Adachi to Shimamura - Volume 99.9 - Chapter 1.4

At my prompting, she began massaging her cheeks back into shape. Is she made of clay or something? Shrugging it off, I started making the fried rice. 

“Come to think of it, Little has been learning to cook as well.”

“Wait. She has?”

“In order to make delicious treats for me.”

“Lucky you.” 

“Yes. I look forward to it!” she exclaimed, beaming.

That sister of mine must really love this kid, I thought. When she was in grade school, the two had seemed like cute little besties, but now they were more like…siblings, maybe? I could hardly imagine what their relationship would evolve into next, given another five or ten years. After all, however old my sister got, I was pretty sure Yashiro would stay exactly the same… My vision of the future was riddled with holes, like Swiss cheese, leaving much to ponder as I cooked dinner. 

That was when Adachi walked in, having changed clothes and put away her things. 

“So how’s overtime been going?” I asked.

“It’s mostly over now,” she answered as she sat down at the table. After a quick glance at the food, she looked back at me. “I’ll cook for us next week.” 

“I look forward to that as well!” Yashiro remarked, already stuffing her face with rice. Adachi shot her a weird look, but Yashiro carried on eating, smacking her lips loudly.

“Ha ha ha…” Averting my gaze, I laughed awkwardly. Yashiro used to be like another little sister to me, but our age gap had widened so much that it kind of felt like she was our daughter. “No, no, no.” Surely, daughter was pushing it. Yashiro and I looked nothing alike—particularly our hair.

“What?” Sensing my gaze, Yashiro looked up, her spoon halfway to her lips.

“Nothing. How’s it taste?”

“Like destiny.” That, I had learned, was her way of declaring her satisfaction. “In fact, it reminds me of Mama-san’s cooking.”

“You think so? Hmm… Well, I guess that makes sense.” 

This was a flavor I’d grown up with, after all. Perhaps one would assume that I’d gradually adjust my cooking to suit Adachi’s tastes, but Adachi didn’t really have tastes to begin with. Aside from bitter foods—which she avoided—she ate everything in total silence. It was similar to the way she behaved around other people. 

“How’s it taste?” I asked again, this time to Adachi.

“Uh, good,” she replied—so flatly, I felt myself smile in exasperation. A beat later, she gasped, realizing something. She looked up. “Like…d-destiny!” 

Thanks for reading the room, but… “No need to talk like this twerp,” I replied, giving the twerp in question a little smack over the head. Yashiro was so engrossed in her food, she simply glanced around the table, then forced a laugh. Sometimes she struck me as weird in a completely different way—like she was tossing out a premade response that didn’t quite fit.

Before long, the three of us finished eating.

Yashiro raised her hand. “I shall now return home,” she announced. I’d expected this, of course. She couldn’t spend the night here, because my sister would start to miss her…or so she always claimed.

“Give my sister my regards, okay?”

“And how do you regard her?” 

“It’s a figure of speech… Never mind. When you see her, just say, ‘Regards.’”

“Okey dokey!” 

My sister was going to be so confused. I certainly would’ve been. “And be careful on your way home.”

“Yes, I know.”

“That means you need to watch out for pedestrians. Got it?” 

Assuming she planned to run straight home to my parents’ house, she was liable to crash into someone. Or get snatched up by creeps. Either way, the people around her were more of a danger to her than she was to them. 

And so, off she ran, without the slightest pretense that she’d visited for any reason other than a free meal. I suspected that, when she got back to my parents’ house, she would eat dinner there too. All she ever did was eat and sleep all day, like a gorilla, except really cute… Not that regular gorillas weren’t cute, but… 

“What am I thinking about…?” Frowning, I walked back to the living room to find Adachi sitting slumped against the couch. “Adachi?”

“Huh…? Oh, sorry. I zoned out,” she replied, sitting up straight. Once her belly was full, her fatigue must’ve taken over.

My gaze wandered bashfully for a moment. Then I sat down next to her and gently guided her head and shoulders into my lap, where she settled without protest. “I don’t know if this’ll help you feel better, but it’s worth a try,” I explained as I ran my fingers through her hair. The Adachi I’d once known would’ve gotten flustered by now, but tonight, she seemed to lack the energy for that. Her eyes tracked my movements calmly for a while before falling still.

