Adachi to Shimamura - Volume 99.9 - Chapter 3.1

Chapter 3:

Mura

“ARE THERE OTHER PEOPLE HERE?”

“No. I’m the last one alive,” she said, smiling. 

“Same. That’s why I left my home”—I looked her in the eyes—“and came here.”

“Right.”

And so here we were.

However…

What I’d failed to notice while walking in circles was the massive crater right next to the town. It looked as if a gargantuan shovel had sunk deep, then scooped up an entire chunk of land. The flow of the local river had created a waterfall there…and when the girl first showed it to me, my legs almost gave out.

“If we fall, we’re dead meat, huh?” 

Looking down, I saw no sign of a basin—only inky blackness. We’d traveled here in relative silence, so the water’s roar was practically deafening. 

While I plugged my ears, however, the girl simply stood gazing at the scenery. “You get used to it.” 

“Really?” Taking this view for granted would be an awful shame. I peeked over the edge again. “Maybe it’d be fun to jump in.” 

“No, you’d die!” she replied with an exasperated laugh. 

A few days had passed since we’d first set up camp at this waterfall town. Now I found myself crouching in the dim light of a passage I suspected the girl had spent a lot of time constructing all by herself. Using a series of footholds, I was able to descend about halfway down the crater. The girl must’ve created this path out of boredom or curiosity, because if all she’d wanted was water itself, she could’ve gotten it from the river more easily.

Maybe this giant hole contained some great secret about our planet. Alas, at the moment, I didn’t really care. And after three or four perilous adventures climbing down mega-sketchy rope ladders and across impossibly narrow stones in the cliff face, I had to admit…

“Yeah, I’m used to this.”

Behind the flowing water, a rock wall jutted forward slightly, creating a little roof. I was now crouched in that niche, the roar of the falls automatically filling my ears. Every time I got splashed, I felt as though I were submerged in an ice bath up to my chin.

Lately, whenever I had free time (not that I ever really did, hard as it was to live on this planet), I came here and zoned out. To be blunt, I wanted an escape from it all—a break from survival. 

“I shouldn’t slack off…” 

But that self-criticism didn’t weigh nearly as heavily on me as my fatigue did. Once I relaxed, it was impossible to get back up, as if the waterfall pinned me down. 

“Oh. There you are.”

For some reason, not even the waterfall could drown out that little cryptid’s voice. She walked right up and crouched beside me. Her sparkle seemed all the more fleeting here in the dark. 

“It’s not safe here, you know!” I shouted so that she’d hear me over the water.

“It isn’t?” Yashiro replied at her normal volume. 

“If the rocks cave in, you’ll be crushed flat!” I pointed upward.

She craned her head back to look. “Hmmm…” 

Yashiro leapt into the air—soundlessly, almost like she was floating—and touched the ceiling, then landed and sat back down like it was nothing. “It appears that we will be all right for the time being.”

“W-we will…?!” 

She showed me her wet palm, her fingertips serving as little blue lamps illuminating her pale skin. When I touched them, they were as cold as the waterfall itself.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Nothing much! Just zoning out!”

“I see.”

Since she seemed to hear me just fine, I decided to forego the shouting. “What about you?” 

“I have finished my mission, so I think I will move on,” she answered offhandedly. “This is goodbye.”

“Oh…” 

It was so sudden. 

“Well, okay,” I mumbled automatically, before I’d had time to decide whether it actually was okay. “That reminds me—what was your mission, anyway?”

“To guide you, Chito-san.” 

Me? I pointed at myself, confused. 

Yashiro nodded. “I wanted to uphold my end of the bargain, but of course, I knew you would inevitably find her,” she explained quietly. This was something she’d mentioned previously, as I recalled. “For, you see, you were born to meet her.” 

My gaze shifted upward, in the vague direction of wherever she was right now. “For real?”

“For realsies.” 

This proclamation was significantly weightier than the connection itself felt. I barely even knew how to talk to that girl, which was why I came down here to hide in the first place. After all, I could count the number of humans I’d ever met on one hand—and I wasn’t sure this gremlin counted.

When I smacked her over the head, it bobbled as if she were a toy. “Mmgh?!”

