#96: Vintage Wine / ep.1
“You said you were allergic to cats, didn’t you!?”
“That’s why I told you we should give up…”
Ignoring Rinko’s shrieks at the front door, Shandy stood there in a mask and a pair of sunglasses that made her look like some kind of suspicious pervert, smiling. I assumed she was smiling, anyway. You couldn’t see her eyes or the corners of her mouth.
Our spontaneously decided weekend trip to the hot springs required one crucial piece of preparation.
Finding somewhere to leave Mimosa.
The noble Queen Mimosa was a Russian Blue overflowing with pride, who hated nothing more than being lumped together with a bunch of other animals at a pet hotel. For reasons no doubt connected to her owner, she was utterly convinced that she was the most important being in the world.
Leave her unattended for a whole day and she would throw a tantrum, transforming the house into a complete paradise of chaos. She was a needy little thing who could only be entrusted to someone Shandy trusted and felt completely at ease with.
Unfortunately, her owner was so pathologically distrustful of humanity that there was no way she had any such person in her life.
That was why she hadn’t been able to leave Kyōdō for the past few years.
And of all of us, Shandy was the one looking forward to this little overnight trip the most.
“Since we’re going away anyway, I thought we might help you overcome your allergy.”
“You can’t overcome an allergy! That’s what makes it an allergy! Heh… heh-choo!”
The sneeze had been adorable, but Rinko had a point.
Naturally, we’d tried asking various mutual friends, acquaintances and relatives, but the first people we’d thought of, our family home, were away on a thirtieth-wedding-anniversary trip or something, while the Yanase household lived in a rented property that didn’t allow pets.
We’d even asked Michelle as a last resort, but she’d turned us down because she already had her rabbit, Kurume.
I understood Michelle’s sense of “I like Koto-no-san” less and less with every passing day.
Then, by chance, we got in touch with Hifumi, who happily agreed, only for—
“Setoka and the others will get scared, ken! Absolutely not!”
—to be met with a sit-in protest against allowing a cat to stay at the Saikawa household.
In the Saikawa family’s living room, Aoi’s hamsters had somehow managed to throw their weight around even more despite being mere lodgers.
Unlike Aoi, who still showed no intention of declaring independence, the hamster contingent, Setoka, Tangoru, Amanatsu and the other members of the citrus-themed delegation, had founded their own Ham-Ham Republic inside an enormous cage.
Hifumi, who was willing to take in not only lodgers who ought to be drinking the dregs of Setoka and the others’ hard work, but even cats without anywhere else to go, might simply have a soft spot for stray creatures.
So we’d gone all the way to Yokohama and been turned down.
That left only Kotone, the Saikawas’ neighbour.
Shandy had been the one to press the doorbell even after I’d told her we should give up, so this wasn’t my fault.
“People can actually die from allergies, you know!? Give me a break!”
“That’s precisely why I chose Rinko-san.”
“I’ll fucking kill you, you bitch!”
“Oh, how frightening.”
“Well, whatever. Our place is pretty big.”
I was watching their usual bickering with a sense of exhaustion when Kotone appeared, having heard the commotion.
She was half-naked, presumably because she’d only just woken up.
“Put some clothes on!” Rinko shouted, but Kotone ignored her and toddled over to Mimosa’s cage, speaking to her in a soft voice.
“Hey, Rinko-chan, did you know? The allergen responsible for cat allergies is a protein called Fel d 1. It’s found in saliva, fur, and excrement, and if you inhale more of it than your body can tolerate, you’re done for.”
“So what!? Why do you know so much abou—ah. That’s it.”
“That medical drama was pretty good, by the way.”
“Hehe. Thanks.”
For the sake of cat lovers who had developed severe allergies, there had been a scene in the medical drama Kotone had starred in the previous year about removing the causative substance from indoors and reducing their symptoms as much as possible.
“The allergen spreads through droplets, so you deal with it the same way you deal with a virus. Ventilate, clean, and, if necessary, keep the cat isolated in somewhere like the wardrobe room. Nothing to worry about.”
“Could you please stop calling my adorable kitty a virus?”
“There’s another adorable kitty right here, though.”
“You’re the worst!”
Kotone threw her arms around Rinko, only to be immediately shoved away.
Well, they seemed to be managing their cohabitation—or rather, live-in arrangement—quite successfully.
“Sorry, Rinko-san. Can I leave her with you?”
“…I’ll put up with it if you take me on a date sometime.”
“Hehe. With me?”
