Alnitak8: Thank you!
CaityJoy: He is, indeed. Thank you!
argenteusvipera: Kyoya "there's no way I'm in bead health, I work in a hospital!" Ootori. Minami wasn't really that close to Kohta, but she was sad to see him go because A) he made Kosuke happy, and B) he was a constant/"normal" thing that also went away around the same time her parents died, ie another thing that changed in their lives. Thanks so much for the review!
bored411: Surprise! You get both those things this chaper!
marilla: Thank you!
Kosuke thought that when she gave the last payment to the loan shark, she would weep with relief.
She feels nothing.
More than a year of withdrawing money from Shigeo in cash, little by little so as not to catch attention, going to a different post office each time, hands shaking as she registers the currency, staring up at her dark bedroom ceiling in the evening, wondering if tomorrow will be the day that she's discovered and everything comes crashing down, and Kosuke feels nothing.
One tree extinguished, a wildfire still burning.
The mansion always just the place she slept at night. Still, Kosuke thought that she and the children were safe there. Now, Kosuke keeps her exchanges with the staff to clipped syllables because they are not and never were her friends. She feels Shigeo's eyes on her neck from the other side of the building.
She has kept the children out of his sight. He is still gone for most of the day, and they never eat meals together. Even so, she banishes the children from his side of the second floor, fearful that one laugh on a bad day will awaken the beast.
Kosuke retreats to her grandparents' often over the break. She has to ask Shigeo for permission every time. He has said no only once, to get their weekly "progress meeting" done early. He never says a word about Airi and Sugimoto, but now Kosuke knows that he knows, and that's why she can't take his silence about the loan shark as a guarantee.
She begins to dread leaving the Suzuki house. The children love the open yard and playing with Ringo and Tako, and of course, the snacks that Sugimoto relentlessly showers them with.
He and Airi are quiet when she tells them that Shigeo knows. They are not surprised by his cunning or his apathy. Kosuke doesn't say a word about the threats. Would they be unsurprised by that, too?
Kosuke had failed in planning a proper trip, so she wants to focus all her attention on the kids over this break. Particularly Minami.
Kosuke's migraine had healed by the end of the day, but then she learned that Kyoya had done in a few hours what she couldn't do for an entire damn year and mended the bridge between himself and Minami. The migraine returned for revenge.
The next day, Kosuke had asked Minami to explain everything—no more I don't know, no more crossed arms. Kosuke told her over and over that she never, ever had to be afraid of talking to her. Minami was embarrassed more than anything. Her cheeks burned red as she confessed.
It all made sense. To Minami, Kyoya was the face of their so-called "salvation." She and Kosuke and Hitsuji, thicker than blood, couldn't make it by themselves, but here comes a stranger to fix everything. Kosuke just wished she could tell her how much she understood.
She simply told her that she did, but from now on, there was not going to be anymore eggshell-walking. Thus, they had to talk about the painting fiasco.
Kosuke only relays Minami's answer to Sugimoto and Airi when they ask. They had asked if she was excited to go back to school, and she'd gone quiet. She deliberates her lack of deliberation in telling them. Once again, not trusting her own trust.
She relents at last, not for her sake, but Minami's. "She said it just didn't feel right, and she only painted it because she couldn't think of anything else."
Airi hums around the brim of her teacup. It's piping hot, but she holds it with her whole hand. Years of welding have turned her palms fireproof. "That doesn't sound so hard to believe. She's only a kid. I'd be upset, too, if I had to spend so much time on something that I didn't like."
"It's not that. It's more than that. She's too mature to lash out the way she did if she just wanted to do something else."
"Remember th—No, no, Tako, don't…" Sugimoto sighs as Tako jumps up into his lap, her favorite place in the world, and sheds even more fur onto his clothes. "Fine, you spoiled princess. Ahem—Just remember that Minami has been through a lot these past two years, honey. Probably what happened is that the end of the school year came, and she looked around and realized how different everything was."
Kosuke shifts in her seat. Those words stir something up. Butterfly wings. Not right now, come on…
"You think so?"
The kitchen alarm sounds off. Airi gestures for Sugimoto to stay seated ("Cat lap!") and dashes to take the cookies out of the oven herself. Sugimoto scratches Tako behind her soft, flicking ear and says, "I do. Sometimes…Sometimes you feel things and you can't break it down like math. You have bad days not because something happens, but because you wake up in the morning and your heart says, Today is going to be a bad day because I said so. I think that happens to everyone, even children."
Kosuke swallows, but it doesn't go down. There's too much understanding here for her to take. At least she only lost her mother once.
And she can feel it coming. She can feel it coming.
What saves her for a little while longer is far from a bell. There is a crash, a yell, and Tako jumps to the ground as Sugimoto and Kosuke run to the kitchen.
It's not the pain of her broken leg that bothers Airi nearly as much as the inconvenience.
She can't say exactly what happened. She had taken the cookies out of the oven, then realized she had nothing to put them on, and looking around she forgot she left the oven door open and tripped over it in just the wrong way. Afternoon tea turned into afternoon sitting-in-the-backseat-while-Sugimoto-drives-them-to-the-hospital.
The doctor had been frankly astounded when the X-rays arrived, because four years away from seventy, Airi's bones are as healthy as a child's. Two months, the doctor had said, and maybe not even that. Still, that meant no smithing for Airi until then, which was like telling a bird it couldn't fly.
Sitting on the sofa with her cast propped up in front of her, Airi really reminds Kosuke of a bird that has crashed into a window.
"When this thing comes off, we are burning it. No, no, Tako—Ugh." Tako smirks up at Airi from her lap. "You are a rotten little thing, taken advantage of me while I'm down!"
"Do you want anything?" Minami asks her. "More water?"
"No, sweet, I'm alright. You go play with your brother."
Minami gets Kosuke's affirming look before she takes off. Then Kosuke sits in the armchair, and Airi sighs. "You've got to stop acting like I'm one foot from the grave. This is nothing. You should've seen my thumb that time I cracked it with a hammer. That was ugly. Sugimoto threw up when he saw it!"
Kosuke and her siblings had been coming around every day to help out, not just tending to Airi, but caring for the animals, keeping the house clean, and more. Sugimoto tells them every day they don't have to, but doesn't say the same when they leave. His grandchildren keep coming back.
"And I had every reason to, it looked like a squashed plum." Sugimoto sets a cup of tea by Airi's hand and kisses her forehead. "You're still made of steel to me, dear."
"Harumph!"
"Now…" Sugimoto picks the remote off the table and sits beside Airi, first a cushion away so as not to jostle her, but she reaches over and tugs him over. "Alright, alright. Let's see what's in store."
