Chapter Two: “The Snow Finds the Clod of Earth” — Part Fifteen
“When you say it, Yuki-san, somehow… it starts to sound like it’s not such a bad name after all. Strange, isn’t it.”
“That’s what I keep saying about Yuki-san too… well, never mind, just for today.”
Kai got up from the bed and came closer. Before I could ask what, a hand settled on my shoulder, my chin was taken, and with practiced ease Kai closed the distance between us. Knees bending, those yellow-green eyes swallowing me whole, the feather-light brush of lips.
“…………………………………”
Kai had kissed me again. Just a moment of contact, then gone.
It had still happened, though. A soundless overlap, sending ripples through my heart.
Kai kept her hand on my shoulder and smiled.
“That one was affection.”
“Now wait a—”
Say something, quickly, something inside me urged, as if physically pushed. So I said it, and nothing followed after.
“Thank you, truly… truly.”
Kai’s voice shook, her face bowed as if to hide it.
Her arms, stretched out like a bridge, and her shoulders, trembled in small, uneven waves.
“…………………………………”
How to put it. Something like this.
Was I a jaded adult for what crossed my mind, right here, right now.
“Are you faking it?”
Kai’s trembling stopped instantly. Yes, that shaking had been rather too theatrical. Or rather, badly done.
Far too much of it.
Giving up, apparently, Kai lifted her face cleanly. Not a single tear, of course, anywhere on it.
“I really am grateful, though.”
“Thanks, delivered with a completely straight face.”
That face was close enough that keeping my own composure took real effort.
Like a structure that had, against all odds, kept its shape through some violent storm, there was a breathtaking beauty in it. Something in me hoped it would never be battered by wind and rain again. Kai’s eyes were, simply, beautiful.
Perhaps her fake crying was so unconvincing because she’d never actually cried, not once.
“Don’t just… kiss people without permission.”
“Would it be all right with permission?”
“Of course it wouldn’t, idiot.”
“Checkmate.”
How unfortunate, Kai said, closing her eyes. But immediately she came back into my space.
Wary of another kiss, I tried to lean away, and she caught hold of my body, wrapping herself around me instead.
“Does hugging need permission too?”
“You’re supposed to ask before you do it, not after…”
The scent coming off Kai where our bodies pressed together was dry. Probably the smell of her uniform.
“I’ll let it go, just for today.”
I hesitated, and hesitated, and in the end put my arms around Kai’s waist. A hand at her back, an embrace returned. The feel of her was all visible bone, calling to mind bleached coral. Leaning against me, she weighed almost nothing, and I understood why her leaning against me was hardly a burden at all. Registering her still-immature body, no real curve to her chest, and yet something driving through her with a strong, undeniable rhythm regardless.
Impressive, I thought. I couldn’t have said what exactly was impressive about it.
From here I would tell myself this had all been overrunning work, go home, and spend the evening with my family as if nothing had happened. And some part of me watched that thought like it belonged to someone else, still thinking impressive. I still couldn’t say what was impressive about any of it. Perhaps it was this: that nothing was going to end here in this room, that I had a life of my own I still had to return to. Perhaps that, itself, was the impressive part.
Held in the embrace, Kai murmured something to herself.
“Hǎo… zhēn hǎo.”
“What was that?”
Kai didn’t answer, only let her shoulders shake.
I remember this day clearly.
The day Chitaira Kai became Kai.
The day she became my Kai, and no one else’s.
Some things I will never forget. Others, I find I can’t quite recall.
When did I begin to fall for Kai?
When I stepped into her family’s business? When I held her trembling hand? When she kissed me?
Or the moment I first saw those eyes?
Was I, at this point, truly trying to save Kai out of nothing more than sympathy, a sense of justice, pity?
Too much has accumulated since then for me to reach back and retrieve the answer now.
And looking back on it.
There hadn’t been a single lie in anything Chitaira Shiho warned me of.