Sharing the Same Sky, We are as Close as Lovers
Tokimemki Memorial Girl's Side First Love
Himuro Reiichi x Heroine
By Gabihime at gmail dot com
Part Two: All That She's Allowed
With the assurance that her beloved grandpapa was both well and safe, and her hand pleasantly detained in Himuro Reiichi's custody, Yumeno Midori found that the shopping arcade was no longer a place of ultimate despair, but that Tanabata - like most festivals celebrated everywhere by little children and old men - was actually quite nice. There were delicious smells wafting out alluringly from stalls that sold the sweet and the savory, and wish cards hung from every eave. As Himuro led her past a stall with small turtles swimming around in a pool of water, he was obliged to tug her along, as she had stopped to listen to the cajoling promises of the barker.
She followed meekly at his insistence, although the lure of small turtles was very great. He was, after all, taking time out of his evening at the festival for no other reason than that she had been in clear distress, and had needed help. As they walked, her hand warm and captured in his firm, sober grip, she realized that although he was moving with sure, even purpose, he was not walking as quickly as he might.
He's taller than I am, so his stride is longer. He must be going slowly on purpose, so that I won't stumble when I try to keep up, she reasoned to herself. He was considerably taller than she as, it was true, she being one of the shortest sophomores at Habataki Gakuen, and commonly mistaken for a freshman, or a middle-schooler. But maybe, she wished on the stars of the evening, maybe-maybe-maybe he's going slowly because he wants to keep walking with me a little longer.
This possibility, faint as it was, buoyed her spirits to fabulous heights, and she began to hum a measure of Mozart in allegro vivace. He glanced over his shoulder at her as he caught her humming, and she lit up the evening with a euphoric smile. She had a warm summer evening, filled with all the stars of heaven, the serious attendance of the best gentleman she could begin to imagine or invent for herself, and there was music in the air. Surely, the world had no greater riches to offer.
"Sensei," she called out as he looked back at her, her tone a dulcet extension of her humming, "Don't you think that wishing festivals must exist to remind us of how splendid and full our lives already are? Surely the wise man must realize that he needn't wish for anything."
How Himuro Reiichi might have responded to this question remained unspoken, because they had by this point drawn up in front of Miboshi Ceramics, and he chose instead to draw her attentions to their errand.
"Yumeno," he said, as if he gained some sort of personal magic by constantly repeating her name, "It's certain that your grandfather is inside."
And then he released her hand, which was admittedly a little disappointing, and did not do much to add credence to the dreamy air-castles she had been so recently spinning. But she had expected as much. They were now removed from the busy throng, and the necessity of his keeping her with him was at an end. She had not really expected that he would hold her hand forever after, even if it was a wish she might have written on a card and hung on an eave. And even if he had wanted to keep holding onto her - practically speaking, he had other things to do with his hands: like playing etudes on the piano or plotting beautiful derivative functions on the blackboard in an attempt to explain their workings to his students.
This is what she told herself, as her fingers brushed his palm, and then his hand was gone.
After all, she thought, even heaven only lasts for an hour.
He opened the door for her, and they went into the ceramics shop together.
Miboshi Ceramics was an old-fashioned sort of ceramics shop. This was obvious from the moment she stepped over the threshold and found her nose greeted by the pleasant, musty smell of fresh clay. There was a pottery studio in the back, then, and the wares on the shelves - dishes and bowls of exquisite color and glaze - were fashioned by the experienced hands of the Miboshi potters. Each piece had been spun with attention and love: a portable, useful work of art meant to adorn a family's table for years.
Midori was instantly smitten with the place. It appealed to her sense of the beautiful and the sentimental, and she immediately resolved to buy all of her dishes from this place, should she ever have a cause to buy any dishes or a be mistress of a table on which to put them.
Himuro, although preoccupied by his own troubling thoughts of the future, could not have imagined that the girl who was still so alarmingly near him, and the source of all his life's unexpected complications, was blissfully considering the housewares they would require, should they require any housewares at all.
There was a low table near one of the front windows of the ceramics shop, and around it were clustered what the escaped, taiyaki-eating witness had correctly identified as 'a bunch of grandpas.' Midori's own grandfather was there, sitting with his legs neatly folded under himself and his cane across his lap, enjoying a cup of steaming tea.