“If she’s that important, then…what am I supposed to say to her?” I couldn’t gauge the appropriate distance to hold between us, either figuratively or literally. 

“You can say anything you like, of course. Perhaps ‘hello.’”

“I regret asking you. My mistake.” I’d forgotten this kid was useless.

“Now that you have met, you may make of it whatever you choose.”

“Is it really that simple?”

“Do you know what is essential to a ciiircle?” 

On that last word, her finger moved through the air in a clockwise motion, her nail leaving a streak of blue motes that formed a visible circle before fading. Another mystery lost to the waterfall.

“What’s essential? Uh…” The sudden change of subject had, dare I say, thrown me for a loop. 

I’d never been great at riddles, and before I thought of the answer, she supplied it herself. “An unbroken line.”

“Oh. You meant literally.”

“If even a single part is missing, it loses its shape.” She drew another circle; then her fingers plucked a piece from the bottom left. “What remains is too damaged to still be considered a circle.”

“Okay…?” 

By some inexplicable magic, both ends of the broken circle forced themselves together, creating a warped, defective shape, then faded away. Yashiro’s logic was admittedly making sense so far.

“And? Your point?”

“That was my point.”

“I don’t get it.” 

“Oh dear.” She paused for a moment, watching the flow of the falls. “Think of the circle as your world.”

“Okay?”

“Now think of that missing piece as Shima-san and yourself. That is all.” 

Shima-san? Oh, right. Her. I had next to no experience calling people by name, so I wasn’t used to it. I thought about the circle and the piece that had been pulled out. Wasn’t this kind of a bold claim? “Are we really that important?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “To create the same shape requires the same pieces, each as essential as the last. And that includes you.” 

“The same pieces,” I repeated, mulling it over as I thought about the red fruit we always ate. The appearance and flavor of each piece of fruit was slightly different, but they all consisted of more or less the same components. That was necessary to avoid food poisoning. Was that what Yashiro was trying to say?

“Therefore, whatever happens, it will all work out in the end. I believe that too is your destiny.”

“It is?” Every now and then, this useless lump spoke as though she understood the universe. What had she seen on her journey here, falling through the sky? Facing forward, I wiped mist from my face. “I just don’t get it.” Any of it.

“Perhaps you will understand when you are older, Chito-san.”

“Don’t you condescend to me, brat.” 

Cupping her cheeks in my hands, I squished her face in, smooshing it like clay. Yet somehow that did nothing to muffle her laughter—so where was her voice coming from? When I let go, I noticed that my fingers were coated in blue. I watched sadly as it peeled away, fading before my eyes. 

“There you have it. Now, I wish you a happy, fun life with Shima-san.”

As far as I was concerned, she hadn’t explained anything at all, but whatever. “Happy, huh…?” 

In a world mired in ruin, how was anyone supposed to be happy? I’d known Shima several days now, and so far, nothing had changed. 

“Well… I’ll at least try to have fun with her, to start,” I muttered aloud, rubbing my knee as the waterfall drowned my voice out. “I need a new goal, anyway.” 

Lately, I’d found myself at something of a loss. Finding a living person had been my sole objective; now that I’d achieved it, I had no real desire to seek out another. And because I hadn’t mapped my travels, I probably had no way to find my way back home either. In other words, I was stuck here. But now someone else was with me.

The thought filled my chest with an antsy kind of restlessness.

“So where are you headed next?” I asked.

“Hmmm,” Yashiro responded flatly, making a pretense of contemplating with her empty head. “I do have a set destination in mind, but I think I will go to a hot spring first.”

“A what?”

“I find I like them much better than baths, despite their similarity.” 

Was this some cultural element lost to our world? From the comparison she’d made, I could only assume it involved…water? Maybe a tub? “So a ‘hot spring’ is a good thing, I take it?” 

“Yes.” She nodded. “I have been to a hot spring exactly once before.” 

***

“Shimamura, do you like warm places?”

Well, that’s a roundabout question. For a moment, I wondered why she was asking. Was it some sort of psych eval? 

