“Huh...?” replied Shirakawa-san.
“One night! Just one night, okay?”
Their spirits still high, the two kept making advances despite her obvious discomfort. Perhaps they were drunk.
“By the way, this guy’s a two-pump chump.”
“Uh, I’m hung, though.”
It was a shocking, horrible sight. They were making undisguised dirty jokes.
Even Shirakawa-san looked like she was at the end of her rope. Something snapped inside me when I saw her like that.
“Um!” I called out, getting up from the tatami floor.
The two guys looked at me with a start. It appeared they hadn’t even noticed I was there.
“A-Are you in need of a locker? Or a meal, perhaps?” I asked.
That was my way of saying “Get out if you don’t have any business here.”
At that, the guys smirked as though to hide their awkwardness and looked at each other.
“Ah...”
“You working here? You weren’t a customer, huh.”
“We’ll come again later, Runa-chan.”
They turned around and were about to leave the hut, but...
“By the way,” one of them addressed Shirakawa-san again. “Just as a ‘by the way’ thing. Who’d you rather spend the night with: me, this guy, or your coworker over there?”
What? Why is he including me...?
I didn’t know if they were trying to harass or make fun of me, but the two guys were grinning at me.
Figuring it was okay to ignore such cretins, I pursed my lips. And then...
“Him,” Shirakawa-san said firmly. “He’s my boyfriend, so.”
Raising her eyebrows, as well as the outer corners of her eyes, she glared at the two.
It was my first time seeing Shirakawa-san’s actual angry face.
“Huh?”
“Seriously?”
The two guys looked taken aback.
“That’s surprising...”
“Wait, you’re into guys like that?”
Looking like they were losing interest, the two left the hut for real this time.
“Man, what a pain in the ass...”
“Any cute girls around here...?”
Raising their voices in an affected manner—perhaps because of the awkwardness after Shirakawa-san shot them down—they disappeared.
“Shirakawa-san, are you okay?” I immediately asked, checking up on her. “Sorry I couldn’t help you out before they started saying weird stuff to you...”
“It’s okay,” she replied, shaking her head. “I should be sorry for getting you involved. They’ve been coming a lot since last week. Apparently, they go to college around here.”
“Are they always so persistent?”
“Nope, this was the first time. Probably because Mao-kun isn’t here.”
It made sense. To be sure, if a good-looking adult like Mao-san was keeping watch, I doubted they could’ve acted so self-assured. It was frustrating to think that they had looked down on me because it was me, but on the other hand, a smile appeared on my face when I recalled what Shirakawa-san had just said.
“Him. He’s my boyfriend, so.”
She’d confidently said that, even in front of sunny types. That made me happy.
Was it okay for me to be her boyfriend?
Little by little... While it was only little by little, I’d come to be able to think that way.
“You know, I was thinking...” began Shirakawa-san suddenly, with a serious look on her face. “It’s always guys like that who call out to me. I wonder why that is,” she said, as though asking herself, and folded her arms. “My exes were pretty much like that too, and even Mao-kun is on that side of things if anything. I never really gave it much thought before...but I’m mostly just talking to you these days, so it feels really weird now.”
I stared back at her. “You don’t like those kinds of guys?”
To be fair, the guys we’d dealt with just now were a little too horrible, but I still couldn’t shake off the feeling that only good-looking, sunny types with that kind of energy would look right beside a beautiful gyaru like Shirakawa-san.
“Huh? Not at all,” she easily replied. “Actually, I don’t really have much of a preference... Sometimes when I watch TV, I’ll see a performer and think he’s handsome, but love’s all about communication, right? It can’t start if the guy doesn’t like me.”
“Makes sense...”
It seemed there were plenty of ways that girls approached romance. While some of them were like Shirakawa-san and generally agreed to date guys who confessed to them, wanting to gradually come to know those guys and fall in love with them, others were more like Kurose-san, who let their feelings grow on the inside.
“Is that any different from preferring guys who already like you?” I asked.
Shirakawa-san looked up at the ceiling with a serious look on her face. “Hmm...” After thinking for a while, she started looking a little bashful. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m into guys like you...” she quietly said, then gazed at me. “And, actually, I love you,” she said with flushed cheeks and a smile. It was so cute.
“Ngh...” I groaned. My heart had leaped so much inside of me that I involuntarily held my chest.
Shirakawa-san stared at my face. “What about you?”
“Mm?”
“Aren’t you actually into girls like Maria?”
Since I’d just been thinking about Kurose-san, her words startled me.
My chest hurt when I remembered Kurose-san. But as I looked at Shirakawa-san in front of me, I realized once again that I couldn’t betray my girlfriend.
“Come on, answer me,” urged Shirakawa-san, pouting a little and lowering her eyebrows. She tilted her head as she looked at me, seeming worried.
Seeing her like that, I felt my love for her overflowing inside my chest.
Even I could be certain here—she was jealous.
Cute...
“Mmm...” I groaned, prompting Shirakawa-san to look panicked.
How cute. She’s so cute I could die...
“If we’re talking about girls that are my type, it’s true that I prefer pure and proper girls over gyaru...” I said.
Shirakawa-san looked downcast at that.
Cute.
I wanted to see more of her like that, so I had the urge to trouble her further, but I’d feel bad if I was mean to her like that.
