It had been nearly a year since Aya moved in down the road.
Somehow it'd been both the quickest and the slowest year of Takakura's life. He liked to picture himself as the type of man who fell into routine as steadily as any other, day by day and bit by bit until it was just second nature. But the truth of it was he'd always been grounded by a good schedule, and to call it falling into a routine was an understatement. He tended to cling to them, finding solace in the repeat nature of them and, with his mind so preoccupied on going through the motions of the day, there was always a subsequent surprise in how much he was healed by it.
He hadn't been fibbing when he'd said as much to Aya, after all.
Each morning he woke with the sun, hauling himself out of bed and eating a simple meal. Anything more than a rice cake and some bitter, earthy tea risked upsetting his stomach. For the first few months after Aya's springtime arrival, he'd taken to patrolling the fields before she left the house—he'd needed to know what they'd be in for as far as caring for the more neglected ones out west on the property. After she'd gotten accustomed to the volume of work, he'd allowed himself a bit more time to finish his little breakfast and slowly skim through the weekly newspaper.
His afternoons in the early days were spent at her side, then gradually letting her take more and more control of the proverbial reigns. Even when she took over the bulk of the work, he would still stick around, trying not to hover and trying not to correct her too much. Otherwise, she wouldn't have learned at all. After he'd offered to sell her produce in the city, most of the first half of his day was spent on the trip there and back.
Evenings, as always, were spent in the pasture. It was a meditative experience of sorts, standing in the grass as it grew taller day by day. The cow he'd bought for Aya would come up and happily push her thick, sturdy forehead against his shoulder, and he'd reach up and give her an affectionate rub on the nose. It was the only physical touch he'd had from another living thing in years—until Aya's fingers would start brushing against his when she passed off a tool or their ledger—and besides, he quite liked the view of the sunset from there, too. She would join him every now and then, and if not, she would always say hello or goodbye from across the field—depending on where she was headed when she caught him with his head in the clouds.
Indeed, when he was with her, time seemed to fly by. It was his nights that began to draw out in a way he hadn't anticipated.
Sometimes, he would allow himself a quick drink at the bar. That was standard enough, and within a few weeks the attention he'd received upon her arrival to the valley began to wane and he was left to sip his drinks in peace, listening idly to the quiet chatter of the other patrons. He avoided the building entirely on weekend nights, leaving space for the younger crowd to mingle.
Most others nights, though, he would draw water for his bath, strategically hidden from sight out back behind his cabin, and wait for the water to warm up while he had a smoke. He'd pull out a cigarette and light it slowly, almost as if in ritual. He would bring it to his lips and take a deep inhale, leaning against the old frame of his house and focusing on the way the tiny buzz spread through his body.
The weather grew colder. He thoughts often wandered, as his breath made the edges of the paper glow like embers, to Aya. He would glance down the road toward her house, and whether the porch light was on or off it made no difference to the strange feeling in his stomach. It was like a pit had opened up within, making him shut his eyes and take a deep breath as he flicked the cigarette to the ground, stomping it out with the heel of his boot.
He would strip down, goosebumps raising over his forearms and his thighs, then swing one leg over the high lip of the tub. His baths could be nothing less than scalding, and although he was typically never content until the moment he was submerged up to his neck, by late autumn he was hardly content at all. Soaking off the dirt and sweat of the day, he would rub at his limbs and run his hands through his hair, but these were only motions—his thoughts were mostly of Aya, or on listening out for the crunch of gravel beneath her feet as she padded past his hidden bath on her way back home.
It'd taken an embarrassingly long time for him to realize that this was because he missed her.
But whatever she did with her nights was none of his concern. She had so little free time that he wouldn't bother bothering her. And even though the things he thought of were never indecent or inappropriate by any means—not that he didn't need to squash a few stray ones here or there, but he was a disciplined man—there was something that still felt not quite right to be thinking of her so often in the bath.
That was about when he'd get up and pat himself dry with a clean towel, tying it at his hips as he shook his head to dry his unruly fringe before heading inside to finally retire until morning.
The night before New Year's Eve was another night of the same. The only difference came from how he'd power walk as fast as he dared back inside to ward off the freezing cold. Earlier that afternoon he'd switched on the old, tiny space heater he'd had for years, and thanked his past self for the foresight; he dressed in his bedclothes in the warmth of his single room, comforted by the loud hum of the little machine.
It wasn't usual, but he allowed himself an extra cigarette tonight. He sat at his low table, feeling all the familiar aches in his joints but thanking the goddess that they settled and mellowed as he relaxed and positioned the roll between his lips. He struck down a match against the strip on the side of the box, inhaling gently as he brought it to the tip. With a contented sigh he pinched it between his index and middle fingers, pulling it down to rest his elbow on the table. His supply was running low; perhaps he could see if Aya was interested in growing tobacco. There was nothing quite like rolling his own.
