Chapter 37:
Spiralling
(or, A Winter Apart)

The sky was depressingly absent of snow.

Instead, the grey clouds that loomed overhead, dark and murky as they rumbled through the sky, threatened but one thing: rain. Even as lights were being hung in the streets, and trees were being put up with their assorted festive decorations, the ground remained devoid of white, and the pavement was darkened by downpours.

Such was winter in Nagoya.

Returning home after the last day of school before the winter break, ashen grey was omnipotent; streets seemed to streak past me in smeared shades, colour desaturated by the drained light passing through the clouds far above my head. As it was, the sun was already on the verge of setting; soon, streetlights would turn on, a desperate attempt to lighten the pressing darkness.

To hold back the night.

Bzzt.

Pulling out my phone, I sighed at the newly-arrived email from Raiha - a reminder of her earlier request that I stop by the store on my way home.

Something about needing eggs for a "secret project"... whatever that meant.

Pressing the back button on my phone, I exited out of the email. With a click, the screen returned to my list of conversations... and my eyes fell on the email chain that sat immediately under the one with Raiha.

Yotsuba.

After the day of the race, as the hours ticked down during the final few days of school, she'd seemed... distant. We'd still spoken as we normally did. All of the words were the same... but everything seemed off. There'd been a strange timbre to her voice, an unresolved harmonic, a layer that hadn't been there before... and I hadn't been sure how to handle it.

Maybe the one that's off is me? Maybe I'm overthinking everything.

Maybe I'm thinking about the wrong things.

As the glass doors of the grocery store slid open and I walked inside, I was lost in thought. My feet carried me to the correct aisle on their own, devoid of conscious direction from my brain. As I picked up the carton of eggs, my eyes were glazed. My focus was turned entirely inward.

Maybe I'm the one being strange.

I'd had lunch with Yotsuba earlier in the day... but that same sense of wrongness had been settled over us like a fine coating of dust. It had been as though we'd been locked in a two-step, but it had spontaneously grown discordant, each slightly out of sync with the other's movement; each trying to compensate for the change, but the compensation serving only to drive us both further out of step.

In between her laughter, hidden in the cracks of her smile, it had been there. I was sure of it. I'd sensed that there was something under the surface. Something that-

"Will you be needing a bag, sir?"

"No."

It's just one carton.

Emerging onto the street, a light drizzle had begun to fall. Inconsequential droplets, impacting and then ignored; powerless in their scarcity.

I pulled out my phone again, water splattering across the screen, blurring the words written there.

The response she'd sent me during lunch the day of the race. A simple thank you, nothing more. We hadn't emailed since then; radio silence, so to speak. Yet, beneath her message, growing more and more distorted by liquid pooling on the tilted glass, was text in red.

A draft.

Half-composed. Revised, scrutinized, thrice-over deleted.

I'd been mulling over it all day; but, I hadn't been able to bring myself to send it. Not when I was feeling so uncertain, as though my feet were searching for stability on shifting sands.

This is nothing.

Why is this so difficult?

Snapping the phone shut in frustration, droplets of water spraying out the side, I slid it back into my pocket, and held the carton of eggs close to my chest to shield it from the rain. The streets seemed to blur together as I walked the rest of the way back to our apartment, my eyes not really taking in the detail of the vistas around me.

Luckily, my legs knew the way.

Eventually, I was in the door, hair sprinkled with water and glistening like grass adorned with dew; and as I handed the eggs off to my sister, I couldn't help but smile as her glee-filled face.

A temporary swell of joy.

It didn't last.

As Raiha busied herself in the kitchen, carefully shielding her secret project from my prying eyes with her back, I pulled my phone back out and dried it off. Then, lying on my back on the tatami mats, I stared up at the screen.

At what I'd written.

At what I'd been too uncertain to send.

