Episode Eight
The demi-glace and the mentaiko cream. Both were wonderful. I might try recreating them at home sometime.
When Ao tried to bring her own spoon to my mouth I turned it down as firmly as I could, but I hope it hadn’t looked unnatural. If I’d let her feed me from her spoon I think I would simply have blacked out on the spot.
I’d managed to forget about being nervous when we first arrived, and now here I was, back to being conscious of everything. It annoyed me. For Ao this was just a shopping trip with her sister. Not a date.
After lunch we made our way around the different floors as I kept her company through her errands. I was waiting outside one of the shops, watching the middle distance, when a slightly breathless voice found me through the noise.
“Sorry for the wait. I got some things for Mum too, so it all added up.”
I took one of the carrier bags hanging from both her hands, and looked around for the next stop.
“Thanks. It’s not that heavy though, I can manage on my own?”
“Don’t worry about it. What’s next?”
Furniture, a homeware shop, fast fashion and so on. We’d talked through what she needed on the train over, and I thought we’d covered most of it. Was there anything left?
“Hmm, I think that’s about everything. Just a moment.”
She dropped her gaze to her phone. The fact that she’d been keeping a careful list so nothing slipped through said something about her, I thought.
“Okay, I think we’re good. Shall we head—”
“A lunchbox.”
The words slipped out before I’d thought them through.
“Hm?”
“A lunchbox. You’re using one of mine, so we should get you a new one, don’t you think?”
What she’d been using yesterday was an old one of mine. Even among family, having to use a classmate’s cast-offs had to feel a bit off.
“The one I have is fine, honestly. It works perfectly well.”
“Besides — you’re already making dinner for me every night. Making my lunch on top of that is a lot, isn’t it?”
“You really don’t have to go to all that trouble.”
Ao’s brow drew together apologetically.
“That part honestly doesn’t bother me. I’m already making enough for Dad and Shiho-san anyway.”
“It’s just — I mean, if you ever don’t want one, please tell me. Don’t feel like you have to be polite about it. Is that… okay?”
Please don’t say you don’t want one. I’d asked, but that wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear.
I want Ao to eat the lunches I make for her. For her sake I wouldn’t mind getting up earlier, and I could try to make things better. And beyond that — I wanted something that was only ours, a small secret no one else knew about.
“As if I’d say I don’t want it! Please make them, if it’s not too much.”
“And — I really am sorry about this, but…”
Her eyes drifted away in a way that didn’t quite look like the Ao I knew. But somehow, for just a moment, she looked like a younger sister.
“I’m hopeless in the mornings. I want to help but I just can’t.”
Ao pressed her palms together and looked up at me with an apologetic expression. The carrier bag in my hand rustled softly.
“Honestly, please don’t worry about it. I do it because I want to. Hearing that means… a lot to me.”
“But let’s still get you a new lunchbox. Using my old one doesn’t sit right with me.”
My things, in Ao’s hands. If I’d told myself this a few days ago I might have lost my mind with happiness. But I wanted Ao to have things she actually liked. She’d be using it every day; it should be something she could feel attached to.
“No. It’s a waste of money, and I’ve already gotten fond of the one I have.”
“So, I am not buying a new lunchbox!”
And with that she walked straight ahead, leaving me behind. If she was planning to go home, the exit was the other way.
“Want to take a little rest before we go? I’m getting tired.”
A short distance away she turned back, wearing a soft smile that was almost too bright to look at directly.
“…Fine.”
Using my cast-off because it was perfectly good. That small, thoughtless choice made me happier than I could say. I swung the carrier bag and followed her. What did I look like to Ao, trailing after her like this?
The café we headed to on light feet was full at that hour, so we got our drinks to take away and decided to drink them on the walk back.
“What did Onee-chan get again?”
Walking beside me, Ao glanced sideways at my cup.
For once in my life I answered with my chest out.
“The melon one! I just knew it was going to be amazing.”
I held up the cup with its wide straw with some confidence.
A seasonal melon frappuccino. I’d been curious ever since I saw it on social media, and it had made the rounds in class too.
“I think the limited edition ones here are always good, but this one especially — you should try it sometime, it’s—”
The words cut off. Something I couldn’t quite believe stopped my breath entirely.
Ao’s pale cherry-blossom lips had closed gently around the straw I was holding out. The pale green flesh and white cream swirling together, the soft sound of her throat as she swallowed — both of them registered with absurd clarity.
Ao’s mouth was on the straw my mouth had been on moments ago. Well — sisters did things like this, probably.
I wouldn’t want Dad doing it. Shiho-san I think I could handle. Right. That made sense.
…Did it, though?
“Oh wow, this is actually incredible! This might be something else!”
Ao pulled away from the straw and gave a small full-body shiver of delight.
“I want more of this.”
“Onee-chan, want to swap?”
Ao seemed to be saying something, but it wasn’t quite reaching me. Was it all right for me to put my mouth on this straw now?
It was fine. We were sisters. An indirect kiss was completely… normal.
“No.”
I pulled the cup against my chest, away from her. The condensation on the side left a faint damp patch on my white top.
“Aww.”
Ao seemed to be saying something else too, but the words weren’t making it in right now.
If I put my mouth to this straw, something might give way. But it was already too late for that line of thinking. There would come a point eventually where I couldn’t hold myself together anymore. I wasn’t particularly patient, and I was certainly no saint.
I made up my mind and put my lips to the wide straw.
The liquid that came through tasted of nothing. Not the melon, not the sweetness of the cream, not the cold of the ice. Only a faint sweetness that wasn’t the sweetness of the fruit drifted past and was gone.
“Hyeh!”
Something soft closed around the hand holding the carrier bag, and an embarrassing sound escaped me before I could stop it. A passing family threw me a strange look.
“Wh— wh-wh-what— what are you doing?”
I spun toward Ao on instinct and found her face, the corner of her mouth curved ever so slightly, looking straight back at me.
“You were just completely miles away.”
“Make that sound again.”
The whispered words made the cup tremble faintly in my hand.
She’d apparently finished her own drink at some point without my noticing. Her now-empty hand stayed resting over mine where I was holding the carrier bag.
“I can’t just… do that on command…”
“And — that. Please stop. It tickles.”
Even after I said it, her hand made no move to leave.
“All right then, just until we reach the station. It’s not far, you can manage.”
She said it as though it were nothing, and turned her eyes back toward the station ahead. From her there wasn’t even a trace of self-consciousness.
For Ao this was just teasing someone who’d been drifting off. The natural response was to brush it off lightly, the way I would with Fuuka. And besides, she was my sister, if only by marriage — I could easily have handled it more coolly and that would have been fine.
And yet.
I wished the station were further away. I wanted to walk more slowly. I wanted her to hold on tighter.
Deep inside my chest, which had become something of a mess, the feelings I thought I’d buried were quietly putting out roots again.