He'd taken only that single drag when there came a sharp knock on his front door, so fleeting he almost wasn't sure if he'd just imagined it. He stilled. For a moment wasn't quite sure what to do; he could count on one hand the number of times he'd gotten a visitor, especially one this late, over the years. He hoisted himself up from his table, careful not to bump the low edges with his knees and spill the ashtray, and shuffled over to the door. Not that anyone would be dumb or cruel enough to try to play some sort of prank on him, or go as far as to try to steal from him, but for good measure he flicked on the porch light to ward off anyone with less-than-ideal intentions.
When he pulled open the door, there stood Aya, shielding her squinted eyes from the bare bulb he'd just turned on and holding her other arm close against her chest for warmth. A few flakes of snow from a pitiful flurry swirled around her in lazy circles. And although she was wearing her winter coat and a scarf around her neck, a shiver racked her; it took him a moment to come to his senses and invite her in. He shifted and stepped back, gesturing for her to come inside.
"The hell's going on out there? You all right?" he asked as she scurried in. It almost seemed like she was running away from something, and he peered out into the night before determining she hadn't been followed, at least. Then he shut and latched the door.
"I'm okay," she said. She'd made immediately for the heater to shove her hands directly in front of it, wincing slightly at the prickling heat against her raw, reddened fingertips. "Sorry to just...show up like this."
Her own house was only about a minute's walk down the road, tops, and she had to've known he'd be suspicious of that. "If you've gotten yerself into any trouble," he tried, "I'll help you out best I can. You know that."
She began to unwind the scarf from her neck, draping it over the back of the floor seat he'd just been sitting in. There were still snowflakes in her hair that hadn't quite melted yet, dusting her like damn near everything else in his never-changing home. Something about watching her undress—even just this very outward layer—made him feel self-conscious. He became acutely aware that, though she'd been a guest in his house before, she'd never seen him without his work boots strapped to his feet, and certainly never in his bedclothes. As she unbuttoned and shrugged off her heavy coat, he glanced down at himself. His plain black thermal was fitted to the curves of his muscles, and his loose, flannel pants concealed a pair of snugly-fitted long johns. For some wild reason he could not for the life of him discern, he wondered if she would find his thick-woven cotton socks ugly.
"There's no trouble," she was saying, looking around for somewhere to hang her coat. He stuck his dart between his lips and held out his hand to her. She gave him a brief smile as he took the garment and shuffled to hang it on the hook by the door. "I'm just on my way back from the bar. God it feels good in here!"
He nodded slowly, considering as he took his seat again. "How much've you had to drink?"
"Nothing." When he gave her a suspicious side-eye over the next drag of his cigarette, she held up her hands to accentuate her next words. "I really haven't!"
"All right, all right," he said with a laugh that was reserved only for her.
"Could I hit that?" Her eyes flickered down to the cigarette.
He fought the urge to narrow his eyes, opting instead to shrug and lean over to pass it off to her. "Didn't think you partook." If she was half as smart as he knew she was, she'd see the concern hidden behind such a comment. Not that it wasn't hypocritical of him, of course.
"I try not to," she said, inhaling generously. Smoke billowed around her just afterward, and he thought that lent credence to her claim that she didn't usually do this. A seasoned smoker let things sit in their lungs for a beat, in his experience, and somehow it was endearing to see her like this. She was staring at him through the white cloud until it dissipated. "You always hear about how it's such a nasty habit, but I always thought it was kinda sexy. It suits you."
That got him to raise his brows at her. "I'm doubtin' yer sobriety all over again."
But she only smiled sheepishly, looking down as she handed his dart back to him. "You can think what you want. I'm just glad no one in the valley bats an eye when I drink or smoke—did I ever tell you about how my mom would try to catch me with alcohol on my breath anytime I came home past curfew?"
"You sure didn't," he replied, not quite able to stop himself from smiling at the spark in her eyes that appeared whenever she was about to launch into one of her stories. He couldn't help but tease her in return, "But just what were you doing out past curfew, anyhow?"
She crinkled her nose at him playfully as she leaned forward and flicked the burnt edge of the dart into the ashtray. "Not every kid who breaks a rule or two is a bad one, you know. I wasn't a delinquent."
"I dunno," he said. "I might need a bit more convincing."
"All right, y'got me." As she passed his cigarette back to him, she turned towards the table to rest her elbows on it, glancing away from him shyly. "I still wasn't a delinquent, but the only people who ever actually liked me weren't exactly good kids like I was. There was someone in particular...who really made me feel like I mattered. We'd sneak out together and—sometimes, yeah, we'd smoke. Or drink. But only beers!"
He chuckled in his dry way. "Naturally."
"I still got all of my homework done on time," she insisted in a mock-pretentious tone, but quickly dropped the theatrics. "And passed all of my exams, so my parents didn't have any reason to complain. Didn't stop 'em, though. Especially when they...well, when they caught us kissing." She'd said that last word with uncharacteristic meekness.
Takakura furrowed his brows, hating to see her so clammed up. The memory was painful, clearly, but he couldn't understand why. "How old were you?"