“Shirakawa...Runa-san is my type, I think.”
Her cheeks flushed at my words.
“Why’re you using my full name?!” she exclaimed. Her whole face turned as red as a tomato in an instant.
“I-I dunno. I thought it would come across better that way...”
Shirakawa-san was really shaken up, so I got flustered too, feeling like I’d said something embarrassing.
“You’re sneaky, you know. You’re not a flirt at all, but you still say stuff like that seriously,” she said, her cheeks still a little flushed. “And at the end of the day, you’re saying the same thing I did.”
After a moment of thought, I said, “You’re right.”
“Oh well.” With that, Shirakawa-san gave me a small smile. “That means we’re both each other’s types, right?”
“Yeah, I guess...”
If that really was the case, I would be extremely happy.
It was awkward when our eyes met, so I looked down and giggled. When I shot another glance at Shirakawa-san, she was acting like that too.
It was embarrassing, but being together like this made me happy.
“Excuse me, I’d like to get a drink.”
Looking over at the entrance where the voice came from, I saw a customer in front of the icebox that held bottled drinks soaked in ice water.
“Oh...”
“Coming!” Moving before I could, Shirakawa-san ran toward the entrance. “Your takoyaki will go cold, right? You should hurry up and eat,” she then said, looking over her shoulder at me and winking.
She was so dazzling that I thought to myself that I wouldn’t mind if this summer lasted forever.
***
After Mao-san returned, we got a break and used it to play in the water. As I’d expected, Shirakawa-san frolicked about like a child, which was fun for me to watch too.
Then, when business hours were over and we were riding the car back home...
“Oh, Mao-kun,” called out Shirakawa-san in the back seat beside me, seeming like she remembered something. “Did you buy the thing I asked for?”
“Ah, yeah. You wanted beef—was shaved beef good?” replied Mao-san, looking at her through the rearview mirror.
“Huh? Shaved?”
“What do you plan to use it for?” he asked.
At that point, Shirakawa-san glanced at me and then averted her eyes. “Um, uhh...”
“Well, if it’s not for something like meat-wrapped onigiri, you should be able to use it for most kinds of cooking.”
Shirakawa-san looked relieved to hear that from Mao-san. “Great, thank you!”
I wondered what she was up to. Was she going to cook something?
When we got home, Shirakawa-san quickly took a shower and got changed. Then, she started excitedly preparing something in the kitchen all of a sudden.
“Oh, Ruu-chan. What’s the matter?” asked Sayo-san.
“I’ll make dinner today!” Shirakawa-san replied, her smile full of enthusiasm.
“Oh my...” Sayo-san smiled and signaled to me with her eyes. “Thank you. I’m looking forward to it.”
“I-I’ll help too,” I said.
I tried to join Shirakawa-san in the kitchen since I would’ve had nothing to do by myself, but she stopped me with her hand.
“It’s okay! Go sit and play games or something.”
“Huh...? O-Okay...”
Since she’d said it so strongly, I couldn’t help but think I’d better stay away from the kitchen.
Then, as I fiddled with my phone in a corner of the sitting room while waiting for her...
“Huh? Hey, Granny Sayo...” called Shirakawa-san.
“Mm?” replied Sayo-san. She had been watching TV and drinking tea at the table. She got up and headed to the kitchen.
“Where are the potatoes?”
“Potatoes? I don’t think we have any at the moment.”
“Huh? Weren’t there some the other day?!”
“We made croquettes with them two days ago, remember?”
“Aah!” shouted Shirakawa-san as though having forgotten until now. “Are there any more? You haven’t gotten more?”
“I don’t get potatoes from people,” Sayo-san told her. “Nobody in this area grows them.”
“Ehh...?”
“Do they have to be regular potatoes? What about sweet potatoes?” suggested Sayo-san.
“That won’t work...”
“What are you making?”
“...ku...”
“Huh?”
“...ga.”
“What? Nikujaga?”
“Don’t say it out loud!”
Hearing Shirakawa-san’s shout, I couldn’t stop myself from getting up and peeking into the kitchen.
“Ah...” uttered Shirakawa-san. When her eyes met mine, she looked just about ready to cry. “I wanted to make it a surprise...”
“A surprise? You were keeping it a secret from Ryu-kun? I’m sorry, Ruu-chan,” said Sayo-san. She looked flustered, seeing Shirakawa-san upset. “But is it really a surprise if you’re making it a stone’s throw away from him...?”
Sayo-san seemed to be asking for me to agree, to which I could only give an awkward smile.
“Shirakawa-san... You wanted to make nikujaga for me? Thank you.”
“But there aren’t any potatoes...” she said dejectedly.
“How about I go buy some?” I offered.
Shirakawa-san’s face shot up. “I’ll go!”
Seeing us like that, Sayo-san smiled. “Then why don’t you go together? Ishidaya is nearby; you can walk there.”
***
Thus, Shirakawa-san and I ended up going shopping for potatoes so she could make nikujaga—a stewed dish consisting of beef and potatoes.
There was apparently a small store called Ishidaya about eight minutes away. You could get there by walking uphill along the highway that ran in front of Sayo-san’s house.
It was still bright outside as it wasn’t even six in the evening and it was the beginning of August. The temperature wasn’t going down, and I felt sweat permeate my clothing as I went up the gentle slope.
