Chapter 29

I wished Mizuike had learned to be a bit more sensitive to people’s feelings, too. “You want to touch them, I guess?” God! Just drop this topic already! “No… Not really…” “I’m asking you seriously. Please answer me seriously, too.” Does she think I’m an idiot?! “When I fell in love with her and touched her breasts for the first time, I cried.” Too much information! My head was on fire. I wanted to rip off my scalp and replace it with a new one. “I thought I was going to make her feel gross by touching her, but she let me…and pulled me close to her. I felt so happy.” “…I don’t want to hear about this.” “I thought, maybe you wanted to touch my breasts like I wanted to touch hers. So I’m asking. I wouldn’t ask anyone else.” Don’t ask me, either! Don’t openly ask me if I want to fondle your boobs! Seriously! But she was asking me. It was in Mizuike’s nature to be direct. She didn’t know how else to interact with people. To her, it wasn’t an awkward question, even though I was squirming. When you’re asked a question, you should answer—that was what my teachers always said. The hell was I thinking? This wasn’t a classroom. My fingers were anxiously drumming against the floor. “Urgh… Yeah, sure, I’d want to touch them.” Like a cornered mouse, I wanted to make myself small. Saying that one sentence out loud had taken all my strength. “…You’re horny.” “Bsstshwah!” I made an incomprehensible sound. “Want to touch them now?” “Huh?!” I swear, something was wrong with this girl. “Like, why do you have to ask me again? Are you offering to let me touch them, or what?” “Yeah. You can touch them now, if you like.” I thought I was going to faint. I forgot to blink until my eyeballs turned sandy-dry from the fan. I’d seen them before…her boobs, I mean. But to touch them… Mizuike didn’t love me. I knew that, sad as it was. Was she as depraved as her sister? Did she not know right from wrong? Was her brain working at all? Mizuike was toweling her hair and turned toward me. Her breasts were hidden only by her T-shirt. “Are you teasing me?” “I don’t really know how to tease people.” “Are you mocking me, then?” “What?” “Is it pity, then?” “Why would I pity you?” I went through all the possible explanations, but Mizuike just cocked her head at me, giving me a blank stare. I should be the one staring in confusion at her. She seriously wasn’t trying to wind me up. There was nothing but innocence in her eyes. “…You’re so stupid.” “I know. I know that better than anyone.” “No, I didn’t mean it like that…” Okay, I had to admit I had been staring at her boobs on multiple occasions. They were so big; how could I not? How could I not mentally remark on how big they were for such a small person? I couldn’t help looking again even then. My face was on fire. I looked at the two defenseless mounds bulging under her loose T-shirt. Mounds or mountains? Strands of thought were becoming entangled in my head. She wasn’t far. Thanks to my tiny room, we were very close to each other. She was within arm’s reach. It would be little effort to extend my arm toward her. A straightforward task. There I was, trying to make a mission of some sort out of it. My head low, I looked up at Mizuike. She held my gaze, waiting for me to make a move. Neither of us spoke. The whirring of the fan was whipping up the thoughts in my head. My lips parted and closed, making little bubble noises, and little specks of saliva escaped my mouth. I stopped drumming on the floor, shakily raising my hand. I could hear a constant noise, as if I were still rubbing my ears dry with a towel. What on earth were we doing in that cramped, hot room? I slowly moved my arm as if tracing a square with my elbow. I was keenly aware of the proximity of those soft mounds I was about to press my hand against, and a little moan escaped me. My hand was getting closer and closer, but Mizuike wasn’t stopping me. And… It wasn’t like landing on the moon—no, the experience was more prosaic. The shaking of my hand matched the tempo of my breathing, and I felt like someone was trying to rip out my earrings, even though I didn’t wear earrings. I was touching Umi Mizuike’s boobs. At first, my senses momentarily stopped working and everything spun around me. The encounter with the unknown had sent my heart racing like a terrified chicken. My hand twitched as my senses restarted again, and it felt like the bones in my neck were going soft. What the hell. This part of her body wasn’t that far from her shoulders; I was basically just touching her shoulder. And that made me want to die. I was so disgusted with myself that I might as well drop dead. Why was I feeling this way? It was almost like touching her shoulder, just a bit lower… What a lousy excuse. I’d even seen her naked, but seeing and touching are two very different things. My ears