Chapter 2: Adachi’s Question

Chapter 2:
Adachi’s Question

 

WOULD IT BE WEIRD to walk around town with Shimamura on Christmas Day?

This was the question that plagued my mind over the past few days while I was supposed to be studying for finals. The warm air from the heater didn’t reach my feet. I jiggled them impatiently as I sat with my elbow on the desk, staring down at my textbook as I pretended to study.

Eventually, I decided to drop the act and just flop down on my bed. My ceiling light was brighter than I expected, since we just changed the bulb recently. Rubbing my cheek, I rolled on my side and looked over at the window. The air was getting dry in here, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

It was the first Friday of December. This upcoming Monday marked the start of finals week. With the added misery of winter’s chill, this was the most stressful time of year for us high-schoolers. Obviously I couldn’t cut class during the exams. Besides, the gym loft was getting so cold, I couldn’t even touch my bare feet to the floor without flinching back. Somehow I had lost the motivation to go up there anymore.

From spring to fall, that loft was our little hideaway…but where would we migrate for the winter?

That question was what led me to my current conundrum: Christmas.

The year was full of holidays, but hardly any of them were safe to celebrate with another girl. I mean, I could celebrate them with another girl, but for the most part it would be kinda weird. Not like the two of us had any special anniversary or anything to commemorate, so Christmas was the closest thing I had to a viable pretext.

I could try to hang out with her on New Year’s, but that was more of a “family” sort of holiday. After that would be Valentine’s Day, but I couldn’t imagine us casually giving gifts of chocolate to each other. Did I even have the courage to try? Somehow I could already see myself freaking her out with my nervous energy. Knowing her, she wouldn’t have a return gift prepared, and no matter how firmly I insisted I didn’t need one, she’d feel obligated to go and buy me something anyway. Yeah, I didn’t want to put her through all that effort.

Since Valentine’s Day was starting to sound complicated, I decided to put it on the back burner for now. Instead, I attempted to picture us meeting up on Christmas Day and walking around town…only to find that I kind of couldn’t picture it at all. I had no experience walking around anywhere on Christmas, since school was closed for winter break, plus it was always freezing cold outside. Hence, I had no idea if it was even remotely common for girls to hang out around town together on Christmas Day. Instead, all I could do was fill in the blanks with my own imagination.

On bad days I would decide the idea was “too weird” and get bummed out about it, but on good days it would start to feel like no big deal. My outlook kept flip-flopping, and it was driving me insane. I would argue with myself back and forth and back and forth until I was completely exhausted—sometimes even to the point of a migraine—and tonight was no exception. Seriously, how many days have I spent tearing myself apart over this?

Suddenly I couldn’t bear to lie still for a moment longer. I jumped out of bed and returned to my desk. There, I opened my textbook to a random page and started flipping through it, although I wasn’t really reading any of it. This book didn’t have the answer to my question. And even if it did, I wasn’t inclined to accept it.

“Am I overthinking this?” I asked myself aloud.

It felt like I’d backed myself into a corner and up a tree, and now I couldn’t find my way back down again. Maybe I was making it harder than it needed to be. Maybe putting it into words was all I would need to find the answer.

I mean, all I want to do is hang out with her, right?

The problem, however, was that I wanted to hang out specifically on Christmas Day. Would Shimamura think that was weird? Or would she shrug her shoulders and say “sure”? I kept waffling back and forth between the two possibilities.

As a test, I scribbled “Shimamura” in the corner of my notebook. Sure enough, seeing it written out made me think of the Shimamura Co. logo.

Come to think of it, what was Shimamura’s first name, anyway? I could remember her joking that she tended to forget it half the time, and now I’d forgotten it, too. Did anyone ever address her by it? If not, maybe I could be the first. After all, that was precisely the sort of “special privilege” I wanted our friendship to have. But then again…I couldn’t really imagine myself calling her anything other than Shimamura. If I did, I wouldn’t really be the same person anymore, in my opinion.

Yeah… She’ll always be Shimamura, I thought to myself as I stared down at her name in my handwriting. Then the shame set in as I realized—God, I’m completely obsessed with her. Cringe. I hastily erased what I’d written, but even then, a faint outline remained.

It was the perfect metaphor for the way I woke up every morning still thinking of her.