Shirakawa-san was walking beside me and looked up at me. “You like nikujaga, Ryuto?” she suddenly asked.
“Huh...? Yeah, I do,” I replied.
I never went out of my way to choose it when eating out, but I was a bit happy when I got it as a side dish for dinner. That was the extent to which I liked it.
Shirakawa-san smiled at my answer. “Great! I thought it was maybe too corny, but that’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about things guys would want their girlfriends to cook for them, right? I spent a lotta time looking for recipes last night before bed, hoping to make something you’d like,” she explained. A hint of blush crept up her cheeks. “The surprise didn’t work out, though,” she then added with a forced smile.
I smiled back. “I’m happy even if it’s not a surprise,” I said to give her peace of mind. “I’m...always happy when you do something...for me...”
“Ryuto...” Her eyes glistened as she gazed at me. Then, she smiled again, as though to hide her awkwardness. “Isn’t it only natural I’d do stuff for you? I’m your girlfriend.”
“It’s not ‘only natural’ to me, though... And I don’t want to think of it that way.”
This was the first time in my life that I’d had a girlfriend. And moreover, said girlfriend was the wonderful Shirakawa-san...
I would surely incur divine punishment if I started taking her for granted.
If I spent the next year, or five years, or ten with Shirakawa-san, and if at some point it actually became natural for us to be together...
“Um, to me, it’s always special when you do something for my sake...” I had to say it out loud, even if it was embarrassing and I faltered in my speech and looked bad saying it. “I want to...always, always have this feeling.”
Hearing that, Shirakawa-san smiled happily. “I see. Maybe I want to do stuff for you because you’re like that,” she said, casting her eyes down. “Hey, can I hold your hand?”
“Huh?”
“It’s hot so you don’t wanna?” asked Shirakawa-san, gazing at me with upturned eyes.
Shaking my head, I replied, “I do.” I hurriedly wiped my hand that was closest to Shirakawa-san against my pants to get rid of any sweat. “Here...”
As I held out my hand, Shirakawa-san placed her slender, fairer one against it. Her slim fingers twined around mine, and I was taken aback.
I-Is this, perhaps...the famous way that lovers hold hands?!
Back on our date in the park, we’d held hands the normal way, so this caught me by surprise. My pulse quickened, and my body temperature was shooting up too.
“Heh heh,” Shirakawa-san giggled embarrassedly and nudged my shoulder with her head. “It really is hot...”
“I-It’s summer, so...”
“Wanna stop?”
“N-No! It’s okay.”
Thus, until we got to the store, we continued up the summer mountain road while tightly holding each other’s hands.
The Ishidaya place that Sayo-san had told us about was a small store—something between a convenience store and a supermarket, though sizewise it was closer to the former. It offered a wide selection of nonperishables such as drinks and sweets, but there were also a few shelves stocked with vegetables and packs of meat.
“Ah, they have potatoes!” Shirakawa-san exclaimed upon spotting the vegetable shelf. She ran up to it and put as many potatoes as she needed into her shopping basket.
After that, we headed to the register operated by an old man who seemed to have nothing to do other than sit, but a shelf of drinks caught Shirakawa-san’s eye.
“Ah... Maybe we should buy cola too,” she said, probably because Sayo-san had given her a thousand yen and told her to buy something else if she wanted it. “Hey, Ryuto, what do you wanna eat tomorrow?”
“Huh? I’d be fine with anything...”
I was staying at someone else’s house and couldn’t cook, so I thought it was the right thing for me to say, but Shirakawa-san puffed out her cheeks.
“Come on! You know wives hate it the most when he says ‘anything’s fine,’ right? Haven’t you seen it blowing up on social media?”
“What?!” While I was startled by the sudden mention of wives, I reflected on what she said and hurriedly racked my brains. “Um...then... Hamburg steak?” I suggested.
“Hamburg steak? How do you make that?”
“Hmm... Want me to look into it?”
“I’ll look it up!” replied Shirakawa-san, getting right to it. “Says you need minced meat and onions!”
We returned to the vegetable shelves, put onions into the basket, and then headed to the area with processed meat.
“Minced meat... Ah, there it is,” said Shirakawa-san and took a pack. However, she frowned upon seeing the price tag. “Wow, it’s expensive! This much for two hundred grams...? I can’t buy it if we don’t put something back.”
“Is it because that one’s all beef? It looks like they’re out of packages of mixed ground beef and pork.”
I didn’t go shopping on a regular basis, so I couldn’t be sure, but it might’ve been because of where we were. It felt like there wasn’t a wide selection of meat here, and it was all on the expensive side.
“It’s fine, then. It doesn’t have to be hamburg steak,” I said.
“Are you sure? Got any other candidates?”
“Um... Curry or something, maybe?”
“Oh, that’s a good choice! Then let’s get more potatoes! Are you okay with pork for the meat? We have some of it frozen.”
“Sure.”
“I’m good at curry! We’ll still need the onions, and we already have plenty of carrots...”
Shirakawa-san suddenly became very animated in her shopping.
Thus, after almost fully using up our thousand yen at the register, we left Ishidaya.
“I’ll carry that,” offered Shirakawa-san as we started heading down the highway we’d walked along to come here. She reached for a bag I was carrying.