were hurting. I thought they might fall off. Ah. Aaaaah… Aaah. “Interesting.” Mizuike’s dispassionate comment made me quickly pull my hand back. I was panting and sweating as if I’d just completed a marathon. Meanwhile, Mizuike seemed completely unaffected, as if I hadn’t just groped her boobs. “I don’t feel anything when you touch me,” she said simply. Blood drained from my fingers, rushing the other way. I shuddered, suddenly cold. “I don’t dislike it, but there’s nothing more. Your hand was warm, but it didn’t make me feel anything inside. It’s like…I don’t really feel you.” That was pretty much my crush telling me to fuck off. Maybe she didn’t mean it that way, but that was effectively the message I got. My blood was getting colder and colder, freezing inside my veins and tearing them apart. Mizuike was killing me. “When my sister is touching me…it’s very different.” And now my blood was boiling again. I felt weak with the realization that every time we spoke, went out together, looked into each other’s eyes, Mizuike was thinking about that woman. I had thought maybe we were getting somewhere, but I’d been so, so wrong. I was angry at Mizuike. She’d made me touch her breasts as a test, not to do me a favor. She only wanted to feel her sister, to go through the motions of something they did together. “Sometimes I think not doing anything will keep things as they are,” she said, and when I didn’t reply, she continued, “But that’s not true… Or maybe it’s not always true… I think, in most cases, if you don’t do anything, things will start getting worse.” I had no idea what that monologue was about. I didn’t want to listen to her, but, pathetically, I craved the sound of her voice. She took the towel off her head. Her hair was still damp, and her eyes were glistening darkly. “I’ll go to my sister.” That was a death sentence for me. I could swear I heard the roar of an approaching train. I felt like a fool for taking up the offer of physical contact and stupidly pushing Mizuike in the direction I feared the most. This was all one bad chain of events, which had started with me witnessing Mizuike and her evil sister kissing. I felt like someone had punched my head when I realized the downward spiral of my relations with Mizuike had helped her solidify her love for her sister. I had anticipated this would happen, so I wasn’t really shocked, although my pulse was still quicker than normal. For a second, I had the urge to hit Mizuike, but there was no way I’d actually do it. I wouldn’t hurt that pretty face. “I’ll get the address from Mother… I’ll find her.” She was determined to do it. What was she going to do when she did find her sister? She probably hadn’t thought that far. All she wanted was to go to her sister and see her. I hated how I could totally understand that, but that didn’t mean I’d just let her do it. Doing nothing would make me even more miserable. Even if I couldn’t stop her, I didn’t want to be completely out of the picture. “…I’ll go with you.” I wasn’t fighting back, but I wasn’t giving up, either. “Why?” “…To keep you company.” I kept my real intentions under lock and key. I didn’t have the courage or the mental strength to be honest. Instead of telling me to eff off, Mizuike looked at me in silence, her face inscrutable. I felt as if she were peering directly into my soul, although she was too disinterested in me for that. “Thanks,” she said, her body and face relaxing in relief. “I’d be a bit scared to go alone.” I could only laugh emptily at her trust in my fake show of friendship. Not to call myself a philosopher, but I saw life as the cumulation of countless choices at crossroads where we had to pick our way forward. They could be so small we didn’t even notice them sometimes. The one I’d just passed was huge and very obvious, but only one of the paths was visible to me. I wasn’t even interested in searching for the others. My awareness was shimmering like the heat haze, the chorus of cicadas as loud as heavy rain. Summer was still in full bloom, but for some reason, as we walked toward the station, I sensed its nearing end. It was noon, and the station was as empty and hot as if the people had melted away. We easily made our way to the ticket gates on the second floor. The barriers had been left open, and we passed through them together with the hot breeze. Mizuike checked the name of the station her mom had told her to get off at, and she started running up the stairs to a platform. The train we needed had just arrived, and Mizuike was determined to catch it and see her sister as soon as possible. I almost teared up; she was so impatient just for the chance to be reunited with that person from a world I didn’t belong to. The train was ready to leave the station when we got on. It was the first time we had taken a trip somewhere