"I don't know," she said, still not meeting his gaze. "Sixteen, seventeen."
But that didn't make any sense. "Kids start mackin' plenty younger than that. Didn't think yer old man would turn out to be such a stickler—"
"She was another girl," Aya blurted, her eyes wide as if the outburst surprised her just as much as it'd surprised him. And though he was sure she hadn't even realized it yet, she was staring right at him now in a way that would surely burn a hole right through him.
It was such a shock that he hadn't truly heard her at first. People didn't—they didn't just talk about that sort of thing. Hell, in his experience people didn't even act on urges like that, and if they did it was behind closed doors and never made obvious to those around them. As he sat there speechless, some of the ash from his cigarette fell onto his old tea table.
He blinked, remembering himself. Well, her hasty explanation certainly painted more of a complete picture than he'd had seconds ago. Not bothering to wipe off the fallen ashes, he took a very long drag, the embers burning it nearly to the butt in the single huff. He exhaled through his nose, his mind working like an abacus to come up with the right thing to say. If he waited too much longer, he risked making her feel bad—or rather, worse. Admitting something like that the way she did had been a steep gamble.
But she trusted him, and it was that from which he drew up his courage.
"I figured as much," he started slowly, because it was true to an extent. "Not that I know anything about your old friend, there, but...at the bar, I..." He swallowed, shoving down his discomfort. Pretended—convinced himself not to feel it. "I've seen the way you look at Muffy. How you bat yer eyes at her...'n such."
His fingers were going numb in his mounting anxiety, trying with all his might not to let them shake. He'd never been so close to the topic of his own attraction, and if he spoke carelessly he risked offending the only person he had left in the world. The only person who made him feel human.
"Yeah, well, she doesn't really share those same tendencies." The word was vague, but spoke for itself. She bent forward, resting her head on her crossed arms in a way that muffled her next words. "Flirting with your patrons is the hallmark of any good barmaid."
He gave a low hum of acquiescence. "I suppose that's fair." He snuffed out the remaining stump of the cigarette in the tray, dropping his hands to his lap. There was a part of him that he couldn't keep from growing in intensity, swelling into something he couldn't identify there in the pit of his stomach. "And your parents..." Your father...
It was her turn to hum at that as she mulled over an answer. She shifted her head in her arms only slightly, offering him a clearer shot of her voice this time. "It's complicated."
He waited, wanting her to have the space she needed and watching her as she sat up again, her arms still folded as she hugged her biceps.
"I think...they hoped it was just a phase, the way they avoided talking about it ever again. Dad especially, he...walked on eggshells around me for months. Then Mom started suggesting I go on dates with the boy across the street, and it was just a whole mess. And it's stupid, because they didn't even understand I liked guys too—just not that one!"
The sudden laughter from Takakura was wholly unexpected, and by the time he clamped a hand over his mouth and felt a flash of heat beneath his skin at such a poor display of manners, Aya was laughing too. He softened, pulling down his hand and smiling down at her. When she cocked her head to the side and looked at him through her sparkling eyes, that feeling in his stomach tightened as if it was taking hold of him from the inside out.
"Not that one," he repeated, grateful for the break in tension. "What was wrong with him?"
She laughed again, sitting up and leaning back on her hands in one graceful motion. "Well don't say it like that! Nothing was wrong with him, he just wasn't my type." She shot him a look, flirtatious. "I like a man with a bit more experience."
That made his stomach flip. His face fell, just a bit. "Now I'm sure yer just teasin' me."
She smiled smally. "How's that? You've been paying attention, so tell me: who besides Muffy do I spend most of my time with?"
Well, that was easy enough, at least, and it tracked with what she was saying. An older man, though Takakura wasn't sure the guy had much in the way of experience with women. "Marlin. Unlike her, though, he does like you."
"He's too involved with Celia for my tastes." She sighed. "I'd give him a shot if I thought he could move on, but I'm not hopeful."
Aya certainly didn't deserve being a second choice; just the thought of it made him frown in distaste. "That's fair enough."
The silence that fell over them then was different. He didn't want it to be uncomfortable, as things between them had been easygoing and simple since she'd arrived in the valley. His old space heater chugged along, the white noise a quiet roar in the space between them.
"I'm thinking about leaving."
It took the breath from his lungs, threatened to close up his throat. Just those four words, small things, strung together like that tugged at him so hard that he felt himself unravel. His limbs were numb, his knuckles and toes tingling unpleasantly. He could look only as far as her mouth, but even then he could see that she wasn't looking at him, either, even when she said:
"Y'know, it's just—I don't know that this place is for me. And that's a really scary thought, that if I can't get on in the city and I can't get on here, then where can I go? I feel like I'm doomed to just...wander, because I don't belong nowhere."
There was a flashing vision in his mind, a blue bird the color of a late-September sky flitting past, a molted feather falling gently to the ground in great sweeping arcs. It settled among the mossy grass in the forest, forgotten, precious thing. It would be given to no one. It would symbolize no love. It would herald no union. She would simply fly away, unbound—and unhappy.