We’d bought a box of tissues from in front of the register too since Sayo-san had requested them. Because of that, I was carrying a shopping bag with food in one hand and said box in the other.
“It’s okay, it’s light,” I replied, trying to show off my manly side.
Shirakawa-san made a long face, however. “Mmm...” As I wondered what was up, she looked at me with upturned eyes and quietly said, “But we can’t hold hands like this, right?”
“Oh...”
Right. So that’s what she had in mind...
As I agonized over her cuteness while reflecting on my behavior, Shirakawa-san snatched the tissues out of my hand. Then, she linked her free hand with mine.
“That’s more like it!” she happily announced.
It made her even cuter, and I came close to grinning shamelessly.
As night rapidly approached, we went down the evening mountain road, holding hands. Both of us had a hand holding something else—a bag of food in my case, and tissues in Shirakawa-san’s.
“It’s kinda like we’re a married couple,” Shirakawa-san said awkwardly.
“Y-Yeah...”
I felt bashful. The evening was sultry enough already, so I was starting to get worried about the sweat on my hands.
“I really didn’t know the first thing about this before. About going out,” Shirakawa-san quietly said all of a sudden, seeming to be giving the matter serious thought. “Going out with someone...was such a wonderful thing all along.”
When she said those words and looked up at me, her eyes were absolutely sparkling—and that’s not an exaggeration.
“Yeah.”
I firmly gripped her hand, and as I did, I wished I could one day fully overwrite all the memories Shirakawa-san had of other guys holding this hand before I had.
The thought of it made my grip firm yet gentle.
***
After we got back to Sayo-san’s house, Shirakawa-san eagerly got into the kitchen again.
“All right, time to quickly make that nikujaga!”
“Ah, I’ll...help,” I offered.
“Huh? It’s okay...” she began, but then she tilted her head and thought for a bit. “Actually, could you peel the potatoes for me?”
“Sure thing.”
I figured I could do that much. As I went to go wash my hands, Shirakawa-san smiled at me.
“It’s just like how I was earlier,” she said.
“Hm?”
“Just like how it was with sharing the load after we went shopping... We can spend more time together by cooking together too, right?”
Hearing that, I recalled how Shirakawa-san had carried the tissues so we could hold hands.
“Ah, yeah, I...guess,” I replied.
It made me happy to think she might’ve noticed how I’d felt awkward alone in the sitting room.
Shirakawa-san was always thinking of my feelings. Always trying to do something for me. She was really considerate. And because she was like that, I sincerely wanted to treasure her.
Unlike Shirakawa-san, I was dating someone for the first time, so I couldn’t say for sure...but if this was what it meant to date a person, then it was an extremely wonderful thing.
Until recently, I’d had considerable faith in things that people would say, like how girls were a pain to deal with and that it was more comfortable to be alone. I now wondered if those were traps meant to further dissuade people who were already leading unsatisfying lives from pursuing romance.
That idea came to me because the time I spent with Shirakawa-san was just that fun and comfortable.
“Did you get the potatoes peeled, Ryuto?” she asked me.
“Yeah. This good enough?”
“Ah, looks nice! Thanks.”
When I handed her the potatoes, our hands touched for a moment, and Shirakawa-san pleasantly smiled. At times like these, I forgot that this was Sayo-san’s house and that Mao-san was setting the table right next to us, and I’d start dreaming of living together with Shirakawa-san—just us and nobody else.
“Sh-Should I peel another one?” I offered.
“Ah, yeah, thanks!”
Giving her reply, Shirakawa-san clumsily held the potatoes she got from me against the cutting board and cut them with a knife. She looked cute doing that too.
“Say, uh... Is it okay if I help with the cooking like this...from now on...?” I timidly asked.
“Huh?” Shirakawa-san raised her head and stared at me for a while. “Ah, yeah... Sure thing.” The smile she gave me reminded me of a sunflower. “Thank you, Ryuto.”
I’ll get to see Shirakawa-san like this every day for another two weeks? My heart utterly fluttered at the thought.
That night, we had Shirakawa-san’s nikujaga for dinner, which I’d helped with. Sayo-san had made a cucumber and tomato salad along with miso soup, while Mao-san had prepared finely chopped horse mackerel. It appeared that Sayo-san and Mao-san had made those side dishes while we were out shopping.
The nikujaga Shirakawa-san had made was delicious in an everyday way. In contrast to the turnips we’d had that morning, the potatoes were too soft and didn’t maintain their shape very well, but in exchange, you could really notice their taste.
“This is great,” I said to Shirakawa-san.
She happily smiled at that. “Hooray! I’m glad I went with the most popular recipe!”
Her carefree smile was so cute that I involuntarily imagined Shirakawa-san as a newlywed wife, and it got me all worked up.
***
Thus began my fulfilling summer break with Shirakawa-san.
I would wake up in the morning, let Mao-san drive us in his car to the beach hut, work, come home, make and eat dinner, and then sleep in my single room on the second floor while Shirakawa-san would sleep in Sayo-san’s room.
Such a life went on for several days.
One day, Shirakawa-san and I had been inside the house since morning. Mao-san had said the Bon Festival season would begin the following week and things would get busy as a result, which was why we should take a weekday off to rest now, at the very least.