That seemed unlikely, so I decided to answer honestly. “Yeah, I’d say so. Like a nice, warm bed.” If I’d had to choose a single place to spend an entire day… Well, that would depend on the season, but my bed was a strong option. As someone who got cold easily, I’d spent much of my life gravitating toward warmth. 

Adachi was kneeling on the floor, the cushion I’d offered lying rejected next to her. She’d turned up on short notice, and as usual, she was acting weird, her fingers rapping her knees restlessly as if she were playing an invisible piano. The second-story guest room had no window, but I could tell from the temperature that this Friday evening was slowly dipping into night. 

“Beds are…important. But…”

“Yeah?” I replied. “Important,” huh? Not sure why you’re blushing. 

“What about someplace more…open?” she mumbled, deepening the riddle. 

Warm and open? This was getting complicated. For my poor brain’s sake, I wished she’d stuck to something like “What kind of tables can you eat? Vegetables!” Incidentally, my mother’s response to that one was, “Not at my high school, you couldn’t. Especially not the carrots. They were never cooked through.” 

With that fun mental detour complete, it was time I faced reality: I still had no idea what Adachi was talking about. 

“And what about…soothing?”

“I hate to ask, but if you could please just get to the point…” I felt like I was taking an exam I hadn’t studied for. Have mercy, Adachi-chan!

Blushing furiously, she finally looked up. “Do you want to go to a hot spring?!” she asked, so forcefully I thought that the red in her cheeks might fly out.

At last, the answer to the riddle. To her credit, that did sound warm, open, and soothing. “A hot spring?” I repeated.

She nodded—although, if her flushed shoulders were any indication, you’d have thought she was soaking in a hot spring already.

“Just the two of us?” 

She nodded again—three times—and her ears grew ruddy with embarrassment. I was surprised to learn that she still hadn’t fully maxed out her redness meter. “And…and I’ll pay for everything!” she added hastily. 

Now I was concerned about the trip’s optics. “You think I want to bum a free vacation on my girlfriend’s dime?” Was she trying to make me look like some gold digger?

“N-no, of course not!”

“You suuure?”

“I’ll pay because I want to,” she insisted, tucking her hair behind her left ear compulsively.

Now I understood: She wanted to spend this money for her own sake. Since she was entitled to do so, I saw no reason to try to stop her, and if that meant I had to be a gold digger, I simply needed to make that sacrifice…right? I needed to?

“Hmm…” 

It’d be a hot-spring trip for just the two of us, and Adachi was blushing beet red. Together, those two factors could only mean one thing.

“Hmmmm…”

It didn’t actually take me long to figure out. I just needed to stall for time. And in this instance, that was a definite need.

“Wait. Is that what this is about?” Perhaps it was cruel of me to ask her flat out, but I couldn’t stop myself. 

Adachi looked up and froze, as if struck face-first by a gust of wind. After her complexion had ping-ponged back and forth for a while, it eventually settled into her normal anxiety-pale shade. We blinked at each other awkwardly for a few moments. 

“Oh, Adachi-chan, you’re so silly!” I exclaimed, patting her shoulder like a good-natured auntie. That immediately switched her face back to red, much to my relief. I evidently took some comfort in her flustered blushing. 

“It…it’s not what you thinggh…!” Something caught in her throat, and she started coughing, which was very cute. 

As for her proposition… 

We’d already made plans to travel abroad someday, but now that distant landmark was replaced with one right in front of my eyes, which forced me to refocus. I obviously wouldn’t mind going on a trip with her, but when I considered what she was probably thinking about, it felt a little harder to voice a “yes.” Adachi wasn’t the only one capable of feeling flustered, after all. 

“Hmmm…”

That said…at this point, I mean, did it really matter? I was pretty sure I loved Adachi, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she loved me.

Ultimately, it was the room’s icy chill that tipped the scales in favor of warmth.

“Sure, why not? Let’s go.” 

Perhaps I was easily bought. Still, Adachi didn’t seem especially overjoyed at my answer; she just kept nodding over and over. Suddenly, she sprang to her feet. “Well, gotta ret geady!”

“Ret geady?” I repeated. Ooh. It’s kind of fun to say.

