Evening of the Seventh
The bamboo leaves rustle,
shaking away in the eaves.
The stars twinkle
on the gold and silver grains of sand.
The five-color paper strips
I have already written.
The stars twinkle, they watch us from heaven.
—Tanabata-sama, Japanese folk song
"Oreki-san!" Chitanda Eru greeted him gaily the moment she saw him, clad in her pretty purple yukata with a white camellia pattern. She bowed, and in doing so displayed the flower pin on her hair, while Houtarou stared in silent admiration. "Good evening!"
"Oh. Good evening." Oreki Houtarou looked around, and checked his watch. "Satoshi and Ibara not yet around?"
"They actually arrived earlier than I did," Eru said with a wide smile. "However, I suggested that they go on ahead. Fukube-san said he wanted to go around the shopping district for a bit…"
"I see." Houtarou shrugged, and put his hands in his pockets. "Well, do we try to look for them, or—"
Eru eagerly interjected, "Shall we have a look around as well, Oreki-san?"
Houtarou sighed, and followed Eru as she led the way into the busy crowd.
It was the seventh of August, the date when the inhabitants of Kamiyama City celebrate the Tanabata festival as per the lunar calendar. The shopping district seemed to be brighter today, owing to the dozens of paper lanterns all over the place. Houtarou's gaze, however, seemed to want to concentrate on the blue obi of the girl walking before him, thinking about the time when Satoshi discoursed about the evils of imitation obi… or was that really a discourse? He couldn't think straight.
"Oreki-san…?" Eru turned toward him, and his breath caught as a sudden strange feeling washed over him—
"Hurry, hurry!"
He saw the slight figure of the daimyo's daughter running before him in a bewitching purple yukata, her hair loose and flying in the warm summer breeze—
"I couldn't believe you're this excited over some small-town festival," he was gasping as he ran, and she turned around, laughing.
"I guess so!" She smiled, pure happiness personified, and he thought, Yes, she is an angel…
"Oreki-san? Are you alright?" Eru was frowning worriedly, and Houtarou tried to pull himself together.
What was that? What did I just see?
"Yeah, I'm okay." He shook his head experimentally. "I just got sort of… distracted."
"If you say so…" Eru still had a concerned look in her eyes, but then seemed to just decide to take him at his word—at least, Houtarou thought, for now.
They went around the shops and stalls, while Eru pointed out the many bamboo trees around the place, their branches heavy with the colorful strips of paper. Houtarou just made a noncommittal sound every time she made an observation, content to just look around for himself.
"Ah, Oreki-san, look, goldfish scooping," she suddenly exclaimed, and gestured at the stall with an excited smile. "I haven't tried this again since middle school…"
Houtarou raised an eyebrow at Eru's enthusiasm, and let her lead him to where the children gathered around with their paper scoops and basins. He thought how the both of them looked rather out-of-place in their midst, Houtarou being taller than most people his own age, and Eru bubbly and certainly not looking like the prominent landowner's demure daughter.
As he watched Eru fumble in her purse for some change, he felt another wave of vertigo—
"Oreki-san, look!"
He saw her kneel by the goldfish-scooping stand, and ask for three scoops, crouching down next to another kid.
She looked up. "Wish me luck, Oreki-san!" she said.
Just another kid, he thought with a smile.
"Good luck," he found himself saying.
There it is again, another vision. That's weird…
"Three scoops, please," Houtarou heard Eru call cheerfully, inducing another uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu, and taking her purchases, spent the next three minutes unsuccessfully capturing the tiny, evasive goldfish.
Houtarou debated over whether to offer her a helping hand as he was worried that Satoshi might be looking for them already, but then Eru bought one more scoop and finally caught one, showing off the clear bag with the goldfish inside rather proudly as they went away.
"You do know you're already in high school," he pointed out as she giggled, high off the euphoria of her success.
"One can never be too old for goldfish-scooping, Oreki-san!" she said in a halfheartedly scolding tone, but then burst out laughing at Houtarou's startled expression. "I was just kidding, but then… I, at least, can never get too old for this…" And she gave the goldfish another smile.
"I suppose so." Houtarou's lips formed a half-smile as Eru skipped two steps before him, her face illuminated by the orange lantern lights.
"D'you think Fukube-san might be looking for us already?" she asked him as they continued wandering around, eating bits of takoyaki as they went.
"Maybe," he said uncertainly, and then felt the tug as someone suddenly pulled at his sleeve—
Father, he instinctively thought, recognizing the stern expression and weather-beaten face.
"Don't do this ever again," the man was yelling over the noise of the crowd, "You should never put her in danger again."
"Danger?" he was repeating dumbly.
"It's the daimyo—" a passerby whispered, and he turned to look at the great man staring down at his daughter, who was pink-faced from her former enthusiasm.
"Father…" she murmured, and the man took her away on the horse and never looked back.
"Oi, Houtarou!"
Houtarou was shaken out of his strange vision by Satoshi's loud voice, the shorter boy having slung his arm around the taller one's shoulders and shouting in his ear. Shrugging his grinning best friend off himself, he raised his eyes to see Eru looking at him with a strange look in her eyes.