Sayo-san’s house had an external corridor on the first floor. Perhaps it faced the east, because it was conveniently in the sun’s shadow at noon, so Shirakawa-san and I put the electric fan there and we hung out, chatting and playing phone games.
Some time after we had somen noodles for lunch, Shirakawa-san popped up in a good mood and with a spoon in her hand.
“Ryuto, let’s have a snack!” she said, then handed me a plastic cup she had in her other hand.
It had ice-cold jelly inside.
“Wow, it’s cold!” I exclaimed.
“It’s one your mom sent!” she said. “I had it in the freezer for a bit! Granny Sayo said we can eat them if we want.”
“Right...”
A large cardboard box had arrived from my parents a few days prior. Inside were some spare clothes I’d asked for, an assortment of fancy fruit jelly for Sayo-san, and a letter of gratitude from my parents for letting their son stay over.
“Mm, it’s great! That’s Sembikiya’s jelly for you!” exclaimed Shirakawa-san. She made a happy face and held her cheeks as we sat side by side on the edge of the external corridor and started eating our jelly. “Peaches are the best! How’s your La France pear?”
“It’s juicy and delicious,” I replied.
“Must be nice! Can I have a bite?” asked Shirakawa-san and she opened her mouth wide.
“Huh?!”
Wait, is this the kind of event where I’m supposed to feed her?!
Shirakawa-san had opened her mouth so naturally that I didn’t have time to mentally prepare myself.
My hands immediately started to shake from nervousness, but I somehow managed to scoop up some jelly with my spoon. However, at that point, I noticed I hadn’t gotten any pulp—which was the important part—so I tried again. It took me a while, but eventually, I got a spoonful ready.
“Here goes...” I said.
“Aah.”
Shirakawa-san was holding her mouth open. Placing her hands on the floor in front of her, she leaned toward me. This position let her breasts fill the gap between her arms, and they were pushed forward in a way that emphasized her cleavage.
What a tremendous angle! This is great!
Perhaps Shirakawa-san didn’t notice what was going on, but it was bad for my heart—I wanted her to stop. Of course, I was happy about the sight, but she’d notice if I got horny while being so close to her. I couldn’t stare much, so it was hard for me.
Today, Shirakawa-san was wearing a tank top with frilly straps and a pair of shorts. Compared to what she wore in public, it was a casual getup. Also, I found the way she was dressed, like her guard was down, to be highly suggestive. It was great.
And as my head was full of these worldly thoughts, Shirakawa-san innocently took the spoonful I was holding into her mouth.
“Yeah, your jelly’s great too!” she exclaimed, holding her cheeks again with the excitement of a TV persona reporting on fine foods. “How about I feed you too?” she mischievously suggested.
I was startled. “I-Is that okay?”
“Of course! I’d feel bad only being on the receiving side, you know,” she said in an upright manner and then scooped up a spoonful of her own jelly. “Say ‘aah.’”
I’d never opened my mouth wide toward someone else except at an appointment with a dentist or an otolaryngologist, but I timidly did so for Shirakawa-san.
“Ah!” she then exclaimed. Her hands froze once she looked into my mouth.
“Huh?”
I hurriedly closed my mouth, wondering if I had green onions stuck between my teeth or something. However, Shirakawa-san said something unexpected.
“Ryuto, your teeth are cute.”
“M-My teeth?!”
I’d never been told such a thing before. My lower jaw was narrow and my row of teeth there was a little jagged. I’d even had a bit of a complex over it.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s kinda like your teeth are saying hi to their neighbors. It’s cute.”
Huh... I guess that’s one way of looking at it.
“Ah...” she then said, as I admired her imagination. She went silent for a moment. “Was that weird? Sorry.”
“Not at all.”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way...” she began, as though making excuses, then blushed a little. “I just got happy because I found another thing I like about you.”
Shirakawa-san...
I was happy and embarrassed at the same time to hear such a thing. Shirakawa-san could even turn my complexes into things to love.
“Sorry. Here, I’ll give you some jelly,” she said, collecting herself.
I said “aah” again as she put a spoonful into my mouth.
The only difference from mine was the type of fruit, but the bit she gave me seemed exceptionally sweet.
When I went back to my own jelly, using the spoon I’d fed Shirakawa-san with, it felt kind of awkward and made my heart skip a beat.
I could clearly hear a talk show on the TV in the sitting room beyond the closed shoji-style sliding door. Sayo-san seemed to have slightly poor hearing, so she’d set the volume a little high.
“Man, that was delish!” exclaimed Shirakawa-san, raising her empty cup into the air. She’d finished her jelly before me. “I wish we could serve these at Luna Marine...”
“Sembikiya jelly at a beach hut? Could we sell something like that?”
“I dunno. Maybe I should ask Mao-kun,” said Shirakawa-san with a smile. “Either that or maybe I should ask my mom to bring some jelly as a present when she comes here...”
Shirakawa-san’s mother was apparently going to visit at some point during her stay here. The mere thought of meeting Shirakawa-san’s mother was already making me nervous in a different way from meeting her great-grandmother or her uncle.
“Has she decided when she’ll come?” I asked.
“No, she hasn’t told me yet. And I heard that Maria said she wasn’t planning to come this year either, though.”
“I see...”
Some part of me was relieved to hear that.