He wouldn't let that happen. Even if she did up and leave, he'd make damn sure it was with her sense of hope intact.
"Aya," he started, then took in a long, deep breath, shutting his eyes for only a moment before leveling them upon her. "Look at me." She did, but only somewhere at his wool-collared neck, her eyes rimmed pink like she were about to burst into tears—it would do, though. "The valley is for anyone who wants to be here. If anyone's made you feel less than welcome, I'd have words—"
But she'd given a quick roll of the eyes, her head falling slightly to the side as she deflated with a sigh. "It's not that."
"No," he agreed, "everyone quite likes you."
"But I don't know where there's room for people like me."
"People like us."
It was on his tongue and out of his mouth before he could stop it. The short sigh he gave felt halfway like a growl. To speak it was not the instant catharsis he'd sometimes imagined, but there was a pinprick in the dead center of his heart that, possibly, could be called relief. With this seal finally broken, though, he found himself spilling words like a river that finally eroded a dam.
"I wanna know why you think I'd been living out my days here all by my lonesome," he continued, her full attention his, now. "I've always been different, Aya. But I mean it when I say the valley is for anyone. Whether you leave or stay, whether you find someone or not, that will always be true. And you can't fly forever; sure as hell, nobody can."
Her eyes were wide as saucers, filled to their brims with tears threatening to spill over. Her shoulders, not broad by nature but made strong from the last year of labor, heaved with the force of her breath. Her face was red—both from the heat of the room and the weight of the topic at hand, he was certain. She swallowed, her throat catching, and her lips parted as if she were about to say something. The way the low light of the room caught on her front teeth made him ache.
Then she stood and marched to the door.
What else could he do but stare at the space she once occupied? He heard as she swung open his front door, felt the bite and chill of the late winter's night seep through his long sleeves. When she shut it behind her, it was not with an angry slam, though he thought that might have been easier to accept than what was actually happening. He looked to the side where her scarf was still slung over the old floor seat, and then to the door where he'd hung up her coat.
Takakura lit another cigarette, sitting in the thick silence and doing his best not to fall apart.
Sleep was hard to come by, but he managed. There was little to be done the next morning, he and Aya having decided weeks ago to take both New Year's Eve and New Year's Day as easy as they could manage. When he woke, the pit of anxiety in his stomach was still there, heavier than it'd been when he'd crawled into bed. He draped an arm over his eyes, sighing and trying not to regret what all he'd said.
It had been a long time since he had to remind himself to get up. As he swung his legs out of the bed and stepped into one of his newer pairs of dungarees, he ran the conversation back in his head and winced. She'd confided in him, and he hadn't known what had come over him: he should've offered his comfort and support, not use the opportunity to talk about his own feelings.
He placed an unlit dart between his lips as he shoved on his boots, lacing them hurriedly. His own feelings, he considered, could have been the reassurance she'd needed—but then, she'd gone off and left him sitting there just like that. He wasn't sure if, when he was her age or younger, someone admitting that they liked both women and men would've helped him or scared him senseless. Hell, even pushing middle-age he felt wholly unequipped to confront those feelings with anything more than marginal sincerity.
He scooped up her scarf and hung it by her coat. If, by the time he finished his minimal choring for the day, she hadn't let herself in to retrieve them, he'd bring them to her later. He couldn't very well ignore her, with both of their cabins situated on the property the way they were, but he knew how it could be. She might try to duck and dodge him for days, even weeks, maybe even try to detach herself from him fully in preparation to leave the valley with as few ties to it as possible. He shrugged on his overcoat and pushed outside, not bothering to light the cigarette.
The cows perked up when he unlocked the main doors to the barn, their ears flapping happily. He stuck out his arm as he walked by on his way to their water troughs, patting their faces softly and letting a few of them lick at his hand. He got to work on refilling the water, filling buckets at the faucet out back and hauling them in just to pour them out. By the time mid-morning was upon him, he was out in the pasture clicking his tongue at the too-soft soil. This winter had come early, but it seemed it hadn't gotten cold enough for the ground to fully harden just yet. He fretted for some time over what that meant for the summer wheat harvest, hemming and hawing and racking his brain all the while.
When he retreated through the barn to consult a manual on his little bookshelf, the cows still had not been fed. Nor brushed. And their pens certainly hadn't been cleaned. All of this Aya had insisted on doing even when he was content to handle it all himself, and it was as he reached for the pitchfork to get it all done that he began to worry.
He worried as he pushed aside the soiled straw. He worried as he carried armfuls of fresh, dry grass to each stall. He worried as he wiped his hands on his thighs and worried as he chewed idly at the cigarette still pinched between his lips. And he definitely worried when he got back home and saw that she still hadn't come for her scarf and coat. He worried as he drew water for his bath, worried as he waited an age and a half for it to heat in the cold of the day. He worried when he glanced to her house and detected no movement from within or without. Even as he dipped his feet in just before sundown, he worried. Try as he might to let the hot water melt the anxiety from his stomach, relief would not come.
