm and cozy, right down to her toes; her lips are happy and cheerful. Gently, she pours hot water over the coffee grounds. As they swell, air bubbles whisper, and a fragrant aroma rises. The drip-drip into the transparent carafe mingles with the sound of the rain. Gods, please, Yukino prays. Let this time with Akizuki last just a little longer. Don’t let our rain stop just yet. “Yukino,” he says behind her. She turns around, a smile still on her lips. He’s smiling, too, watching her. “Yukino, I—” he says. Oh. It’s already time. “—I think I love you.” He’s watching Yukino steadily as he speaks. She can tell very clearly that he hadn’t been planning to divulge his feelings until this very moment. It just slipped out, beyond his control. That’s not fair. I… It feels as if she were watching herself from a distance; Yukino is aware her cheeks are growing warmer and warmer. I’m happy. Everything in me is buzzing with delight. But… But I can see that happy version of myself in the distance. I’m reaching out to her, and I don’t know if I’ll reach her in time. I need to pull her back to my side; I have to make her say the right thing. No matter what. I set my coffee cup down on the counter and finally let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding. I worry that it sounded scornful, and I start wanting to make excuses: No, that’s not what I meant. But for now, I have to say the right thing. I have to reprimand him gently, the way a teacher should. “—Ms. Yukino. Remember?” When he hears my reply, his lips part slightly, as if he wants to say something, but he gives up and lowers his head. I can sense that he’s more surprised than disappointed. Like when you cheerfully take someone’s hand and they shake you off. My heart stings. I pick up my coffee cup and walk over to him. When I sit down on the chair, it gives a little creak. He’s sitting on the floor, and I look down at him as I speak. “I’m sure you’ve heard I left my job at the school.” He doesn’t respond. I keep going. “I’ll be moving next week. I’m going back to live with my parents on Shikoku.” He stays silent, but he looks up at me as if he’s asking what I really mean. I lower my head instead and make excuses. “I made the decision ages ago. Here’s the thing about that arbor—” An image of the empty arbor rises behind my eyelids. It’s wet, darkened by the rain, and as miserable as an old man abandoned by his wife of many years. “I was practicing walking on my own. I was practicing alone…” Finish your thought, Yukino tells herself, as if she were scolding a small child. Tell him you don’t need him. She clenches her toes. “—Without shoes.” Like a stone dropped into a deep hole, it takes a long time for those words to reach him. There’s the sense of a soft click, as if the stone has struck bottom, and then… “…So?” he says in a voice devoid of emotion. His gaze is so straightforward that it frightens her. “So…” Yukino averts her eyes slightly. “Thank you for everything, Akizuki.” Silence falls. As if to fill it, the sound of the rain swells again. The row of potted plants on the balcony are filled with clear water, and they look almost like miniature aquariums. Before long, he quietly gets to his feet. The sound of rustling fabric seems especially loud. As he speaks, he looks down at Yukino. “Um, thank you for these clothes.” He starts toward the washroom. “I’ll go change.” “But they aren’t dry yet…!” In spite of herself, she calls after his receding back. No, don’t. It’s better this way. Yukino tears her eyes away from him and looks down at the coffee cup in her hands. She hears a soft click as he shuts the bathroom door. She hasn’t even started on her coffee yet, and she brings the cup to her lips. The steam rises gently, dampening her eyelashes slightly. She tries to drink, but the cup feels so heavy, she sets it down on the table instead. A mass of spiny emotions is bumbling around inside her like a hedgehog. It’s a little like regret, and a little like guilt, full of prickling pain and wordless accusations. Then what should I have done?! Yukino is about to burst into tears. I was never given a choice. I’ve always, always tried to be sincere with everybody; I just wanted to be a kind, gentle adult like Ms. Hinako. Whenever anybody wanted anything from me, I’ve always done whatever I could. Gazing at the gradually thinning steam from her coffee, Yukino thinks. I wanted to stop being on the outside of the world looking in. I wanted to be part of it. And the closer I got to being a grown-up, the more possible it seemed. I started believing I might be able to live like everybody else. And then the next thing I knew, I was in the middle of all this; it was as unavoidable as the rain. Mr. Itou came along, and Makino, and then Aizawa, until everything was all screwed up, and then, after I fought so hard to find a roof that would shelter me from the rain, along came Akizuki. Everyone made me so uncertain. I wanted them to leave me in peace. It was all I could do just to stand on my own—it took all I had not to spend every day curled up in a little ball. Slowly, footsteps approach her, and she raises her head. He’s standing in the pale blue-green shadows, wearing a uniform that must still be damp. “—Um, I…I’m going home. Thank you for everything,” he nearly whispers, bowing deeply. Then, without waiting for Yukino’s response, he starts toward the front door. “Oh!” In spite of herself, Yukino stands up. Wait. Don’t go yet. You don’t have an umbrella, do you? Why not wait until the rain stops?