“The name ‘Luna Marine’ is based on our names,” Shirakawa-san suddenly said. “At first, Mao-kun wanted to make it ‘Luna Maria,’ but Maria said she didn’t like the sea and insisted he go with something else. That’s why he changed it to how it is now.”
Interesting... So the original concept came directly from the sisters’ names, huh. So much for Maria’s name being spelled with the kanji for “sea” and “love,” though.
“But doesn’t the name ‘Maria’ come from ‘Marine’? Though I feel like the current name works well enough,” I said.
“Yeah, pretty much. Mao-kun doted on both me and Maria, so apparently that’s why he wanted to use our names. Back when we lived together, Maria was really fond of Mao-kun too, I think...but after we started living apart, I heard she’s been kinda distant toward him. Mao-kun often complains about how Maria’s been cold to him.”
“Huh.”
I thought Mao-san was an easily likable kind of person just like Shirakawa-san, so I maybe could understand why Kurose-san would act a bit tsundere toward him.
“Since Maria lives with our mom, she gets to see Mao-kun a lot more than I do. I’m a little jelly of her.” Her smile felt a little sad as she said that. “But in exchange, I get to be with our dad, so what can you do...? You have to make choices, because you can’t have everything.”
“Yeah...you’re right,” I replied after a pause.
Shirakawa-san was always so cheerful and it could look like she had everything at her disposal, so I’d never expected her to look at things philosophically like that.
“It looks like Maria has always liked things she wasn’t given more than the things she has,” calmly continued Shirakawa-san, not appearing to notice my surprise. “So I kinda understand why she ended up in love with you.”
“Huh...?”
“She kinda doubts people’s goodwill for her, I guess? She pulls away when people say they like her, and instead, she’ll look at things and people outside of her reach. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s not hard on her.”
Hearing Shirakawa-san’s explanation, I felt like I could understand Kurose-san’s temperament better than before. She really was the complete opposite of Shirakawa-san.
“We’ve been totally different for ages. But...I liked her,” Shirakawa-san added quietly. She had the smile of a person thinking about someone dear to them—she must’ve had her sister on her mind, who was far away. “Maria’s cute, right?”
I waited for a little while, but Shirakawa-san didn’t say anything else, so I had no choice but to nod. “Yeah,” I said.
At that, Shirakawa-san opened her eyes very wide. “Aah, you really do like her?!”
“Whaaat?!”
No way! How could she lay a trap for me like that?!
“Just kidding.” The smile on her face was like that of a mischievous boy in primary school—it was a relief for me.
“I-It happened long ago. Before I met you...” I said as though making an excuse, and Shirakawa-san nodded.
“Yeah, it was a long time ago...” she said as if to persuade herself. “I know in my head that you like me now and not Maria, but...” She looked up at me. “You know how I said before that you look like you have a few mixed feelings when I talk about my exes?”
“Ah, yeah.”
I recalled that we’d talked about it on the train while heading to Enoshima.
“I feel like I now understand why,” she said and smiled. “I’m probably the same. I love you as you are now, so maybe I want to go back into the past and monopolize your old self as well...” she said as though talking to herself, looking up at the sky. Suddenly, she turned to look at me again. “How do you keep your feelings in check?”
“Huh?”
“Like, the thing with me having many ex-boyfriends... If I were you, I’m sure I’d get jealous. I’d be wondering if you dated cuter girls than me before, for example.”
“I don’t know if I’d call it ‘keeping my feelings in check’...” I’d been thinking about that topic ever since I’d started going out with Shirakawa-san, so I already had my answer on the subject. “I think I get a hazy feeling because I lack confidence. But I’m sure time will take care of that. If I’m with you for a long time and our bonds grow deep, I have no doubt that one day, I’ll stop caring about your exes at all, even if they come to my mind... And at the moment, I’m waiting for that time to come.”
After staying silent for a while, Shirakawa-san said, “I see.”
As I searched for something to say, she spoke up again.
“Yeah, you’re right. With time, we’ll surely both be okay with it,” she cheerfully said and smiled. Then, she suddenly took on a serious expression and stared at me. “Hey, Ryuto.”
“Mm?”
“I think it’s probably weird in a lot of ways if I ask you this, but...” After a short pause, Shirakawa-san continued. “If it’s possible...could you become friends with Maria? Together, with me?”
“Wh-What do you mean?”
As I looked at her, not understanding her intentions, she watched me in earnest.
“I’m thinking of becoming friends with her,” she said.
“What?!”
“Even if I go with a direct approach, she’ll reject me. But we’re classmates, right? Nobody at school knows we’re related. So even if I’m all pushy and ask to be her friend, I don’t think Maria can just shrug me off.”
“So you want to become friends with her like ordinary classmates, keeping the fact that you’re sisters a secret from everyone...?”
“Yeah. And I want your help with that,” Shirakawa-san said with a deep nod. “Of course, I think it’ll be difficult to do right away. And Maria probably needs time to sort her feelings for you.”
I couldn’t fight my speechlessness at that. It was such a pushy strategy...
However, Shirakawa-san seemed to be serious. On this sultry midsummer afternoon, with beads of sweat on her forehead, she narrowed her eyes, as though sending her heart out to a distant sky.
“Autumn will come and go, and by the time winter starts, I want to be able to be by Maria’s side again. I want to once again go halfsies on papico ice cream with her as we watch TV under the kotatsu together.”