All I could do was stare in disbelief at Shandy, who simply couldn’t resist teasing Rinko.
This was an unreasonable favour to ask in the first place, and if the two of them went out together, that still fell within the bounds of friendship with someone who had helped sort out their romantic entanglement.
I also wanted to hear Rinko’s complaints about Kotone.
And, as both a friend and her older sister, I had to admit I was curious about the answer to the question, So what exactly is going on between you and Kotone?
“Then how about Kannai?”
“Yes!”
While Rinko pumped her fist in triumph, Shandy stared at me blankly.
Through her sunglasses, of course, so that was only my imagination.
“Stop bullying Rinko-san so much.”
“Boo.”
Shandy sulked after being reprimanded, but reluctantly accepted.
After giving Kotone, and Rinko, who was watching from a considerable distance away, a full briefing on how to feed Mimosa, how to change her pet sheets, and how to keep the difficult queen in a good mood, which was my department,we were finally ready to leave.
“Come on, Shandy-san.”
“This doesn’t sit right with me…”
She turned her face away with a little hmph and wouldn’t speak to me all the way to the station.
I felt a little guilty, but the gesture was so cute that I couldn’t bring myself to mind.
Our first day off together, just the two of us, in quite some time.
Two hours from Tokyo.
The limited express to Kinugawa, a hot-spring resort reachable by a single train from the capital, departed from Shinjuku.
I was responsible for pulling the suitcase containing both our luggage, while Shandy’s hands were already occupied by the canned beer and canned chūhai she intended to drink on the way.
The moment we sat down, the drinking party began as naturally as breathing. She hummed to herself while literally bathing in alcohol, using the scenery outside the window as her drinking companion.
I was glad she was having fun.
Just sitting beside her and watching her let her guard down made those months of restraint feel worthwhile.
“Sorry for making you indulge my selfishness.”
Shandy raised her sunglasses and gave me a little wicked twitch of the corner of her mouth.
“I know. To think you would monopolise little old me like this. If our regulars found out, they’d hold a grudge against you.”
“Yeah. I’m a bad girl.”
“I was threatened by a bad girl, so I had no choice but to come to Kinugawa.”
“That’s right.”
It amused me how proudly she said the exact opposite of what she really meant.
She was the one who had chosen the date.
She was the one who had chosen the destination.
And yet this contrary woman absolutely refused to speak her true feelings plainly.
But the hands resting beside each other were firmly clasped.
“I wish I could have opened the bar today, too.”
She squeezed my hand tightly as she said it.
“Well, if this is your heartfelt request, I suppose it can’t be helped.”
She loosened her grip as she said that.
I didn’t know whether the hand that tightened whenever she said the exact opposite of what she really meant was deliberately playing the role of a lie detector, or whether she was simply being her naturally oblivious self.
Either way, every bit of it was precious to me.
“Thank you.”
If I was going to do this, I might as well indulge myself completely.
For this holiday alone, I would stop trying to act mature and let myself be childish and selfish.
Even if she caught me out, extracted admissions from me and humiliated me for them, if it made Shandy happy, that was enough.
Because I wanted to do it too.
“I love you.”
“Oh, my. Aren’t you unusually honest?”
“Because I want you to believe me. I want you to know just how much I love you.”
“That’s not particularly convincing coming from someone who cheated.”
“I can’t see anyone but you.”
I said it and leaned against Shandy, who was sitting by the window.
A kiss scented with alcohol descended upon my cheek.
It was light enough to leave no trace of colour, barely more than a touch.
It tickled.
And it made me want a little more.
“At this rate, by the time we arrive, your whole face will be bright red with lip gloss.”
“That’s fine. I think my face is already bright red anyway.”
My blood was pounding and my heart was racing, but I was happy that I became like this around her.
I didn’t feel this way around other women.
I hadn’t even felt this way with the men I’d dated in the past.
It made me feel as though my like belonged to Shandy alone.
“Show me your face.”
“Look.”
I was embarrassed, but this time I tried not to resist as I normally would, and looked into Shandy’s amber eyes.
If she kept quiet, her features were almost doll-like, a beauty bestowed upon her by the gods.
I knew perfectly well that my own face was turning bright red with embarrassment, but I didn’t care.
I wanted to show her the face she liked.
And I wanted to look at the face I liked.
We stared at each other from point-blank range, a silent staring contest between two embarrassingly red faces.
The alcohol on her breath was a little strong, but it was a romantic Game in which the first person to look away lost.
I won.
“Keep looking at me.”