Chitanda…?
However, before he could actually ascertain her expression, Satoshi had waved a bag full of souvenirs before his eyes.
"Man, I'm stuffed," he was saying, and Houtarou tore his gaze away from Eru to glare at his insufferable friend. "We tried everything. Mayaka won a goldfish, but I wasn't so lucky," he added, gesturing to the bag Mayaka was holding.
"Yeah, Chitanda got one as well," Houtarou replied, and flicked his eyes to see Mayaka engaging Eru into a delighted conversation about how pretty the night was.
Satoshi drew away from him, frowning slightly.
"You look rather pale, Houtarou. Are you sick?"
"No," Houtarou frowned. "Just running low on energy, I guess. This place is too… bright, I daresay."
Satoshi resumed his huge grin. "I see. That's just like you. Anyway, I have fireworks. Want to light them up by the river after we hang up our wishes on the bamboo?"
"Okay." Houtarou checked his watch. "I'm not due till nine anyway."
"Great!" Satoshi wheeled around. "Chitanda-san! Mayaka! Want to go write our wishes now?"
"Fine by me," Mayaka called back, and Eru nodded enthusiastically.
They watched their paper strips flutter in the light evening breeze among others after hanging them on the branches of one of the smaller bamboo plants, and when Satoshi announced that they better go to the riverbank now, they all agreed, leaving the noise and light of the shopping district behind them in favor of the near-silence of the Miyagawa river.
Houtarou dully watched his sparkler grow shorter as the tip burned down, listening to the quiet rush of the river as Mayaka and Satoshi whooped and enjoyed the cooler summer night.
"Here goes, Mayaka!"
"Fuku-chan, stop that! You might fall in the river!"
Engrossed in his own thoughts, he did not notice Eru stand beside him until he heard a soft singing—
"Eight times the spring wind kissed my cheeks,
And I met you.
Twelve times the summer sun burned my hands,
And I knew you.
"Oh, oh, if only I could
Oh, if only I could
Tear down the clouds from the sky
And make another heaven
Oh, if only I could."
"Chitanda?" he found himself asking, turning to look at Eru, who had stopped and was watching him with starry violet eyes. He tried to banish the distracting thoughts from his head. "What's that song?"
"Oh?" Eru looked surprised, and then smiled gently. "It's unusual to see you interested in anything, Oreki-san."
"I'm not…" Houtarou was taken aback by her earnest tone, and then decided to take down his walls just for a moment. "Okay, I'm a tiny bit… curious."
"It's a song my mother used to sing to me," she said, and looked sad as her sparkler ran out. "As did her mother before her, and her mother before her…" She chuckled and slipped the spent firework into the bucket. "Anyway, it's a very old song. Some say that it came from an old legend that concerned the Chitanda family, but…" She looked up at the sky, and Houtarou could see the huge river of stars reflected in her eyes. "Doesn't the song remind you a bit of the story of Orihime and Hikoboshi? It's a bit sad."
"Maybe." Houtarou stuck his firework into the bucket when it died away as well. "But in this evening at least, they're going to meet, right?"
He raised his eyes as well, mimicking her, and immediately spotted the two brightest stars in the night sky.
Orihime… and Hikoboshi, huh?
Beside him, Eru continued singing:
"Sixteen times the autumn leaves brushed my hair,
And you kissed me.
Seventeen times the winter snow pinched my cheeks,
And you left me.
"Oh, oh, if only I could
Oh, if only I could
Tear up the grass from the soil
And make another earth
Oh, if only I could."
The wind that swept across the river was warm. The sky seemed so alive, Houtarou could almost trick himself into thinking that the stars themselves were singing.
"Oreki-san?" Eru murmured beside him. He turned his head.
"Mm?"
"Oh, nothing." She blushed and shook her head. "I was thinking of asking you what you wrote on your tanzaku, but..."
"It was nothing special. Good health, that sort of thing."
"I see." Eru smiled. "Well, I wished for a good harvest this year."
"That's a farmer's daughter for you," Houtarou quipped, and Eru was about to say something else when—
"Houtarou!"
"Chii-chan!"
They looked at where Satoshi and Mayaka were beckoning at them. Houtarou glanced briefly at Eru, who just smiled. He started forward.
"If you weren't Oreki-san, and I wasn't Chitanda Eru, would all of these have happened?"
The murmur was so swift and low that Houtarou did not catch it. He turned back, a quizzical look on his face.
"Chitanda, sorry, what—?"
"Never mind, just me thinking aloud," she said with a laugh, and Houtarou did not see her smile as she ran forward past him in the starry night.
STORY NOTES
If anyone is interested in trivia, the place on my cover picture is one of the streets in Hida-Takayama, Gifu Prefecture. It's the city where Kamiyama was based on.
AUTHOR'S NOTES
A sort of fluffy extra for Another Heaven, with a dash of bittersweetness. Did you guys like it?
If you haven't read Another Heaven yet, I'd recommend you to, because that's my cornerstone for this fic.
Reviews encourage me to write more, okay?