Chapter Fourteen - Old Willow

Madoka passed her second day at Yanagida's apartment in silence. She took a walk around the block when the sun was up, wrapped in a shroud of her own thoughts. When darkness fell she returned and occupied the table by the living room window, staring quietly into the darkness marred occasionally by city lights.

Yanagida saw her write a few things down on a piece of paper, only to scratch most of them out and write them again. He did not approach Madoka or ask her what she was writing. Without doing so he still had a sense that she was preparing for a great ordeal.

When Madoka rose the next morning she gathered her things and announced her departure. Yanagida walked her down to the street and embraced her before parting ways. She thanked him for everything he had done, and promised she would repay him someday. Yanagida simply smiled and said he had done nothing.

He watched curiously as Madoka's figure receded down the length of the street. A new feeling stirred in his chest; Madoka's silhouette appeared a little older that morning. And though the realization made him proud, it left him with a tinge of sadness too.


After their night atop the mountain, Asami began training relentlessly for her next track meet. Two weeks later she finished in first place, swiftly taking the lead and never once looking back. Once the race was finished, her opponents noted with some irritation that the girl did not seem pleased about her victory in the slightest.

Homura heard of Asami's exploits the following week, whispered between girls who were adoring fans of her upperclassman. She congratulated Asami in the library later that day.

The girl nodded but did not otherwise respond. It seemed as though she hadn't heard Homura at all.

Fall receded into the stilling embrace of winter, and an insistent chill crept into the old school building in the afternoons. Homura snuck an electric heater from the storage room and Asami brought an old electric kettle from home to make tea. The scent of chamomile filled the library each day.

During this time they both finished reading Norwegian Wood. She soon moved on to other books, and though Asami asked for more recommendations and Homura made some, she never saw her upperclassman reading them.

Homura thought that perhaps the cold weather had taken root in her upperclassman's demeanor. But given time the girl seemed to return to her usual warm self.

"I miss the beach," Asami whined one day.

"That's only because it's cold," Homura replied. In her hands she held a copy of The Charterhouse of Parma.

"How do you know?"

"Because when it was warmer, you never talked about the beach."

"Fine." Asami blew her bangs out of her eyes. "If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be?"

Homura thought about it for a while. No place in particular came to mind.

"There's this desert in Chile," Asami said. "One of the best stargazing sites in the world. If not there, I think I'd like to see Berlin's architecture. Or maybe Dubai. I'd like to be all around the world someday."

Homura smiled. "What good will that do you?"

"To truly understand a story, you must reach the end," Asami said with a dramatic flair.

"Maybe. But I'd rather not reach the end of the world so soon."

Their conversations were always pointless and meandering. Homura often wondered if it was because she was the same way. Perhaps Asami desired more stimulating discourse, but if this was the case she never showed it.

Asami began studying for her entrance exams towards the end of fall semester. Watching the girl crack open her workbooks in the library reminded Homura vaguely of the way she circled the track.

Asami took out a pen and wrote with it for a while, before frowning and throwing it in the trash bin.

"Out of ink," she muttered. From her bag she produced another pen from a bag full of them, each identical to the other. Homura had seen Asami go through a great many pens in their time together. She was always chewing on and twirling them around, tossing one as soon as it started to run dry. Meanwhile Homura was the type to refill the same pen over and over, until the inevitable day she misplaced it and was forced to buy a new one.

The tip of Homura's own pen scratched against paper as she did copy edits. It was running out of ink too, but she kept writing, watching the words grow fainter by the hour.

Their semester concluded in such a manner. They did not see each other during the holidays; their school forwent the typical week long breaks in December and March for a longer one that lasted until the end of January.

Having no friends, Homura was in the habit of vegetating during this period. It was too cold to go anywhere and her family was poor. Most days she hid beneath a weighted blanket with her books. But this year she did not enjoy herself in the slightest. Everything she read was uninteresting; she had to force herself to continue turning the pages, but force herself she did, as she knew nothing else.

