The Kamakura Trip

It was now early November, and at the strong urging of his lover, Nayuta Kani, Itsuki decided to go on a trip with her. In fact, they hadn’t been somewhere together in some time. Their journey began in Shibuya Station, where they took a transfer to the Shonan Shinjuku Line. Their destination was Kamakura, the medieval capital of Japan and a popular tourist site—although to them, anything an easy train ride away would’ve been fine.

Over the past two months, Itsuki had made zero progress on All About and had been taking Nayuta out less often than usual, so it really had been a while since their last journey with an overnight stay. He was now growing able (if barely) to write novels again, but he was still far away from returning to form, and frankly, going on vacation right now made him feel incredibly awkward. Still, Toki had given it his stamp of approval—“I’m sure you need a chance to enjoy life and forget about work sometimes,” he’d said—and most of all, Itsuki didn’t want to neglect Nayuta just because his job wasn’t going well.

So he resolved to take Toki’s advice and forget about work during this trip as the train jostled him around.

“Nya-ha-ha! It’s our first overnight trip in forever, isn’t it?” Nayuta was acting all bashful on the seat next to him, leaning her head against his arm.

“It sure is. Last time was Hakone back in February, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right!”

“Well, we’ve both been pretty busy, so…”

Itsuki had been occupied with All About–related work. Nayuta, meanwhile, was being pulled in all directions—writing a bonus novel for moviegoers who’d bought a ticket to the Silvery Landscape anime movie (due out later this month), working on the next Landscape volume, joining script meetings for the second live-action film, and on and on and on. They could make time to mess around at Itsuki’s apartment or go out to eat or shop, but it had been tough to find twenty-four straight hours for just the two of them.

“…But you had the time to go visit a foreign country with a bunch of girls.”

“Phbbt!” Itsuki burst out at the whispered accusation. “I—I went to Taiwan for work! It was totally a business trip, start to finish!”

“Oh yeah?” Nayuta showed her frazzled boyfriend her phone. “Looks like a lot of monkey business to me.”

The screen depicted Itsuki with his arms wrapped around Kaiko and a female cosplayer. This was from his autograph session in Taiwan; the pic had spread across Japan after being posted on Chinese-language media sites, which was how Nayuta found out about it.

“I—I told you a million times, I was just wound up! It was a really exciting panel!”

Itsuki’s face reddened as he defended himself. Nayuta had cornered him with this photo the moment he’d returned from Taiwan. She forgave him eventually, but still reserved the right to bring it up again when she felt like it.

“Nya-ha-ha! Aw, I know, Itsuki,” she said, laughing and enjoying herself. Then her voice took a sweeter tone.

“Let’s do a lot of making out today, okay?”

After an hour on the train, they were at Kamakura Station.

“Phew… I haven’t visited Kamakura in a while.” Nayuta stretched after they exited the turnstile.

“You’ve been here before?”

“My class took a trip here once in grade school.”

“Oh yeah, you grew up in Kanagawa Prefecture, didn’t you?”

“I did. My parents actually live a lot closer to Kamakura than your apartment, Itsuki.”

“Oh really…?”

Nayuta now lived in a larger apartment near Itsuki, but even before she’d started living in that hotel room in March of last year, she had been visiting Itsuki’s place several times a week.

“Wow. Thanks for doing all that travel for me.”

“No, no, it wasn’t hard at all. Not when I thought about how you’d be waiting at the end.”

“…I wasn’t exactly waiting for you,” Itsuki flatly replied, hiding his embarrassment as Nayuta bashfully looked at him.

“I’m hungry, by the way. Do you want to have something?” she asked.

“S-sure. Yeah.”

It was eleven in the morning, and they hadn’t decided on what to do for lunch yet, so they opted to buy some local sausage and Shonan beer to go from a nearby shop and enjoy it on a bench in the square around Kamakura’s clock tower. Itsuki went with an herb-infused sausage and an altbier (a brown, fragrant ale), while Nayuta chose a curry-flavored wurst and a darker beer. Every bite of the fat sausage brought with it the flavor of aromatic herbs and a helping of dense, rich juices—to say the least, it went great with the beer.

