Still crouching down, Runa smiled all of a sudden and looked up at me. “You know... I always want to give you the best stuff. I’m okay with having the second-best myself. Nothing makes me happy as much as doing things that make you happy.”
I was moved. “Runa...”
She lowered her eyes, looking pleased. “You’re the first one who’s made me feel this way... And I’m sure you’ll be the last.” Then, she looked up at me. “So you better live a long time.”
“Huh...?” I was confused by the sudden topic change. “What’re you talking about?”
“I mean, if you die before me, I’ll be lonely for the rest of my life,” Runa said with a pout.
“But, like, you’d better live long too—for the same reason,” I countered. It was embarrassing for me to say something so out of character.
Runa smiled happily at that. “Heh heh, yeah, I guess.” She hopped up to her feet. “Well then, I’d better eat lots of strawberries and be healthy! Get those vitamins and all. ♡”
Thus, we walked between the rows, looking for edible strawberries. Each area had a nameplate stating the variety of strawberries growing there.
“Ah, this one says ‘Kaorino,’” Runa said when getting to a new section. “I wonder what makes it different from the ‘Tochiotome’ I just looked at?”
I immediately assumed a self-satisfied expression. “Kaorino is a child of Tochiotome.”
Since we rarely went on dates, and this one was special in that it was for Runa’s birthday, I’d gone the extra mile and spent several days researching strawberries ahead of time. This was my cue to demonstrate that knowledge.
“Technically, Kaorino strawberries are cultivated from Nyoho, Aiberry, Toyonoka, Hokowase, Akihime, Akasha no Mitsuko, Tochiotome, and Santigo varieties. Their notable features are their somewhat hard flesh, juiciness, refreshing sweetness, and limited sourness. But above all, just like the word ‘kaori’ in its name suggests, they’re fragrant. That comes from having ample amounts of linalool—an aromatic compound. It synergizes with the fruit’s sweetness, providing that classic feel of fresh strawberry flesh. Oh, by the way, did you know that the part of the strawberries that we’re eating is technically the accessory fruit? The true fruits are the pips dotting the surface of it. As for the part that we eat, when the pistil in the strawberry flower is pollinated, it enlarges to hold the seeds, and... Ah!”
Noticing the blank look on Runa’s face, I came back to my senses and stopped myself.
“S-Sorry... I studied up so I could answer if you asked, but I didn’t mean to talk for that long...”
I should’ve just given out bits of information here and there. But after all the effort I had put into looking things up, I couldn’t stop myself. It was as though a switch had been flipped inside me.
Runa was amused and laughed. “You know, this reminds me of that time with bubble tea. That was a birthday date too.”
“Now that you mention it...”
She was right. Thinking about that time was nostalgic. The fact that I was doing the same thing four years later was a little embarrassing.
“Hey, Ryuto,” Runa began in a soft voice, catching me by surprise and prompting me to look at her. She gazed at me with a blush on her cheeks and a smile on her lips. “How many birthday dates do you think we have left?”
“Huh...?”
I’d never thought about it.
I did the math. “Assuming I live eighty years, which is the life expectancy for men... About sixty?” I replied.
Runa giggled for some reason. Then, she clasped her hands behind her back and looked up at the ceiling of the greenhouse. “Only sixty, huh...? Life sure is short.”
“I-Is it?”
Sixty years was an enormous amount of time. It was longer than I could imagine.
“Ryutooo...” Runa said coyly.
I looked at her again. “Yeah?”
She gave me a slightly pained smile. “Let’s both live to a hundred, okay?”
“Huh?”
“That would add another twenty.” The look on her face had become serious. “Let’s be together in the next life too, okay?”
“N-Next life?!”
Her words surprised me for a moment—I’d never seen this coming. But she wasn’t the only one who wanted us to be together forever.
“Y-Yeah... Of course.”
“Can you promise me? No backing out of it, okay?” Runa presented her pinky finger to me.
I realized she wanted to do a pinky promise and extended my own too. “Sure...”
I didn’t know what I was even promising here—living to a hundred and being with her again in my next life weren’t things I could control. Nobody could tell how things would actually go—not me, not Runa.
However... I loved her with every fiber of my being. I wanted to be with her so much that one life wasn’t going to be enough. That I didn’t mind swearing on.
“By the way, do you know what strawberries mean in the language of flowers?” I asked, recalling some more trivia I’d learned over the course of my research.
“Nope. What?” Keeping her pinky in the same waiting position, Runa looked at me with curiosity.
“It means ‘happy household’ and ‘love and respect.’”
“Oh, I see...” Runa smiled softly. “Those things are nice.”
“Yeah...”