{Hey Yotsuba, would you possibly like to do something together with me over the winter break?}

It was stupid. A message like this was nothing. I'd sent her dozens of emails at this point to make plans; I'd invited her to go to a fireworks festival with Raiha and me shortly after meeting her. There was absolutely no reason for me to be hesitating.

Yet…

Deep in my chest, there was uneasiness. A quiet stirring, sourced from somewhere deeper in the cage; and yet, something also not quite contained within.

Some quiet instinct holding me back. Whispering 'danger' in my ear. Whispering-

You're just afraid. Everything's fine.

Lowering the phone, I gently banged it against my forehead in frustration, the speaker at the top impacting on my skin. There was something wrong, and I couldn't figure out what the hell it was.

"Onii-chan, um… what are you doing?"

I glanced up past the phone to see Raiha looking down at me with concern, a spatula in one hand.

"Angsting," I said dryly. "Dramatically."

"Oh."

There was a moment's pause, and then Raiha came and crouched down next to me.

"So… why're you angsting?"

Sighing, I lowered my arms to the mat, lying spread-eagled. The flip-phone, snapped shut, slipped out of my hand and tumbled a few centimetres away before coming to a rest. Raiha glanced over at it, and pursed her lips.

"Raiha," I said morosely, staring unmovingly up at the ceiling, "being an adult is hard."

"Onii-chan, you're still in high school."

"Very hard," I said, nodding to myself. "So, I'm afraid that I don't have the mental bandwidth to explain it to—"

"Hmm, you're angsting about Yotsuba-nee-chan, aren't you?" Raiha said sagely, standing up and shaking her head.

"No, I'm not—"

"Onii-chan, you're having girl problems!"

"What- No! Raiha, I was joking, I—"

My sister reached down and plucked my phone off the floor. Flipping it open and ignoring my squawks of protest, she scanned the drafted email I'd written, then glanced down at me wordlessly.

Eventually, I fell quiet, and then scowled at her. "What?"

Silently, Raiha looked between me and the phone.

"Onii-chan… this message..."

Suddenly, an impish look came across her face, and a burst of worry exploded in my chest. A click, a ding… and then Raiha snapped my phone shut and put it down on my chest.

"Raiha, what the heck did you just do?!"

"Now you don't need to angst about your love life!" she said, the impish grin turning into an angelic smile. "Relax, Onii-chan! Anyways, I'm gonna go back to working on my secret project!"

Then, she fled, giggling as I grabbed at her ankles to try and drag her down to the tatami mat. Once she'd safely escaped to the kitchen, I gingerly picked my phone up off my shirt with a sigh, and flipped it open to check the damage.

With a sinking feeling, I saw that Raiha had sent the email… and then my chest clenched in panic as I realized that she'd added a heart to the end.

Damn it, Raiha!

Suppressing flashbacks to the artistic bento she'd made me months before, I hastily typed into my phone, hoping to be able to do damage control before Yotsuba could respond to my message.

{Sorry, Raiha got my phone and messed with the end of the message. I did want to ask about- }

Bzzt.

As I was almost finished typing the message, my stomach dropped as I got the notification for a new email. Backing out of the draft, I slowly scrolled up and scanned the message Yotsuba had sent me…

...and then slowly lowered the phone to the floor.

{Sorry, Uesugi-san. I can't.}

I could feel an icy feeling in my chest; a subtle anxiety, creeping along my ribcage, adhered to the top of my diaphragm, drawn into my lungs with every breath I took. Like frozen air in the depths of winter, it stung in my throat, tiny needles stabbing into me.

Cold.

I hadn't quite been sure I believed it, but there definitely was something off with Yotsuba. Some kind of distance that had opened up between us; and it frustrated me. It was as if it were itching just under my skin, a spot that I couldn't quite scratch. I didn't understand, at least intellectually, what was wrong. I'd said or done something, and-

Bzzt.

The vibration of the phone against the tatami mats, dancing along the floor as a herald announces an entrant to the court, ripped my attention away from within, my eyes torn away from the bland corner of the ceiling to which they'd grown transfixed. Hurriedly grabbing at my phone and hunching over, I flipped it open again to see another email from Yotsuba.