“Get…ready,” she corrected herself weakly. Turning, she trudged slowly out of the room, as if to demonstrate that she was in fact perfectly calm. 

You can go faster than that, you know. 

Once she’d disappeared beyond the door, I heard her take off down the hallway at full speed, negating the pretense she might otherwise have kept up. Then I heard a thud that sounded an awful lot like her body hitting the far wall like a pinball. I could only pray that she’d be mindful of the stairs, if nothing else. 

“Wait… ‘Get ready’ for what?” 

For obvious reasons, that question made me blush. But, of course, Adachi had probably just meant she needed to go pack… Right?

“Yeah… I should ret geady too.” 

If we were only staying one night at a hot-spring resort, I wouldn’t need much. Then again, if we were going to do…other things…

“Uh…how am I supposed to prepare?”

Do some research, maybe? 

Research…what?

How?

“My head hurts.” 

This was all so complicated—and trying to dissect what “it” was made it even worse. For now, I’d have to pretend I wasn’t anticipating it. But if there was one thing I was a hundred percent certain of…

“She totally wants to see me naked again…”

Spoken aloud, the thought was even more intensely embarrassing, seeping into me until I flopped backward onto the floor, away from the comfort of the kotatsu table. But the cold didn’t matter right now. I smiled faintly to myself, eyes darting, thinking about Adachi. In that moment, I understood the meaning of the phrase “warm fuzzies.”

“Good thing she’s no mystery, huh?”

That suited me just fine.

Incidentally, we’d just had our first kiss too. When I thought back to the taste of her blood on my tongue, I felt a shudder run down my spine. 

***

There we were, at a hot-spring resort not far from home.

Adachi had managed to change into her yukata without incident, but when she went to turn the TV on, she’d slipped on the remote and nearly smashed her head against the window. When she tried to pick the remote up off the floor, she’d banged her shin on the corner of the table. Seeking to escape the pain, she’d inexplicably downed her scalding hot cup of tea, and despite her expression—which betrayed her agony—nevertheless leapt back to her feet…only to pass out from the resulting dizziness. 

“My ears are ringing,” she groaned from the floor of our partitioned room. 

“You fought the good fight.” Like a superhero, she’d risen again and again. 

“I can’t understand you.”

“Then you might have serious tinnitus.” 

“That’s not what I mean…” 

She lay a hand over one side of her face as if suppressing a headache—but when I caught her uncovered eye sneaking peeks at me, I found myself wondering whether she was ogling me in a pervy way, and at that point I couldn’t bear to meet her gaze. Obviously, I knew Adachi wasn’t that kind of girl, except… Well, she had invited me to a hot spring. And this was how she was acting.

“I, uh…I think I’ll go take a dip,” I decided aloud. Witnessing her antics had made me break a sweat. 

“I’ll…go with you…” She hastily pushed herself up to join me.

I stopped her, though. “You, missy, could use a few minutes to calm down.” I didn’t want her to pass out in the hot spring next.

Fortunately, she seemed to have at least some awareness of her poor condition, because she didn’t press the issue further. “Okay.” She nodded, closing her eyes. 

I pressed a hand to her forehead. “Besides, I need to cool off too.” Never mind that I didn’t actually feel all that warm, and that “cooling off” wasn’t really the point of a hot spring.

Out in the hall, I let out a breath and started walking toward the baths. Past the lobby, where hardwood replaced the carpet, my slippers slapped audibly with every step. 

“Hmmm…I don’t know…”

What sort of mood were we supposed to aim for here? It seemed like so much work. Wouldn’t things just happen automatically once we took our clothes off? No… If we tried that here, it would feel like we were little kids at the pool. Ugh. This is so complicated. 

As I mulled the situation over, walking toward the hot springs on autopilot, I noticed that a very familiar pitter-patter was now punctuating the airy slap of my slippers. Instinctively I whirled around.

“Hmm?!”

The moment we locked eyes, she froze in place, one foot raised, as if we were playing Red Light, Green Light.

“Hello there!” 

Of course, only one creature on this planet would proceed to greet me like everything was fine. Today she wore a onesie that resembled…some sort of bird, probably. The big comb made me think of a rooster, except the wingtips had a blue tinge. 

