Episode 63 — Summer Festival

Struggling with an unfamiliar yukata, we climbed slowly out of the car hand in hand — and through the engine noise, the sound of festival music reached us from a distance.

The engine noise faded as Anon-san stepped out of the car after us.

“Be careful, both of you.”

Anon-san said it with a smile, and Shion — still holding my hand — leaned into my arm and said:

“I’ve got Uta, so it’s fine.”

Saying it in her usual calm voice, she made a peace sign with a perfectly straight face. At that unchanged Shion of hers, Anon-san smiled wryly.

“That’s reassuring then. Off you go.”

She said it in a gentle voice.

◇◇◇

Due to tonight’s fireworks display, the area is extremely crowded. Please do not push — walk slowly with the flow.

Through the crowd, we walked a more lively than usual townscape. Hands joined so as not to get separated. Stalls lined both sides of the road, and festival music and the voices of excited children and the megaphone of a policeman directing traffic all mixed together. Amid the flood of it all, I found it strange — and yet entirely unsurprising — that my attention went nowhere but Shion.

The refined profile, thrown into sharp relief by the stall lights. The violet-indigo eyes gazing around with curious interest. The yukata of the same colour, scattered with wisteria flowers — and the contrast with the glittering silver hair that burned into my vision like a beam of beautiful light. Just before we left, Anon-san had put her hair up, and the usually hidden nape of her neck was exposed — pure white skin, with sweat-dampened stray hairs pressed against it. Even that small dishevelment, Shion wore beautifully.

And the fact that I was holding Shion’s hand. That our fingers were wound together. Lately I’d thought I’d grown reasonably accustomed to holding hands — and yet even ordinary contact like this made my cheeks burn, and my heart made a sound louder than the festival music, which was a problem. Heat transmitted from palm to fingertip, and I could tell that Shion’s usually cool body temperature had risen to match mine — the faint shared dampness of sweat between us feeling, somehow, pleasantly like being dissolved into each other.

Lost in Shion like that, Shion suddenly turned toward me and said:

“It’s my first festival, so it’s fun. And I’m happy I got to come with you, Uta.”

Shion said it in her usual composed voice. And yet her cheeks were faintly flushed, and her eyes glittered with innocent brightness. Pulled into that brightness as if absorbed, I released words:

“I’m having fun and I’m happy too.”

I echoed Shion’s words back. But it wasn’t simply a repetition — it was the kind of words that deepen, gaining the mass of two people’s feelings layered together. However much surrounded us, only the warmth and texture of our joined hands was real, and only words and sound rang through our world.

Shion squeezed my hand tight and murmured softly:

“Having this much fun during summer break is a first too.”
“Same for me.”

We exchanged those words before we’d even reached a single stall — before the festival had properly begun. Through our joined hands, a wish dissolved naturally between us.

I wish summer would go on forever.

The only thing that could be done toward that wish was to keep adding reasons to be together. To stretch out the time we could share, right up to the competition at summer break’s end. And toward that — I pointed at a stall sign I’d spotted.

“Goldfish scooping — do you want to try?”
“Yes.”

Shion nodded, so we made our way toward it.

Pushing through the crowd and arriving at the stall, inside a simple tank, goldfish in vivid red and black were swimming around. At the aquarium we’d looked at fish from the side; now we were looking at goldfish from above — and I made that small wordplay to myself, playing off the fireworks show. The thread linking that past moment to this present one was being together with Shion.

Shion was gazing intently at the goldfish, so I paid the stall man on behalf of both of us and received two scooping nets and buckets. I handed them to Shion. Shion turned the net over and back, examining both sides, and asked:

“How does it work…?”
“I only know from watching too, but—”

I pulled the yukata up so it wouldn’t touch the water, crouched down, and faced the tank. Shion copied my movements exactly. Trying not to be distracted by the exposed slim white arms — I took up my net. Set the bucket floating on the water’s surface.

“The side that dips in is the front, by the way.”

I said it as a reminder, then tilted the net at an angle, keeping the part touching water to a minimum, and slid it swiftly under a goldfish. Somehow it worked rather well, and the goldfish arrived in the bucket with surprising ease.

Somehow I actually managed it.

“Uta that’s amazing…! I want to try too…!”

Shion said it and took up her net. And then plunged it directly into the water with full force.

“Ah—”

My voice came out at the same moment — and exactly as expected, the net tore before it could touch a single goldfish. As the torn paper drifted through the water, Shion lifted it out and:

“Uta~…”

She looked at me with tearful, clinging eyes. That sight — the clumsiness so completely at odds with her piano playing — made me think, though I felt bad about it: adorable.

“…Want to use mine too?”

I held out my net as I asked, and Shion’s expression brightened immediately.

“Yes!”

She nodded with vigour, and with that same momentum — plunged the net straight back into the water.

Once again, mercilessly, the net tore. The paper remnants drifting in the water resembled, just slightly, a jellyfish.

And Shion turned toward me again.

“Uta~…”

With eyes on the verge of tears, clinging and imploring.

That completely unchanged response was still, somehow, adorable. With Shion beside me, even a negative repetition like that was fun.