The TV is already turned to the weather channel when it blinks on. A cloudy swirl hovers over the Pacific, clipping closer and closer to the mainland as the meteorologist explains what to expect. High winds, flash flooding, thunderstorms.
Kosuke has seen too many typhoons in her life to count, and they've been more inconvenient than anything else. For life in The Lily Bowl, it meant a day of no business, shut up inside, listening to the rain and wind batter the windows.
Life in The Lily Bowl did not include a grandmother with a broken leg, however. Sure, Airi and Sugimoto will probably be fine, and Airi is three times stronger than Kosuke in every sense of the word. But Kosuke…is Kosuke, and she just has to think of every worst possible outcome.
Plus, watching that swirl creep closer and closer to the mainland, Kosuke thinks she's looking at a self-portrait.
Maybe if I'm here. Maybe I'm not in the mansion…
She turns to Airi and Sugimoto and asks, "How would you feel about a little slumber party?"
Kosuke checks the news a few more times that evening. Few businesses are intending to close, certainly not Ootori Medical, but she's curious.
And she misses Kyoya, if she's being honest.
Do you know what OM will do for the storm?
Offices will remain open until further notice.
I won't be going in, however.
Oh, good!
She regrets that as soon as it sends. It's Kyoya. Not going into work is never good.
What will you be doing?
I imagine the children may get bored trapped inside the mansion all day.
We won't be there.
We're going to stay with Airi and Sugimoto in case they need help.
How is Airi?
Health-wise, very well. Mentally, she's going cuckoo with boredom.
Kosuke is thankful that Kyoya won't have to go into the office. She would be even if there wasn't a typhoon, because the last time she saw him, he looked like he was sleepwalking.
A worse idea comes to mind, though: Kyoya alone in his mansion with nothing but the rain to keep him company. She can't bear it.
And she misses him. Just—if she's being honest.
If you want to, you could join us.
They'd be over the moon.
And what better company?
Kyoya never responds to that message. Kosuke falls asleep watching and waiting on her dark phone screen. She worries about him, and she misses him.
And she was hoping for him. Kyoya in the Suzuki house. That could distract her.
It comes before the typhoon.
Every now and then, Kosuke just has…a bad day.
A day where just lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling is too much.
For months after her parents died, every day was a bad day. Then they started to thin out, every other day, every few days, once a week…And now, two years later, they still creep up on her.
When her eyes open that morning, they spend far too much time roaming a strangebedroom. She waits for the distant sound of eggs sizzling in a pan, the bell above a door ringing, and they never come. She walks to the bathroom in the bedroom, instead of walking across the hall.
They do not eat breakfast at one of many dinner tables. There is no talk of what will be the special today, no mother telling her children it's time to go to school. A hand lifts spoonfuls of food not prepared by a father in an egg-patterned apron that he wears every morning. That father does not sneak a kiss to his wife's cheek as she passes by.
Kosuke goes back to her bedroom to fetch her backpack before she makes her way to school and greets her best friend by the front gate, waving to her parents as she ducks out of the door.
Someone else prepares her siblings to go their grandparents' house.
By early morning, the sky is already overcast. The trees are bristling but not bending. Someone packs a bag with boredom repellant, another with pajamas and toothbrushes if the storm stays so long. Feet descend the staircase, and a hand takes Minami's. Shigeo had given his permission; as usual, he didn't seem to care.
Someone sits between Hitsuji and Minami in the backseat of a limousine that they can take instead of hopping buses now. A limousine.
A door opens. "Hey, you three! Hurry and get in here—Don't know when it's going to pick up."
Hitsuji holds up an offering. "I brought a bucket!"
"Ooh!"
Kosuke. Right, she's Kosuke. Those are her feet stepping out of her shoes, and that's her cat brushing against her leg, and that is her grandfather and these are her siblings. Right, right.
Pulling herself together has never seemed more literal. Kosuke takes a deep breath and can feel her seams pulling tight once more. "Hi! Oh—" Ringo is a good boy, the best of boys, and does not jump up on her. He bounces instead, a demand for her to scritch under his chin. She sets one of the bags down to comply with pleasure. "Hey, Ringo! Oh, poor thing, you're going to be cooped up all day!" He whines. "Poor baby…"
"Here, let me get that." Sugimoto picks the bag up before she can stop him, and he gives an oof. "Must've packed your whole bedroom!"
"That's the 'entertainment' bag."
Hitsuji stops petting Tako (Airi had shown him the "butt elevator" trick, and he will do it for hours if they let him) to say, "So we don't get bored." Tako bats at his hand. Continue, human!
"Ah, well at least someone came prepared. I think one of us is going to come down with a bad case of cabin fever!"
She naturally assumes he means Airi, which seems rather mean-spirited—the lady broke her leg, is it her fault for being bored? They step into the living room and find not one person sitting on the sofa, but two.
"Oh! You're here."
Kyoya lifts a brow at her. He's a sight for sore eyes, but the suit isn't. The blazer hangs on a coat rack in the corner. Standby after all. "I believe I was invited, was I not?"
"You were. I didn't realize the invitation was taken up."
"I said it was."
"No, you didn't?"
He pulls his phone out. A reply sits in his text box unsent. Kyoya sighs. "My apologies. That's the second time I've done that this week."
He's clearly cursing himself, and Kosuke just gives thanks that he can be here at all, even with the suit. At least he's taken the blazer off. And the tie, apparently. And he's rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows, which for some reason looks very good on him—
Anyway. "Well, welcome aboard." She gives him a wink. "Like I said, no better company."
Hitsuji goes to Kyoya. "I brought a bucket!"
"You're a very smart man, Hitsuji."
Minami joins them at the end of the sofa to inspect the shape in his hands. It's a jumble of polished wood, so incoherent it looks like a glitch. "What's that?"
"A puzzle. I've been told that it will turn into a ball if I turn it right."
"It will." Airi shifts the pillow behind her. The second-worst thing about a broken leg, she says, is how you sit around so much it feels like your back is going to go, too. (And your butt.) "If I can carve that thing in ten minutes, you can solve it in less!"
Kyoya twiddles with it a little more, but it only seems to make it worse. Minami asks if she can try, and sits next to Kyoya so that they can fiddle with it together. Hitsuji goes to the entertainment bag. Sugimoto is already in the kitchen preparing the first of many snacks.
It's so nice to have them all here again, with nothing to worry about but the rain Her fiancé and her baby sister are talking to each other, and her baby brother still gets to be a baby and ask Ringo which piece he wants in the board game.
It's so nice until it stops being nice. Until it stops being.
