Episode 49 — The Knot in the Ribbon

The cry of cicadas against my eardrums. Over the top of them, a chime, and my phone trembles on the pillow. I force open eyelids heavier than usual and check the time.

5:30.

Much earlier than the usual time — Shion’s incoming call was already on screen.

I kick off the duvet against the clinging heat and press the phone to my ear. One long stretch, and a drowsy sound escapes me.

“Morning…”
“Morning! Uta!”
“Volume.”

The words came out on reflex. I thought a gong had gone off next to my ear. Well — too clear and transparent for a gong, to be fair. Even so, Shion was more energetic and highly strung than usual.

“I’m not that loud…!”

Shion hurried to turn the volume down, but her voice still had more spring in it than usual.

And dragged along by it, my own consciousness headed helplessly toward wakefulness. My newly-awake mind released words.

“You’re up quite early today.”
“I’m not that early…!”
“No, you really are.”

Another deflection, delivered in the same breath. Shion’s state was so unusual that I’d been pulled into the role of straight man — basically, I’m Shion’s unconditional ally, and the fact that I’d ended up pushing back at all showed just how thoroughly buoyant and unmoored she was.

And as if to explain why, Shion laid out the reason.

“Because today is the day we’re going to the sea. Because I get to see you after so long, Uta.”

The lilt of her voice was so musical I could almost hear the notes at the end of her sentences.

That she could be this out-of-character and yet all I could feel was cute, dear, I want to protect her — entirely positive feelings — was really something. Like a colour gradient, imperceptibly shifting — the relationship, the feeling, the emotional register, changing. At every point along the way, the centre had always been that leaping heartbeat. And when I could feel that heartbeat — that version of myself was one I could say, unusually, that I liked.

So in the end only forward-facing words came out.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you too.”

The object of the sentence I’d naturally produced was not the sea — it was Shion.

◇◇◇

Arriving at the ticket gates, my gaze carved through the crowd and converged on a single point. Eyes riveted by a presence of extraordinary clarity. Behind that involuntary focusing, a heartbeat quickened by the consciousness that had found Shion.

And just as I began walking toward her, Shion had already noticed me and was running. Skirt fluttering and billowing as she came.

“Uta!”

In a voice larger than usual for Shion, from a distance still a little too far to call right in front of me, she called my name. That face, that carrying soprano, pulling the eyes of everyone around her — entirely oblivious to any of it, she came running straight toward me alone.

I watched that arc of motion vaguely, and moved toward it slowly, the way you’d move toward light. At the point where those asymmetric speeds converged — quite literally like a collision — Shion threw her arms around me with her full momentum.

“Morning! Uta!”
“Morning. You really are full of energy today.”

I said it with my usual deliberate composure. Honestly, I’d had some vague sense she was going to do exactly this, so the surprise wasn’t overwhelming. Even with the surprise reduced to near zero — my heart was still impossibly noisy, which meant this was terminal.

“But it’s been so long since we’ve seen each other… isn’t Uta happy…?”

Shion’s energy dropped suddenly and a soft, stroking voice touched my ears. We’re the same height pressed together like this, so her voice rang right at my ear — and I’d thought I was used to that from phone calls. But Shion’s warmth and scent added to it changed the impact entirely, which was a problem.

Shion’s skin was a little damp with sweat — and yet somehow, her lower body temperature made it feel cool. The heat I was directing at Shion was about to be laid bare, and for some reason that frightened me, which was also a problem.

I wrung out an uncharacteristic line on pure desperation.

“I’m happy too. And because I’m happy — I want to actually look at you properly, after so long.”

Slightly strange, maybe. Just as I was opening an internal post-mortem at lightning speed —

“Then I’ll show you!”

And with that, Shion stepped back. Setting aside the idiotic feeling of something like reluctance at the loss of warmth — I took responsibility for my own words and focused properly on Shion standing in my newly opened field of vision.

Shion was wearing a light blue dress the colour of clear sky — of the sea itself — and her goldthread hair, glittering as always, was half-pinned up, with a white ribbon tied at the knot.

I — well, how do I put this. Apparently when you come face to face with more beauty than your capacity can hold, words stop coming. This is a problem — I can’t write a novel like this. An inner commentary I obviously couldn’t deliver aloud — so in the end I assembled some ordinary words.

“The light blue suits you, it’s summery, it’s really lovely. Your hair too — it’s different from usual, I think it’s very cute.”

I said it with warm cheeks, and Shion gave a small satisfied hmph of a smile and said:

“I’m glad. Mama did my hair without asking.”

Lips pushed into a slight pout, as if that were something to complain about. And yet the softness of her cheeks was impossible to hide, leaving the whole effect charmingly contradictory.

“That’s nice, isn’t it.”

The sight of her was too dear — the words came out in the tone I’d use with a small child.

Shion seemed displeased at being treated like one, and fired back quickly:

“It’s not nice! Mama kept going on and on about it. ‘Shall I drive you both to the sea, you and Uta-chan?’”
“I’d actually be grateful for that…”
“I wouldn’t. Because I like taking the train with you, Uta. I like sitting next to you and talking. So Mama is being a busybody.”
“Fair enough.”

I nodded, smiling.

An unusual grumble from Shion. And yet even that was an indulgence rooted in trust toward her mother. The Kanzaki household really had closed the distance considerably.

At that I felt gladness, and a small pinch of something like loneliness. A feeling like the sea — beautiful but a little salty.

“The train will be here soon — shall we go?”
“Yes!”

The hands that joined naturally were heading toward a real sea.