together, but our destination was that woman’s house. I wanted to bang my head against the wall. I knew the path I had chosen was a dead end, so why did I keep walking? I must’ve lost my sanity, but even knowing that, I was powerless to stop and turn back. We sat down next to each other at the nearest empty seats. The seats were in that box style on the train, and I got one by the window. I leaned against the glass, putting my chin in my hand. The sun was shining on my arm. Out the window, I could see the opposite platform, buildings around the station and store signboards. It was going to be a long ride. The woman had been making a long journey every time she came to meet Mizuike or me. That was dedication. Maybe the secret behind her charm was her ability to make you believe everything was effortless for her. I wished I could do that, but I was pretty sure it was impossible for me. “Can I call you Umi?” I asked Mizuike, spacing out as I stared vacantly out the window. “Me?” “Are there any other Umis here?” I’d never met anyone else named after the ocean, and I’d never seen the ocean, either. My world was so small. “If you want,” she replied, her relaxed attitude contrasting with my heavy mood. “I’ll call you Sora, then,” she added. The train started moving, and I was lightly jolted forward. I shifted in my seat, watching the station disappear behind. “My name’s Takasora, though.” “That’s too long.” I silently repeated my name and Umi’s nickname for me in my head, comparing them. She did have a point. “Okay. Sora’s fine.” I didn’t actually like being called Sora. It annoyed me that people kept calling me by something other than my real name. But if Umi was going to call me Sora, maybe I’d warm up to it. Getting over something that annoyed me would be a positive of being in love with Umi. Although that love might not have much time left. Umi. Being on first-name terms flicked a switch in my brain. A little light was flashing. It’d taken me so long to ask her if I could use her first name, it was a struggle for me. It was so awkward. “Do you love my sister?” The question made me blind to the scenery I was looking at. “What?” “I asked if you love my sister,” Umi repeated with her usual directness. She didn’t beat around the bush, and she didn’t leave room for others to do that, either. “No.” “But you went out on dates?” She didn’t say “without telling me,” but I heard that in the sharpness of her voice. “They weren’t dates… We were just hanging out together.” “I think that’s called going on dates.” She was right. “She told me you almost started making out one time.” Her voice fell, and I understood that was the part she was really upset about. I buried my face deeper into my hand, cursing the woman for telling Umi about that. It occurred to me she might’ve even told Umi what’d happened afterward, and I moved my hand higher over my face, covering one of my eyes. “My sister…does stupid things sometimes.” I peeked at Umi from between my fingers. She was pouting. “I’m not gonna let you take her from me,” she added, facing forward. “I don’t want her anyway.” “Liar.” “It’s the truth.” I really had no need for that woman. Or to be more precise, she wasn’t someone I wanted to get close to. She could be a star, dazzling but totally out of reach, farther than the moon or the sun, and I was fine with that. She was a being so distant, you’d have to be out of your mind to think you could ever reach her. She was to be admired from afar. “It’s just…” “Just what?” I moved my tongue in my mouth, my gaze slowly shifting away from Umi. “Never mind.” Every time I tried opening up to her, I abandoned the attempt and drew the curtains over the windows to my heart. I wasn’t used to this, to being in love. I had no roadmap. I wasn’t confident I could make the distinction between what I wanted to tell Umi and what I should tell her. My desires, hopes, and logic had melted into one hot stream of thought that made it impossible to feel at ease. I didn’t desire that woman. Sure, she was beautiful, and it was a pleasure to indulge in her warmth. I found her disinhibition exciting, too. There were things I found attractive about her, but finding someone attractive doesn’t mean you have feelings for them. “It’s just that…,” I muttered with my hand covering my mouth. It was just that she’d never mistaken my name. From the start, she’d known to call me Takasora. She’d even told me my name was nice. …Was that all it’d taken for her to lodge herself so firmly in my thoughts? That was how she stole hearts, through her attention to detail. She was an expert. Not that I’d let her win me over. If she actually tried to make me fall for her, I’d fight back. I’d build a wall around myself to keep her out. If I didn’t do that, if I didn’t resist, I’d lose myself completely. Did I imagine it that