“Um… I’m shy…”
“I love you.”
“Oh, honestly. You suddenly become so straightforward…”
She was cute.
Dear.
Kind, sweet and gentle.
I hugged Shandy tightly.
Even if the conductor came around, I didn’t care.
I didn’t want to care.
I let the faint sound of Shandy’s heartbeat, faster than my own—the body was more honest than anything else—lull me slowly to sleep.
＊
The place looked as though the giant Iidarabotchi from myths and folktales had brought an axe down upon the earth.
Clear water thundered through the gap between steep, sheer cliffs.
Kinugawa Onsen.
At the foot of Nikkō Tōshō-gū, the shrine associated with Tokugawa Ieyasu, the town is said to have begun as an inn settlement for feudal lords and Buddhist monks travelling to Nikkō on pilgrimage.
In the early twentieth century, a major private railway company invested heavily in the area, helping it develop into a hot-spring resort accessible from the Tokyo metropolitan area without changing trains.
It eventually grew into one of the Kantō region’s major hot-spring towns, alongside Kusatsu and Atami.
—
Or so the story went.
That was all in the past now.
“It’s got a pleasantly run-down sort of charm.”
“Apparently the bubble economy hit them pretty hard.”
Sitting in the footbath outside the station, I said it while reading information from a travel website despite having already arrived.
The sound of Shandy kicking her feet in the water out of boredom was pleasant background noise.
It was early spring.
The wind was clear and refreshing, but the altitude meant it was simply cold.
Just looking at the remaining snow piled in the shadows, where it seemed the season had gone backwards, was enough to make me shiver.
The warmth of the footbath seeped right into me.
“We’ve got some time before check-in. Shall we go for a walk?”
“Yeah. How about we check out the observation deck?”
From the eastern side of the valley where the station stood, we crossed a photogenic bridge and headed west.
The path was paved, but still steep enough that both Shandy and I were panting by the time we reached the ropeway.
First, we took in the view.
The sky was perfectly clear.
Beyond the mountains, which twisted away like an enormous serpent, the Kantō Plain could just barely be seen stretching into the distance.
As I compared the view with the photograph in the pamphlet we’d been given, something crossed my field of vision.
Soap bubbles.
“You brought bubbles with you?”
“I saw them at the shop over there. Which means they’re telling us that we’re allowed to blow bubbles from the observation deck. So naturally we should.”
“Is that how it works?”
“That is how it works.”
Shandy, dressed in a sweet, classical-style dress, blew into an old-fashioned green tube.
The bubbles, carried down through the valley by the wind, their breath carrying an unusually high alcohol content, were as fine-grained as the fizz of sparkling wine.
Some looked like the hydrogen and carbon-dioxide models we’d seen in chemistry lessons.
Their shapes differed, but every one of them reflected the scenery upside down, and they were all beautiful.
But the most beautiful thing, the one I couldn’t help staring at, was—
“Do I look photogenic?”
“You look more beautiful than anything in this world.”
I stretched up and tried to flirt with her, only to be subjected to a bubble attack.
She called herself shy, so I supposed I had to forgive her for responding to compliments with mischief.
Still, I was annoyed enough to run back to the shop and buy another tube.
Then we stood there together, blowing bubbles towards the valley.
“Bubbles, bubbles, flying free…”
Shandy hummed the wistful old children’s song as the bubbles drifted away.
Perhaps she didn’t like the lyric about them “breaking and disappearing”.
Or perhaps she’d forgotten it.
Either way, she changed the rest to a hum.
La la la la la la.
“You’re really good at singing, Shandy-san. You were comfortable acting, too, and you can dance.”
“Hehe. Amazing, aren’t I?”
“Were you an idol or something?”
“Yes. I’m a legendary idol who retired for Mikoto’s sake, to the profound sorrow of seven billion people.”
“That really would be legendary.”
“And this is the legendary soap bubble.”
“Oh. That’s a big one.”
We were adults, and I knew that.
But there was no one around to judge us, and when you’re travelling, embarrassment can be left behind.
Until the liquid ran out, we competed over who could make the biggest legendary bubble, who could send the most bubbles flying with a single breath, and who could take the best two-shot photograph with the bubbles.
We made a ridiculous fuss like children.
We weren’t doing anything in particular.
We didn’t have any particular purpose.
The purpose of the trip was simply to spend time with Shandy.
The number of stars on a travel website and the scores in its reviews meant nothing.
“Did you have fun?”
“What about you?”
“I had a good person to come with.”
