16. アイスクリーム

Ice Cream

Makoto started to gather his football equipment into a pile next to his bag. "Well, that was a quick practice session," Anna noted as she watched him toss the footballs into the bag one by one.

"You want to know something funny?" Makoto asked from his spot on the turf near Anna's knees. "Our starting kicker is out with a hamstring injury and the backup tore his meniscus. Okay," he realized once he had said it, "that wasn't funny. It actually really sucks. But the funny part is, I'm a wide receiver. I'd never kicked a ball in my life until you saw me make that extra point at the end of our scrimmage."

Though she knew precious little about the sport, Anna had to admit she was still impressed by that. "Really?"

"Yup," Makoto said, slinging his now-full bag over his shoulder and standing up with chest proudly puffed out. "Coach told me after I scored the touchdown, 'How'd you like to try kicking the extra point? If you make it, I'll end practice early.' So I told everyone in the huddle."

"Oh. That's why even the guys in the green uniforms were happy for you?" Anna asked.

"Uh-huh. Gotta admit, my heart was racing after Coach raised the stakes. Of course, like I told you, I perform best under pressure. Like you just saw."

"Right," Anna said, a bit put off by Makoto's self-confidence. "So if you're not a kicker, why are you practicing?"

"We need one. Why not me?" Makoto asked rhetorically. "Anyway, I'm gonna go put this bag away and change clothes. Might hop in the showers too. Feel free to join me," he offered with a wink.

"I'd sooner shower with a skunk," Anna said witheringly.

"Suit yourself," Makoto said, unfazed. "I'll be right back."

Despite Makoto's arrogance, to say nothing of his come-ons, Anna found herself impatiently awaiting his reemergence from the locker room. She didn't have to wait long. He approached her with long, cocksure strides, his hair redone into the usual bed of spikes, his practice jersey traded in for a stone-grey T-shirt.

The breeze at Makoto's back reached Anna before he did. She sniffed at it dramatically. "Are you wearing cologne?!" she demanded as he drew near enough to swing at - which she nearly did.

"Yeah. What's the big deal? I decided to skip the shower. Didn't want to keep you waiting."

"Afraid that I'd come to my senses, huh?" Anna snarked.

"Honestly, yes," Makoto admitted. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around the events that got us here. You gotta admit, though, I'm much better-looking without the black eye."

Anna scoffed with revulsion. "Oh yeah," she agreed sarcastically, "you're at least twice as attractive now. Unfortunately, two times zero is still zero."

"Whatever," Makoto demurred. "I don't care if you think I'm ugly. You're still going out with me."

Anna stamped her foot into the turf and stared into Makoto's eyes through slits narrowed in cold fury. "Let's get one thing straight," she said, in a deadly soft hiss. "We are just friends spending time together. We are not, I repeat not, 'going out'!"

"Meh," Makoto shrugged, unflappable as usual. "Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

"There's a difference!" Anna riposted. "Friends don't fu-"

"Whoa! Language," Makoto cut in irreverently. "First of all, yes, they do. At least sometimes. Second of all, why do you always have to make it about sex? Jesus, Anna. I thought I was the sex-obsessed virgin here."

"I - I …" Anna's brain was locking up with frustration and rage. She was turning a dangerous shade of chartreuse. "Get this through your thick skull, Makoto. We are just friends. One-hundred-percent, no 'benefits,' strictly platonic, friends. And I'm seriously starting to question even that."

Makoto looked like he had been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. "Okay, Anna. I'm sorry. I'll stop."

"Good." Anna favored Makoto with a no-nonsense nod. "Now, then. Do you have plans for this evening?"

Makoto slowly turned his gaze toward Anna. "What?" he asked, certain he had misheard her. "Why? Are you - asking me out?"

"Are you free this evening?" Anna asked again in the same flat tone. "I'm not going to ask again."

"A - absolutely," Makoto said haltingly, wary of Anna setting a trap for him with her words.

"Do you like ice cream?" Anna's expression was as neutral as her voice, betraying nothing.

"I love ice cream." Makoto held his breath, as though the force of exhaling might bring the trap crashing down around him.

The corners of Anna's lips turned upwards ever so slightly. "Then it's settled. Let's go."

Makoto finally breathed out - but he was still on guard. "Anna, after all that, you're asking me out on an ice cream date? Err, on an 'ice-cream-two-platonic-friends-hang-out'?" he hastily amended.

Anna shrugged, unperturbed. "Meh. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

With that, she spun around and started to walk off the football field, leaving Makoto following her in a confused yet elated haze …

Anna passed the ice cream parlor every day on the way home from school. Particularly during the spring, when the air grew warm and humid, she was fond of stopping by and gazing through the window longingly at the freezer full of homemade ice cream that awaited her inside. But the emptiness of her belly was nothing compared to the void that seemed perpetually present inside her wallet. It was a shop as familiar to her as it was completely foreign, a regular sight that had remained, for years, nothing more than a sight.