One morning she suddenly could not stand being inside for a moment longer, even if it meant braving the unforgiving cold outside. Throwing on a coat and scarf, she left the house at the edge of dawn and biked into town.

The dirt road was treacherous with overnight ice. The sky murmured a muted gray, wispy like an old woman's hair. Wind rubbed her cheeks raw as she pedaled, her scarf pulled up over her mouth and nose. After a while she lowered it to feel the frigid air against her face.

When she reached town it was still very early and none of the stores were open. Nearly every building was adorned with holiday decorations, signs in the windows advertising special deals.

As she walked her bike down the street she stopped by a storefront that had elegant custom pens on display. They were beautiful, painstakingly crafted even to the untrained eye. She found herself staring at them for several minutes.

Homura had never celebrated Christmas, much less bought a present for anyone. Nor had she ever been flippant with money, but suddenly she found herself wondering how much money she had with her. The pens were expensive, exorbitantly so; nothing a high schooler had business buying. Besides, when she next saw Asami it would be well past Christmas. And the girl's birthday was not until June. By then the spring semester would be over, and then…

She got back on her bike. After a while some places began to open, so she picked up a cheap pork bun and ate it at a playground nearby. Homura found herself wishing she had someone to share it with. For the first time she realized she was lonely.


On the morning of the last day of the winter break, Asami received her scores for her entrance exams. She and Homura met in front of the school and went to look together. Asami took Homura's hand as they crossed the school gates, her palm slick with sweat despite the winter cold. Homura tried to give her a comforting squeeze.

Of course, there was no need to worry. Asami's score was exceptional. Homura could not recall what exactly it was, but to her the precise number hardly mattered. She knew it was high enough to take Asami away from her.

That cold morning they stopped by a cafe and Asami treated them both to coffee. While Homura appreciated its warmth, she much preferred the gentle bitterness of chamomile.

From that point on Asami no longer studied as vigorously, only enough to maintain her grades. They found much more time to speak to one another now, often spending hours lost in conversation. Regardless Homura repeatedly found herself searching for words, despite having so much she wanted to say.

For Homura's birthday Asami gifted her a pressed flower bookmark. Its beauty was so great that she could not bring herself to use it, instead keeping it safe within her desk drawer at home. She would take it out occasionally before bed, feeling its smoothness between her fingers.

Soon the weather grew warmer, and winter became but an uncomfortable memory. Homura took up a second part time job at a convenience store near the edge of town, specifically in the opposite direction of Asami's home. Her normally free weekends became consumed with mundane labor.

Some time later there was a single week in April that was so uncharacteristically warm it felt like the height of summer. Homura awoke in a pool of sweat thinking she had somehow traveled forward in time. An old man who lived across from the convenience store sat in a chair with a water hose, spraying a knot of shrieking children who played in the street nearby. Homura watched during her shift, nostalgic for something she had never known.


That weekend the boiler in Asami's house burst a gasket, so she invited Homura to come to a bathhouse with her. There was only one, an old place that had been around as long as the town itself. Homura fidgeted momentarily in the changing room while Asami promptly stripped herself and entered the bath first.

The tiled floor inside was warm beneath their feet. Homura sat on a stool and began to clean herself, pointedly facing the corner. After a while Asami walked over and began to scrub Homura's back, her movements slow and methodical.

"Are you shy or something?" Asami asked bemusedly.

Homura stiffened. "I don't really come to bathhouses."

"We're both girls, aren't we?"

That might be the problem.

When Homura did not respond Asami tilted her head and went back to scrubbing. Her fingers traced the valley of Homura's spine, sending goosebumps down the girl's back despite the heat.

"When we have a meet in another town, we usually stay at some shabby inn," Asami said. "They always have old bathhouses like this. I guess you could say I'm used to it. Skinship and all that. You know, I think I've memorized all my teammates' bodies by now!"

Homura snorted. "That's a strange thing to be proud of."

Asami laughed. She walked her fingers along Homura's shoulders and spoke into her ear. "I could learn yours too, if you want."