{Ah, that was more curt than I meant it to be. Sorry! We're going on a family vacation, so we'll be out of town starting tomorrow evening until school starts again. I think Ebata-san said something about a tropical island…? I don't know all the details, I've been too busy to look into it.}

Leaning back until I was sitting on my knees perfectly upright, I lowered the phone, and stared blankly at the wall.

Oh. Right.

I forgot.

She's rich.

Yet, if she was leaving the next day, and gone until the start of the new semester…

A small flicker of disappointment flared in my chest; but, it was a childish thing, something I'd have scoffed at months before.

But…

No. Nevermind.

Being unable to spend Christmas or New Years with someone was a silly thing to be upset about.

"Maybe it's for the best," I murmured to myself numbly. "Going to a shrine with a girl on New Years… isn't particularly auspicious for me."

"Hmm? Did you say something, Onii-chan?"

"No," I scowled in Raiha's general direction. "Also, I'm still mad at you for sending that message without asking."

"I'd say sorry, but I don't want to lie to you, Onii-chan!"

Sighing, I looked back at the phone.

I need to respond…

As I flipped the phone back open to revise my draft, I suddenly got hit with a barrage of messages all at once.

{But… I would have loved to do stuff with you during winter break, Uesugi-san!}

{Next year, okay?}

{It's a promise}

The ice in my lungs dispersed, and I sighed.

She's impossible. I'm way too susceptible to this sort of thing.

Then, my eyes trailed over her emails, and lingered on a phrase; catching on it, like a thread hooked on a stray slip of metal, I couldn't shake the quiet feeling that was beginning to spark in the depths of my chest.

Next year…

Slowly, I breathed out, and shook my head.

That's right. We have next year. The year after that as well. Also, the year after the year after that. Also...

"It isn't ephemeral," I murmured to myself. "She'll still be here."

I wanted to believe it.

I wanted to believe that if I let go, if I stepped back, if I breathed, everything would be fine. I wanted to believe that if I let my muscles relax, if I allowed myself to release the quiet tension that lingered in every part of my body like a spring turned too tightly, if I could just trust…

It's not that easy.

Deep in the cage, in the shadows, beyond the beast, a whisper.

A warning.

Stay on your guard.

After all, I'd thought that with her as-

Bzzt.

Another message.

Flipping the phone back open once again, I saw that I'd gotten another two messages from Yotsuba.

{Also, geez, Uesugi-san you dog! What's with the heart, huh? Oh my oh my, I bet you send that to all the ladies, don't you?}

{Shishishishishi}

I stared down at my phone… and then I groaned, and lowered my head into my hands.

Damn it, Raiha.

Yet, after a moment's silence, something snapped… and I suddenly found myself bursting out laughing; peals of laughter, mirth ringing out through the entire room, overwhelming and completely unstoppable.

"Eh?!" Raiha said, running into the room and staring down at me in shock, batter-laden spatula firmly in hand. "Onii-chan, what's wrong? Are you dying?! You sound like you're dying!"

"Hey," I said, trying to scowl at her through my laughter. "That's rude, you know."

"I'm showing genuine concern here!"

"Sure you are," I said, attempting desperately to reel the mirth back in- and failing. "This… this is all your fault, you know."

"What is?"

"Yotsuba thinks that I'm- ugh, nevermind. Go back to what you were doing."

"Onii-chan," Raiha said, trying not to laugh as she walked back into the kitchen, "I'm sure I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

"Liar."

Raiha's giggles echoed throughout the small apartment, and I shook my head ruefully. Opening up the email chain, I looked over my draft, deleted it, and then finally typed a response.

{All good, thanks for letting me know. It would have been nice, but if you're going to be overseas, there's not much we can do about it. Also, sorry about the heart. Raiha stole my phone and added it without my permission. Which means, actually, Raiha is the one sending it to all the girls. Sorry you had to find out this way.}

I looked over the message one last time, nodded quietly to myself one last time in amused satisfaction, and then sent it.