I could smell the ocean? Was that the sharper note in the warm air I was drawing into my lungs when we got off at a faraway station? We were somewhere else, but it was just as hot as back in my town, and I thought of the purpose of the trip with the same heavy heart as before we’d boarded the train. We left the station, striding into a city neither of us knew. Directly opposite the station exit was a bus stop along a busy road. Pigeons crowded by a small fountain on the side of the plaza. They were so used to people, they showed no fear when someone passed by, and there were many people passing by. We were told this city was a popular tourist destination, but I hadn’t expected to see such a mass of humanity. It was summer vacation, but I saw a group of teenagers in high school uniforms gathered around a map, discussing where to go. Many people were walking around with yellow paper bags—gifts to bring home from some famous local place? Having observed people for a while, I thought it was easy to tell the locals from the tourists. “It’s…that way,” Umi said, pointing after checking the notes from her mom. I was surprised at how neat the map her mom had drawn and the accompanying notes were, each line as delicate and dainty as Umi’s mom herself. We went in the direction Umi said was the right one, leaving the station plaza and stepping onto the main road, which had a big gate like you see at shrines and large stone statues… What were they? Massive Jizo statues? Foreign tourists were taking photos of them. On the road, runners were pulling rickshaws carrying more tourists. This city’s atmosphere was vibrant, unlike the dried-out, desolate feel of my hometown. It matched the vibe of that woman. We turned away from the bustling main road and walked up a gently sloping street lined with touristy restaurants and bars with a handful of convenience stores squeezed in between. As we got higher, I saw a view that made me gasp. “We can see the horizon.” I pointed ahead. The scorching sunshine was already making my bangs feel heavy. “Huh?” Umi finally looked up from the ground, the sun’s glare making her squint. “It’s the ocean,” I said. We couldn’t see it that clearly from where we were, but if we kept walking straight, we’d reach the water. The beach was probably chock-full of tourists at this time of year. “What? Like, the real ocean? Huh. Hmm. Neat.” You’d have thought she’d be more impressed to finally see what she’d been named after. It was always like that with her; she just had this phlegmatic character. Only Shiho Chitaira seemed to activate something in Umi’s emotional department. We passed by another line of Jizo statues and turned into a narrow alley, suddenly finding ourselves in a quiet area away from the bustle of the tourist hotspots. It was a tranquil neighborhood where even the buzzing of cicadas seemed more polite than where I was from. I glanced around nervously. The houses were big residences with massive gardens, everyone far from their neighbors. The entrances were marked by imposing gates. You could tell that was where rich people lived. The notes from Umi’s mom described details like the color of this or that house’s roof to help us navigate, and I’d thought they’d be useless since it had been more than ten years since she’d last been there. But everything still matched. The traditional residences had been preserved, unchanging, for decades. Following the sketched map, we passed by a storehouse with wooden lattice windows on the second floor—a building whose function I couldn’t guess at—with Japanese dolls displayed by the windows and all doors left open, a small building with a sign saying “HQ” and a fleet of rickshaws parked inside, and a house with tangerine trees sticking out over the fence. And then we found the residence we’d been looking for, which reassuringly had a plaque with “Chitaira” written on it by the entrance. The Chitairas’ residence looked even more massive than their neighbors’, with a ridiculously tall entrance gate perhaps meant for giants. Lots of faces looked at me from both sides of the gate—election posters, a whole four rows of them, showing faces of grown-ups who were probably pondering things I’d never imagined. “The other house looked better,” said Umi. “Which one?” “The one we passed by a bit earlier.” With that remark, Umi walked toward the gate. Wasn’t that gate meant to be the place you waited next to until someone came to invite you inside? Was it…okay to just walk in? Well, Umi was a Chitaira by blood…but no, that didn’t give her the right to enter the house uninvited, right? You had to have some common sense… But then again, houses with gates like that one were so far removed from the reality I’d lived, my common sense might not apply here. What did I know, really? “Uh… The gate’s open, so…I guess it’s