"Don't mess around about that stuff," Homura muttered, looking away.

Asami smiled, filling a bucket with water and pouring it down Homura's back. She then grabbed her own stool and took a seat.

"Your turn."

Homura grabbed a sponge and pressed it to the girl's back. Asami's body was truly beautiful. Looking back, she may have inadvertently memorized it then; the soft curve of the girl's shoulders, the gentle swell of her breasts. In moments of insecurity regarding her own sexuality Homura always thought back to the bathhouse. She wondered if she desired Asami because she was a girl, or because she was Asami.

"They're making us fill out our final career goal forms at school," Asami said. Her voice echoed off the tiled walls. "I've always hated those things. They make you realize you've done nothing with your life. What do you want to be when you grow up, Homura? A librarian? A writer?"

"Those would be nice," Homura said. "But I haven't really thought about it."

Asami hummed. Homura pushed the girl's hair aside and began to clean her neck and shoulders.

"What do you want to be one day?" Homura asked.

She took a bucket of water and dumped it over Asami's back. As the soap suds fell to the floor and down the drain Asami did not move, her form unclear among the swirls of steam filling the bath. Homura wondered if Asami had merely been a figment of her imagination this entire time.

At last Asami chuckled softly and got to her feet.

"I don't know," she said. "But I think I'd like to be married someday."

They left the bathhouse soon after, following the street lamps down a narrow suburban road flanked by houses. An old dog barked softly in the distance. It was only April but it felt like July, their arms and legs bare in loose shirts and shorts. Asami had bought them both ice cream before leaving the bathhouse; she walked a few steps ahead, chewing thoughtfully.

It was during such an unassuming spring night that Asami told Homura she had accepted an offer to attend Mitakihara University. It was a prestigious school, far away from their tiny middle of nowhere town. So far that Homura could not hope to see her again, small as her world was.

"I applied for a scholarship," Asami said. "Otherwise there's no way we could have afforded it. It's a really good school. I'm sure if I go there, I'll find what it is that I'm meant to do."

She seemed to be trying to convince herself of this. Homura smiled and congratulated her. She was not sure how to properly express anything else.

Even then, a dull sense of panic stirred within her. But she pushed the feeling aside. She would not show such shameful emotion before her upperclassman. Instead she forced a smile, for the first time in a long while, and caught up to Asami.

"Maybe once you become rich and famous, you can visit that desert in Chile."

Asami grinned. "Then Berlin."

"And Dubai."

She laughed. "And the beach!"

Homura outstretched her fingers. Asami took them, and for a moment Homura's heart was calm.


Asami graduated on a cool spring day in May. Her father was not present. It was the first time Homura attended a graduation that was not her own. She sat near the back of the gym while the class representatives and student council members made their farewell speeches. They each spoke with an emotional weight that was foreign to her.

After the ceremony the attendees spilled out to the school courtyard. The entirety of the track team arrived and took turns hugging Asami goodbye, several of them crying loudly. Asami, to her credit, held a soft smile the entire time. Homura had thought the girl would betray more emotion, considering how fondly she always spoke of the track team. Then again, she had never seen Asami cry.

Eventually the crowd began to thin out. Asami looked up and made eye contact with Homura across the courtyard, who gestured briefly before walking away.

She waited in the library for Asami, seated behind her desk. From the drawer she retrieved a small case. It was colored a soft midnight blue, the edges lined with silver trimming.

Asami arrived a few minutes later and knocked twice before entering. Her hair, normally simple and straight, was done up. Her school uniform was crisply pressed. A small carnation clung to her breast pocket, a faded purple clematis, atypical of high school graduations.

Homura rose from her seat and embraced Asami before holding out the case.

"For you," she said. "Congratulations on your graduation."

Asami took the case and opened it. Inside was a graceful fountain pen, resting on a satin cushion. Its design was sleek, concise; Homura had spent quite some time picking it out. She had also submitted her two weeks' notice to the convenience store.