Maybe Kosuke is still asleep. This could be one of those dreams where she just knows something isn't right but she can't put her finger on it. Supposedly that's her grandmother and that's her fiancé, but they're just figments of her subconscious, right? She'll wake up in just a second and remember she doesn't even know her grandmother's name, let alone her face, and she'll feel guilty for conjuring this "Kyoya" guy when she still has Kohta.
Someone goes upstairs to the master bedroom, whose tenants have moved downstairs for the time being. Someone puts the rest of their things down and sits in that darkness that precedes rainfall and listens to the house breathe.
"Kosuke!"
Kosuke goes back to the living room, where Hitsuji and Ringo sit on the floor with a board game set up between them. Two pieces, one red and the other green, sit on different colored tiles. Ringo blinks up innocently at Kosuke, but Hitsuji points a finger at his big brown eyes and says, "Ringo is cheating!"
"How is Ringo cheating?"
"You're supposed to get five points if you land on the blue square, and he got ten!" He points at the little colored cards he'd set up around the edges. Ringo paws at the green ten-point card, bringing it a little closer to him.
"Ringo! Is this true?" Ringo stops still…and trots away, into the other room. Kosuke's outrage goes from playful to real. "Cheater!"
Minami offers to take Ringo's place instead. The puzzle now rests in Kyoya's hand as a perfect wooden sphere, but judging by the little smile on her grandmother's face and the frown on his, the victory isn't his.
Sugimoto has returned with a platter of buttery cookies that the children have already descended upon. He drops a sugar cube into his tea and twirls it around with a delicate silver spoon that may or may not have been smithed by Airi. "So what does that mean?"
"Because the form is completely typed, and there are no selections an employee can make, that means that the slightest error will register something completely different in the system. Someone may forget a letter in their name, and the system will register them as a completely different person until the incorrect account is manually deleted. It also means that we have an entire section of the database dedicated to employees whose highest degree is a doctorate, and a section of a few whose highest degree is a doctrate. They're working on resolving the issue, but for how expansive it is—"
"Kyoya." Airi rests her head on the back cushion of the sofa and lolls it toward him. Her smile is sweet but impatient. "I'm so happy to see you again, sweet, I really am, but do you think we could talk about something besides work? I know more about the things on your desk than you."
"Of course. What would you like to know?"
"I have a better idea. Sugi, c'mere. We're doing the Once Game!"
"The Once Game? How are we going to do that when you're—?"
"Like this. Kosuke, help me down, won't you? Just like that. Kyoya, Sugi, you two get around the table."
It takes a lot of shuffling, sliding, and please-Airi-watch-your-foot-teeth-biting, but eventually the four of them make it around the table where Airi's leg was propped up. She sits with her back against the sofa's bottom and rolls her shoulders, as though this will be a brawl. "Alright, let me show you. Sugi…" Sugimoto holds up a hand and stretches his fingers apart. "I once knit a sweater for my dog."
Sugimoto nods, and Airi puts his pinky down. She keeps that hand on his, then raises the other just as he did. "Now you."
"I once welded my own chandelier." Airi nods, and he, too, holds her pinky down. They keep their hands together for a moment longer, giggling like schoolchildren, and then break apart. "You two get the idea?"
Kosuke and Kyoya nod. Each of them holds up a hand to begin.
"Whoever asks the question, it goes for everyone. You 'lose' when all five fingers go down. Any questions?"
Kyoya raises his other hand. "Why do we need to hold each other's fingers down?"
"For fun. Alright, let's start, other direction. I once cried in a movie theater."
Airi takes down Sugimoto's pinky again, and he says, "And twenty-two years later, I have upkept my promise never to watch a sad movie in public again!"
"It wasn't sad! The boy found his dog. It was happy!"
"Kyoya, your turn."
Kyoya hums. "I once failed a test."
Kosuke takes down Airi's pinky, and Sugimoto takes down Kosuke's. This is how the game continues, and it ends up being a great deal of fun. Airi says, I once at a bug, and when Kosuke loses her ring finger she has to explain that it was an accident, she swears, but Kyoya still looks green. Sugimoto says, I once got stuck in an elevator, and Kyoya explains that it happened just once at Ootori Medical, and he got stuck with the chattiest coworker in the building.
They laugh, and cringe, and wince in sympathetic pain. Sugimoto is the first to go. He loses his thumb to "I once went to a show and was pulled out of the audience by the performer," and scoots back, insisting that he doesn't want to talk about it.
Each question is another detour down memory lane, and at first, that's fun. I once got lost in the woods, says Airi, and Kosuke remembers her and Okina, thirteen years old, near to tears as they wondered if their families would ever find them, only to realize they were but ten feet from the walking path. I once fell down a flight of stairs, and Kosuke remembers being on the second floor of The Lily Bowl one second and the first floor the next, ankles above her head but otherwise unscathed, while Marti gawked at what should have been her corpse.
Marti would have liked this. He was so different from Emiko when it came to competition—but he was different from her in most things. Emiko…Well. Emiko was always a bit of a sore loser. Marti could take defeat with a laugh, eager just to start the next round. Emiko would huff and puff, and leave before it was done. Once he had beaten her so expertly in a round of cards, Emiko had to take a walk to cool off. Marti had greeted her with a cup of tea and a kiss on the forehead when she returned.
Kosuke misses what it is that takes Airi out, but now it's just her and Kyoya. Kyoya has his pointer and thumb left, but Kosuke only has the latter. Odd, how her hands only feel warm now that they're with his. Kyoya's are slender, "piano hands" as Emiko would call them, just barely callused right at the fingertips.
Kyoya could very well just ask something that he knows will take her out, but it seems he wants to learn instead. "I once got frostbite."
Never. But Kosuke is done remembering for now. She tucks her thumb into his palm for him. "You got me! Stupid me, forgetting to wear gloves…"
She pulls back and snaps her fingers, drat!, while Airi grabs Kyoya's hand and lifts it up in victory. Hitsuji and Minami have been so engrossed in their game that they have no idea what's been happening, but they stop to give Kyoya some polite golf-applause.
"Do you want to go again?" Sugimoto asks. "My competitive streak has been ignited."
Kosuke stands, just to feel the floor beneath her feet. "I think I need to stretch my legs for a while, actually." Tako comes up and presses a paw to her ankle. Really? No lap-time? "Yes, really."
She doesn't think anyone hears her. The rain is coming down so hard now, it's roaring. The yellow light of the lamp is razor-sharp. Then, just as Kosuke's hand touches the window curtains, the darkness wins.
The lamps blink out all at once, turning everyone in the room into shadows. The fridge stops humming in the kitchen. Ringo starts barking, and Tako scuttles beneath the bookshelf. Sugimoto tells everyone, "We're okay! Everything is alright!" Even though not a frightened gasp was to be heard.