He brought his fists to his temples, fanning out his fingers until he dug the heels of his hands to his eyes. His head was starting to ache, not helped by the additional work he'd done. But that didn't matter, not now. Would Aya leave? Would she resent him if she did? Even if she stuck around, perhaps things between them would be changed to an irrevocable degree. Would that, then, be his fault? He supposed he'd be willing to take the blame for it if he needed to.
His mood was melancholy and close to plummeting when he finished his bath and dressed, pulled on his coat once more, and made for town. It was New Year's Eve; the twins followed a tradition of their own, as they always had, a blend of both eastern and western sensibilities: their fireworks would not be launched until sunup. Takakura in years of late couldn't be bothered to stay up all night, but he woke with the sun each morning regardless and had never missed a show. The bar was full by the time he arrived, mostly with the younger residents of the valley. Some of them looked to him expectantly, but went back to their mingling when they saw he was without Aya. Again, his worry shot through him. He made his way to the back, stopping to say hello to the twins and to Tei, a rare sight at the establishment. Griffin, when he was between cooking orders, spent most of the night at the far end of the bar chatting with Takakura, eager to escape the bustle and recede to quieter company before braving the more boisterous patrons once more.
For the few hours he spent there swirling the whiskey round in the glass, he kept glancing to the door, expecting to see Aya walk in any moment. She never did, and he began to feel sick. Little by little the patrons fizzled out as the hour grew later, some leaving for bed and others simply shifting the locale of their partying. Around one in the morning, the twins set out to grab their supplies and set up at the beach, sufficiently drunk and whispering back and forth of setting off some test rounds, risking waking the whole valley. Griffin, in his way, fussed over Takakura—he'd only ordered the one drink, and had barely finished it by closing time.
He made his way out and onto the streetlight-bright road, blinking hard against the light and stuffing his hands in his pockets. With every step the lights dimmed until he was well past them, out past the old cobblestone street and onto the packed-earth pathway that lead up the foothills and into the farmlands. It was habit by now, to glance up the moment he rounded the bend, to check for Aya's porch light, and tonight it was off. He took deliberately slow breaths, troubled.
The unease made him restless. With a tired sigh—two in the morning was nothing to scoff at, at his age—he made a quick stop at home to pick up his lighter. She still hadn't retrieved her things.
He flicked the top open of the little silver lighter just as he stepped back out into the cold and shut the door behind him. He made his way back the way he came, but then swung north. A walk in the woods had always managed to clear his head, even if not right away. He thought of that sweltering night, of stripping his sweat-drenched clothes and slipping into the freshwater pond, said to have been the home of the Harvest Goddess, long ago.
He took his time, letting the sound of dirt and gravel crunched beneath his boots fill his ears. The insects, naturally, were scarce this time of year, but there was some cricketsong to be heard amid the occasional soothing cooing of an owl somewhere nearby. As he walked he struck at the flint wheel, the old fluid stubbornly resisting the friction, his headache throbbing behind his eyes.
The flame had only just sparked to life by the time he reached the deeper parts of the woods, and he inhaled generously on the cigarette he'd kept intermittently in his mouth and behind his ear all day. The smell of burning paper and the overly-sweet scent of tobacco filled his nostrils as he put the lighter into his pocket. Through the trees he could see the glimmering reflection of the moon on the pond as it peeked out from behind fluffy, passing clouds. And then, the glimmering of something else.
Tiny lights, red, blue, and yellow, swirled around a figure once, twice, three times before vanishing. Near the shores of the lake stood a woman, the tallest he'd ever seen, who took graceful steps to wade waist-deep in the water, her glow like an angel. Her hair, ocean blue, defied gravity, flowing in gentle waves behind her as it danced atop the ripples from her careful steps. She was glancing back at him, slowly turning her heavenly head, ghost-like; beneath his coat, goosebumps broke out over his arms. He had only one moment to look into her eyes, piercing like ice, before she was gone.
He blinked. Instead, there stood Aya, her skin glowing in the light of the moon. The moment their gazes caught, every shred of both his worry and his shame from the night before fell away from him.
Her head was inclined towards him, her startled expression softening as she took him in. She was wearing an oversized shirt of dark color, the hem pooling around her hips beneath the water and her long, dark hair spilling down her back. On the mossy shore sat a pair of discarded jeans and a thick, woolly sweater, both next to her tossed-aside work boots. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and approached, watching her from the shore.
"I'm sorry," she blurted the moment he came to a stop, "for leaving you all the work today."
A too-sharp inhale made him cough. He pulled the dart from his mouth and cleared his throat, shaking his head. Part of him had wanted to fuss at her for being in the water in the middle of winter, but he knew as well as anyone in the valley that this pond didn't abide by any natural laws. When he shivered, it was not from the temperature; he blinked away the memory of stripping off all of his clothes and submerging himself in midsummer, how the water was exactly how he'd needed it.