“It’s…very soothing.”

“Glad to hear it.” Her word choice likewise put me at ease, and I decided not to think about the pile of dishes in the kitchen sink. 

As I caressed her with all the gentle affection of a back rub, her eyelids appeared to grow heavy, and her eyes closed. Then her lips moved—clumsily, like she was talking in her sleep. “How are you…doing at work?”

“Mmm…fine, I guess? It’s business as usual.” That was all I could really say, since I hadn’t achieved anything noteworthy. I essentially did the bare minimum at work; it was no different from when I was in school.

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.” 

As we chatted back and forth absently, I wiggled my feet. A moment of silence followed. For a second, I thought maybe Adachi had fallen asleep, but she evidently hadn’t thrown in the towel quite yet. “There’s probably a better way to ask, but…I guess I’ll never be good at talking,” she muttered, scoffing at herself.

“Nah. I think you’ve improved a lot over the years.”

“Really?” 

“You don’t remember what you used to be like? Hoo boy.” Thinking back, I could probably have named an awkward incident for every star in the sky. Those memories made me laugh out loud.

“Hey. What’s so funny?”

“They were good times, that’s all.”

“Look… I admit, I was a bit of a mess back then, but…”

“A bit?” I repeated incredulously. 

She fell silent, as if pretending to be asleep, and I couldn’t help giggling at her brattiness. In all this time, the fire of her passion hadn’t dimmed in the slightest, and thus I was content to wait as long as she needed.

When she next spoke, she changed the subject with what looked like tremendous effort, forcing her lips to cooperate. “Let’s stay focused on our careers for now… But once things calm down, we should go somewhere again.” 

“On another trip?”

“Yeah.” 

Another journey with Adachi to a distant land of our choosing—a metaphor for our relationship. 

“To be honest, I don’t care where we go,” she said.

“I know.”

“What matters most is that I’m with you, Shimamura.”

“Mm-hmm.” 

I suspected that, if Adachi ever went on a solo vacation, she wouldn’t enjoy a minute of it. In fact, it was difficult to imagine her feeling positively about anything that wasn’t me—which admittedly sounded arrogant, but I’d seen enough of her emotions firsthand to know it wasn’t all that far-fetched. She and I were connected at the fingertips. 

“Maybe we should go out somewhere next weekend,” I suggested. That would be like a stepping stone to a bigger vacation. 

“Where…?” she asked sleepily. 

“Anywhere is fine with me! Where would you want to go?” I asked in turn, despite knowing that she probably wouldn’t have an answer.

In high school, it had been Adachi who spontaneously invited me on a trip abroad. For better or worse, she was always quick to take the initiative… Come to think of it, that kind of mindset would’ve been a great help to me right about now.

After another long moment of silence, I looked down to see her eyes and lips both firmly closed. “Guess she’s asleep.” Gently, I brushed her long hair out of her face. With my hand blocking her face from view, she almost looked like a teenager again. 

Whenever I reflected on the day we met, it felt impossibly distant, yet only a single step away. Strangely, I couldn’t seem to settle on one or the other. Maybe that was because the two of us had walked this long road side by side. 

So where would we end up? 

I’d asked myself that question dozens of times, and when Adachi first proposed that we move in together, I’d asked myself yet again. Ultimately it didn’t matter, though, because it turned out that I was willing to follow her just about anywhere. 

***

“Weren’t we going to go (just about) anywhere, my dear Adachi-chan?”

“I’d rather stay right here today.” The mumbled reply came from an almost suffocating proximity. She was sitting between my legs, facing forward, her hair brushing against my cheek.

“I see.” Well, if that’s what she wants. 

That Sunday, we hadn’t yet set foot outside our condo. We were cuddled up on the couch, whiling away the time. And when I asked her what she wanted to do, her answer was that she wanted to make me her personal recliner. 

I glanced at the empty spot next to us. This couch was more than big enough for two people to sit side by side, so with both of us cuddling in one seat, it seemed downright oversized…or perhaps we were simply being space-efficient. When we first sat down, Adachi had hunched to avoid crushing me, but now she was so exhausted that she entrusted me with her full weight, and I pressed my lips against her shoulder.