“I had ten times more fun than that.”
“You’re not a child.”
“I’m not taking that from you, Mikoto.”
Seeing her bashful, utterly genuine smile from up close.
Seeing her look so happy.
That alone was enough.
＊
The valley runs north to south, dividing the town into eastern and western halves.
The western side still had people and bustle despite its decline.
The eastern side, meanwhile, was a ghost town lined with abandoned hotels.
The stark contrast between east and west was one of the defining features of Kinugawa Onsen.
We were heading for the prosperous side.
The splendidly imposing hotel stood where the ropeway from the observation deck came down.
It was to be our lodging for the night.
“I’ll go and check us in.”
“You really refuse to tell me your name, don’t you…”
“I want you to love the name I gave myself more than the name my parents gave me.”
Shandy headed off to check in, her dress swirling around her ankles.
I watched her go, then looked at the photographs of Kinugawa displayed around the lobby.
A scenic hot-spring town, surrounded by nature in every season, close enough to Tokyo for an easy escape.
You could call it old-fashioned and leave it at that, but there was something calming about seeing such magnificent natural surroundings.
Aoi, who had grown up surrounded by nature from birth, had asked what was so great about “just some countryside”, but for someone born and raised in the city of Yokohama, it had more than enough charm.
How could we bring this place back to life?
How could we make more people appreciate what it had to offer?
I was just about to succumb to the occupational hazard of being a planner when I caught myself and sighed.
“I’ll show you to your room!”
A young proprietress wearing a brand-new employee badge soon appeared, took our luggage, and led us to our room.
Everything about this trip was Shandy’s carefully planned mystery tour.
I hadn’t known where we were going until that morning, and I had no idea what was going to happen next.
There was probably some surprise waiting for us in the Japanese-style room too.
I looked around the roughly ten-tatami room.
On the table, alongside the welcome drinks and sweets, were two boxes.
“Oh?”
Shandy made a small sound and turned to the young proprietress.
“Um, I was told you wanted to surprise her by celebrating her birthday, but is there some problem with—ah.”
“Ah…”
Shandy looked up at the ceiling in disappointment while the careless young proprietress bowed repeatedly.
A few days earlier, on 2 March, I had turned twenty-eight.
I had assumed the notes and necklace I’d received during our life of constantly missing each other were all the birthday celebration I’d get.
So this was a surprise.
Including the surprise of the surprise being ruined.
“Mmm… That proprietress really needs to work on her hospitality…”
Shandy was a former hotel employee, so although she was pleasant enough with people, she was strict with others in the same industry.
She smiled at the young proprietress, who was apologising profusely, and said, “This is a surprise too, I suppose.”
But the sheer force of the sarcasm behind that smile was painfully obvious, leaving me distinctly uneasy.
“Well, I was surprised, so isn’t that all right?”
Trying to cheer up Shandy, who was sulking on the tatami, I reached for the longer of the two packages.
I could tell what was inside from the shape of the box.
It was heavy enough that it was almost certainly a bottle.
“Go ahead and open it,” Shandy muttered sulkily, sounding as though she couldn’t care less.
I took her at her word and opened the wrapped presentation box.
“Wine. That’s unusual. You don’t normally drink it.”
“It’s twenty-eight years old, the same age as you. If that proprietress had kept quiet, I could have drunk it while enjoying the look on your face when you found out…”
Inside the presentation box, wrapped in silk, was a wine that had matured over the same twenty-eight years as I had.
A necklace.
A trip.
The travel expenses.
And now this.
Shandy’s feelings weren’t merely coming through clearly enough.
They were overwhelming me.
“I’m really happy, but don’t you think you’ve given me too much? I already got this necklace.”
“It’s fine. You’re going to have to take an even heavier woman off my hands someday.”
Shandy rolled across the tatami and rested her head on my lap, the “heavy woman” in question.
She was simply delicate.
And light.
Her small white face was faintly flushed, and just looking at her made my heart ache with affection.
“I don’t like always being the one receiving things. At least tell me your birthday? I want to give something back.”
“Nope.”
“Is there anything you want for your birthday?”
“I’m all set.”
“Then what if I win a Game?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Because I threw away my past.”
Shandy giggled, and I couldn’t help laughing with her.
But Alice’s story crossed my mind.
If what she’d told me was true, Shandy hadn’t been born because anyone wanted her.
There was a vast gulf between her life and mine, which had been spent growing up warm and secure with my parents and younger sister.