"You should know by now," he said, "I don't mind picking up some slack now 'n then."
"No." She was pouting a bit, her brows furrowed in the sincerity of her apology. "I was just...It was so hard to get out of bed. I haven't felt like that since...well, before I moved out here."
Though she'd glanced away, he nodded slowly, bringing the paper back to his lips. "Trust me, I get it. You don't need to explain. Though I gotta say, I can't condone coming out here by yerself at this hour."
She laughed a little, just through her nose. "Look who's talking."
With a sad smile he said, "Come on, now. You left your good coat at my place. Don't get sick fer the sake of broodin' out in the dark."
She didn't move. He couldn't be sure, as a stray cloud blotted out the moonlight, but he swore he spied a blush creeping along her face. She reached up to wipe at the corners of her eyes like she'd been crying, the tips of her fingers raw from the cold.
"The water's warm," she told him instead. "Get in with me?"
It sounded equal parts like request and demand. His stomach became a mess of butterflies; it was an intimate thing, to bathe beneath the stars alone together, in these waters said to be cherished by the holy mother, who blessed unions and healed heartache. With none to bear witness but the giant, ancient willow tree nestled among the rocky hillsides and the woman beckoning him forth, he undid his coat, pulling it from his shoulders and his arms. He folded it slowly, a light tremor snaking through his hands in his nervousness. He recalled, as he stooped to place it on the ground next to her clothes, how personal he'd found it when she'd done the same thing in his little cabin just last night.
It also did not slip his notice the way her eyes lingered on him as he unfastened his belt, threading it out from the loops and letting it fall on top of the pile. It'd been a long time since he felt desired, and never had he felt it in a way quite so spiritual. He dropped his cigarette, smothering the flame under his boot before untying them to pop them from his feet. With all of his usual methodical motion—the intricacies of stripping in an alluring way had always been lost on him—he slipped the pants from his legs, pulled off his socks. He stood there now in his thermal pants and a thick sweater, which he pulled from the back of the collar up and over his head.
The chill bit harshly against his naked chest and stomach. His teeth rattled together, but as he stepped into the lake it was warm as a fleece blanket after a long day shoveling snow. Carefully he crept towards her, minding his footing against the slippery rocks and silt beneath. A sense of peace flooded through him, timed with the beat of his heart as it pumped his blood through his body. His oncoming migraine eased and disappeared; not even the usual discomfort of wet fabric clinging to his legs and hips could bother him now.
An impulse drove him now as he sucked in a breath and sunk down as quick as he could, submerging himself. He opened his eyes in a squint, staring through the dark water lit only by pockets of moonlight that barely broke through the surface. Fish, he knew, lurked in the depths, but wouldn't be a bother so close to shore. It was so warm, the winter night all but forgotten.
When he re-emerged, he shook out his hair and ran a hand along his face to wipe the drops from his eyes. Aya was watching him fondly when he blinked his eyes open. She took a tentative step towards him, reaching out an arm as if she were aiming to push back a stray lock of his wet hair. But she paused.
He moved as if possessed, unsure where such boldness came from, and caught her hand in his. He tilted his head to look at her better, not realizing until this very moment just how close they stood.
"Don't worry yerself about this morning," he said softly, running his thumb along the outer edge of her hand; when she shivered, he did, too. "There's no shame in taking care of yourself."
She said nothing for a long time, looking down at the water. The contact was becoming overwhelming, and he dropped their hands, growing cold in the open air. The lake's reprieve did little, though, when she seemed so melancholy.
He didn't know what he'd been about to say. The very second he opened his mouth, she crashed into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in the space where his neck swooped down into his shoulder. The intimacy was a shock; it felt more like someone had knocked him on his back and pulled the air clean from his lungs.
When was the last time he'd been held, and held another in turn?
He put his arms around her, waited there for a long while to take in the feeling of the rise and fall of her chest against him, the pounding of his own heart in the cage of his ribs.
"About last night..." She pulled back from him just enough so that her voice wasn't stifled, her fogging breath filling the space between them. "I...I didn't—"
"You don't need to say anything about it," he assured her, lest both of their hearts risk breaking. "If you don't think you can find what you're looking for here, then—"
"It is here," she said in a rush, her eyes going wide beneath pinched brows. Around his middle, her arms squeezed, just barely perceptible—he might've imagined it, were it not for the fact that it was her bare arms around his bare waist. "I know I said—I might leave. But you..."
Snowflakes had begun to fall, landing in her hair and on the black shirt she wore. Suddenly she seemed nervous, unsure where to look and pressing her mouth into a thin line. Then she drew her hands from him, turned her head, and reached behind her to pull something from the mane of her hair. Her fingers danced like they were plucking the strings of a harp, unweaving a hidden braid, and then she squeezed shut her eyes and thrust out her hands.
There in the snowy night, she held a flash of blue in her shivering palms. She took a step back, her head low as she bowed, pushing out her hands further as if in offering to a temple.