Far from it. The black mop of Hitsuji's hair bounces straight up. "No Lights?!"
Kosuke claps her hands together. "No Lights!"
Minami and Hitsuji recite the traditional chant, "No Lights! No Lights! No Lights!" Kyoya had stood up at some point or another to help her with the windows, and when she just can't get one of the ties to come undone, he comes to aid. Piano hands. "Why the jubilee?"
"Family tradition. We haven't been able to do it for a while."
"A family tradition, huh?" Sugimoto tries and fails to be nonchalant. Another peek into the lives of his grandchildren. "Do tell?"
"First," says Minami, "We MAKE lights!"
Kosuke had either been hoping this would happen, or the dark sky had just triggered her autopilot, because she'd packed everything they would need. They move through the house and light it up as they go—an electric lantern here, a candle there. Hitsuji starts to fuss when he still isn't allowed to carry a candle, so Kyoya cuts a deal to let him tell Kyoya where to put them.
"Second—We get comfy!"
They pillage every pillow and blanket they can get their hands on. Sugimoto shows them the chest of quilts, a literal treasure trove. They make the children their own little tent, and Kosuke wraps a blanket around her like a cloak. Airi and Sugimoto snuggle under a blanket together, and Kyoya hangs onto a quilt until he finds out what to do next.
"Third—We have fun!"
Minami grabs a coloring book. Hitsuji grabs a puzzle. Airi and Sugimoto play cards. The entertainment bag is still full to burst, and Kyoya looks quizzically at it all. "This is it? You light candles, grab some blankets, and play games?"
"No, we light candles, grab some blankets, and do whatever we want. No work. Just lazy. So what'll it be?"
Kyoya eventually takes the origami book, Kosuke takes a puzzle book, and they both get to "work." No one talks. There's the flip of cards, the scritch of crayon on paper, and the pounding rain. Tako comes back and curls up in Kyoya's lap, and though he certainly doesn't look pleased, he is immediately put under the spell of must move slowly so as not to disturb the kitty.
Occasionally Kyoya will glance up and look around, as if to make sure he's relaxing right. Are those just more shadows under his eyes, or are they bags that she'd failed to notice? Kosuke hopes he isn't just thinking of everything he could be doing instead. She hasn't missed how his blinks last a second too long, or how often he's been adjusting his glasses, as though he was going to rub at his temples but caught himself. Is he getting any sleep at all?
She's doing a nonogram in the book, but when she pencils in the last square, she's left squinting. What is it, exactly? Maybe she colored it wrong.
"It's a panda."
"What?" Kosuke turns it this way and that, trying to see it, but it never comes. She grabs the electric lamp and brings it closer. "I'm not seeing it."
"Look. That's the ears, those are the paws."
"Mm…Nah."
Emiko huffs and crosses her arms. It's hard to take her annoyed look seriously when she's wrapped up in a blanket patterned in little teddy bears. "Well, what do you think it is?"
"Looks like a penguin."
"What? Penguins don't have ears."
"Those aren't ears. Those are the eyes."
"Absolutely not."
"It's a penguin!"
"It's a panda! Check the guide in the back!"
"Fine!" Kosuke flips the pages, all the way to the end. "It's a…rabbit."
Her mother squints at it, too, and flips the pages back and forth. No, it's a perfect match. Mother and daughter shake their heads, declare, "That's stupid!" Marti comes downstairs with a candle in hand to see what's stupid, Emiko tells Kosuke to show him. He says immediately that it's a rabbit. Eventually their bickering is as loud as the rain hitting The Lily Bowl, and Hitsuji cries from his crib, Be quiet!
"What is it?"
Hitsuji leans over the paper with her. He's six years old, and they're sitting in their grandparents' house.
Right. Right.
"Um…A giraffe? I think?"
Minami sits up from leaning over her book and rubs at her sore neck. "Can we eat now?"
"Mm-hm. Give me a minute to set it up."
The stove in the kitchen is gas, thankfully. Kosuke grabs a pot, but remembers that, of course, she had not packed any fresh produce. They have sauces and spices, but…
"Sugimoto?"
Sugimoto looks up from his book. Airi has fallen asleep and is resting her head on his shoulder. "Yes, dear?"
"Do you think I could get some things from the fridge for lunch? Nothing much, just—"
"Oh, sure, sure!" All Sugimoto has to do is loll Airi's head the other way. She sleeps heavier than a boulder, he'd said. "What do you need? I've got a whole grocery store's worth."
"Let me…" Kosuke rifles through the bag, pushing aside board games and books, and does not find the pink squares she's looking for. "Well, shoot."
"What's wrong?"
"Ramen is mandatory for No Lights. And somehow I forgot to grab any of it before we left."
Hitsuji wrings his little hands as he looks to the windows. They seem to barely keep the storm at bay. "Are we going to starve to death?"
"We'll just have to do sandwiches this time. Or maybe…"
Sugimoto beckons her into the kitchen, suddenly tense, as though they're being watched. He opens the overhead pantry, packed to burst with bottles and jars. Kosuke thought she knew it inside and out, but then Sugimoto pushes some things aside, and there, pressed into the corner, is an entire box of ramen packs. From the pink wrapping, it looks like the same brand, too.
"Oh, great! Why so secretive, though?"
Sugimoto takes out the stepstool, shaking his head. "Force of habit."
Of course. Back in the Lily Bowl, she hid hers in her closet. 'Insults to true ramen chefs.'
Kosuke decides to make shoyu ramen this time. They have eggs, green onions, bean sprouts, nori, and even more than that. Sugimoto wasn't kidding. Kosuke chops green onions while the broth simmers, filling the entire house with a salty aroma that has her mouth watering.
"Careful. Not too thick."
"Dad." Kosuke blows a strand of hair out of her face and keeps chopping. The pile of sliced green onions on the side of the board is completely uniform. "You're micromanaging again."
"I'm being supportive!" Marti leans over the pan and takes a deep breath. The electric lantern is right by Kosuke's hands, but she can see his pleased smile. "My little ramen master."
"I don't think masters have to worry about their dads breathing down their necks." Kosuke says it in jest. She knows that this is special to Marti, because unless it's ramen, her cooking is…Well. His face would be too green to smile like that.
The ring of Marti's phone is almost unheard beneath the pounding rain. Kosuke knows it's her mother by the little pink heart in the Caller ID—"No matter what I do," Emiko would say, "I could never bake anything half as sugary as my husband"—but Marti's face goes white when he reads the message.
"She'll be home thirty minutes earlier than she thought she'd be! Hurry, chop—No, don't hurry! What am I saying?! Watch your fingers!"
