It was after a trudge up a hill and a few sways on the swings. Watanuki had complained about being too old for this stuff, but he had gone along with it just the same, as he pushed himself back and forth and watched his shadow flit over the grass.

Dusk hit them faster than it should have come. Doumeki could smell it in the wind before he saw the saffron spheres of light blotch his eyesight.

Watanuki complained about how this would set him back with his homework and his carefully planned evening of chores. His shoes had left groves in the sandpit under them when he gradually tried to slow himself down. Yellow grains went flying here and there.

Traces of burned wood was lacing the air, weaving in and out of that already there smell of dry moss and fall leaves. The air was tepid, quickly cooling because the lid of sundown, but it smelt good. Doumeki liked the smell and Watanuki called him retarded.

It was here. A hilltop displaced by sun and wind. It was a good spot for other things, other than what had happened. You could set a blanket under the heavy cedar tree. He saw children playing here, once or twice. It was a good spot for eating kurumetou and might also agree with barley tea.

They were quiet here without having to be so. It was easy talk from a person that shouted most of his time. Watanuki asked him if he'd ever flown a kite in this weather, and then he told him he had, and maybe one day he'd show him how.

The swings were making noise fit for a throne of Watanuki. Rust, he called it, and maybe termites too and there were less feasible reasons after. They made a game out of it, until he yelled about cheating and there was no such thing as ghost termites.

He remembers laughter, light and clear, like the fragments of the sun. It was a strange sound, but it went well with the transparent atmosphere. He liked the sound of it.

That was it. Probably. A reason why they'd leaned over and kissed each other. He never set out with the intention for it when he walked here. Spontaneous romance, he could have called it, if he left his subconscious out of the picture, and a setting sun might have helped.

It was soft. Watanuki smelled good. They held hands.

And he remembers exactly which one of them fell off the swing, mostly because it hadn't been him and it was easier to remember that kind of thing when you saw it.