okay to go in…” I weakly convinced myself and followed Umi. It was a long way from the gate to the actual house, the path leading through a maze of vegetation that made up the garden. At the far end, the garden turned into a grove of trees so tall, it must have been a real pain to keep them neatly maintained. The stone path there was almost buried under fallen leaves, as if it hadn’t been swept in a long time. If this were my house, it would’ve bothered me so much to find the path in that state, and I would have run to find a broom right away. The leafy corridor took us to the entrance, where there was an old-timey wooden shoe rack. It looked like we were expected to leave our shoes there before entering the house. There were no other shoes on the rack. I ran my finger along one shelf, and it picked up dust. The people living there weren’t neat freaks, that was for sure. “Who are you?” We’d been spotted by a man carrying a parcel. He was quite tall, and the large parcel made him look even bigger and more intimidating as he approached. The heels of his sloppily-slipped-on shoes click-clacked against the floor. I looked at his eyes, wondering if he might be related to Umi, and I saw they were exactly like hers and Ms. Chitaira’s. A cold chill ran down my spine. “What do you want here?” His tone was sharp, telling us we weren’t welcome, although maybe he was so annoyed because his hands were full and he couldn’t wipe the sweat off his face. Still, his expression and attitude made me instantly feel antipathy toward him. I glanced over at Umi, waiting for her to explain why we’d come. She looked lost, though; her eyes were swimming, beads of sweat on her face. Being so petite, she looked like a child cowering in front of a scolding adult. Imposing house gates didn’t scare her, but people did. “Does Chitaira… Does Shiho live here?” “Shiho?” The man’s prickly attitude got even pricklier. It seemed the Chitaira family disapproved of Umi’s sister and her unconventional lifestyle. “You’re looking for her? Who are you?” His reservations toward the guests in his house had given way to open suspicion. It was honestly scary for me to have an adult glare at me like that, and I understood why Ms. Chitaira didn’t bring her girlfriends home. Umi was scared, too, staring at her feet. Although we only knew a little about Ms. Chitaira’s past, I had a feeling people like this guy had been giving her a lot of grief. “What…?” the man growled, noticing Umi’s eyes. I sensed trouble and wished I wasn’t there, my anxiety rising. They say waves sound louder to people who are drowning, and in my case, it was the buzzing of cicadas that suddenly seemed to intensify. The noise was towering over me, pushing me into the floor. “What’s going on there?” someone asked in a drawn-out voice. A tall, old man came into the house from the grove. He was carrying a sack filled with soil and wearing a short yukata for gardening. I could see his wrinkled ankles and wrists. His hair, tied at the back, was almost all white, while his skin was bronze from the sun. That old man had hazel eyes like Umi. It must have been a dominant trait in this family. “Is there a problem?” The man who’d seen us first relayed what Umi had said. Maybe I only imagined it, but it looked to me like the old man’s eyes lit up at the mention of Shiho. “How unusual. Shiho doesn’t bring her girls home,” the old man said. He looked at me with undisguised curiosity, coming closer. He smelled like dirt, but maybe that was just the smell of that bag of soil. The dry, earthy smell suited him, I thought, as he stared at my blond hair. “Um…” “There are many blond girls out there, but few look good with this color. Shiho made a great find,” he commented appreciatively. He’d mistaken me for one of Ms. Chitaira’s girlfriends. I wanted to clear that up and tell him it was Umi that was her girlfriend, but on second thought, that might have been problematic. It seemed Ms. Chitaira’s proclivities weren’t a secret. While the old man was intrigued by my hair color, he didn’t remark on the color of Umi’s eyes, even though he must have noticed it. Maybe with the whole family having hazel eyes, he simply found it boring? “Well, come inside. Shiho’s in bed in the room at the back.” “She’s in bed…?” I looked at the sun instead of checking the time. Some people took afternoon naps; I knew that… Ms. Chitaira was having a laid-back day, it seemed. Mine, on the other hand, was far from it. I got the feeling that the younger man didn’t want us in the house, but the old man patted me on the shoulder, saying “It’s all right.” The younger man walked off with a dissatisfied look on his face. He wasn’t going to show us the way to Shiho’s room. “No one goes against me in this house,” said the old man with a laugh. Then he turned around and left us, too. His