“Ahh, this is way too good…”

“Itsuki, Itsuki, this curry sausage is really good, too!”

“Yeah, that’s currywurst, right? I had one with Haruto at this German beer hall he took me to.”

The appetizing aroma of curry wafted up from Nayuta’s hands. Now Itsuki wanted another one.

“Would you like some?” Nayuta held out the sausage.

“You sure? Then by all means.” Itsuki took a bite with no restraint.

“Let me have some of yours, too.”

“Okay.” Itsuki did the same, holding up his sausage for Nayuta to chew on.

“Mmmph…mmph… Eh-heh-heh… Your sausage is so yummy, Itsuki. Even better than your real one.” Nayuta basked in the utter hilarity of this joke as she gulped down her dark beer. “Ahhh… Nothing like a good beer in the daytime, huh?”

“You said it, but don’t make it a habit, all right?”

She quaffed her beer with gusto, a remarkable feat for someone who had only been legally able to drink for four months. It made Itsuki chuckle.

“So,” she said as she tossed her beer cup and the sausage wrapper in the garbage, “what now, Itsuki?”

“Hmm, what now indeed…?”

As per his usual custom when traveling, Itsuki hadn’t made any particular plans for today. Their hotel was about a ten-minute walk from Kamakura Station, but it was too early to check in.

“Well, wanna check out the Great Buddha?”

“All right.”

Itsuki suggested the most famous site in Kamakura, not really thinking any more in depth than that, and Nayuta casually agreed.

Taking the local Enoden train line, the pair soon arrived at Hase Station. From there they walked to Kotoku-in Temple, home to the Great Buddha of Kamakura, stopping by souvenir shops and the like along the way.

One business they passed by had a sign reading MAKE YOUR OWN POTTERY. Peering through the glass door, they saw a man seated there, around thirty years of age and wearing a samue outfit, the type monks put on when they were engaged in physical labor. A schedule printed by the entrance noted that a session with an electric potter’s wheel was set to begin at noon.

“Hmm… A potter’s wheel, huh…?”

For Itsuki, the phrase “potter’s wheel” reminded him of a well-known Japanese meme that pointed out how business leaders and IT entrepreneurs tend to make the same pose in PR and press photos—hands out, slightly cradled, trying to look intelligent but positioned like they’re molding a clay pot.

“Wanna try spinning that thing, Itsuki?” Nayuta offered.

“Yeah, it’d be neat to find out what it’s like to run a start-up.”

Itsuki nodded and opened the door. They asked the would-be monk if they could join the noon session, and the man said it was perfectly all right. There weren’t any other reservations, so Itsuki and Nayuta immediately put on aprons to begin a private ceramic session.

Their teacher in the samue prepared some clay to mold. “Do you have something in particular you’d be interested in crafting?” he asked.

Itsuki thought for a moment. “Um, how about a beer mug?”

“That sounds good for me, too,” echoed Nayuta.

“All right,” nodded the teacher.

So the two of them sat at their respective wheels, learning how to use them. It ran using a pedal at their feet—push it all the way down to spin it fast; ease up a bit for a slower speed.

“All right… Whoa?!” Stepping on it way too hard, Itsuki marveled at how fast the wheel went.

“Try not to push the pedal all the way down, all right?”

“O-okay…”

Once they learned the controls, the teacher pulled out enough clay to make the mugs, directing Itsuki and Nayuta as they worked their hunks of clay into cylinders. The stuff was tough to mold into much of any shape unless you put real muscle into it, making for some hard labor—but the slippery clay felt surprisingly satisfying to work with, making the process itself kind of fun for them. Itsuki had figured it was like playing in the mud or modeling clay for kindergarten arts and crafts, but this was totally different.

After nailing down the basic shape, they stuck their fingers into the middle to create the hollow part of the mug. Grabbing the edge of the clay with their thumbs and first two fingers on each hand, then starting up the wheel, opened up a hole in remarkably quick time as the cylinder became a longer, taller tube. Instead of putting the whole of your palms into it, like that stereotypical start-up’s CEO photo, it was more important to use your fingertips to slowly stretch out the clay.