"Homura, this…"

"You go through pens like toilet paper." Homura smiled. "I thought you might want something that lasts a little longer."

Asami met her eyes, and smiled. "Thank you."

Something passed between them then, something words could not encompass. Homura would realize later that she had been trying all her life to capture that one brief moment of wordless understanding. If only she had known it sooner.

With that she reclaimed her seat behind her desk. Asami put on some tea, and the two of them settled into their final hours together in that library. Homura knew that place would be forever changed starting tomorrow. But she pushed the thought aside.

"I'll write you letters," Asami said. "It might be a while, but I'll write them."

Homura nodded. "I'll be waiting."

Together they drank their tea and watched the parents and students trickle out of the courtyard below. To Homura it felt as if she were seeing all their faces for the first time. It occurred to her the enormity of life and experience that was departing from this place. In her heart she felt a sudden and visceral bout of sonder.

The people, the scene; they were very much real.


Three days after Asami departed for Mitakihara, Homura's mother fell gravely ill.

She was sweeping the front yard of their home when she suddenly collapsed, frail knees giving way beneath the featherlike weight of her body. It was a ritual she had completed without fail ever since they first moved into that house, long before Homura's memory began. In the mornings Homura could always peek through her bedroom window and see her mother sweeping the yard. If she looked closely she could see the small bumps of the woman's spine through her gown, perhaps betraying her true frailty.

Until that day Homura had always thought of her mother as an indomitable spirit, quiet and immovable like an old stone castle. She was a woman of few words and fewer weaknesses, all forty five kilograms of her, sweeping the yard each and every morning.

Homura's father had already left for work, so she was left to call an ambulance herself. Being so far from the heart of town, it was several minutes before the paramedics arrived; in the meantime Homura laid her mother's head and shoulders across her own lap and waited at the edge of the yard.

The woman was still breathing shallowly, murmuring nothings under her breath; Homura distinctly remembered it being one of the only times their bodies stayed in contact for so long. She recalled thinking the last time must have been when they were still one.

Once they reached the hospital her mother was rushed off by the doctors, leaving Homura alone in the waiting room. She thought about calling the school to let them know she would be absent, but remembered it was summer break. Perhaps she had just wanted something to do with herself. Instead she sat quietly in the hard plastic chair by the entrance.

Homura did not remember feeling any particular fear or panic. Once the initial shock of the event had passed a strange calm came over her. Her mind became more preoccupied with her lack of concern than the concern itself. It was not unlike witnessing the aftermath of a car accident in passing, only to drive past and forget about it a moment later.

A while later she was shaken awake by a doctor, who said that her mother had regained consciousness and was stable, but would need to stay at the hospital for diagnostic tests. She followed the doctor down the hall to where her mother was being kept.

It was a small, unadorned hospital room. Homura's mother was seated in the bed across from the door, gazing out the window.

As she stood by the door, Homura meant to ask if her mother was feeling better. But the words would not come forth. It occurred to her then in a rather ugly fashion that she did not feel close enough to the woman to inquire about her well being.

They remained in silence for a long while. At last Homura's mother told her to return home and finish sweeping the yard.

Homura nodded wordlessly and left the room.

She had ridden in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, so she had no choice but to walk home. When she returned her feet were sore, but nevertheless she retrieved her mother's broom from where it had been dropped earlier. Before the twilight sun she began to sweep the yard, the broom's coarse bristles scratching against the stone.

A large tree grew at the edge of their lot, its branches hanging over the wall that surrounded the yard. Its leaves were knocked loose by the slightest wind, and thus the yard was littered with them by sunrise. Homura wondered to herself why they did not simply cut the entire tree down.

As she finished gathering up the stray leaves and dumped them in the trash, it occurred to her that her mother was the kind of woman who would rather sweep the yard every morning than do such a thing.


Homura began to accept more visitors into the library at the start of her second year. It was not a conscious decision on her part; rather a small knot of first years wandered in one day, and she did not see fit to shoo them away as she normally would have. Part of her knew it was because she had grown used to sharing the library with someone else.