Even now, thinking back on this moment, his brain fights reality. He stood there dumbly, half-naked in the Goddess's pond as he stared down at the brilliant feather in her hands, seeming to glow even as the clouds thickened and the snow fell heavier, the flakes landing and disappearing along its soft, downy edges—giving off the same heat as the lake itself. Like they were cut from the same cloth.
He couldn't comprehend what was happening. That feather was for a marriage proposal; he'd been plenty clear on its meaning, he knew. She'd sure given him quite the scolding for it.
"There's no point," he said, his voice low, "in showing me that."
She stiffened, her shoulders squaring then relaxing too quickly almost like she was trying to seem as nonchalant as possible. Her gaze was cast down at the feather, her brows furrowed in confusion—or maybe even anger. Before she spoke, she trembled once, hard.
"There is." She seemed to steel herself. "You're the one who told me...if I don't ask, I don't get." She looked up at him, dead in the eyes. "So I'm asking you to m—" She faltered, sucking in a great breath and glancing up to the sky briefly before shutting them. "To marry me."
His mind was somehow both frantic and frozen at once. The world seemed to close in around him while simultaneously feeling so far out of his reach that he might start to fall through space and time. He took her in, standing there rosy-faced and half-chilled, snowflakes in her hair and in her lashes as she opened her eyes atop her parted lips. It was quiet in a way that only midnight snowfall could allow, and he said nothing. Could think of nothing.
Well, nothing but the way he would ache whenever she left his side.
"Are you telling me no?"
She sounded a thousand miles away. Tongue-tied, he knew he risked stammering if he spoke, and driving her away if he didn't. He just hadn't known how deeply she'd embedded herself into all of his ideas of what his life would be like in the future until this moment, and the force of it was hitting him in waves.
"I'm not." Hoarse, too hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm not saying no."
The moments in between then and when she closed the distance between them were an agonizing eternity. She put the feather in her left hand, and then both of them drew up and cupped his face like a jewel.
His breath caught. Her fingers were frigid. The feather was indescribably soft against his cheek, and she was searching his eyes. Nothing and no one had made him feel as self-conscious as this: would she find his sun-worn skin leatherlike instead? So close, would she notice the wrinkles around his eyes, the permanence of the lines accenting his mouth? Would she smell the smoke and the sweat and the shame clinging to him? Would she rescind her proposal, shun him for being so old and so shy and so utterly isolated?
Not one full second could have passed between her caress and his wildfire thoughts and the kiss. It spoke, he figured much later, to the sheer force of her boldness, to fully silence his racing mind and force him back to confront reality. Chaste at first, just her pursed lips on his, until she tilted her head and deepened it beyond measure. She pushed, her hands leaving him as her arms wrapped around his neck instead. A mixture of instinct and desire he hadn't felt since his boyhood swelled inside him, driving him to snake one arm around her middle and bring the other to her face, as she had done to him.
He wound his fingers through her hair, returning her kiss with passion. It had ignited so suddenly, for something that'd been so dormant inside him all this time. Standing there in the ancient lake in the falling snow, he breathed her in, letting her fill his lungs, all of the smoke and the mint and the whiskey and the ferocity of her, her tireless resolve, her steady presence in his life and her shining eyes. All along his face, his neck, his collarbone he felt the heat of his skin beneath her fingertips, her palms, her wrists. He tugged gently at her waist, bringing their bodies close as could be, chest to chest.
Kissing her felt like drinking down the night sky, all of the snowfall and shining stars and swirling galaxies. It felt like leaping from the raging ocean during a thunderstorm and breathing in the heavy summer air. It felt like being twenty downtown when his best friend helped him to his feet after a bar fight gone bad, felt like the satisfied ache of a black eye above a triumphant grin.
She pulled back only a fraction; their noses were still touching and their eyes were still closed. Into that minuscule space she reiterated in a desperate, strained whisper,
"There is a point." Every rise and fall of her shaking breaths he could feel against him. Her hair was still wound through his fingers at the base of her skull, her hands still cradling his face. "You don't make me feel like I'm doing anything wrong"—another tremor—"when I'm doing what I want. When I'm—loving who I want."
His heart gave a squeeze, anticipatory and eager, but apprehensive just the same. How could her choice be him? "Anyone would be plenty lucky," he murmured, "to build a life with you."
Her breaths came steadier through her nostrils. "I've already built a life with you."
Another squeeze. "But—"
"You don't need to say yes," she said hurriedly. She tightened her hold, leaning in to bury her face once more in the crook of his neck. Her face was wet, the only evidence he had of her tears. "Just this, for right now is—it's...enough, okay?"
He held her close. The understanding was beginning to crush down upon him that he risked breaking her heart in two the longer he took to collect himself. There was little he enjoyed less than being so direct, but this was worth it.
She was worth it.
"Aya." He slid his palms across her curves and took hold of her shoulders, prying her from him as gently as he could. Her face was flushed, her eyes red-rimmed, her nose running—even so, she was the most precious thing he'd ever beheld, and he fought to keep from pressing his mouth to hers again. "Dry yer eyes. There ain't nothing to cry about."