“When did you get here?!”

“I was bored, so I telep—” Her lips fell still for a moment. “Walked here on foot.”

“Were you just saying teleported?” 

“Ho ho ho!” 

That’s not an answer. With Yashiro here, I felt like I was back on that school trip all over again. “For a second, I thought maybe you’d stowed away in my backpack.” 

“I have not been to the Shimamura residence today.”

“Oh no? My sister will miss you, you know.” 

“Then I shall visit afterward, if you insist.” 

“Um…” That wasn’t what I’d meant, but oh well. 

How did Yashiro always manage to appear out of nowhere? Perhaps for a creature so far removed from Earth’s orbit, traveling any distance was little more than a hop.

“Now then, where are we?” She glanced up and down the hall.

“If you’d purposely walked all the way here, wouldn’t you know that?”

“Actually, I simply…found myself here.”

“This is a hot spring.”

“A hot spring, you say. I understand,” she replied.

It was clear that she didn’t, though. Considering how much she loved to veg out in front of the television, she must’ve heard about hot springs at some point, right? As we walked along, though, it occurred to me that she most likely hadn’t bothered to pay the entry fee. I’d probably get in trouble for bringing her in with me.

“Ugh. Fine…” 

Just when we’d finally reached the changing-room curtain, I doubled back all the way to the front desk to pay a second fee—albeit the children’s rate, since I knew no one would believe me if I said Yashiro was six hundred years old.

“Oh, this place costs money?”

“You may be no different from a wild animal, but I figured I should pay your admission, just to be safe.”

I handed over the money, took the key, grabbed the girl, and headed back to my original destination. The front-desk clerk had looked deeply confused by Yashiro’s appearance, but I’d just smiled and played dumb. 

“It seems that I owe you,” Yashiro said.

“You owe a lot of things to a lot of people.”

I envied her ability to coast through each day without having to worry about money, since I was starting to feel its weight more keenly now that I was an adult. However much time passed, though, she never had to change; no matter how tall my sister got, the pair still shrieked and squabbled like always. Perhaps that was the perfect friendship, in a sense. 

“I am looking forward to this hot spring.”

“Do you even know what it is?”

“What does it taste like?”

That’s a “no.” 

As we walked, the glass corridor provided ample sun and a scenic view. At last, we passed under a doorframe curtain into a room with warm lighting, wooden walls, and a damp floor. Yashiro scanned the area. 

“Is this, perhaps…?”

“Come on, strip down.” 

After she shed her skin…er, pajamas…and thus revealed that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, Yashiro bolted butt naked across the room. I gathered all our discarded clothes together, then hurried after her. As far as I could see and hear, no one else was using the facilities at the moment—which was ideal, for obvious reasons.

The moment I opened the door, a gust of steam billowed over my face. Bath buckets were stacked to the right of the entrance; beyond the entrance, I saw a few shower stalls and the telltale gleam of wet tile. Sure enough, the spacious bath on the other side of the room was devoid of occupants. All I heard was hot water flowing.

Yashiro had run in ahead of me, but I found her only a few steps from the door, standing as still as a statue. “This is just a bath.”

“Gee, I wonder what it tastes like.”

She toddled up to the water’s edge, crouched, and dipped a hand in. “It is the temperature of bathwater.”

“That’s the best part.” 

Her butterfly braids shook side to side as she played with the water, making waves. This was followed by a “Cannonba—!”

“Nooope! You gotta wash yourself first.” 

Before Yashiro could jump in, I yanked her out of midair and dragged her to a shower stall. When I glanced at the mirror in front of us, I was surprised to see her reflection, which—at the risk of sounding insane—wasn’t always guaranteed with Yashiro.

“Know how to adjust the temperature?”

“I am all-powerful,” she declared, twisting the shower valve and sending a torrent of hot water straight into her face. In response, she neither flinched nor moved to lower the heat. “Wharrgarbl!”

“Wash your hair.” 

At my insistence, she swirled her braids around haphazardly, prompting me to ask a long-unanswered question: “Can you untie those?”

“What?”