Kosuke hurries very much, of course. "Open the windows! Open the windows to get the smell out!"
"But the rain—"
"Dad!"
"You're right, you're right!"
"Kosuke. Why the rush?"
The knife stops. She'd been slicing the green onions like gunfire, taptaptaptaptap. Three more slices and her fingertip might have joined them.
Kosuke puts the knife down and flexes her fingers, aching from her tight hold. "Excited, that's all. It's been a while! I was starting to crave…uh…" Kosuke picks up one of the packets with clumsy fingers. "Sodium! Yeah…"
She rips it open. And shuts her mouth. Suave, Kosuke, real suave. Kyoya picks up one of the packs and turns it over in his hand, not exactly sneering, not exactly not sneering.
"Yeah, my mom felt the same way."
"Its convenience is its appeal, I suppose."
Kosuke plucks it from his fingers and rips it open. "Well, why don't you try it first. Then you can decide if it's just convenient."
She gathers the bean sprouts in a sieve and blanches them in a pot of boiling water, finally followed by the noodles. She pulls at them with chopsticks until they're springy, and then lines up the bowls. First the soy sauce, then the broth, then the noodles. She tops each bowl with bean sprouts and green onions, nestles the hard-boiled eggs inside. As she's finishing up with the nori, she realizes that Kyoya had been there all along, watching her every move.
"What?"
"Hm? Nothing. It's just nice to watch you work."
She'd heard it before, from her grandparents, from her friends. She always cooked for Haruhi when she came home, and even if she was wiping the sleep from her eyes, Haruhi would watch her in the kitchen like a spectator at a ball game. Turn on the flame, the crowd goes wild. So she really should've be half as flattered as she is, but she is, and tells herself that the heat on her face is from the stove. "Thanks."
"Kosukeeee…" Minami drags her feet in to the kitchen, weak from starvation, practically a skeleton already. "Are the noodles done?"
They eat mostly uneventfully. Mostly. They sit at the kitchen table and slurp up their noodles as the rain keeps battering at the roof. Ringo gives them all Les Miserabels eyes until finally Hitsuji breaks and begs to give him a bit of hard-boiled egg. Tako circles around them until he decides it's Sugimoto's lap that he'll sit on.
Then a cannon blast of thunder strikes. Tako shoots up into the air, knocking Sugimoto's bowl right out of his hands, sending broth and noodles everywhere, and all the commotion has Ringo running out faster than his legs can keep up, slamming himself into the table, knocking the candle over, igniting the tablecloth, and in the blink of an eye, Kyoya snatches up his bowl in one hand and uses the other to fold the cloth up and over the flame to snuff it out.
There's a minute where they all just sit still and process what just happened. Airi is the first one to laugh, cackling like a madwoman, her cast almost slipping from the seat it's propped on. Everyone follows. The rain is drowned out in their laughter. Sugimoto goes to change clothes, Ringo and Tako creep back with their heads hanging low. Kosuke makes Kyoya swear three times that he hasn't been burned before she believes him, and Hitsuji says Kyoya must be a superhero.
With the table candle snuffed, it leaves the lantern on the counter as the only light. It isn't a lot, but it's enough to see that Kyoya is smiling wider than she's ever seen before. And he laughs in a way she's never heard him laugh before—not a chuckle, not a quick exhale, but a real, genuine, shoulder-shaking laugh.
Kosuke has to look away. Like the sun, it was too much to look at. Why does she feel so lightheaded?
After lunch, the day just stretches on. The rain never lets up, and its hammering becomes white noise. The children go through board games, puzzles, and coloring books, play a few rounds of hide-and-seek in the dark ("No running!"), and occasionally crash into naps. Tako sleeps the day away, hopping from one lap to the next, while poor Ringo stares at the dark windows and wonders when he'll be able to chase butterflies again.
Airi does some reading, but her toned arms are twitching with unspent energy. Sugimoto has no trouble knitting, crocheting, and embroidering by the light. Kyoya at first sticks to books, but at some point when Kosuke isn't looking, Sugimoto shows him how to crochet. He takes to it well and has himself a little coaster at the end.
By late afternoon, the clouds show no sign of stopping, and the power shows no sign of returning. Lunch was filling, so for dinner they snack on whatever is out of the fridge.
By six, Hitsuji is losing it. He's flopping around the floor like a fish on land. "I'm tiiiired…"
"Then go to sleep," says Airi.
"It's too earlyyyyy…"
"So stay awake," says Sugimoto.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhh."
Minami sits up, rubbing away the sleep threatening her eyes. They're all in a half-awake limbo by now. The darkness is tricking their minds. "Can we watch a movie?"
"We could…" Kosuke takes the tiny little portable DVD player out. It's hardly bigger than a book. "Not exactly a theater experience, though."
"Pah! We're all family here." Airi uses her good leg to push the coffee table away, the rug bunching up under its legs. "C'mon, let's all get comfortable."
All family here. Does it count as ignoring if Kosuke just stays quiet while pain shoots through her chest?
The children lay down on the mess of pillows and blankets while the rest of them split between the sofa and the armchair. They watch a familiar favorite—Hitsuji and Minami find more humor in warning their grandparents when a joke is coming than the joke itself. If it weren't for the candles, the little square of the screen would be too bright to look at. The clouds have turned the world outside pitch dark.
Kosuke sits on the floor with her blanket wrapped around her shoulders as though she's cold. Minami shuffles again, and somehow the screen is too bright and too dim, and she can hardly hear a thing, anyway, with how hard the rain is coming down. If this wasn't tradition, if Minami hadn't given her puppy-dog-eyes, she wouldn't be doing this right now. After this stupid, stupid fight with Okina, she's not really in the mood to…do anything, really.
She said six. Kosuke's imaginary arguing is so heated, her voice almost comes out of her throat. Not that Minami would able to hear it anyway. She hasn't even slightly noticed that her sister is boiling behind her. SIX! No, I didn't miss your stupid performance because I 'didn't try,' Okina! I started to get ready at four! I did my hair all cute and wore a nice outfit and left so I'd be a few minutes early! You said SIX, and SIX does not sound like FIVE. And it's not my fault they wouldn't let anyone in once it started! I didn't make that dumb rule! "Last time you said—" Yeah, LAST TIME, Okina. This was an ACCIDENT. You can't keep holding that against me for the rest of my life!
She almost never fights with Okina. So when it happens, it hurts all the more.
She's so wrapped up in her pity-party that she doesn't notice that Marti has been standing over them for a while, watching the movie with them. Eventually he sits down beside Kosuke, and Emiko takes his place, holding Hitsuji against her hip as he coos and gurgles too quiet to rise over the rain. She sits on the other side of Kosuke, even though Kosuke can literally think of a dozen far more comfortable places to sit and watch.