Yet there she was, on the other side of the windowpane at last, sitting in a corner booth with a demurely nibbled banana split directly before her. Across from her sat the tall and lanky figure of Makoto, ice cream cone in hand, looking quite amused by the story he was in the middle of relating.

"...So Tanaka looks back and forth from the muffin on the table to the circle of boys standing around it, and he goes, 'Wait a minute, is that why they call this game 'soggy mu-'"

"God," Anna broke in, licking her spoon clean, "this is delicious."

"That's not what Tanaka said," Makoto rejoined with a snicker.

"Ew. That story was gross," Anna declared.

"But I didn't even get to finish!"

"I thought that was Tanaka's problem, not yours," Anna said suggestively. She was the one snickering now.

Makoto smiled. "Yeah, that's basically how the story ends," he acknowledged. "How'd you know?"

"Oh, I could see where things were going. It wasn't hard."

"Neither was Tanaka!" Makoto interjected, unable to restrain himself.

"Har. Good one. So, do you have any other stories to tell about your time on the football team? Or is it really all just an excuse for you guys to stand around in a circle and beat -"

"Of course I have more stories!" Makoto hastened to interrupt. "But honestly, I'm not much of a storyteller. You should see me in action."

"See you in action?" Anna asked, preparing another spoonful of banana split. "As in, watch you beat -"

"No! No, I meant that you should come to our next home game." He licked his ice cream cone sensually and raised his eyebrows at Anna. "Although, if you wanted to watch me do … other things, that's fine by me too."

Anna swirled her bite of ice cream around her mouth slowly, allowing the flavor and texture to coat her tongue. She looked at Makoto earnestly. "Okay."

"Great! It's next Friday. I can get you a free ticket -"

"No," Anna butted in, cutting him short. Her expression was inscrutable. "I meant that I want to watch you … you know. Play the other game you were talking about. With the muffin. By yourself."

Makoto coughed violently as ice cream got caught in his throat. He looked at Anna through eyes that were tearing up. He pounded on his chest in an attempt to stop his coughing. Finally he managed to ask, "What?!"

"You heard me," Anna replied, deadpan. "I want to finish enjoying this ice cream. Then I want to go home with you and watch as you stroke -"

"All right, all right," Makoto interrupted, gesticulating quite forcefully with his ice cream cone. "I see what you're doing. You don't have to make fun of me, Anna." He actually looked a bit hurt.

"Make fun of you?" Anna asked, doe-eyed. "I'm just giving you what you want."

"But I don't want -"

"Then why do you say shit like that?!" Anna's trap had ensnared its prey, and her venomous words were about to finish him off. "You're always doing that. Hitting on me, making advances at me, wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Then I say, 'okay, fine, let's do that,' and you take it back right away! You know what I think? Put up or shut up! Don't say things you don't mean. I live by those words, and that's why I'm gonna say this:

"You're a pussy, Makoto!"

A half-consumed scoop of vanilla ice cream slid from its cone and plopped on the floor just to Makoto's side. The boy who had just dropped it loved ice cream, to be sure, but the devastated look on his face had nothing to do with the scoop he had just wasted.

"Oh, Lord," Anna said with a deflated smirk. "Here come the waterworks."

But Makoto composed himself magnificently. Wordlessly, he got up and made his way to the napkin dispenser near the register. He pulled a handful of napkins out and returned to the site of his fallen ice cream. He knelt on the sticky floor and felt Anna's eyes on his back as he sopped up the half-melted mess and deposited it in the trash.

When he returned, Anna actually looked a little contrite. She opened her mouth to speak several times, but found that words were reluctant to come forth. Anna was never good at apologizing.

"Save it, Anna," Makoto said, in a voice that was actually quite serene, given the circumstances. "It's okay. You're right. I'm a -"

"I shouldn't have said that," Anna said hastily, saving Makoto from having to complete his sentence. "I don't even like that word. But I was just trying to make a point. Your bravado is a huge turn-off. At least to me."

Makoto took his lumps and nodded. "I know," he admitted. "I should stop, Anna. That's the whole point of us hanging out. I haven't forgotten. It's just a hard habit to break, you know?"

"Yeah, I get it," Anna said, in a surprisingly agreeable tone. "Coming on strong is your defense mechanism. And mine is … treating people badly in general."

"Defense mechanism?" Makoto asked.

"You know, like we learned about in health class. Whenever we feel threatened or outside of our comfort zone, we fall back on certain patterns of behavior to help us cope." Anna carefully arranged a bite of banana split upon her spoon. Then she extended it to Makoto. "Want some?"

"I - ah …" Makoto hesitated. "Should we really be sharing food already? Are we close enough to do that?"