Immediately she brought her hands to her blushing face, wiping at her eyes and nose. He brought his palms to her face when she was finished, his back bent forward a bit to look at her eye-to-eye.
"I'm fond, y'know, of what we've made of the farm. Quite fond, matter of fact. And you..." He glanced away for a moment, searching for the words, as far out of his usual realms of comfort as he was. "You've been a breath of fresh air, gave me something to look forward to again. Got me out of my dusty old house. Got the dirt under my fingernails again. Lit me up from the inside out, you hear me?"
And it was the truth. He hoped to the Goddess she could hear it in his voice, see it as plain on his face for how vulnerable he felt. She nodded smally, still giving him her fullest attention even as a fresh blush bloomed along her cheeks.
"You'll have to pardon my shock," he went on. "I'm well past my prime. You know more than me how many people are better-suited for someone like you. Thought maybe—maybe I'm just dreaming, all by myself back at home."
She shook her head, bringing up her left hand—and that brilliant flash of the blue feather—to take hold of his right, still settled on her face.
"It's real," she assured. "This is what I want. I've been living alongside you for the last year—who else could be better-suited?" She pulled their hands away, suspending them there in the space between them. Gingerly she placed the feather into his hot, dry palm, pressing it with purpose. Then she pushed it to his chest, resting her forehead against his heart. "Takakura, I—I'm...falling in love. With you."
Time had stopped, he was sure of it. The snowfall that'd picked up pace seemed suspended there all around them, the world silent except for their heavy, shuddering breaths leaving them in tandem. Never in all his days would he have imagined this: the warmth, the fullness and the lightness existing in perfect sync inside of him. The woman herself, the impact she'd made on him, the things with which she'd trusted him. The proposal—coming from her in nothing but a too-big shirt and her underwear, him in his long johns, their clothes in a pile on the shore.
But most of all, there was the assurance that she wasn't the type to just cut and run. She'd looked within, same as he had, and what they'd found had driven away the people closest to them. Even then they hadn't let it break them—delay them, maybe, but never beat them down. And through all of it, they'd found each other.
Now they loved each other.
He took her hand from its place at his chest and brought it to his lips. She lifted her head, looked up at him with snow in her hair and a fragile faith in her eyes. When he kissed the knuckle of her first finger he murmured,
"Yes."
The next. "My answer is yes."
The knuckles on her ring finger, her pinky. "I'll marry you, Aya."
He held her closed fist against his mouth, looking up at her again. "I'm yours."
When she kissed him again it was like lightning, the striking force of the passion behind it. Love, he figured, was like that: it could only strike the lucky twice. He'd learned the price of it that first time, all those years ago, paid it well past full by now. She had reached out and taken hold of it, and he would be damned if he let it pass him by again.
For just the briefest moment, he would swear the water around them flashed, glow of greens and blues sparkling like candlelight. Blessed by the goddess, indeed; as far as tradition was concerned, they were wed already. He only had but a second to wonder what Aya would say to such a thing, but then—
A shrill whir echoed from the hillsides all around them. The pounding boom was unmistakable, and he could feel Aya's small start of surprise in his arms. They pulled back, craning their heads towards the sky, but so far from the beach and so hidden in the trees, they wouldn't be able to see the New Year's fireworks here.
She was all energy then in that way he loved, the usual spark in her eyes a full-on flame now for all her beaming happiness. Another bursting firework sounded overhead as she turned and trudged through the water as quickly as she could manage, tugging Takakura's free hand all the while. The cold air hit him like a brick when they emerged, and she smiled and laughed like anything to see him trying to dress so frantically. Since her coat was still hanging on the hook back at his cabin, he draped his around her shoulders the moment she secured her boots back to her socked feet. The smile she gave him tugged at his very soul.
They ran. He couldn't remember the last time he'd run so fast, her hand in his, fireworks booming overhead all the while. They sped down the hiking trail until it spit them back out near the farm, the forest thinning enough for them to catch the fading glow of golden, cascading sparkles that crackled like waves breaking on the beach.
He stood beside her, the both of them catching their breath as it misted from their mouths, and grinning in spite of it. She pulled him close, wrapping her arm around the small of his back with the other slung across his ribs with their faces lifted to the sky. The snow was sticking to the grass and the leaves, brilliant bursts of color lighting it all, cutting through the dark night, the sound ricocheting all through the valley.
A decade later, their children would ask after their wedding night. Was it romantic? their daughter had asked, pulling at weeds in the field. Their son, not yet old enough to pretend to be embarrassed by girls, listened intently from his perch atop the back of a cow. Takakura would stand, dust his soil-stained hands on the front of his jeans, wipe his rag across his forehead, and give the quickest of winks to mark the teasing tone of what came next.
"We were together," he answered his eldest, well accustomed to his sour jokes by now. "And whaddya know: I forget the rest."