They described what I wanted to establish with Runa and the way I felt toward her. I was inept as ever for not being able to say it directly.
But despite that, Runa had said she wanted to be with me in the next life too.
In that hot and humid greenhouse, with even the container for condensed milk now full of strawberry tops and with the strawberries themselves watching over us, Runa and I made a pinky promise.
***
“I sure ate a lot!” said Runa, looking up.
Our time going strawberry picking had come to an end, and we were on our way home.
“At first, I thought there was no limit to how many strawberries somebody could eat, but yeah, there’s no way anything else is going in me now,” she added.
“Well, fruit is mostly water, so you’ll probably get hungry again right away.”
We’d taken a taxi from the station earlier today, but we weren’t crunched for time now that we were on our way back. We’d decided to walk instead.
It was slightly cloudy and the sunlight wasn’t too strong, so walking along the gentle slope of the riverbank at noon was rather pleasant. This river wasn’t as big as the Arakawa River, so its bank was low and flat.
“I’m not hungry for lunch yet, though...” said Runa.
“Yeah, same. I wonder what we should do...”
Our plan had been to pick strawberries, have a light bite to eat, and then kill some time by shopping or something like that. Later, we’d have dinner in Shinjuku.
Runa had work tomorrow morning, and I had university classes.
I recalled something I’d said to Kujibayashi-kun before.
“But then when I finally got into Houo, Runa had new twin sisters, a full-time job, and became super busy. On the rare occasions that we get to see each other these days, one of us will get called away by our families or to work, or the mood just isn’t right to do it at that point... And that’s just how it’s been.”
What I’d said then was true, but those hadn’t been the only reasons. After all, right now, we were pretty much free until later when we’d head to the restaurant for our dinner reservation. It was certainly possible to go to Shinjuku early, visit an area I’d heard about in Kabukicho with love hotels, and “rest” there until dinner.
If we wanted to do it, we could’ve just found two or three hours for it at any point until now.
“So, it’s Too Much of Spring.”
In the end, that was how it was.
We’d left the frantic period of our relationship behind a long time ago. Since we’d gone all these years without doing it, we couldn’t tell when we were supposed to go for it now or how to bring things to that development.
We’d both reached the age when we wouldn’t break the law by having sex, even without the approval of Runa’s father, and I’d gotten the HPV vaccine during my first year of university. Incidentally, my mother’s surgery had been successful, and it hadn’t progressed past the dysplasia stage. She was doing just fine at the moment.
Nothing stood between us now.
However, over these past two years, Runa hadn’t done anything to develop our relationship further in that way either. That was precisely why I’d been happy that she’d suggested going to Okinawa in the summer.
I didn’t need to get impatient now. Runa and I would do the deed there.
“I can’t wait to go to Okinawa...” Runa said. Her timing was perfect.
“Me too.”
Perhaps she’d been thinking the same thing.
“I’m gonna ask Nicole to give me some really awesome nails before we go. ♡ Like, something that just screams that we’re at a resort! Maybe I should have them match my bikini again too!”
Ever since Yamana-san had become a professional nail artist, Runa had been going to her salon near Station A every month to get her nails done.
“Oh, by the way... They recently started doing men’s nails too, but they don’t have enough sample shots to post online, so Nicole wants you to come by! Said she’ll give you a onetime fifty percent discount as a special deal if you let her take before and after shots!”
“What? Y-You want me to have my nails done?”
I looked at Runa’s long, tapered, sparkling nails. Yeah, no. Count me out...
She giggled. “It’s just nail care. They’ll clean up your cuticles, polish the surface of your nails, and file them down. A guy looks much better with clean nails!”
“‘Cuticles’...? ‘File’...?”
I didn’t really understand what she was talking about, but it sounded like I wasn’t going to end up with flashy nails by the end of it.
“Okay... I’ll think about it,” I said.
“Great! I’ll tell Nicole, then! Oh man, what kinda nails should I get for Okinawa...? ♡” Runa didn’t miss a beat and went back to being excited about our trip. “Oh, right! I brought a guidebook! Let’s look at it later. ♡”
“What, really? I’ve brought one too.”
I took it out of my messenger bag and showed it to her.
“What?! That’s the same one I got! That’s hilarious!” Runa took out a book with the same cover from her shoulder bag. “See?”
“Wow, you’re right.”
“Man, what a crazy coincidence! They were selling so many different ones!”
“I was looking for something that had a lot of information but would still fit into my bag. That’s why I went with this one,” I explained.
“Same for me!”
Getting excited about this unexpected coincidence, Runa and I looked at each other and smiled as we walked along.
“One for each of us, huh?” she said.
“They’re like our textbooks.”
