The rest of the ride was a blur. Drifting in and out of drowsiness, she didn't catch how Takeru cleared the contents of his hat, or when he acquired the medicine, but she did remember him gently willing her into waking to take it, wrapping her in his jacket, and massaging her wrists throughout the night.
A disaster. She had come here to make a good impression, but here she was being tended to the whole trip.
Perhaps it was not too late to turn back; he might in fact prefer it. She could find a net cafe and take a digital gate home. Someone might be able to open a gate, and if she hurried she might catch the last train home.
Maybe it wasn't even too late with Takeru. Their relationship was new; the feelings were fresh. Maybe if they quelled them quick enough, they could still salvage the friendship. They had been best friends for so long that was surely still something to fall back on in the fallout. Then she wouldn't have to worry about him settling though unsatisfied, or her fitting in with any family. She needn't worry about the authenticity of any affections.
He would find the perfect girl who writes French poetry, reads Rilke, and doesn't need to be cared for like a child on a casual trip to Chūgoku.
Just as these thoughts were once again beginning to thrum into her mind, Takeru inhaled deeply and slowly opened his eyes, blinking into the dim light of dawn.
"Ohayo, how are you feeling?" he promptly asked.
"A bit better," she said, though a dull drum still tolled in her head, and the world maintained some unnatural sway. "How about you?"
"I'm glad," he said as he closed his eyes in relief. This lingered so long that she thought that he might have been swept back into slumber until he said, "Look, the sunrise."
The sun was peeping from behind the vast mountainscape, falling on bustles of trees, some mountain top temples, and an almost endless expanse of camellias in the distance.
"Ah, it's beautiful," Hikari said, as the sun's soft light landed on her, illuminating the color just barely returning to her face, and her hair tousled wildly from a night turning alternately to and away from him, to avoid jeopardizing any more articles of his clothing.
He paused to perceive her.
"Yes, lovely," he said, with a smile as he sank back into slumber.
"So cosmopolitan of you, I could almost smell the city!" said Kinu Ishida when the couple approached. She sat knees folded atop a cushion on the engawa boards, before Takeru lifted her up into an embrace.
The smell was actually the acrid scent lingering on the pair. Hikari was sure there was still some stuck to a tousle of hair, or crusted to a stretch of clothing, or perhaps it was Takeru's still soiled hat secured somewhere in his knapsack.
"Sorry we're late. We got hungry so we stopped for some breakfast," said Takeru as he gently returned his grandmother to her cushion.
That was at least half true, Hikari noted. Typical Takeru.
In truth, before climbing to the hilltop home, they had waited for Hikari's world to stop spinning then washed up more than a bit at the bus station restroom. By the time she'd finished, Takeru was waiting outside with a bag of buns and some coffee, having remembered she hadn't kept a meal since yesterday.
After all this trouble, he's still looking out for me, she thought, full of guilt.
"No worries, I was just enjoying the morning air," the older woman replied as she lifted her head, as if to better feel the breeze.
"Grandma, this is Hikari."
"Nice to meet you Hikaru," she said with a small nod, somewhat off the direction where the young woman stood, but Hikari understood.
Takeru had already explained that at her age, his grandmother was legally blind. She needed thick glasses to see even at close distances. thick glasses to see even at close distances. Shapes and forms weren't quite as clear as they used to be, but it was enough to get by in their close little community. With such thin walls, if necessary, she need only call out, and some kind neighbor would show up to help her read her mail, or to confirm the symbols of the recyclable bins.
The young woman returned the greeting.
"Come, come. It's the perfect time for tea," said Grandma. The couple followed the elder woman to the front of a tea room, where tools for a simple tea ceremony waited.
Though they cleaned themselves before entering, after such a tough night, Hikari still felt filthy as she knelt on the fresh tatami mats, but Takeru sent her a reassuring nod and squeezed her hand lightly. Hikari was certain things could only get better from here on in.
At least she hoped so.
Before the trip, Takeru had told Hikari that their grandmother was a tea master, so she had asked him to teach her how she might need to act in a tea ceremony. It took a whole mock ceremony, five batches of tea, and a heated call to Yamato for them to realize: not only Takeru, but both brothers had zero recall of proper tea ceremony protocol.
They had either nodded off or otherwise glossed over the entire event each summer, knowing their grandmother would love them either way. Hikari, unfortunately, did not possess this privilege. So they resorted to drastic measures: Sora, who gave them all a crash course on traditional tea ceremony etiquette (but not before giving Yamato a crash course on "listening to your girlfriend the first few dozen times around.")