Those first years would come by the library every now and then, either to study or socialize. They were quiet and respectful, so Homura did not mind their presence. But ultimately it was not the same as having Asami around.

In the first week of the new term she took both copies of Norwegian Wood and hid them in the deepest recesses of the library, far from the casual eye. It was a dishonest act, hypocritical to her duty as a librarian, but she could not help herself. The thought of someone else handling those books unsettled her too greatly.

Her mother was in and out of the hospital through the remainder of summer break, and by the beginning of the fall semester she had moved in for a longer stay. Homura was not clear on the details concerning her mother's diagnosis; the woman never spoke of it, and Homura knew better than to ask.

At a certain point she began to pay regular visits to her mother in the hospital. She would go perhaps once or twice a week, riding her bike there after closing the library for the day. They hardly ever spoke to one another during these visits; instead Homura would occupy a small stool by the door and read a book while her mother stared out the window.

She was not sure why she decided to do such a thing. The two of them had never been close. Neither of them knew the first thing about the other. Perhaps, in a perverse sort of way, she was trying to make up for lost time. Her mother's condition was clearly worsening; she had become noticeably thinner despite being so thin already. Before the orange sunlight streaking through the window, her silhouette reminded Homura of an old willow, stripped bare of its leaves.

Perhaps if she had never met Asami, she may have never bothered to visit her mother in the hospital. Without Asami she might not have carried such an insatiable hunger within her each and every day. She wondered if having such deplorable motivations undermined the meaning of her visits. Perhaps a good thing was a good thing in the end, no matter what.

Her mother passed away in her sleep nearly a month into the semester. The news came as neither a shock nor an expected outcome. It simply was, not unlike the leaves that littered the front yard every morning. Homura took the broom from the shed each day and swept the yard clean, but the leaves always returned. And given time, she learned to accept this too.

Homura came to realize, though after weeks or months she could not recall, that she had merely wished for her mother to fill the void in her heart Asami had left behind. And she felt a deep and horrid shame, like a monster beyond comparison. She had become nothing more than a ravenous beast. As a sort of penance she continued to sweep the yard each morning. But like with Asami, Homura only came to understand how her mother may have felt once it was far too late.


Sasaki Arata picked up a chess piece and turned it over in his hand.

"Is what you said true?" he asked.

They had met at the pond that hugged the border of Mitakihara University's campus. Its western flank was dotted with a row of chess tables that overlooked the water. Someone had left a set where they were seated; to any passerby it must have looked like they had simply met for a friendly match.

Sunako was seated across from him. She appeared haggard, like she hadn't slept in days. Her hands lay folded in her lap, grasping absently at each other.

"I have decided to call off our deal," she said. "I will no longer be working on my story or with Toby. I have already destroyed what copies I have in my possession, and intend to notify him of my decision once we are done here. After that I will have no further contact with you or your firm. You will be free to do as you wish."

The piece Arata had chosen was the queen. After a moment he placed it back on the table. It was very early in the morning; a low fog clung to the surface of the water beside them.

"You're serious, aren't you?" He said finally.

Sunako nodded wordlessly.

"But why? And how can I trust that you are telling the truth?"

The young woman smiled wanly. "Once again, I suppose you only have my word."

Arata studied her for a long time. Their eyes met briefly; he was unsettled by the dark abyss he discovered there. For a moment he felt that she did not see the world through those eyes. Rather, through them the world saw into her.

"No. I believe you," he said. "I just wish I understood what went on in that head of yours."

Sunako's smile remained. "That is not something worth knowing."

For some strange reason Arata found himself returning her smile. Reflexively he reached for the queen again, but caught himself and lowered his hand.

"I suppose this is goodbye, then."

Sunako nodded. "I imagine you are quite relieved."

"You could say that."

"You should take care that someone like me does not come along again."

"Who else could ever be like you?"

Sunako looked across the water. "She is married, isn't she? She must have children."