“Ah, ahh…?!”

“This is going more and more diagonal…!”

Both Itsuki and Nayuta had no problem lengthening their clay mugs out at first. Over time, however, the shape of the hollow began to warp, the mouth opened up way too much, and their tubes took on a notable diagonal.

“It gets those distortions if you don’t keep your posture perfectly straight,” the teacher pointed out.

They both quickly tried to fix their posture, but things still weren’t working out as planned. A bit more time, and their mugs were now distorted beyond what they could repair themselves, requiring the teacher to step in.

Reflecting on their original failure, the two of them tried their hands at a beer mug once more, only to run into the same problem. Only after take three did they successfully craft something that could feasibly be called a beer mug, despite its off-kilter balance and the occasional sagging edge. Their time expired soon after that, so they washed their hands and took off their aprons.

“They look more like flower vases than beer mugs,” Itsuki said as he eyed his work on the table.

Nayuta had been similarly humbled. “I think this is a really unique work of art…or maybe not…but either way, I look forward to using them.”

These molded mugs would then be dried and fired by the business before arriving in the mail after about a month.

“Well, making a tall vessel can be pretty tough, so you did a pretty good job for your first time.”

As the teacher offered some encouragement, Itsuki looked around the classroom. All kinds of pottery were up on the shelves—teacups, pots, rice bowls, dishes, flowerpots, thin vases… He had no idea what made for good porcelain, but they all looked pricey enough to him.

“Did you make all of this pottery, sir?” he asked.

The instructor nodded. “For the most part, yes.”

“Wow… That’s amazing.”

Maybe he was born into an illustrious family of potters or something, honing his craft over years and years of training.

“How long have you been working with ceramics?” ventured Nayuta.

“Um… Around five years.”

“That’s not very long!” Itsuki couldn’t help but blurt out the first thing that came to mind.

The teacher chuckled at him. “Well, I quit my job at the office and went to a ceramics school. After I graduated, I worked for another potter for two years, and then I opened this classroom two years ago.”

So much for the “illustrious family of potters” theory.

“What inspired you to get into ceramics?” Itsuki casually asked.

“Well,” the teacher replied, looking off into the distance, “I think most people who leave the daily grind to pursue this world are looking to find solace in the earth, so to speak… Ha-ha-ha…”

“…”

This unexpected glimpse into darkness made it impossible for Itsuki and Nayuta to ask him anything else.

“That got kinda grim in the end, but making pottery’s fun, isn’t it?” Nayuta smiled cheerfully at Itsuki as they strode out of the classroom and toward Kotoku-in.

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “…I kind of get what he meant by finding solace in the earth. Maybe I should go to ceramics school, too…”

“Itsuki…” She looked up at him, anxious at his unexpectedly serious tone of voice.

“Kidding, I’m kidding!” he hurriedly added.

“Oh yeah, no doubt,” Nayuta said, smiling despite her lingering anxiety.

Then Itsuki noticed another shop. It seemed like just another souvenir store, with a big sign reading SANKAIDO—KAMAKURA SOUVENIRS on top of the door, but the inventory arranged up front included Japanese swords, shuriken, kunai and other weapons, sandogasa straw hats, traditional hand towels, and stickers with the character for “samurai” on them.

“Is Kamakura known for samurai stuff?” Itsuki asked.

“I dunno,” Nayuta answered dubiously. “But if it says ‘Kamakura Souvenirs’ that big on the sign, I guess so? The shogunate used to be here and all.”

“True… I guess it wouldn’t be unexpected, then, maybe?”

It seemed convincing enough to the two of them as they went inside—only to find a surprising sight.

“Is—is this a samurai shop…?”

“It’s more of a weapon shop…!”

Nayuta was right. “Weapon shop” was the only way to put it. The selection didn’t stop at katanas and shuriken; it included Western-style swords and lances, rapiers, twin-bladed axes, large shields, crossbows, maces and morning stars, cane swords, Indian kukri knives, guns… Weapons from every region and historical era occupied every inch of the walls and shelves. Not all of them were realistic, either—some of the more irregular short swords and “magic” blades looked like fantasy props, used for taboo sorcerous rituals. They were replicas, of course, but the quality made them look real. It was like going into a weapon shop in a fantasy RPG—and considering Nayuta’s gaming habits and Itsuki’s attempts at writing a battle-centric novel, all the weapons on display made their eyes sparkle.