Kosuke doesn't say this, because she knows this is how they compromise. When she's rotten with anger, she wants to be left alone—and with No Lights, she was fully ready to crawl under her bedsheets and sleep the day away. She only sat down for this movie because Minami threatened a tantrum if she didn't. Marti and Emiko know how she is, and it's not that they break her boundaries. They see her hurting and they can't stay away.
They sit and stay quiet. This is how they compromise. After the movie is done, Emiko will coax Minami into leaving Kosuke be. Kosuke will wallow a little while longer and finally tell Marti what had happened. Later.
Even when the credits roll, the screen is still bright. Kosuke looks around the shadowy room. Minami and Hitsuji are out. Sugimoto takes his glasses off and rubs at his eyes, while Airi rubs at a crick in her neck.
She hadn't even noticed that Kyoya fell asleep. Arms crossed, one knee over the other, head just ever-so-slightly tilted down. Kosuke snorts in the darkness—except for the glasses, he looks exactly as he did when she was sneakily tidying up his lodge room. I can't believe that was so long ago…
Kosuke tries to move as gently as possible, but Kyoya awakens at her first shift. His jaw goes tight as he keeps a yawn in. Even when he can't be seen three feet away, has to keep up appearances…
Kosuke goes to change into her pajamas before she dozes off, and when she returns, Kyoya is peeling the curtains back, frowning outside.
"Doesn't look like it's going to be letting up anytime soon," whispers Sugimoto. He crouches down and pulls one of many blankets up and over Minami and Hitsuji. "You'd really be better off staying here for the night."
Kyoya does not look at all pleased at the thought. The Suzuki household must be at least twenty minutes off-course from the route to Ootori Medical, but is Yoshio really going to call him in at nine-thirty at night in the middle of a typhoon?
"Did you bring anything?" Kosuke asks. "Like pajamas?"
Kyoya glances back at her, then double-takes. He smirks. "Why? Do you have a spare set?"
Ah, right. The candy-and-kitten pajamas. Kosuke crosses her arms and refuses to blush. "You wish you had pajamas as cute as these."
"Oh, I wouldn't be able to pull them off half as well." Kyoya turns to Sugimoto before Kosuke can decide if that was a tease or a compliment. "In all seriousness, I'm afraid I've come completely unprepared."
This is no problem at all. In fact, Airi and Sugimoto are ecstatic—the latter just might spring to her feet with joy. All the grandchildren, blood and in-law, over for the night. While Sugimoto gets Kyoya situated, Kosuke coaxes the children awake to change and brush their teeth. They crawl back to the pillow fort after and fall asleep before their eyes are closed.
Kyoya gets the sofa, a pillow, a blanket, and a spare set of white button-up pajamas patterned in little blue boats. Kosuke tells him he pulls it off well and he says nothing and now they're even.
Then that's it. Airi is helped to the bedroom, and they all bid each other goodnight, sweet dreams. Kosuke's last look at Kyoya before she ascends the stares is of him fluffing his pillow against the armrest, looking so lost.
Kosuke awoke that morning to an unfamiliar ceiling and falls asleep to another. Or she would, if she could fall asleep.
Even if the rain wasn't pattering just overhead, everything else is just wrong. These sheets, this mattress, this room is all wrong.
It's typical for the bad days to end with bad nights. Kosuke kicks her sheets off and pulls them up. She sits down in front of the window to watch the waterfall on the glass, but when she grows bored of it, she's more awake than ever.
Not fair. Not fair, not fair…
On autopilot, Kosuke opens her bedroom door to do what she always does when she can't sleep: wander around like a ghost. Except wandering around the Amida mansion is like scaling a mountain, and she doesn't have to worry about creaking footsteps awaking the inhabitants. Almost embarrassed, Kosuke almost ducks back inside, but stops when she sees the other door in the hall.
The storage room. It will be entirely unoccupied, part for one familiar face.
Kosuke tiptoes inside and creeps through the dusty boxes until she gets to the back. The closet door creaks and creaks and ccrrrreeeeeeaaaaaaakks but finally it's open and no one comes to investigate.
And no one comes to investigate when the cuckoo clock goes off, so Kosuke is still alone as she recovers from a heart attack.
The chest is a struggle to get out, but she manages. And then, inside…
She does not feel better as she goes through the photographs, the stuffed animals, the misshapen pottery bowl. She runs her fingers over the chef's uniform, folded into planes, and thinks she feels even worse now.
It's like picking up a book that has had its last pages ripped off. Here is Emiko Suzuki. She was born to two loving parents and grew up with more hobbies than should fit in a lifetime. Like any other girl, she liked the popular bands and kept up with the fashion trends.
Then something happened, and Emiko was gone. She got her happily after, but the 'ever' was taken away by a car crash on a rainy day. She had one and a half lives.
Kosuke lays down with her ear against the rug. At the floor, all the items make a landscape of memories. The pottery bowl looks like a mountain. The jersey makes a field. Kosuke picks up a glacier of a necklace and rubs the silver beads between her fingers.
And I wasn't even supposed to see this stuff, Kosuke thinks. Just a bunch of secrets I was never supposed to find out. And if Marti had any, I never will.
If only there could be a chest like this for him, and Kosuke could see his life. Maybe find out where the paprika-smelling jacket came from. Emiko existed before she was Kosuke's mother, but it doesn't seem like that with Marti. Like he really was a shooting star that came down when she wished on it.
"Kosuke?"
Kosuke jumps awake on the floor.
The room is filled with yellow. Dust motes twirl in the sunbeams shining through the window. The beads of the necklace, still twined in her fingers, are glimmering.
How had she fallen asleep? How did she sleep through the cuckoo clock? Well, it's tomorrow, anyhow. Maybe the bad day is over, or maybe this will be another.
Kosuke can't tell yet, not when she's still on the floor with her brain all mushy. Kyoya stands in the doorway dressed in the suit he'd arrived in. He's squinting at everything. Her on the floor, the boxes under the sheets, the treasures spilled out of the chest.
"Hey!" Kosuke croaks and coughs. "Hi! Uh—Sleep well?"
Kyoya looks down at the rug beneath her. "Did you?"
"Sure did! Off to work?"
"I'm here to tell you that breakfast is ready." Kyoya never stopped looking at the mess, but now he looks pointedly, and she still can't bring herself to explain. Can't he just pretend that sleeping on the floor of a storage room is normal? "Can I ask what this is?"