“Exactly!” Runa smiled and wrapped her arms around mine. “Guess we understand each other well. ♡”
“Y-Yeah,” I replied after hesitating a bit. I was feeling a bit embarrassed.
She blushed and smiled at me again. “Okay, wanna go to a café and start planning stuff?”
“Sure...”
And so, we got on a train and headed to Shinjuku. After getting to a café, we discussed our upcoming trip and pored over our matching guidebooks until evening, chatting a bit as we did.
***
Runa looked out the window. “Wow, look at this view!” she exclaimed.
We’d just arrived at the restaurant for our dinner reservation. It was on the twenty-somethingth floor of a high-rise about a ten-minute walk away from the west exit of Shinjuku Station. It was seven in the evening, so it was still bright outside. The windowed walls provided a good view of the city center.
We were led to a table by one of those windows.
“What is this place?! How’d you find it, Ryuto?! Have you been here before?!” Runa asked excitedly.
“I haven’t. I just saw it on the internet...”
In reality, ever since Kurose-san had told me about the restaurant Sato-san had taken her to, the idea had gotten stuck in the back of my mind. I’d looked up restaurants with a good view of the city at night, even though it would normally be out of character for me to go somewhere like this.
While the restaurant was on a high floor, it wasn’t all that expensive. Also, the design was very Japanese: from the cuisine, to the paper-covered lights, to having to take off your shoes at the entrance, and to the tables being sunken kotatsu. As a result, it didn’t feel all that pretentious. Even I’d managed to work up the courage to make a reservation here.
“What? Are you going to propose to me?” Runa asked jokingly with a smile.
“Nah, I just wanted to go to a place like this once in a while,” I replied, embarrassed.
Once we started eating, the scenery outside gradually darkened. The city below us began to shine like a jewelry box.
Runa was spellbound. “It’s beautiful...” she said.
Seeing her like that made me slightly grateful to Sato-san. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that fact.
Our meal continued, and when we got to dessert...
“Oh, wow, a birthday cake!” Runa said all of a sudden, gesturing to it with her eyes.
There was a waitress carrying a whole cake nearby. Its candles were lit.
“Is it someone’s birthday? It’s close to mine!” Her eyes sparkled as if she were thrilled for someone else whom she’d never even met.
“Probably. It did say they do birthday specials here...” I replied, realizing what was probably going on. I was trying to avoid making it too obvious.
“They do, huh...? That’s nice...”
The waitress with the cake walked over to us and stopped. “Happy birthday, Runa-san,” she said with a smile.
Runa looked utterly astonished. “What?! Me?!” She didn’t seem to have expected this in the slightest. “Wow, thank you!” Feeling deeply moved, Runa brought her hands together in gratitude.
Once the waitress left, Runa turned to me in surprise. “Ryuto, what happened?! You’ve never done something like this before!”
I smiled bashfully. “I’m improving too,” I replied.
The truth was that when I’d found this place online, I’d noticed that they did special things for birthdays and simply asked for that. Setting it up was so easy—I had to assume that people often went to atmospheric places like this for anniversaries and similar occasions.
“It’s a bit early, but happy birthday, Runa.”
She smiled a bit modestly. “Heh heh, thank you.”
I averted my eyes and looked at the lights outside. As it got later, the lights were becoming more radiant in the darkness of the night.
“Man, I guess I’ll be older than you for a while again,” said Runa.
“I guess so.”
Does this bother her every year? How cute.
“Then again, men don’t live as long on average,” I added. “I like that you’re the older one of us. It means we’ll get to be together for longer.”
Runa giggled, perhaps recalling what we’d talked about while picking strawberries earlier.
“Well, we’ll live to a hundred, so it’s just a small difference. Only nine months. ♡”
“R-Right.”
I didn’t really get it, but my words seemed to have cheered her up, so I was glad I’d said them.
“Now let’s go to town on this cake!” Runa exclaimed.
“Yeah.”
Thus, we began eating the now cut-up cake. The waitress had returned earlier to slice it in half before leaving again.
It was a small white shortcake, just big enough for two people. There were strawberries on top.
“The strawberries we had earlier were good,” Runa began, putting one of them in her mouth, “but the ones you buy taste better.”
“They do, yeah,” I replied with an awkward smile. We had found some good strawberries, but it had taken a lot of effort. “If we’d gone at the right time, we might’ve been able to find better ones.”
“Yeah! Let’s go in spring next year!” Runa said excitedly. Then, she lowered her eyes to her plate. “But man, patissiers sure make great cakes. No matter how hard I look at it, it just seems like magic. I could never make one like this.”
“The cakes you’ve made for me are always great, though.”