"Grandpapa!" Midori could not help but exclaim enthusiastically, as she moved around the table to where he sat. "I was so worried about you I didn't know what to do. You shouldn't run off without saying anything! If you wanted to come to the ceramics shop, we could have come to the ceramics shop straight-away," she scolded, although her scoldings were rather more sweet that actually effective, as she kissed him on his cheek as punishment.
"Ah, Midori-chan," answered the old man, who had thick, white hair and bushy eyebrows, "You're the most precious treasure an old man could ever hope have." Here he exhibited her to the other grandpas, who appeared to be suitably impressed. "This is my Midori-chan," he explained to them proudly. "She's my guardian in my old age, just as I guarded her when she was small. Such a flower like this makes the twilight years sweet," he doted fondly, then continued on, apparently hypothetically. "Only I worry what will ever become of her once I pass on into the next world, she's so good and innocent."
"Grandpapa!" Midori protested immediately, "You're not going to die - "
Midori's grandfather apparently had a very strong knowledge of his granddaughter's character, and calculated the correct statement to capitalize on her sentimental nature, and bask in the attentions she immediately lavished on her beloved, prodigal, and now miraculously returned grandfather. He chuckled, "Not for a while yet, I hope, since Midori-chan takes such good care of me."
Himuro noted with no surprise whatsoever that the old man had effectively worked Midori to the point where she apparently no longer remembered that he had run off and left her in the middle of a busy festival, leaving no sure word behind him of where he had gone, despite the fact that she was his duly appointed guardian.
Having divested himself of this necessary duty, and still being adored by his favorite granddaughter, Grandfather Yumeno turned his attentions suddenly to the man who still stood by the door and raised a canny eyebrow. Midori followed his line of sight and her hands fluttered in mild embarrassment.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry," she apologized. "I've been very rude. This is my homeroom teacher, Himuro-sensei. We met while I was looking for you, grandpapa, and he was kind enough to offer to help me find you, even though I didn't know where to begin to look."
Himuro bowed briefly, as the old man's smile quirked ironically. "Ah, the great Himuro-sensei. I might have expected." He nodded to the gentlemen sitting around the low table with him. "This is Yamada-san, Miboshi-san, and Takahashi-sensei. And this," he nodded back to Himuro, who still stood near the door of the shop, "Is Himuro Reiichi-sensei, Midori-chan's," and here he chuckled quite mysteriously, "Homeroom teacher."
Himuro could not help but feel himself outside the understanding of some secret and implicitly understood family communication. Still, rudeness was not an element of his general personality.
"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, gentlemen," he bowed briefly again to the old men at the table, then turned his attention to the grandpa of most immediate importance to him, "It is an honor to meet you, Yumeno-san. Your reputation as a musician precedes you."
Grandfather Yumeno grinned wryly, "It's been a long time since I rosined up a bow for myself, but you are kind to remember the small accomplishments of a foolish old man."
"Grandpapa!" Midori protested again, "You're not a foolish old man and all of your music is still as moving and full of feeling as the day you first wrote it."
Himuro watched Grandfather Yumeno preening in the glow of the praise his granddaughter slavishly lavished on him and could not help but give the old man a sidewise glance that he attempted to cover by pushing his glasses up his nose with two fingers.
I understand how you operate, is what he communicated to the old man.
The old man only smiled back ironically, apparently enjoying some great secret joke. Himuro could not help but understand the response, telegraphed by expression and body language.
I fully anticipate all your intentions.
Reading this in the old man's posture, Himuro immediately turned his back on the assembled gentlemen, as if he found something very interesting to focus his attentions on outside the windows of the shop.
"It is fortunate that you have been reunited with one another, and I hope you both have a pleasant evening - " he began his overly formal attempt at self-dismissal, but found himself unexpectedly interrupted by the old man, and turned around again to hear what he would say.
"Don't be silly, young man," he chided. "Do you think Midori-chan wants to spend her evening sitting around and listening a bunch of old men nattering? Of course she doesn't," here he cut off Midori's half-hearted protests with an imperious wave of his cane. "She wants to go out and enjoy herself. But of course I can't be expected to let a precious treasure like Midori-chan wander around such a dangerous place without someone to look after her, can I?"
The shopping district's summer festival did not seem like a particularly dangerous place to Himuro, but as it was not in his best interest to point this out, he did not.