“Wait, by winter?” I asked without thinking. I was surprised to hear that—after all, she was talking about a crunchy type of ice cream that made you think of the summertime.
Shirakawa-san looked at me with surprise. “What, you’ve never done it?! Papico is the best in winter when you have it after getting out of the bath and sitting at a kotatsu!”
“Well... If anything, I’m a Yukimi kinda guy.”
“Ah, that. Those are delicious too.”
“Isn’t creamy ice cream best for winter?” I asked.
“Yeah, now that you mention it! But I just like papico!”
“So that’s how it is...”
We laughed things off at the end, so I still couldn’t tell how serious Shirakawa-san was about her plan. However, I could understand her feelings toward Kurose-san well. Her love was far deeper, stronger, and purer than anything Kurose-san’s groupies felt for her. They couldn’t begin to compare.
I really wished that Kurose-san wouldn’t take long to notice just how much Shirakawa-san loved her.
***
As the Bon Festival approached, the beach hut was seeing good business even on weekdays. Then, one day after dinner...
“Ryuto! Let’s set off fireworks!” suggested Shirakawa-san after I’d gotten out of the bath. She showed me a plastic bundle—a variety pack of handheld fireworks. “I got these from Mao-kun! He said I should light them with you.”
Mao-san had also shown up. “Got them from my supplier! Apparently they’re old stock, though, so they might be damp,” he said. He brought a bucket and a lighter to the courtyard next to the external corridor. “Oh, and here, Runa.”
He handed Shirakawa-san a smartphone. The screen looked perfect and the phone looked shiny and new.
“Just got it back earlier. They said it was pretty difficult to repair, so it took a while because they sent it to a store in Tokyo,” Mao-san explained.
“Huh? It just needed a new screen?” asked Shirakawa-san.
“Probably? It was cheap. Though they said they won’t offer a warranty on it even if it breaks later because they’re not an official retailer.”
“Hooray!” happily cheered Shirakawa-san, quickly heading to her room and then returning to the courtyard. “Ta-da! It’s back to its full glory!” She showed me her phone with its matching Mabbit case. It appeared the case hadn’t suffered any damage. “I can take pictures of fireworks with this! Yay!”
“Will those pictures come out okay?” I asked. “Light is hard to photograph.”
Shirakawa-san and I continued to prepare things as we talked, and then we started lighting the fireworks in the garden. Sayo-san and Mao-san watched us from the sitting room through the glass in the shoji-style door.
“Huh...? It’s kinda tough to light these...” said Shirakawa-san.
Some of the fireworks were hard to ignite. Perhaps they really were damp.
“Let me see...” I said.
But just as I got close to the firework in Shirakawa-san’s hands...
Whizzz!
Light from the firework came spurting out of the thin tube.
“Whoa!” I exclaimed.
“That caught me by surprise!” added Shirakawa-san.
After watching it immediately start burning normally as though nothing were wrong, we exchanged glances.
“Gotta say though, you were super surprised just now,” Shirakawa-san said. She followed that up with a laugh, evidently finding the way I’d just acted very funny.
“Yeah, well, it was scary just now.”
“Aha ha! That’s hilarious!” Laughing more, she waved the firework toward me. “Think fast!”
“Hey, watch that thing!”
“It’s okay; it’s only this close.”
“Play with fire like that and you’ll wet your bed.”
Hearing that, Shirakawa-san put on a serious expression. “What? Really?”
“It’s what my grandma always said. Probably just a superstition, though.”
“Oh, that’s all it is...” A relieved smile appeared on Shirakawa-san’s face. It was cute how she seemed to have believed it for a moment. “That’s good to hear... It would be way too much if I wet my bed at this age!”
“You’re gonna jinx it.”
“Oh, crap! Okay, let’s stop!”
We played with the fireworks as we had this silly conversation.
Once the regular handheld fireworks had all burnt out, we moved on to the sparklers—the only ones left.
“Sparklers have a funny shape,” uttered Shirakawa-san, sitting with her hands around her knees and watching the burning sparkler in her hand. “Isn’t its flame like a snowflake? Even though it’s hot.”
“Oh, now that you mention it... I was thinking it looked like a spiderweb. Though a regular firework is more like a broom.”
“Ah... I was thinking regular ones were like lilacs.” A little while after saying that, Shirakawa-san giggled. “Speaking of lilacs...” Her sparkler then burnt out and she reached for a new one. “I still remember your confession. I thought you said ‘lilacs for you’ back then. I wondered where they were.”
“Aah...”
I wanted to forget that had ever happened.
Shirakawa-san smiled when she saw the sour look on my face.
“I thought you were interesting,” she said. “You were so nervous, but you still confessed to me.”
“That’s...”
Maybe I should tell her before it becomes difficult to say later, like the thing with Kurose-san. I don’t want to hide things from Shirakawa-san anymore.
“I did it as a punishment,” I confessed.
Shirakawa-san was about to light a sparkler with a candle, but her hands froze at my words. “Punishment? Punishment for what?” she asked.
“For having good scores on midterms after talking with my friends like we all did poorly.”
I simplified things for clarity’s sake, but that’s accurate enough.
“Huh? Wait, hold on.” Shirakawa-san suddenly got flustered. “So that means you didn’t like me at all?”