I pointed at the butterfly wings. 

“Ah. One moment.” Tugging the knots, she let out an unearthly screech of pain. “Gyaaaaah!”

“What are you doing…?”

Despite her scream, the braids indeed came undone, loosing a cascade of hair down her back. She looked so different with it down—like a fragile maiden. 

“What is the matter, Shimamura-san?” she asked smoothly, paying no regard to the blue torrent of hair and water presently covering her face. Upon closer inspection, I realized her hair wasn’t actually getting wet; the water was rolling straight off it.

“Mmm, nothing.” I wasn’t sure whether she’d use it, but nevertheless, I handed her one of the plastic bath buckets stacked across the room.

“Little always makes me take baths as well.”

“Yeah, because you don’t take them unless you’re forced to.”

“I prefer swimming pools.”

“Then why not think of the tub as a warm pool?”

“Oh, that does sound nice.” She smiled, her eyes wandering to the hot spring. 

She’s gonna try to swim in it, isn’t she? Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. 

I was putting my hair up in a towel after showering when Yashiro took off running toward the bath.

“Hey, no running! The floor’s wet!” But by the time the words were out of my mouth, she was already in the water. “Good grief,” I mumbled as I walked over. 

The bath edge formed a series of steps leading down. I lowered a cold foot onto the first step and found the water so hot that it made my toes ache. Meanwhile, Yashiro was already submerged up to her scalp—her scalp? Her hair floated on the surface as she swam to and fro.

“Well, that’s surreal.” It was almost like watching a bright blue jellyfish. “Wait—stop that!”

When I hauled her out of the water, she didn’t protest but merely blinked back at me, dripping rivulets of blue. “When I sat down, the water level rose above my head.”

“I get that, but in a hot spring, you’re not supposed to let your hair…well, if that even is hair…” At this point, I wasn’t sure anymore. After all, water simply clung to the surface of the strands; just that was pretty weird. And I didn’t know how to explain the rules of society to a creature I barely understood. I did, however, know to snatch her by the scruff of the neck the moment she tried to swim away. “My point is, don’t put your hair in the water. It’s against the rules.”

“It is?”

“It is.” 

“Very well, then.” She fluffed her hair up until it pointed skyward. What the hell? “Is this acceptable?”

“Uh…yeah, sure, whatever. Also, no swimming in the bath.” 

“Why not?”

“It’s rude to the other guests.” 

“But we are alone.”

I glanced around; she was right. “Well, just pretend we aren’t.” 

With that, I sat her next to me. Even on the steps, though, the water still came up to her lips. She started kicking her feet immediately. Will you settle down?

“Is this not boring, Shimamura-san?” 

“Not to me.” I rather enjoyed dunking my brain in hot water for a while. Facing the courtyard, I sank so the water was shoulder-level and let my thoughts trickle along comfortably, like sweat down my neck.

“What do you usually think about?”

“Me? Well…” Scooping up a palmful of hot-spring water, I considered the question for a moment. “When I zone out, I’m usually miles away, thinking about the rest of the planet—like all the whales swimming in the ocean, or unexplored forests full of animals I’ve never even heard of. It’s a weird feeling, you know?”

The act was akin to gazing out at the horizon. There was a whole world out there that I’d never discover for myself, yet I was still connected to it. That thought filled me with the strangest sensation—one that paired nicely with the warmth of a good bath.

“Hoo hoo,” Yashiro chuckled, sounding not entirely unlike an owl. “I fear I do not quite understand!”

“Not surprised.” Given that I only had a vague understanding of her, I didn’t really expect her to get me either. “I just enjoy contemplating those kinds of things, that’s all.” It allowed me to draw my mind away from minutiae of my everyday life and turn inward, focusing all the way to my fingertips. That wasn’t the kind of experience I presumed other people would understand. 

“In that case, allow me to contemplate them as well.” She faced forward, mouth agape, and I suspected she wasn’t actually using a single brain cell.

“You’d probably have more fun thinking about dinner.” 

“That does sound nice.” 

She was quiet for a moment, suggesting she had indeed turned her thoughts to her next meal. Now I had to wonder what my parents would cook tonight. 