"Grandpapa," Midori began again, out of a sense of loyalty to Himuro, and an attempt to protect the sanctity of his evening, "Himuro-sensei has already been very kind to take time out of his evening to help me, but you can't expect him spend all of his festival with me - "
"Is he expecting to spend it with someone else then?" her grandfather asked cannily, his bushy eyebrow raised.
Himuro noted the squeak of distress that Midori emitted at this suggestion with mild satisfaction and then responded before the old man could goad either of them further. The last thing he wanted was for the old man suggest she call someone else up to be her chaperon.
"It's fine," he said definitively, and so it was. It was fine. "I will escort Yumeno-san around the festival. She is already my responsibility."
"Naturally," agreed Old Man Yumeno pleasantly, "You're her homeroom teacher."
And then he chuckled again to himself.
And so Midori and Himuro found themselves standing before the door of Miboshi Ceramics again, this time with their backs to the front of that venerable establishment.
Midori was still a bit flushed as her mind had not yet completely processed the fabulous reality that she was really going to spend the rest of the evening with the reticent prince of her heart: Himuro Reiichi, mathematics teacher. What he thought of the arrangement, she really could not say for sure. Perhaps he really was just doing a favor to her respected grandfather, or fulfilling his duties as a homeroom teacher.
But if that were so, she attempted to reason through it herself, Wouldn't he have to go to the festival with absolutely everyone in class? Even the boys?
She tried to imagine Himuro-sensei escorting Hazuki Kei around the festival and utterly failed.
So maybe, maybe-maybe-maybe, he had said he would take her around the festival because he wanted to, even the smallest, little bit.
The night was filled with rose petals, stardust, and music as she looked up at Himuro and asked, "Sensei, what is it that you want to do?"
He looked down at her seriously for some moments, as if deciding how to answer, and at last he said, "I am escorting you around the festival. We should do what you want."
"Sensei!" the roses in her cheeks blossomed even further, if that were possible, and she immediately began, "Then I want to - "
"No turtles," he forbade.
Her first request so immediately vetoed, she caught his arm and tugged on it without thinking, as if this might sway his opinions on her right to attempt to win turtles thought whatever apparatus was in place at this festival to award them.
"Himurochi," she wheedled, "You said we could do what I wanted - "
"Then I spoke incorrectly," he answered her without the slightest indication of interest that she was tugging so insistently on his arm. "I should have said that we will do whatever it is you want, within reason."
"I think turtles are very reasonable," she counseled, still holding onto the hope that persistence might win her this fight.
"You will find," he said deliberately, looking down at her with a firmly set mouth, "That there are many things which you think are very reasonable that I will not accept."
At this, Midori realized that she would not be able to influence his decision in a direct way and so began by a roundabout route.
"Well," she asked in a conciliatory manner, "Can we at least go look at the little turtles?"
"No," was his immediate response, and she found herself utterly stonewalled.
"Why not?" she asked, filled with a sense of injustice, because she could not see why he would object to her just looking at the little turtles.
"If I put you in the power of a barker at a turtle stand, then I know that no matter what I say, we will leave with a turtle," he answered shortly.
"Oh," was what she said then. "Oh well, yes. I expect you're right."
"I am most assuredly correct," he confirmed, and she sighed, although she did not let go of his arm.
"I suppose turtles are right out then. Even though I really wanted to look at them, so very, very much - "
"Yumeno," was all he said and her last resistance surrendered.
"Yes, sensei," she chorused obediently, although not entirely enthusiastically.
She was put out by being forbidden to own a small turtle for approximately fifty-four seconds. After this time had elapsed, she looked up at him again brightly.
"You know," she said conversationally, still hanging on his arm. "I haven't eaten anything since lunch time. Since you have been so good to me this evening, I'll treat you to whatever you want to eat."
"It is inappropriate for a student to buy dinner for her teacher," he said, and she was about to despair at what she would be allowed to do at the festival when he continued. "However, it is acceptable for a teacher to treat a student from time to time."
"Sometimes I appreciate that you're so responsible," Midori answered honestly, and her stomach growled so loudly that it was impossible that Himuro didn't hear it.
"What is it that you want to eat?" he asked her.
She thought about it for a minute, but the answer was obvious.
"Taiyaki!" was what she said.
So I completely underestimated the length of this story, I decided to break it up into four parts, rather than having an excessively huge second chapter. Please do stay tuned for the next part, which actually does feature Tsukushi, although you'll have to read to find out whether he will reveal mysteries concerning the Midori's underwear.
Love,
Gabi