confident laugh reminded me of Ms. Chitaira. Was he the grandfather she had told us about? If so, he was Umi’s grandfather, too. I couldn’t tell if she was thinking the same, or if it mattered to her. Something else was on her mind. “Shiho’s still in bed… Is she sick?” She was worried about her sister, assuming that being in bed at this hour meant being unwell. I was pretty sure Ms. Chitaira was just having a nap. We’d been invited in, so we left the porch and entered the hallway. Nobody was there. The house was pretty dark, and everything was smooth—the slippery wooden floor, the furniture, the walls. Smooth, soft interiors conjured the image of wealth to me, but I wasn’t even sure why. Maybe it was because I didn’t have anything like that in my room. After looking this way and that way uncertainly, Umi started walking to the right in her socks. I’d never been in a house where the entrance hall led in multiple directions. My apartment’s floor plan was a straightforward rectangle. You couldn’t really run in it without quickly coming to a wall, but in this residence, I’d probably be out of breath before reaching the end of the hallway. The singing of cicadas began to fade, unable to follow our twin pair of footsteps deeper into the house. Umi had a reason to be in that house, but me? I had no connection to it. My head felt slightly hotter than normal. Where else would I find myself following Umi Mizuike and Shiho Chitaira? A door suddenly opened, and I tensed. Umi also stopped abruptly and took a few quick steps back timidly. It was cute. A middle-aged man was eyeing us suspiciously. We dipped our heads in a shy greeting. At first, he cocked his head, but then he gave us the slightest of nods and passed us by, then suddenly turned and looked at Umi with great surprise. He was looking at her eyes, to be precise. He had hazel eyes, like her. He was so rattled, I could venture a guess as to who he was… His eyes still wide, the man pressed his lips into a tight line and quickly walked away. “Wonder who that was,” said Umi. “…Who knows?” Could she really not guess? Did the category of father not exist in her head? To be fair, based on what Ms. Chitaira had told us, Umi had only had her mother, so the thought that she did in fact have a dad must have been totally alien to her. I fell silent, thinking about how Umi’s dad, grandpa, and probably grandma, too, and other family members all lived in this house. She had lots of relatives. They might not want her, and she might not want them, but she had a family. I was a little envious. Umi had other places to be, unlike me. I only had that sad little room in a small apartment. Did I want another place to belong? Ever since I’d crossed paths with that wretched woman, I’d begun to break down and long for more places in the world where I’d feel welcome. It was getting hard to bear the thought of being confined to that hot, cramped room. But I knew there was no place for me beside Umi Mizuike and Shiho Chitaira. Why had I tagged along to this house, then? Why were we walking together down this long corridor? Seriously, though, where were we going? “Umi…” “Yeah?” “You don’t really know where to go, right?” She kept on walking, her small head bobbing up and down. “No,” she admitted after a pause. We’d been told Ms. Chitaira was in a room at the back, but how far back? Which room was it? Rich-people houses stretched really far, with lots of rooms you could describe as “at the back.” After walking for a while, not knowing where to stop, we came out onto a…walkway? Outdoor hallway? Whatever you called it, it was on the outside of the building and went around the inner garden. Out in the sunshine, my neck and feet started sweating again. We kept walking in silence, but we were effectively lost. The garden was a dazzling miniature landscape. There were those trees that looked like giant green mushrooms that I was sure I knew the name of, but I couldn’t recall it just then. I’d never before seen a garden with a stone path winding through it. There was even a pond. Having lived my entire life in an apartment block where gardens weren’t a thing people had, I felt like I’d stepped into a different world. I saw someone moving among the trees. Based on his posture and white hair tied at the back, it was the old man we’d met earlier. He was resting long pruning shears against his shoulder, looking up at the trees. I was wondering if we should go and ask him which room was Ms. Chitaira’s when he noticed us. For a while, he just watched us, tilting his head to the side. Then he laughed. “Ah, of course! My bad, my bad indeed!” He started walking toward us, opening and closing the shears. I squealed in fright, my heart in my throat. The old man looked at the shears as if he’d only then noticed what he was doing. He laughed again, but