There was plenty of time left in the day; the sun had barely risen into the sky. For some strange reason, that thought filled me with warmth. The downside, however, was that the May weather was warm enough on its own, so in a way I felt like I was being smothered by an affectionate Labrador. If I said that aloud, would Adachi get mad at me? 

“Like a dog…” The words slipped out unconsciously. Oops. I had a bad habit of speaking without thinking.

“What?”

“I said, um…I like dogs. They’re cute.”

“Oh…uh…yeah.” 

She didn’t sound very enthused, which came as no surprise. Was having only one interest in the entire world easier? Or was it miserable? Either way, I had the power to shape Adachi’s entire life, and it was a big responsibility. 

There wasn’t much else to say about dogs, so I just sat there and zoned out—that is, until Adachi attempted to continue the conversation.

“Do you ever think about getting a dog?”

“Mmm…” Before I could stop it, the ghost of an old friend appeared before me. I waited until he turned to look at me, then gently closed my eyes. “This place doesn’t allow pets.”

“Okay, but what if it did?”

“Even then, I don’t think I’d want one. It’s too hard to say goodbye.” In the past, I would’ve done anything to avoid answering this question, but with Adachi, I was honest. “Nothing is forever, and it sucks.” That was why I fought so hard to ensure that things always ended on a high note—even if it meant straight-up lying to myself. 

I combed through Adachi’s hair, the faintly chilly strands gliding between my fingers.

“But if everything always stayed the same”—Adachi’s head swayed slightly—“I never would’ve known that saying goodbye could be hard at all.” 

She turned to look at me. 

“No matter what, I’m glad I met you, Shimamura,” she declared as her cheeks began to flush, her face like a pitcher slowly filling with scarlet liquid. “I…I love you.”

There was something beautiful in the way she self-destructed. At this point, it was like an art form unto itself. 

“Th-thanks?”

Did she think I wouldn’t get flustered, considering that we were close enough for strands of our hair to intertwine? Then again, with her power, she could fluster me from any distance. She stared at me, waiting patiently for me to carry out her unsaid order, and as I met her gaze, I did so:

“I love you too. The same as I always have.” As usual, I chose to conclude with the poetry of forever.

However, Adachi wasn’t satisfied. “Just ‘the same’?”

“What?”

“Well…I kind of wish you loved me more than before.”

“Greedy girl, aren’t you, Adachi-chan?” 

But maybe that was what made our life together worthwhile. After all, if I wanted to stay in the same place perpetually, that was what memories were for. 

“Going forward, I pledge to do better.” To think more of you…and the road ahead of us. “Sound good?”

“Yeah.” She seemed pleased, despite my flippant tone. 

When I saw that serious look in her eyes, though, I felt the urge to make it silly. “Plus, I mean…one dog is enough for a lifetime, don’t you think?” If we got another, she’d get jealous! Ha!

“Wait…are you talking about me?” Adachi asked. She pointed at herself, eyes wide with confusion.

“Ha ha ha!”

She pouted in annoyance at my laugh. “I’m nothing like a dog.”

At one time, I’d always imagined her with a wagging tail. Even now, I could sometimes picture her with droopy ears. “You were so cute back then…”

“What about now?”

Caught off-guard, I very nearly blurted out the thought I’d just had about her droopy ears. “Huh?”

“Am I not…cute anymore?” 

When I looked down at the sad puppy dog in question and saw her gazing back anxiously, I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You’re adorable.” 

As I stroked her hair, she closed her eyes and accepted it in silence. Given her personality, it felt so wrong for her to be taller than me, yet there was something cozy about the contrast. 

“This is kind of nice.”

We already had a pet mooch, and believe it or not, I was fairly content with that. After all—though I couldn’t prove it—I was reasonably confident that Yashiro wouldn’t die before I did, and that thought put me at ease. I needed at least one person to outlive me so that, after time’s long, winding river wore away everything else in my life, I wouldn’t have to feel alone. Again, there was no proof that I’d live longer than everyone else. Since I slept more than most, though, I suspected that it was a possibility.

I waited for Adachi to face forward, then spoke. “Sometimes I feel like…the point of meeting someone is to try to make something of it. And I’m not just talking about you and me.”

Every now and then, I found myself gripped with stone-cold conviction that sent shivers down my spine, urging me to leave my mark on the world.