Hikari reviewed each step and rule thoroughly, as if she were to be tested. (In a way, wasn't she?) She was certain she knew precisely what she needed to do to pass with flying colors.
Kinu carefully cleaned each tool, lit the incense, and prepared the sweets in front of the young couple. Her eyes are not as sharp as they used to be, but her hands moved with a precision honed by decades of practice in the art.
Incense filled the room. The ceremony was starting.
Though Takeru claimed no conscious recall of tea ceremony etiquette, once he was seated it was as if a switch had been flicked. A lifetime of subliminal cultural education was apparently not entirely wasted on the young man. He somehow suddenly knew all the right responses, almost mechanically. Hikari had relaxed a little as she realized she needed only to follow their lead.
But as she felt the air grow heavy with incense, she started to worry.
Kinu skillfully prepared the sweets and served them first to Takeru. He had some then passed most to Hikari. (She couldn't quite stomach much yet, so he stealthily pulled the plate back and finished the rest, to avoid potentially offending his grandmother.)
Perhaps her stomach had yet to fully recover from last night. Perhaps she hadn't eaten enough. Or perhaps the gods were simply smiting her for some sin she had done in some past life or another.
Before she knew it, the air of tea and incense fell suffocatingly upon her and her head grew light. All the rules she had known all of a sudden knotted into each other into some muddled mess.
She stayed as long as she could, until she had to excuse herself, both for air and for fear of soiling the spotless tatami mats.
She had abruptly left the chakai, where she was the guest of honor. Takeru too immediately excused himself to tend to her, while his grandmother finished the tea on her own.
A complete failure by Sora's standards.
Takeru delicately led her to the guest room and guided her to their futon next to the wide open window, before wordlessly leaving the room. She had just started to worry about how displeased he must be with her, when he promptly returned, a tray of ginger tea and some more buns at hand. He sat next to her.
"It's alright. You're probably not the first to feel unwell in a chakai. Yamato and I have done much worse here too," he said, offering her the teacup.
"But she prepared so much, and I wasted it all," she says, closing her eyes to the still swaying world.
"She's probably still enjoying the tea right now," he said with a chuckle, helping himself to a bun.
She wanted him to grunt, groan, at least grumble, to finally break his kind composure and curse her for causing such inconvenience. But instead, he tenderly took her hand in his, stroked her head with the other, and kissed each.
Hikari was dazed.
"I'll go help grandma clean up and prepare lunch," he said.
"Rest well, I'll check on you when we're done," he said with a final squeeze of her hand before leaving her to herself.
She didn't deserve this. She didn't know what she did to deserve this. She didn't know what to do. Her head was only now beginning to clear.
She found herself staring at the guest room walls. It was full of photos of the young brothers: fishing here, camping there, scenes from a childhood well-spent.
In some photos, she could read Takeru's expression.
The young brothers are at a barbershop, broad smiles, but their dishevelled hair betrays them. She has seen the same when he writes a paper he should have started a week ago, as he runs to meet her at her station, from a train he barely caught: hair just so slightly more blown than usual.
In another, a tiny Takeru holds a small fish, grinning, but she could read a slight hint of disappointment (perhaps at the size of the fish.) Something in his eyes, the slightest twist of his lip, the same face that reviews his returned writing drafts, somehow still covered in red marks.
Several other pictures were familiar, because she had taken them.
Takeru surrounded by the team at the middle school basketball championships, when he was team captain. With the other chosen children at their Odaiba memorial, the year before they reunited with their partners. Summer trips and Christmas parties, school festivals and graduations, and some quiet moments, when she was still studying how to use her camera, and he simply assented to being her subject.
They could have all been the same photo, because in all he had the same expression: looking straight into the lens, a serene smile on his face. A smile she'd seen a thousand times, the familiar face of her best friend. An expression that never changed.
But wasn't it supposed to?
She was exploding with all these new emotions, her body discovering new sensations she could not understand. Wasn't he?
He never seemed any happier as her lover than he was as her friend. Was he not simply humoring her? And if he was, until when? Could he really still stand it, after all the trouble she'd put him through?
She was certain he could charm anyone else he may ever want in this world. If he were only indulging her, he had no reason to. If he weren't truly happy with her— and she was never certain if he was — he had to pursue his true happiness. She wanted him to.
The thoughts turned and turned in her head.
She had to get out.
She had to do something .
She reached for their bags, fumbled with one of the pockets, and left the room.