he kept snipping them anyway. I wished he’d stop it already. “You don’t know which room it is. Well, let me show you.” We didn’t even have to explain our predicament. The old man was as observant and sharp-witted as his evil granddaughter. He shook off his sandals and stepped up onto the walkway barefooted, smelling of soil and dry sunshine. We followed him. His height added to the feeling of authority, but it also meant we couldn’t see anything from behind his back. “I would love to see Shiho’s flustered face, but I have a lot of work left in the garden…,” he said to us over his shoulder with amusement. He cast a glance at us, smiling. Just like Ms. Chitaira, this man seemed to find everything entertaining, laughter at the ready no matter what was happening. “As a rule, Shiho keeps what’s precious to her well away from this house,” he said. Shiho didn’t want to tell us about her family for a reason. I thought the old man was wrong about me having any value to Ms. Chitaira, but we’d probably made a big mistake coming to that house. Not that knowing it was a mistake would make Umi turn back. “It’s this room. Go on in, don’t worry about waking her up.” After pointing out one of the rooms about midway through the long hallway, the old man turned around and started walking away. After a few steps, he suddenly turned again. “You, young lass.” He was looking straight at Umi, the long shears resting against his shoulder. “Yes…?” She was about to open the door to Shiho’s room, but she froze, startled, when the old man spoke to her. He watched her intently in silence for a few breaths, and then he smiled. “It’s good you don’t resemble your father,” he said with satisfaction. And then he left us to do his gardening. So the old man had recognized his granddaughter in Umi. On the other hand, she might still not have realized who he was, based on her indifferent reaction. “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen him.” “Yeah…” She had seen him! Moving on… We were in front of the sliding door to Shiho’s room… Which part of a sliding door do you knock on? Or maybe you don’t knock? I’d never been in a traditional Japanese residence before, so I didn’t know the etiquette. As I fretted over what to do, Umi simply went to the door and slowly slid it open a little. We stuck our heads in to look inside…and jumped as another pair of eyes met ours. Ms. Chitaira’s gaze fell on my blond hair, and her pupils shrunk as if she were looking at the sun. At first, she seemed guarded, but soon enough her face relaxed into her usual easy smile that drew eyes and people to her. “Welcome to my house, Umi and Takasora.” Light from the open sliding door fell on Ms. Chitaira, who sat up on her futon and was gently beckoning us in. The shimmering, summery air created a strange, dreamy atmosphere. Ms. Chitaira looked so pure and delicate in her white pajamas… No, her sleeping yukata? Her dark hair blended with the shadows, giving the illusion of it being so long it reached down to the floor. What really struck me was her face, though, which had lost its vitality, like a withering plant at the end of its season. That face spoke volumes. I shuddered when I stepped into the room, as much from the cold air inside as from the sudden unease of entering the room of an apparently sick person. I couldn’t smell Ms. Chitaira’s flowery perfume. Maybe it was disguised by the smell of the tatami mats. Western-style furniture and accessories stood out in that traditional Japanese room, which gave me the impression that Ms. Chitaira had had it furnished to her own preference, although she still slept in the futon spread on the floor. We politely sat down beside it. Ms. Chitaira rested her hands in front of her. She was pale, but her forearms didn’t look any thinner than before. “Close the door. I have the AC on.” “Oh, sorry…” I reached behind me to pull the door closed. While I was turned away, Umi’s voice broke as she said, “S-Sis…” Ms. Chitaira smiled. “Yes, dear?” “Are you…sick?” Umi asked fearfully, as if she wanted to shrink away from her own question. “Well, you see…,” Ms. Chitaira began, still smiling. I noticed Umi was squeezing her hands into fists, her sharp knuckles and veins prominent. I looked at my hands. They were hot and sweaty, but I held them open. “After saying good-bye to you the other day, I realized I’d left my bag in Takasora’s apartment…,” Ms. Chitaira continued. “I thought about going back to get it, but that would have undone the impression I wanted to leave you with, so I decided to walk home instead.” “…What?” “I didn’t know the way home on foot, though, and I didn’t have any money on me, or my phone. That walk home might have been the most extreme thing I’ve done in my entire life. Three days later, I finally made it here, and I was surprised I was still alive.”