I recalled the most recent cake she’d made for me—the one with decorated cookies for my twentieth birthday. It had left a pretty strong impression on me as it wasn’t one you could easily find in stores.
“Really? Thanks!” Runa smiled happily. “I’ll do my best next time, then!” She shook her fists around in excitement. “What kind should I make...? I’ve made so many already in...how long has it been now?” Runa began counting on her fingers. “I started baking when you had your birthday in our second year of high school, so... Ah! I’m pretty proud of the one I made for Christmas in our third year. I was still working at Champs De Fleurs at the time, so I used some spare ingredients from work on it.”
“Oh. It did look like something made by a professional.”
“What? You really remember it?”
“S-Sure I do. I took a picture of it too.” I flipped through the images on my phone and showed Runa the one with the cake. “See?”
“Wow, you weren’t kidding!”
To be honest, I had pretty much no memory of how it had tasted. What I remembered vividly was the slight bitterness of the bright red strawberry on top.
“Was it good?” Runa asked.
“Yeah,” I replied after a pause.
“I’m glad!” She smiled in relief and then brought her fork to her mouth. “This one’s great too!”
The piece of cake on my plate had a strawberry on it. I speared the fruit with my fork and brought it to my mouth. “It is, yeah,” I said while chewing.
I’d experienced this same bittersweet taste while going through a similarly bitter time.
***
Back in my third year of high school, that Christmas Eve couldn’t have been any worse.
That day, I got back the results of my mock exams from cram school—and I’d gotten another E on Houo’s exams. That wasn’t good.
Those mock exams had been the last ones before the real thing. The grade for my backup option—Risshuin University—had gone up and was now a C, but since it wasn’t even an A, it felt presumptuous to even call it a backup option.
Basically, this was the extent of my academic skills. I could feel that my grades were improving little by little, but I had nowhere near enough time to achieve what I had been striving for.
The thought of becoming a ronin and waiting until the next year appeared in my head. But at the same time, so did the things Sekiya-san had once said to me.
“Trust me—there’s not a single good thing about becoming a ronin.”
“It must be nice to be in your second year of high school. You can still aim for anywhere you want. If only someone had told me that back then...”
Sekiya-san had warned me about this and had given me advice at every opportunity. If, despite that, I still couldn’t raise my grades in time, then it was fully my fault for procrastinating too much.
I wanted to turn back time. If I’d been studying as hard as I was now since the spring of my third year, or maybe even earlier than that, then maybe...
There was no point in thinking about that, though. And right now, I didn’t even have time to regret the past. It wasn’t like my entrance exams were already over. I could regret things after I failed.
With all that on my mind, all I could do was deal with what was in front of me.
Every day was both short and long. I couldn’t tell how many days it would take until I could fully memorize the thick glossary on world history and my English vocabulary notebook. Even when it seemed like I’d memorized something, I would forget it over time.
I was anxious. But in the end, all I could do was whatever little I could, wherever I could—whether it was solving a problem here or learning a word there.
I forced myself to keep calm and focus on whatever I currently had in front of me. Maintaining this level of concentration was nerve-racking by itself.
When Christmas Eve came around, I was still right in the middle of that dark tunnel—and Runa appeared before me.
“Huh...?” I found her in front of me on my way home. “Runa...?”
“Ryuto!”
We hadn’t talked about meeting up. All we’d done was say Merry Christmas to each other on LINE.
Runa got up from the chair for visitors in the lobby. She had a cake box in her hand.
“Wh-What’s up?” I asked. I checked my phone to see if she’d called or messaged me, but there was nothing.
“Surpriiise! I wanted to give you a Christmas cake. It’s homemade! ♡”
“Oh, uh... Thanks.” Since I hadn’t even prepared myself for a conversation, I couldn’t think straight. I struggled to figure out what to say. “It must’ve been hard to bring such a big one here...”
I hadn’t seen the box’s contents yet, but judging by the size of it, it must’ve been a full-sized cake and not cupcakes.
“It’s okay, I’m not busy with anything anyway. This is one of the few things I can do for you...”
I was too anxious about my mock exam results to reply. When I thought about it later, I realized that I should’ve said, “It’s not like that. You’re the reason I can work so hard.”
A man wearing a coat came in from the front door and headed to the elevator without giving us so much as a glance. It was already past ten in the evening, and there weren’t many people to be seen in my apartment building’s common area—maybe everyone was celebrating Christmas at home.
After a period of silence—my fault—Runa spoke up as if unable to endure the awkwardness anymore. “You’re...planning on studying at home tonight, right?”
Our eyes met as she looked at me with those upturned eyes of hers.
She wore a thick, warm minidress under her down jacket. I seemed to recall her wearing something similar for Christmas the year before.
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