My quiet revenge… throwing Raiha under the bus.

Somehow… it was a lot easier to send that time.

There was no further communication from Yotsuba for a while, and eventually I pulled my school bag close to me, and began studying; it was moreso out of boredom than any particular need. After about an hour, Raiha finished whatever her secret project was, and came out to sit with me; I pretended not to notice the fleck of batter that was on her cheek.

Another hour or so later, my father returned home from his job at the warehouse, and we had dinner; outside, the sun had long-since set. As the bath was drawn, and Raiha began yawning, I suddenly felt… restless. I needed to move.

"Raiha, can you tell Dad that I'm going to step out for a moment?"

"'Kaaaaay..."

Slipping into the kitchen, I pulled on my shoes and coat, and stepped out the door.

Just for a few moments. I need to move, just for a few moments.

The tension I'd been feeling, the sense of not being able to relax… even with everything, it hadn't gone away. It never really went away; it just faded into the background, the useless heat bath of stress that enveloped my entirety on a daily basis. In this moment, it had chosen to manifest itself in my legs, and as I strode down the steps, my feet demanded use.

I didn't want to go far. Just… somewhere.

In lieu of going for a walk, I found myself pacing on the pavement outside our apartment.

Oscillatory.

Back and forth, rhythmic, like a pendulum.

Two weeks…

Both a long time, and also no time at all. It was fourteen days until we were back at school… and yet, somehow, it felt immense; like a gaping chasm of time across which I couldn't reach Yotsuba. We were going to be separated… and the thought caused a tightness in my stomach, a feeling of a stone settling there, heavy and unwieldy.

I didn't like it.

I really didn't like it.

On the fifteenth lap, I felt a buzz in my pocket. Hurriedly pulling my phone out, I saw a series of messages from Yotsuba.

{Shock!}

{Don't worry, Uesugi-san, I'll love Raiha-chan no matter how many girls she sends hearts to!}

{Also… yeah, it is too bad. I guess we'll just have to do lots of stuff next year!}

Quietly, I typed in a response.

{I'm glad. Have a great time on your vacation! We'll definitely do stuff together next year as well.}

Lowering my phone back into my pocket, I stared up at the night sky. There were no stars; everything was obscured by the clouds which had taken up permanent residence across the sky. Lit from below by the street lamps, their threat of rain long-since delivered upon, they now simply seemed bleak.

Empty, and devoid of form.

Despite how much I may have wanted it. Despite how much the whispers in my chest may have wished for it. Despite how simple things would be if things were picture-perfect like in a movie…

Despite everything, there wouldn't be snow.

Not this year.

I felt worn out.

Climbing back up the stairs, I returned to the house, and had my bath. Soon, the futons had been brought out, and I was curled up in bed, the lights off and the only sounds the breathing of the building and the rustling of tree branches.

On the verge of sleep, I stared blearily at my conversation with Yotsuba. Quietly, in a haze, I mulled over the two weeks that she would be gone from my life… and a strong pang ran through my chest, making me shudder.

I can still want it to snow… can't I?

Half-asleep, I typed a message, sent it, and then closed my eyes, the phone falling from my loose grip and clattering to the floor.

{I'll miss you.}

A/N: I wanted this shorter chapter to act as a bridge between the race, and the final three chapters of the arc. There are a lot of moving parts happening in Fuu and Yotsuba's relationship right now… and I wanted this connection to help set the stage of how he, at least, is feeling.

On a separate note - thank you to everyone for their well-wishes about the wedding! I'm really grateful; it was an amazing day, and I'm so happy to have been able to marry the love of my life.

Also, we went to an anime store a few days after the wedding, and she encouraged me to pick up my first piece of Yotsuba merch, so that's how you really know she's a keeper.

See you all next chapter!