“Is Adachi-san not coming?” 

I whipped my head around to look at her. How would she know Adachi was here, unless…? “Did you…?”

“Yes? Did I what?”

“…You’re amazing.” 

“Yay,” she rejoiced lazily. Her hands shot into the air, the motion sending waves of water crashing into me.

Resting one hand on my shoulder, I focused on the reality in front of me. “She’s…waiting for me.”

“Then you had better return to her soon.” 

“Yeah…” 

It surely wasn’t her intention, but Yashiro had a way of always giving me exactly the encouragement I needed at the strangest times. Weird kid, I thought with a chuckle. Was she clueless or omniscient? Which was it?

“Hm?” When I glanced over at Yashiro, I noticed that her hair was suddenly braided up again, so I reached over and made the butterfly wings flap. 

After our long soak, the steaming-hot Yashiro sat holding the ice cream I’d bought her from the lobby kiosk. “You know, I think I like this hot spring thing.”

“You just like the ice cream, don’t you?”

“Ho ho ho!” 

Together, we devoured our treats. I could feel the chill of the ice cream seep all the way to my collarbones. Meanwhile, I gazed absently around the lobby, noting the various activities available. Wait. Really? I didn’t know they had that here. 

“Well, I should go…” I knew Adachi was waiting for me—but was I supposed to just leave Yashiro here?

“In that case, I shall return home, as it is snack time.”

“You just had a snack.” 

“The more, the merrier, as they say!” With that, the greedy little goblin took off running. At the end of the hall, she stopped and glanced at me over her shoulder. “Absolutely no peeking.”

“Who are we, Orpheus and Eurydice…?” 

“Farewell!” 

Waving goodbye, she disappeared around the corner. She went down a hall containing nothing but private rooms—yet I knew that if I tried to follow her, she’d already be gone, so I simply had to accept that she didn’t play by the same rules. 

Truth be told, it would’ve been a little awkward if she’d tried to tag along when I went back to the room. Was she being considerate on purpose…?

“Nah, not likely.” 

The thought of that didn’t sit well with me, anyway. She was a free spirit, and I didn’t want her to be constrained by… I didn’t know. Social cues? Eh, whatever. I gave up trying to use my melted brain and instead skipped on warm toes all the way back to the room where Adachi was waiting. Outside the door, I started doing shoulder rolls.

“Here we go,” I whispered on a whim to psych myself up, then walked in briskly. “I’m baaack!” 

Inside, I found a very energetic Adachi with her arms raised in the air. “I! WON’T! BACK—oh.”

“Uh…am I interrupting?” Maybe I should’ve done a few more shoulder rolls. Then again, I didn’t want to risk dislocating anything. 

Adachi was kneeling on the floor beside a tidy futon and blanket, waiting for me. She really likes to kneel, doesn’t she? When I imagined her laying the bed out in a flustered tizzy, it nearly made me laugh.

Bashfully, she lowered her arms back to her sides.

“The water’s great here,” I informed her as I sat down. 

She nodded slightly—so stiff that I practically heard her creak. She was as crispy as a potato chip, while I was soggy from the hot spring. Those two things didn’t sound like they’d even remotely go together. 

“Thanks again, by the way.” For bringing me here. Despite saying that, I’d paid for a portion of the trip myself, since I obviously couldn’t in good conscience let her shoulder the entire burden. “Did your dizziness go away?”

She nodded again, this time so vigorously that I feared it might cause a relapse.

“Cool. You should try the spring later.”

“Uh…okay.” 

Hearing her voice was such a relief. When she shifted position, though, every motion was tense and labored, as if her whole body were coated in glue. The only exception was her eyes, which gleamed with fiery passion. 

“Let’s…go together,” she suggested.

“You want me to go back? Not that I mind…” I had a feeling that Yashiro wouldn’t barge in this time. “Wait—we haven’t had dinner yet.” 

I shot a confused glance at the bed, and Adachi’s face gently exploded; it was so red, I half-wondered if that ruddiness would spread to her hair next. 

“Shimamura!” 

The force of her voice swept over me. “Yes?”

“I don’t—!”