It's not like it's a secret. Or that she'd done anything wrong. But it's so early in the morning, and Kosuke is still tired, and still bad, and she just doesn't think she can deal with this right now, but if she doesn't answer then he's going to give her that look that he always does when he won't accept 'nothing' for an answer.
But also, it is Kyoya.
"It's…" Kosuke folds the jersey and sets it back into the chest, not so much worried about him as anyone who might hear. Not that her grandparents and siblings haven't already gone through these things too many times to count, but maybe it's too early for them, too. "Some of Mom's old things. I was just looking through them."
She doesn't know what she expects Kyoya to do—maybe duck out of the room, thinking he has no place here. Even with no expectations, she's surprised when he gently closes the door behind him and comes over, slowly, not wanting to scare her away.
Kyoya crouches down next to her and sweeps everything with his eyes, from measuring cups to beat-up notebooks. Kosuke can't tell him any of their stories, and he must know that. Yet she's still sharing with him.
This is how he gets to meet her mother. Mom, this is Kyoya.
He doesn't touch anything but the photographs, sticking out from their silver box. He sits as he shuffles through them. Sometimes he huffs a laugh, like at the sight of Emiko in dark lipstick and combat boots sticking her tongue out at the camera, but mostly he stays quiet.
The last time she went through these pictures, Kosuke had tried to put them in a timeline. At one end was a very grainy photo of Airi, more than forty years younger, laying back on a hospital bed with a little pink bundle held to her chest. Her face is shining with sweat, tears, and a beaming smile.
In what Kosuke thinks is the last image, Emiko stands on a pier, back against the railing. The wind is blowing and she's trying to keep her sunhat to her head. She's young. She's happy.
"You look just like her."
"So I've been told."
He stacks the photos again. "What was she like?"
She doesn't know where to begin. Maybe she shouldn't have been so angry at the newspaper article announcing her parents' deaths. How can you put a whole life into words?
"She was…blunt. She didn't mince words, didn't spare feelings. She got flustered pretty easily, and when she did she'd get so wound up, all pink in the face, until she couldn't speak and Dad had to take over." She chuckles, and Kyoya smiles. "Once she was in the kitchen, though, she was a machine. The place could be overflowing with customers and she wouldn't even break a sweat. She only ever listened to two kinds of music: either this super-bubbly J-pop group called the Sugar Plum Pixies or classical stuff like Beethoven. She hated scary movies but loved scary books. She could be a real snob about food, but for some reason she really loved artificial banana flavor?"
"What about your stepfather?"
"The opposite. He was a total softie; hated confrontation." He didn't mind swimming with sharks, though. "I could count on my fingertips the number of times he got really angry about something. He wanted to garden but he wasn't that good at it, so he just kept a flower in the window. He was such a dork. I'm not trying to be mean, he just was. He only ever wore socks with patterns on them, like sushi and hamburgers, and he could come up with all these dumb puns. Like, 'Can you help me curry this to the table?' and 'It's thyme to season the chicken.' Oh, Mom hated it so much."
She must paint the picture well, because Kyoya is still smiling as he watches her get caught up in the memories. Once the laughter subsides, Kosuke perches her chin atop her knees, already sleepy again.
"How did they meet?"
"I was…Six years old? Seven? We were living pretty close to the coast. Mom had a lot of restaurant jobs, and someone got her in touch with someone else about this cruise ship looking for cooks, all expenses paid. I can't remember it that well, but we had our own room on the ship, and every day Mom would go to the kitchen while I went to the daycare they had for the passengers."
Kosuke snorts, cheeks turning red, and Kyoya coaxes her. "What?"
"So there was this lady in charge of the daycare. I don't even remember what her name was—I just called her Crane, because she was really tall and really thin and when she got mad at you, she'd look at you like…" Kosuke demonstrates, glaring at Kyoya with one side of her face leaning toward him, like a bird looking at something curious. "I hated her. One day we were all doing these crafts and I didn't do mine exactly right, so Crane just grabbed it and threw it in the garbage! That was the last straw for me. I walked out of the doors when no one was looking and told myself I'd just go to the kitchen and stay out of everyone's way.
"It took me about two minutes to get lost, and for some reason no one thought it was weird that a little girl was walking around all by herself. I kept trying to follow the waiters that I saw but I kept losing track of them. Finally, I'm about to just lose it, and this man in a chef's uniform walks up and asks me if everything is okay. I tell him everything, all blubbery and snotty and stuff, and he takes me to the kitchen to find Mom. They'd never properly met before, since they did different courses."
"I'm assuming she wasn't very happy you'd snuck out of daycare?"
"Well, she got a husband out of it, so I'd say it was even. So anyway…The cruise ends and Mom decides one's enough, because she can't deal with the seasickness and daycare attendants that let children sneak out. Marti tells her that this was his final voyage and he's got a restaurant job lined up back on dry land, and if she'd like it, he'd put in a good word for her. They worked together there for a year or two, and that was pretty much it. Mom said he thought he was too good to be true at first, and was trying to get something out of her, but they worked together for a whole year and he never once asked her out. She was relieved, and then she was annoyed, and then one day she just snapped and asked him out herself. He said he'd never felt so happy and so threatened at the same time."
Emiko would be rolling her eyes and fighting a flush off of her face, and Marti would be giving a belly-shaking laugh.
"I wish you could have met them."
She doesn't know where it comes from, but she doesn't want to take it back.
"I do, too," Kyoya replies at once. "They sound wonderful."
"They were. You would have liked them." Kosuke looks up at the dust motes in the sunlight, tiny and drifting. "They would have liked to be here."
Kyoya sets the silver box down beside her, and, already so close, he puts a hand over hers. She's still hugging her legs to herself, so it becomes an awkward grip, but Kosuke takes it without a word. Maybe this is a thing now, Kyoya squeezing her hand to keep her feet on the ground. His thumb runs over her knuckles.
Kosuke surprises herself for wanting more—for feeling so certain that she's about to lean her head against his shoulder and rest. He might let her.
Airi's voice rises up from downstairs, "Kosuke! Kyoya! C'mon, the bacon will get cold!"
"If you guys don't hurry," adds Minami, "Ringo will eat all of it! And we won't be able to stop him!"
Kosuke laughs, but Kyoya doesn't. Though he peels his hand away, he hesitates, kneeling before her as though she'd just fallen. "Do you want me to buy you some time?"
"Um—Yeah, thanks, thank you. Just—let me put this stuff away and I'll come down."
Kyoya nods and goes, closing the door quietly behind him. Kosuke instantly misses him.
She starts putting everything back into the chest one-by-one. It's such a familiar pattern, it's like doing a jigsaw puzzle. She pauses when she comes to the chessboard. She opens it, but yes, it is as empty as ever. Even Airi and Sugimoto hadn't been able to come up with an explanation for it.
