"I don't need your help to do this, Maki," Hinawa said. He pulled ahead of her and continued walking.
"Quit complaining," she called to him.
Hinawa groaned inwardly. The very last thing he wanted today was for Maki to join him in decorating his mother's grave.
"You never told me what your favorite type of book is," Maki said, catching up to him.
"I like thrillers."
"Really? You?"
"This is coming from someone who totes around an old wedding magazine with her everywhere she goes?"
"That is personal!" Maki screeched, stopping in her tracks.
Hinawa knew it was a low blow, but he loved thriller fiction. He didn't find himself as attracted to sci-fi and fantasy as everyone else. But thrillers kept him on the edge of his seat the entire time he read the book.
"Why do you carry around that old magazine?" he asked softly, pausing to wait on his comrade.
"There was a dress in the magazine I really liked and wanted. My parents refused to buy it for me, so I bought it to remind them I wanted that dress when — if — I got married."
"Damn, you're not even confident that you're going to get married," Hinawa said softly.
"No one wants to marry someone like me. My father and brother point that out often."
Hinawa felt guilty for even making fun of her magazine. His mother would be ashamed. He sighed and held out a hand to help a disheartened Maki finish her trek up the hill.
"Why don't you make your own wedding dress?" he asked her.
"I'm not getting married yet, so why should I?"
"Because you can probably make something more beautiful than what you're wanting."
Maki stared at the ground and smiled. Hinawa had never complimented her sewing abilities before now.
"Here it is," he announced, stopping in front of a headstone that had become overgrown with grass and ivy. He knelt and immediately began clearing away the weeds by hand.
"Here, lieutenant," Maki said softly, offering a pair of thick gardening gloves. He stared at them before silently taking them from her.
"Start on that side," he said, pointing. "I'll start over here."
"Is there not a caretaker for this cemetery?" Maki asked.
Hinawa shook his head. He was reminded of having to do this every year growing up, his dad too heartbroken to pitch in and help. He paused, overcome with nausea.
"Lieutenant?" Maki's voice sounded further away than it actually was. She gently pushed him back onto the grass.
"I need to be alone for right now," he said quietly.
Maki nodded and walked a little ways away. Hinawa pushed the bill of his hat down over his eyes and let the tears flow silently down his face. He really missed his mom.
He was so lost in thought that he didn't hear Maki come up beside him. She didn't say anything to him, for which he was grateful.
He looked over at Maki's face, which was full of concern. He had never told anyone about his mother's passing and why it always affected him so. Could he get the words out enough to tell her?
"My mom was-was a beautiful woman," he choked out, desperately wanting to get it off his chest. "But when I was a kid, she was always sick with one illness or another."
Maki sat close to him and quietly took his hand in her own. His nausea hadn't died down at all; he wanted to vomit all over the ground but knew it would scare Maki to death.
"One day in December I woke up to hear my dad cursing. I was young, only eight at the time. He had stubbed his last two toes on the coffee table in the living room while going to get more wrapping paper for a present of mine. My mom was going to get the first aid kit from the bathroom to wrap my dad's toes. Only… she didn't even make it to the hall."
Hinawa sat and stared at a patch of grass in front of him as he remembered everything. His mother collapsing, his father yelling at him to get back in his room, and the sirens as the ambulance came to get his mother. He didn't understand what was going on. He also blocked out the painful memory of that day and the week that followed.
So why was he remembering it now? Was it because it had been twenty long years since that event?
"I'm sorry," Maki said quietly. He could hear the sadness in her voice.
"It was twenty years ago," Hinawa told her.
"But it must feel as though it happened just a few days ago," Maki said.
He nodded. It felt so raw in his heart, that one minute his mother was there laughing, and the next he was standing here crying in the rain, being hurried up by his father.
He stood and walked over to a nearby tree. He couldn't hold back the vomit; his breath was coming in gasps now. He closed his eyes as he heaved, none too eager to see the bile come up.
"Lieutenant!" Maki yelled, running to check on him.
"I'm fine," he said weakly. "I always get a little sick when I come up here."
"Maybe we should go back to the inn? Just long enough to grab some lunch?"
"You go on ahead," he told her. "I still have some stuff to do."
Maki wiped his face where he had been crying. "You can do that later. You need to eat some food and get some energy."
Hinawa sighed. Her kindness and compassion reminded him of his mother. He leaned against the tree for support.
"Okay, fine. Let's go."
"Do sandwiches sound okay with you?" she asked him as she placed everything back into a bag.
"Yeah, that sounds great."
He watched as she slung the pouch over her shoulder and then held out her hand to him. He paused before taking it, knowing Maki was just being nice because of how he had acted.
"You said before that the walk back down was trickier than the walk up, right?" she asked.
"Uhh…" He said that? But on closer inspection of the path up to the cemetery, she was right, so then he must have said that at some point.
"Are you sure you want to head back?" Maki asked him.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. Don't worry," Hinawa told her. He walked over to the top of the path they had just climbed to come up to the cemetery. He slowly clenched his toes inside his shoes as he walked back down the path, Maki right behind him, staring at his back.
"What kind of sandwiches do you plan on getting?" he asked her.
"I was thinking… egg?"
"The inn's cook makes excellent egg sandwiches. Order a bunch, trust me."
Hinawa jogged down the rest of the path; it was more level from so many people using it as extra parking for the town. He turned and saw that Maki had stopped a little ways away. He walked over to her.
"What's wrong?"
"It's like you're a completely different person," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"You get up there near your mother's grave and get emotional and start crying, but once you leave… you're the same lieutenant I came here with."
"I try to leave all of my emotions behind me when I leave her grave. I can't be burdened by emotions when I'm supposed to be a lieutenant."
"You can be the lieutenant and have emotions. It's what makes you human. And the last I checked, you are still human."
Hinawa stared at her, his feet rooted to the ground. He had abandoned his humanity years ago and had become the person — or thing — he is today.
Why is it only taking Maki's words to make him realize he's become an empty shell of a man.
He felt her brush his shoulder as she walked past him on her way to the inn. He could smell her perfume — a soft strawberry scent that he didn't notice at his mother's grave.
Ah, damn. There's… no way I can safely sleep in the bed with her tonight , he thought. He turned and followed Maki in a daze, her perfume leading his way. He was jostled awake by the crowd and he hurried to catch up with her.
Damn, she's so far ahead! She could have at least waited for me. Hinawa pushed his way through the crowd and caught up to Maki, who was staring starry-eyed into a shop window.
"What is it?" he asked her.
"It's Sloth-chan! She's super rare! I can't believe they actually have her way out here!"
Her? Hinawa sighed. Buying the stuffed sloth was the least he could do for Maki, for coming all the way out here with him.
"Come on," he told her, grabbing her hand.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Maki blurted, her face turning pink.
"You want the sloth, don't you?"
"Yeah, but I can get Sloth-chan somewhere else!"
Hinawa stood and looked at her. "So you really don't want to get the sloth now?"
Maki turned her head from the store window. The sloth was so cute, and her flowered dress made her heart swell. But she didn't want the super-rare Sloth-chan.
"No."
She could hear her own doubt in her voice. And when was the lieutenant going to let go of her hand?
"Okay. Let's go."
Hinawa dropped her hand and walked ahead of her back to the inn. Maki took one last look of longing at Sloth-chan before following him.