“No, that’s not it,” I quickly added. “My punishment was to confess to the girl I liked.”
Shirakawa-san looked relieved to hear that. “Oh... Actually, when did you come to like me anyway?”
“Huh? Um...”
The spark for my unrequited love had been that time I’d lent her my pencil, but I’d watched and admired her since long before that.
“From when we were freshmen,” I said.
“Huh? Even though we weren’t in the same class?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
I paused for a moment. “Because you’re cute.”
“Eh...? Aren’t there plenty of cute girls around?” But even though she said that, she looked happy anyway. “You should’ve confessed to me sooner.”
“Well...” I forced a smile, thinking about how I’d been before we’d started dating. “I never planned to confess to you. Had it not been for my friends punishing me, I probably...still wouldn’t have told you.”
In fact, it was pretty much safe to say I would’ve gone all the way until graduation without telling her.
“Huh...? Why?” she asked.
“I didn’t have confidence... I didn’t think there was any chance you’d accept, even if I confessed to you.”
“I accepted, though.”
“That’s what surprised me.”
The events of that day had had as much impact on me in my sixteen years of life as Christ’s birth had had on human history.
“Eh...?” Shirakawa-san uttered quietly in apparent disbelief. She then hugged her knees even closer with her free hand. “But I guess you really treasure your friends, then,” she said and smiled at me.
That confused me. “Huh?”
“You thought you’d get rejected, but you still confessed to me because you’d made a promise to your friends, right?”
“Yeah...”
“That’s amazing. I think that means you really value your friends,” Shirakawa-san told me. “Also, it shows that you’re earnest. What you did put your whole personality on display.”
I didn’t expect to get complimented for such a thing, so I scratched my face in embarrassment. “Well...”
“I’m sure that’s the case,” said Shirakawa-san. She seemed convinced for some reason and nodded deeply. “You had deep love and consideration in you right from the start. I’m sure you’ve been sharing that with your friends, family, and people close to you in general. It just so happened that there was no girl on the receiving end of it.” As she said this, she lit another sparkler. “No matter how much I wished for real love, no guy like you had ever confessed to me. It looks like I’ve been wrong about everything, like how to go about relationships.”
She said all that as she gazed at the sparkler lighting up her hands, the flame of which looked like both a spiderweb and a snowflake. Then, Shirakawa-san lifted her face and looked up at me.
“Thank you for choosing me, Ryuto.” Her eyes, illuminated by the sparkler, glistened and shook.
“Shirakawa-san...”
I want to hold her. Hold her, and then...kiss her.
With those thoughts on my mind, I reached out for her shoulders, then looked behind me just in case—I was startled to see Sayo-san and Mao-san through the glass of the shoji-style door. They averted their eyes with incredible speed.
Yeah, of course they’d be curious. Their cute great-granddaughter and niece is alone with a guy in his second year of high school who’s brimming with lust.
“Ah, it burnt out,” said Shirakawa-san, sounding disappointed.
Looking back at her, I saw that the sparkler in her hand had gone out.
“Oh, looks like that was the last one. Wanna go back inside?” she suggested.
The sky had gotten dark a while ago, but the weather was still sultry. On hot days when the temperature reached over thirty-five degrees Celsius, even nights were difficult to call comfortable.
“I guess...”
I didn’t have any reason or excuse for us to stay outside any longer.
I wanted to kiss her, though...
In fact, we hadn’t done that at all since the first time on the boat, though we had gotten to a point where we held hands on a more or less regular basis.
Is this really okay? Sure, I want to treasure Shirakawa-san, but am I being too cautious?
While I worried about that, all I could do was put the used-up fireworks and sparklers in the bucket and go inside the house.
***
That night...
Perhaps it was because I had some stuff troubling me or because I was afraid of wetting my bed after we’d played with fire, but I woke up in the middle of the night for a trip to the bathroom.
Sayo-san’s place was a typical Japanese-style house, so walking through it in the dark was kind of scary. It almost felt like something out of a horror game. To make things worse, the only toilet was on the first floor, and since I slept on the second one, I had to go downstairs.
I fought my fears, got to the bathroom, finished my business there, and then on my way back to the second floor...
“Huh?”
I noticed that the paper sliding door in the sitting room leading to the external corridor was partially open. Had the last person to go to bed forgotten to close it?
Sure, this is a peaceful rural town, but these are troubled times, I thought, so I figured I’d go close it just in case...
Then, I saw a silhouette of a person in the external corridor. I almost cried out in surprise, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was Shirakawa-san. She was sitting on the edge of the corridor in her usual casual home clothes.
My heart started to pound. When I’d checked the time before leaving my room, it’d been past 1 a.m. Sayo-san and Mao-san must’ve been asleep already since they woke up early.
Thinking wicked things—such as how the mood might get good and I’d be able to kiss her—I approached. However...
My ulterior motive vanished without a trace when I caught a glimpse of her face. She looked clearly dispirited.
“Shirakawa-san?”
“Ryuto,” she said, looking my way once she noticed me. She really didn’t seem to have any of her usual pep.
“What are you doing here, Shirakawa-san?”
“Well...” She hung her head, her gaze directed at her phone in her lap. “Mom said she can’t come this time after all.”
“Huh...?”
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