Arata shook his head. "They don't know."

The girl said nothing. Arata gave into temptation and retrieved the queen a second time, squeezing it in his palm.

"I've always wanted to ask you this," he said. "But how did you find out in the first place? About me and Junko. Who are you, really?"

Sunako seemed to consider this for a long while. In the end she did not answer him directly. Instead she rose from her seat, seeming to tower above him beneath the pale morning light.

"I am aware that I am in no position to say this," she began. "But I must say it regardless, for the sake of my own conscience. Please, Mr. Sasaki, consider the potential consequences of your actions. It is easy to hurt someone without meaning to. All I can say to you now is that I am sorry. But that is all I can do."

Arata looked away from her. "You don't know anything about me."

"You are probably right," Sunako admitted. "For that and many other things, I am truly sorry."

With that she bowed deeply and did not raise her head for a long time. When Arata said nothing, Sunako eventually took her leave. He was left sitting alone by the water, wondering if the girl had merely been a figment of his imagination the entire time.


Homura was occasionally furnished modest sums of money by the school faculty so that she could add new books to the library, as well as replace old and battered copies. Typically an actual teacher would have been responsible for such a task, but it was understood by the faculty by then that it was easier to have Homura do it.

She roped one of the first year girls who frequented the library into coming with her to a used bookstore that weekend. It was a shabby looking building that squatted low between a convenience store and an insurance office.

Homura could have bought brand new books, but she preferred cost effectiveness. The ceiling was dotted with dim yellow lights and the entire place smelled vaguely of mildew. She perused the store's catalogue while the first year she had brought along browsed elsewhere.

It was on such an unassuming afternoon that Homura first discovered The Glass Garden. Her finger nearly missed it as she traced it along the bookshelves, thin and unnoticeable as the book was. Or perhaps because it was thin and unnoticeable, she was more disposed to spotting it. An unassuming book on an unassuming afternoon for an unassuming girl.

She peeled it from its place in the bookshelf and, after glancing over it briefly, tucked it under her arm on a whim.

It was not a particularly relatable story on paper. Homura had never considered herself beautiful nor desirable. But reading The Glass Garden felt very much akin to awaking from a rare night of good sleep; suddenly alert, filled with vigor, yet afraid of when the good feeling would end.

The author's prose ached with a loneliness that was profound and undeniable. Homura felt Calliope's isolation as her own. It was so visceral that she felt as if someone were watching her. Yet as utterly lonely as the story made her feel, she was comforted to know someone out there understood.

She read the book several times in the span of a few weeks. Reading it reminded her of the wordless understanding she had shared with Asami after her graduation. The author was also saying, in so many words, that which could not be expressed using language. It was a paradox, a false approximation; but perhaps a faithful plagiarism was all she could manage.

That was when she really decided she wanted to be a writer. She had fostered an unrelenting desire to be recognized by the world. If she could write something someone could connect to, perhaps she could fill the void in her heart.

It was ultimately a decision motivated by survival. Homura had a sense even back then that she had lost Asami because of her own deficiencies. At such a young age she became afraid of a long life filled with people like Asami, who expanded her world only to leave it feeling emptier than ever before.

Flipping the book over, she read the author's bio.

Sasaki Arata is a former accountant and lover of quiet places. He resides in Mitakihara.

Mitakihara held such an air of mystique to her back then. The home of her first love and the author of her favorite story, it was an otherworldly metropolis that seemed to shrug at the laws that governed the world. Wrought as her heart was by loneliness and guilt, she wanted only to escape from her own regrets.

She did not sweep the yard the following morning.


A/N

I finished this chapter a few days ahead of schedule and was going to sit on it, but decided to just go ahead and put it up (and at a humane hour too!).

We are getting closer and closer to catching up Homura's past with her present. I have noticed that these chapters centered around Asami have taken on an entirely different character compared to what came before. Any thoughts on this, and anything else, are much appreciated.

Thanks for reading.

-Banshee