Even if she never told me what she’d been through, I knew enough to understand that the life she’d lived must have been a brutal one.
“Then can I decide? Your birthday, I mean.”
“Sure. What day shall I make my anniversary?”
“How about today?”
“A commemorative day chosen that casually would be boring.”
She slowly sat up and straddled my lap, bringing our faces together.
Our noses touched.
Our eyelashes brushed.
And naturally, our lips touched too.
“Can I decide? I want to choose a day I’ll never forget for the rest of my life, and make that our anniversary.”
Her tone was mischievous.
She was surely plotting something.
“Sounds like it could become a lifelong scar instead…”
“That might be nice too. I’ll sink my teeth, my fangs, my claws into you so you’ll never be able to flirt with anyone else for the rest of your life.”
“I only look at you.”
“People can say anything they like.”
“Then I’ll say it with my lips.”
We lightly reaffirmed our love, and Shandy stood up.
She tilted her head at the second surprise present on the table, the one neither of us had opened.
“Oh, now that I think about it, I wonder what’s in that little package. It isn’t something I prepared.”
I picked it up.
It was a package about the size of a roll-cake box, quite different from the wine.
The wrapping paper concealed the contents, but it wasn’t particularly heavy.
When I gently shook it, something rattled inside.
It wasn’t a birthday cake, at least.
“Perhaps the proprietress accidentally brought it up with ours.”
“I’ll go and ask.”
I asked Shandy to contact the front desk while I examined the mysterious box.
I looked all around it, then held it up to the light.
Faintly visible beneath the wrapping paper were the words:
For Mikoto-san.
A message card.
It could have been intended for someone else with the same name.
But curiosity was impossible to suppress.
Carefully, so that I could put everything back exactly as it had been, I peeled back the wrapping paper and opened the folded message card.
Inside—
“Huh? Tōko-san?”
The sender, Yanase Tōko, had filled the card with handwritten text.
＊
Dear Mikoto-san,
Happy birthday!
Thank you ever so, ever so, ever so much for always taking such wonderful care of Sanae!
Sanae is always talking about you at home, you know?
I pretended to be jealous and asked her, “Who do you like more, me or Mikoto-san?”
And she got all sulky and said, “Don’t ask questions when the answer is obvious.”
But she’s so incredibly cute when she does that!
She’s so cute it makes me feel like I’m going to fall apart!
I wish I could show that side of Sanae to you, Mikoto-san!
But she’s mine, so I can’t!
＊
That was where I lost the will to continue reading.
Her birthday greeting had lasted for about a second.
Everything after that was an intensely concentrated display of pride in her wife.
“Glad you’re happy, I suppose,” I muttered as I skimmed through it.
There were lines about how Tōko had been missing antiqua lately because she hadn’t been able to visit, apologies for not being able to give me Valentine’s chocolate, an apology for not being able to look after Mimosa, and then, finally, something about the present.
May you have a delightful night.
“A delightful night…”
Suddenly, I was afraid to find out what was inside the box.
I knew Tōko’s personality, at least to some extent.
She loved Sanae more than anything in the world.
And somewhere after that, she took an excessive interest in watching over the relationship between Shandy and me.
She openly declared that “talking about romance is one of the finer accomplishments of womanhood”.
What on earth had someone like that sent us?
The lock clicked.
Shandy returned.
I instinctively hid the wrapping paper and message card before asking:
“How did it go?”
“Apparently that package arrived from Tōko-san yesterday. She was the one who recommended this hotel to us, too, so they were trying to be thoughtful.”
“Oh, right. She contacted me earlier, so I thanked her.”
“Ah, then we must have just missed each other. I’ll go and apologise to the front desk.”
“S-sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Shandy left with a smile.
I waited until I could no longer hear her footsteps.
Then I cautiously pulled the little package out from beneath the table.
A prop for ensuring a delightful night.
Something seemed to emanate from the gaps in the box.
Was this… supernatural energy?
“D-don’t tell me you’ve put something weird in here…?”
With trembling hands, I peeled away the tape.
Slowly, I opened the box—
“Eek…”
I looked inside.
Then immediately closed the lid again.
There was underwear that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
And a little bottle whose label bore a single word:
Seduction.
There were other things in there too, but they were clearly nothing wholesome.
I shoved the whole box deep into the bottom of my suitcase.
Hopefully Shandy would never find out.
Because if she did, she would surely say:
“Then whoever loses the Game should put that on and down the contents of the little bottle in one go. I do want us to have a delightful night, one we’ll never forget.”