Anna gave a sharp laugh at that. "Only you could go from 'watch me do unspeakable things to myself' to 'we don't know each other well enough to share ice cream' in two minutes."

"Well, you know my secret now," Makoto said, smiling despite himself. "Beneath this fragile shell of false bravery lies a great big quivering pu-"

"Yeah, yeah, your secret's safe with me. Eat the damn ice cream."

Makoto opened his mouth and let Anna slide the spoon inside. His lips closed around it as she withdrew it, leaving him with a mouthful of ambrosia.

"I think that's the best ice cream I've ever had," he said, licking his lips.

"Yeah, ditto," Anna agreed. "I can't believe I've never had it before. I pass it by every day coming home from school."

"Wow," Makoto said, commandeering Anna's spoon and going in for a second bite. "You must be very good at resisting temptation."

Anna didn't reply immediately. She plucked one of Makoto's extra napkins off the table and dabbed at the corners of her mouth deliberately. "I don't know if I'd agree with that," she said at last.

"Why not?" Makoto was too busy savoring Anna's ice cream to notice her pause. "Do you feel close to doing something that's been tempting you?"

Anna found a sticky spot on one of her fingertips and rubbed at it with her napkin before she replied. "No."

"Then why don't you think you're good at resisting temptation?" Makoto was demonstrating that he wasn't so great at it himself by spiriting away yet another bite of Anna's banana split.

Anna watched him partake of her ice cream through pensive eyes. She was delving through the recesses of her mind in search of words to express her thoughts. "Resisting temptation is not always just a matter of pure willpower. Other factors come into play." She pointed at the ice cream before her. "I never stepped inside this ice cream parlor because I never had any money anyway. Resisting that temptation wasn't a test of my strength of will. It was mostly me being broke."

Makoto looked thoughtful, but remained silent as he watched Anna return his gaze. "All temptations are like that. Sometimes it's easier to say 'no' when other circumstances make saying 'yes' difficult. Or even impossible. But circumstances change."

Anna's gaze into Makoto's eyes took on a pointed look. "Mine have changed very recently."

Makoto blinked a few times in rapid succession as he caught on to what Anna was implying. "I - You - But …" he stammered, trying and failing to form a coherent reply. He took a deep breath and tried again. "Anna, we're just friends trying to help each other out. You just said so yourself."

Anna balled up her napkin and tossed it onto the table beside her banana split. "Don't be so naive, Makoto. If I had five yen for every relationship that started off as 'just friends,' I'd own this damn ice cream parlor." She looked away from Makoto and shifted her attention to the shop behind him. A smattering of red seats and pink tables, mostly empty, sat anchored to the checkerboard-tiled floor. The Valentine's Day color scheme was not lost on her.

"I guess you could say … our friend-ship is sailing through treacherous seas," she said at last, hoping to break the tension with a corny pun.

Makoto groaned, but laughed despite himself. "All right, a bad pun has been made. We're done here. Let's go home."

"What, that's it?" Anna said, with mock incredulity. "Just like that? God, you're no pun at all."

Makoto was on his feet now, making his way to the front door. "That was worse than the last one. Much worse."

Anna shrugged as she passed through the door Makoto was holding open for her. "Thanks. But even if it was locked, we'd be okay, since you're a little door key."

Makoto frowned and said to himself, "A little door … a little dorky?! Oh, you're good."

Anna laughed - then shivered. The sun had gone down and the chill of night had set in. Without having to look, she knew that goosebumps were rising on her arms. She tried to suppress another shiver.

"You must be cold," Makoto said. It was only then that she realized he had been following her down the sidewalk.

Anna turned around to face him. She shook her head and hoped Makoto would buy it. "Do you live nearby?" she asked.

"Nah. I live on the other side of town. You know. The bad side," Makoto replied with mock solemnity.

"Right," Anna replied, "the bad side. Where, occasionally, someone walks their dog and doesn't pick up its poop." Makoto chuckled at that. "Look, Makoto, you don't have to walk home with me. I can take care of myself."

Anna didn't stop walking. Makoto didn't stop following her. "I know you can. And I know I don't have to. You're such a strong and resilient person, I doubt you truly need anybody. Or anything. But Anna, I want to walk you home." Even by the dim illumination of the streetlight, Anna could tell Makoto was blushing. He looked down and finished, "May I?"

Anna took two steps forward to hide her face in the darkness out of the streetlight's radius. Only then did she turn around to give Makoto her answer.

"You know what?" she said after a moment's hesitation. "Let's go."

Anna wondered whether Akira was home as well, and what he would think of her newfound habit of bringing boys home. But that, she thought dismissively, was future Anna's problem. In the here and now, Anna was enjoying the "voyage of self-discovery" she and Makoto had embarked upon - even if it might soon be heading into treacherous waters …

To be continued in chapter 17