“Keep your voice down.” We don’t want noise complaints.

“I don’t! Want to! Do that stuff! Okay?!” Her statement came out in bits and pieces, and although she was wilting rapidly—like an unwatered plant—the upturned gaze directed toward me held firm. 

That was a hell of a confession to make at full volume, and I wasn’t really sure how to respond. “You don’t?” 

“I mean, I do—no, I don’t! Well…kind of…?”

She looked to me as if for help, but how would I know the answer to that? She must also have sensed that her pleading gaze was a misstep, because she leaned forward, grinding the heels of her hands into her thighs. The metaphorical gears at last seemed to be turning in her mind.

“What I truly want isn’t…that stuff specifically, but…”

“All right.” As she struggled to find her words, I decided I’d hear her out for as long as it took.

“It’s just…I love you…”

“Aw, thanks.” She probably said it twice a day at this point, if not more. 

“And when I touch you, I get this warm feeling like my skin’s burning that makes me want you close to me… I want to feel you, and hold you, and squeeze you, and bury my face in you… And that feeling just gets stronger and stronger until I want to touch your hips, and the insides of your elbows, and…” Before the last drops of her heart could spill, however, she snapped to her senses. “God, what am I saying?” 

She hung her head in self-loathing. I could tell that she thought she was confusing me by being an emotional mess—but in that, she was only half-right, since I understood her just fine. Strange, wasn’t it? Feelings like love were normally invisible to the human eye, yet she had a way of putting hers right where I could see it clear as day. I’d once talked to someone about that, though I couldn’t recall who. 

That, more than anything else, was probably why I…

“I know I said this before we left, but…” I reached out and touched her wrist; it was as scalding as the hot spring. “I like the heat, Adachi.” 

For that reason, I was pretty sure I’d always want Adachi to touch me…and I’d want to respond in kind, so I did.

“Actually, while I was gone, I found something for us to do together.”

“Huh?!” She flinched, mouth agape, fingers quivering.

“Come on.” 

Grasping her hand, I pulled her to her feet and dragged her away—an uncommon occurrence, come to think of it. We walked down the hall, past the ukiyo-e woodblock print of the cormorant fishermen, peeking quickly into the post-bath rest area as we followed the signs to our destination. Sure enough, there they were: a pair of blue ping-pong tables framed by windows with mustard-yellow curtains. 

“Can you believe there’re hot-spring resorts with ping-pong of all things?”

That corner was neatly labeled HOT-SPRING PING-PONG, though the handwritten sign was old and faded. On each table, a pair of paddles lay side by side. I grabbed a blue one and waved it toward Adachi as she stood there, staring back dazedly.

“Now I get it,” she mumbled—but with all the hair-twirling and face-palming, I wasn’t quite sure what she was getting, so to speak. 

Meanwhile, I looked around at the empty chairs in the corner and at the unoccupied table next to ours, noting that the area was relatively clean, despite the marked absence of other guests. 

“Disappointed?” I asked Adachi.

Personally, I’d thought this would make for a fun trip down memory lane. As for whatever Adachi had in mind, well…we could do that stuff later. Right now, I wanted more of an emotional connection.

She shook her head aggressively, like a dog after a bath. “No, I…I’ll take you on!”

“Who are you, and what have you done with Adachi…?”

Although visibly flustered, she nevertheless ran around to the other side of the table. 

“Nostalgic, isn’t it?” I remarked after a moment. 

Her eyes darted. “Um…not really.” 

At that, I realized that she was right. The time we’d spent in the gym loft wasn’t that far back in the rearview mirror. Maybe the feelings we’d shared back then would always be with us in the passenger seat. After all, that was where we’d gotten our start. 

“I’ll serve,” I decided, moving into position.

“Okay.” She nodded. 

Seeing her hold her paddle in her left hand, I almost hallucinated that the room’s temperature was starting to climb. I aimed at the right side of the ball and swung my paddle. 

Thock! 

It connected at a low angle, my arm having traced a smooth arc through the air. The ball bounced, weaved, and passed just over the net, grazing the edge of my dear opponent’s side of the table before rolling off to the corner of the room.