Just as she goes to shut it, Kosuke notices something, but it takes her a second to figure out just what. The inside of the chessboard is lined in red velvet, but while it wraps around the walls, it does not on the bottom. And now, looking at it, Kosuke realizes that even if it had all the pieces inside, it would still be oddly thick. A pretty hefty chessboard to lug around.
Curious—and surely sleep-deprived—Kosuke runs a finger along the edge of the velvet, until her fingernail digs into the gap. Now, logic says that if she pulls, all that's going to happen is a tear of velvet and a blank bottom covered in patchy glue, and she'll have ruined something of her mother's because she'd regressed to a baby's mind. Logic goes ignored, and Kosuke pulls.
She was very much right. The bottom is oddly thick.
Because in the bottom, there's a book.
Kosuke stares at it for far too long, as though it's going anywhere. A chessboard with no chess pieces, but a book.
But Airi and Sugimoto never said anything about it…Kosuke picks up the book, stiff with age, the rose design on the cover faded. So does that mean they don't know about it?
Another recipe book, it must be. Kosuke flips open to the first page to read, but she does not find a list of ingredients.
May 23rd
Dear Diary,
Today Mrs. Ishida stopped by + she gave me this book. She found it while she was cleaning up + thought that a "smart girl like me" would like it. I already have way too many notebooks but this one is pretty so I guess I'll try to make this a diary.
Some of my friends have diaries and I don't know why. Is it just because it's something you're supposed to do when you become a teenager? Dad says he had a diary when he was my age and kept it so he could look back on it and laugh but I don't know. Miki says she writes in her diary whenever she's sad. Like the other day she found out that Tasuke has a crush on Ruka and not her so she wrote in her diary for like two hours straight + if I were her I wouldn't laugh at that when I got older.
I don't know why I just wrote all of that. Maybe diaries aren't that bad but they're still weird.
Anyway I wish my first page wasn't so boring but today is just really boring. I don't know how people write in their diaries every single day when some days are like this and nothing happens.
-E
A diary.
Her mother kept a diary?
Kosuke checks the date scrawled into the corner. If she has her math right, Emiko would have been…thirteen when she wrote this first entry. And the next entry is about six months later, and she begins by saying she's going to "try this diary again."
Kosuke flips through the pages. The handwriting refines. The doodles vanish from the margins. The days never hit a pattern. Sometimes it's six months, and sometimes it's a few weeks, the same day, two days, a year.
She is wide awake. Kosuke is as bright and burning as the sun outside, because here in her hands is a treasure trove inside a treasure trove. There could be so many answers in these pages. Why did Emiko leave? What did Airi and Sugimoto do? What happened with Shigeo?
She can almost feel herself fusing into the rug, already intent to sit there and read this straight through, filling herself with this version of her mother she never met. Then, nails on a chalkboard, Hitsuji calls, "Koooosukeeee! Come down to breakfaaaaaaast! What's taking you so long?!"
Right. Okay, right. Not right now. Later, later. Always later. Always later…
Kosuke clumsily tucks the book back into its velvet hiding place. It occurs to her that she could take it.
Take it where? The Amida mansion isn't safe anymore—it never was. Shigeo might burn it if he finds it.
If Airi and Sugimoto don't know about it, they won't miss it. Does she want them not to know about it?
Kosuke puts the chessboard back in the chest and leaves before her mind has stopped spinning. A second longer and someone is going to come up to get her.
When she comes down, Kyoya is in the hallway, bidding his farewells. Airi and Sugimoto thank him for keeping them company, and the children chorus a goodbye. He has a baggie of muffins still warm from the oven.
Kosuke must look even more electrified than she feels, because Kyoya doesn't just stop to say goodbye. Kosuke stops at the foot of the staircase, still dressed in her dumb pajamas, a mess.
Kyoya asks, "Are you okay?" Even though the answer is too obvious to deny.
She puts on a smile for him. "I will be. Thank you for coming. I'm glad you did."
When Kyoya is gone, everything is louder. She wants to tell him everything.
Problem is, Kosuke thinks as she finally enters the kitchen, to the chiding welcomes of her family, to a plate of eggs and bacon shaped into a smile, I don't know anything.
And, well.
Didn't she decide it was time to fix that?
"What took you so long?" Airi asks as she spreads butter over toast.
"Hm? Oh, uh…I think there was a leak in the ceiling. I was trying to fix it."
Hitsuji flings himself back from the table and races into the living room. "My BUCKET!"
They put it under the leak that doesn't exist. Kosuke eats the eggs and bacon and splits her jellied toast with Minami. The orange juice is still cold, but pulpy, much to Hitsuji's dismay. After breakfast they go through the house and pull the curtains open until the house is filled with the morning light. Ringo is let out at long last, and flops right down in the wet grass. Kosuke lets the children join him while she goes about picking up their pillow fort.
The more minutes that tick by, the more she worries she's going to lose her nerve. Because she had told herself—told Kyoya—that she would give them a due date to tell her. That due date had come and gone. She wanted the truth just as much as she feared it.
When the chance comes, she jumps on it. Maybe it's selfish, since Airi can't move, maybe she should w—No. No. Now or never.
"Um—ahem—Airi?"
Airi raises her head up from the armrest at once. Another day of sitting around. She already looks dead. "Yeah?"
"I…" Kosuke holds the last pillow of the fort against her belly, which is toiling. Breakfast is going sour. "I need to talk to you about something. And—Sugimoto, too."
"Of course! Sugi? Sugi, come here, hon! Kosuke wants to talk."
She and Sugimoto are as bright and perky as the sun outside. They think she's going to ask for more advice. She wants Grandma and Grandpa's help.
"I need you…" Kosuke swallows. The orange juice is bitter in the back of her mouth. "I need you to tell me what happened with Mom. Now."
Chapter Summary:
A typhoon is coming inland, and with Airi healing from a broken leg after a kitchen accident, Kosuke and the children decide to stay with them to see it through. Kyoya takes her up on her invitation to join them, and they all enjoy the Nakahara tradition of No Lights, but the storm is still a struggle for more reasons than one. Kosuke is going through a particularly bad day, caught up in memories of the past and grappling with where she is now. She opens up the chest of her mother's possessions and is found by Kyoya. She opens up to him about what her parents were like and how they met, and that she wishes they were still here. While putting things back into the chest, Kosuke discovers that the bottom of her mother's old chessboard contains a hidden diary. She only gets to read a small portion before she has to join the others downstairs, but it's enough to give her the courage to finally ask her grandparents what happened with her mother all those years ago.