—No, no, I can’t afford to say it. Silently, Yukino lowers herself to the chair once again. His footsteps recede. She listens to him put on his shoes, then pull down the door handle. And then… Ptunk. The door falls shut behind him. It makes her furious. “—Stupid, stupid!” Shouting, she grabs the chair and swings it high, ready to throw it at something. But she’s glaring into empty space now; no one’s there. Deflated, she shakily lowers the chair again and sits back down on it. “Stupid.” She murmurs it again softly. “Akizuki, you’re an idiot.” How dare you act like I dumped you? Like you’re the innocent victim here? You have no idea how I felt all those days alone in the arbor during summer vacation. I’m sure your first summer vacation of high school was full of fun. You eat dinner with your family every night, and I’m sure you go out for tea with girls in your grade. You’re completely incapable of understanding anything at all about the life of a woman who’s twelve years older than you, and you’re just—! The inside of her nose prickles. Hot breath catches in her throat; her chest constricts; her eyes well with tears. She presses her palms tightly against her eyes to stop the rising flood, and a flickering pattern like a delicate white maze dances across the insides of her damp eyelids. On the table, her untouched coffee is silently continuing to cool. You’re the one who ended this, you know, Yukino thinks, almost hatefully. You really are still a child. If you’d just kept your mouth shut, maybe we could’ve eaten together again. Maybe we could’ve traded contact information, and maybe you could’ve come to say good-bye on the day I left for home. We could have quietly closed the door on this relationship in peace, without all this pain. I held my ground. I didn’t say it. I didn’t tell you I loved you. …But I finally let myself think it. Slowly, Yukino raises her face from her hands. I was always careful to keep those words from my mind, but now— It’s the push she needs, and she breaks into a run. She slams the front door open with her shoulder and flies out into the corridor. She dashes right by the elevator, with its CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE sign, and opens the emergency door. Outside, the gray downpour has grown even heavier. She runs down the narrow stairway attached to the outer wall. Rain blows in incessantly, and Yukino splashes through the puddles on the urethane rubber stairs. Her toes slip in the water, and she falls down a short flight of steps. She puts her hands out, catching herself on the landing, but her cheek scuffs hard against the floor. The front of her outfit is sopping wet again. But Yukino doesn’t register the pain or the cold; she gets up and starts running again, then stops. He’s there, one landing below hers. He’s resting both elbows on the chest-high wall, looking out over the misty, hazy town. A whisper of thunder echoes very near the two of them, as if it found its way here from some distant sky. The thunder whispers— The words surface in her mind, but she’s unable to think of any others. As if he’s heard her anyway, he slowly turns around. I never even dreamed that Yukino would come after me. Or maybe I was hoping she would, and that’s why I was waiting here. I don’t really know. “Um…,” she quietly begins as she slowly descends the stairs. Takao doesn’t want to hear any of it. “Forget what I said back there, okay, Yukino?” He manages to say the words naturally and decisively, as if he’s practiced. He meets her eyes and says what he feels he has to say—what he ought to say, for her sake. “I actually hate you after all.” Raindrops blow in, striking his cheek. Yukino’s eyes scrunch up a bit with grief. How dare you? After everything that’s happened, now you’re acting all upset? Damn you, Takao thinks, and he means it. “Even from the beginning…I never really liked you. I mean, you were drinking beer in the park first thing in the morning, quoting random poems at people…” All the emotions this rain-woman has made him feel—all the bewilderment and frustration and jealousy, the adoration and wishes and prayers and hope and despair—little by little turn into anger. It’s getting harder to stop talking. “You never said anything about yourself; you just kept asking about me. You knew I was a student, right? You liar!” I hate her. I hate her. Look at her acting like I hurt her and now she’s about to break down—damn her! “If I’d known you were a teacher, I would’ve kept my mouth shut about the shoes. You were sitting there thinking I could never make it happen, weren’t you? Why didn’t you just say it?! Did you think you had to just smile and nod at the stupid dream of a stupid kid?” And only a stupid kid would stand here yelling at you this way. I hate it! “The whole time, you knew it was just a fantasy! Everything—all of it! You knew I’d never be enough!” I’m crying like a loser in front of a woman—I hate this. All this time, I’ve been trying to grow up, and now you’re making me feel this way. Damn you! “So just say it! Pat me on the head and tell the little kid to run along to school! Tell me you hate me!” If you don’t, I’ll end up loving you my whole life. I love you, I love you, I love you, and even now, I’m falling deeper moment by moment. “You—!” Stop it, stop it! Why are you crying? “You’ll just look the other way forever—” Tears are trickling down Akizuki’s face. He’s screaming. “—and live your life alone!” My breath catches. I can’t take it any longer. Barefooted, I break into a run. She pulls me into a tight hug, her sweet scent sends my heart spinning, and she bursts out in a loud cry. The sound of her tears falling like heavy rain makes my breath catch in my throat. Yukino’s body is trembling against me, and she buries her face in my shoulder. She pushes her cold nose against my neck, sobbing like a child. I’m too stunned to lift a finger. “Every…morning…” I can hear strangled words among her sobs. Every morning. Under Yukino’s damp breath, my right shoulder is so hot it feels like it’s on fire. “Every morning…! I tried to do it right—I put on my suit…and…tried to go to school…!” The heat from my shoulder is spreading into the rest of me, and tears keep oozing from my eyes as if that heat had melted ice hidden somewhere inside me. “But I was too scared… It was too much…” In my blurred vision, something sparkles and shines. It’s the rain. The rain around us is glittering in the evening sun. “Back there,” she says, sobbing. Her sweet, tearful voice speaks right by my ear. “Back there, you—…” I want Yukino to stop crying, want to stop crying myself, and I hug her tightly to hold back the tears. I press her petite head against my neck with all the strength I’ve got. I want to break her, to protect her, to cherish her as my heart is ready to shatter and there’s nothing I can do. As if the force of our embrace has pushed all the air from her lungs, Yukino cries out: “You saved me!” And Yukino bursts into sobs. And Akizuki bursts into sobs. Words can’t express any of it, and they cling to each other for warmth in a frigid world. Between the wet buildings, beneath the setting sun to the west, lie a green park and a cluster of skyscrapers like distant peaks. Like flames in the wind, for a moment, the gilded rain flares brighter.