“Ohhh, wow… They’re selling Excalibur at the store… It’s only twenty thousand yen…”

Itsuki took a moment to seriously consider purchasing Excalibur at a Kamakura souvenir shop. But:

“Hey! Itsuki! They have Zoro’s sword here!”

Nayuta came across one of the three katana carried by One Piece’s Roronoa Zoro (or a replica of one of the same type anyway), and clearly it had made her day. A lot of the inventory consisted of replicas from the world of fiction, actually, including Bleach’s Zanpakuto, Rurouni Kenshin’s Sakabatou reverse-blade sword and Mugenjin—even a sword-and-dagger set from Conan the Barbarian. Replicas or not, seeing all these weapons from pop culture laid out like this would make anyone excited.

One blade in particular caught Itsuki’s interest.

“It—it’s the Elucidator…!”

The beloved sword used by the hero of Sword Art Online, a light novel series with worldwide popularity.

“Wow… That’s so cool…!”

For anyone writing in the genre of battle fantasy, it was always a dream to see the weapons you’ve invented modeled and crafted in their actual size. But that was a tough hill to climb. With Itsuki’s All About My Little Sister anime turning into a modest success, they were moving along with merchandising like figures and cosplay goods, but nobody had approached them yet about re-creating weapons from the series.

Nayuta smiled warmly as Itsuki carefully examined every inch of the Elucidator.

“I’m sure the weapons from your books will line the shelves someday.”

The comment caused Itsuki’s face to cloud over. “…I hope so,” he forced himself to say, more as a self-rebuke than anything.

After leaving the Sankaido souvenir store and seeing the Great Buddha statue, Itsuki and Nayuta went back the way they came.

The Great Buddha was…well, a pretty great Buddha.

“When I saw it in elementary school, it seemed so gigantic to me, but I guess it’s not that big, huh?”

“Yeah, well, that’s how your memory works as a kid.”

Taking a late lunch at the Kamakura Pasta restaurant on the way back, they caught a train from Hase back to Kamakura Station, walked to their hotel, and checked in. It was a beachside hotel with a panoramic view of the ocean from the window. They hung out there for a while, kicked back in the hotel’s large public bath, and ate at the restaurant by the lobby at half past six. The place was focused on prix fixe seafood courses, from fresh sashimi and carpaccio dishes to slightly offbeat picks like conger-eel lasagna and mackerel pike al ajillo.

It was all great, and they followed it up with a gaming session, another dip in the bath, and then a toast with the local Kamakura beer and some seasoned scallops they’d bought at the shops earlier. Neither Itsuki nor Nayuta had brought any work tools with them today; they didn’t even check their e-mail on their phones. And after they were both a comfortable sort of inebriated, one or the other closed in for a kiss…and from there, a full-on make out session.

The next morning, after eating breakfast at the hotel, they checked out at eleven and took the Enoden to Enoshima Station. They enjoyed the Enoshima Aquarium here, taking in a raw-sardine rice bowl at a restaurant beforehand. This aquarium devoted a lot of its operation and displays to the jellyfish they kept, fine-tuning the lighting and tanks to make them look as beautiful as possible.

“…It’d sure be nice if I could just live like this, without thinking about anything…,” Itsuki muttered to himself as he watched the whimsical jellyfish shimmer in the large, bulb-shaped tank before him.

Nayuta clutched at his hand in response…

“…Kanikou?”

“It’s all right.” She smiled softly at Itsuki. “You’re totally going to be all right, Itsuki.”

“…You think?” Itsuki broke into a smile, although he looked about ready to cry.

“I sure do.” Nayuta nodded. “And I’ll wait as long as it takes. So let’s take our time, all right?”

Itsuki turned away from her, facing back toward the jellyfish tank. He grasped Nayuta’s hand tightly.

“I’ll do my best,” he said, staring hard at the fluttering jellies. “So wait for me, okay?”