 

***

 

How far would I go for Shimamura, if she asked me?

Not in the “would I carry her bookbag” sense—more of a “would I give her a piggyback ride” sort of thing. For the record, I think I would. If she asked me to go shopping with her, I’d happily go, and if she asked me to take a nap with her… No, no, no! She wouldn’t ask me these things! It’s supposed to be a what-if scenario, not a fantasy!

There I was, yet again, thinking about Shimamura during class. At this rate, I probably thought about her more than she did. That didn’t mean I understood her, however. I could walk along the lakeshore all I wanted, but I’d never discover its chill, nor its depths.

Every now and then I would get so hung up on the idea of social interaction that I couldn’t actually bring myself to go through with it. Instead, I’d just watch as my friendships slowly petered out.

My parents were convinced something was wrong with me. This was something I’d known for a while now. Personally, I would say I expressed my emotions a fair bit, but apparently they weren’t able to pick up on them for whatever reason. I wasn’t sure what exactly I was doing wrong—I was just imitating what everybody else did, or so I thought. Was it just a matter of interpersonal compatibility?

They say blood is thicker than water, but in my experience, blood was nothing more than a bodily fluid. There were no “ties” to be had, no bonds, nothing keeping it from running down the drain…and so, down the drain it went.

But when it came to Shimamura, I could tell my intentions were plainly obvious. To an embarrassing degree, actually. Fortunately Shimamura didn’t seem to notice most of the time, probably because she sincerely didn’t care. For me, this was both a blessing and a curse.

Objectively speaking, our friendship was imbalanced. I clearly cared more about her than she did about me.

For example, I liked to have phone calls with her, but she preferred to stick to email. You could chalk this up to a difference in our personalities or attitudes or whatever, but for me, waiting for a response to my emails always stressed me out. It was easier to just call her, get my answer, and be done with it.

Of course, I couldn’t exactly call her during class. We were both right there in the same room, but we were too far apart to have an in-person conversation. All I could do was shoot her furtive glances, though our eyes almost never met. She was a surprisingly diligent student when she put her mind to it. Not me, though, I guess. I cupped my chin in my hand and stared down at my desk.

As I agonized ad infinitum, the bell rang. Fortunately, I had long since given up on finishing my test.

 

***

 

After school, I finally made my move. I hadn’t spoken with Shimamura for nearly two full days, and my ears were crying… Wait, what? I pictured salty fluid leaking from my ear holes. Gross. Never mind.

I closed my textbook, stuffed it into my bookbag, and rose from my desk. It was going to take a hefty chunk of courage to go talk to Shimamura. I wasn’t planning to say anything untoward, and yet for some reason I felt disinclined to approach her in public. Was I just paranoid?

My brain only generated a small amount of courage per day—just enough for me to survive at school—so I couldn’t really save any up. Maybe it was odd that I needed any at all, but hey, at least I wasn’t using it for anything weird, right? Right.

Just as I approached her desk, however, Hino and Nagafuji walked up. Reflexively I backed away…and there went my chance to speak to Shimamura.

“It’s scarf season again!” Hino announced.

“Where did that come from?” Shimamura retorted. Hino wasn’t even wearing a scarf. What a weirdo.

“So tell me, Shimako-chan, have you been studying for finals?”

“Maybe. What about you guys?”

“As if you even need to ask!” Hino folded her arms smugly. Is that a yes or a no?

“I don’t even know what a test is!” Nagafuji declared.

“When you say it, it doesn’t sound like a joke anymore,” Shimamura sighed.

“Hmmm,” she replied pensively, lifting her glasses to rub at her eyes. Oh god, she’s not denying it!

“So, did you need something?”

“Not really! Can’t I just say hi to my pal?” Hino asked, still posing haughtily for some reason.

Shimamura set her bookbag on her desk. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I agree,” nodded Nagafuji, who clearly wasn’t paying attention to the actual conversation. Shimamura looked at her and laughed…but there was a restlessness in her gaze that suggested she wasn’t exactly enthused. Probably because Shimamura didn’t really do small talk.

“In that case, I’ll make something up! Let’s see…I need to…say goodbye to everyone! You know, like in elementary school?”

“Oh yeah. We’d all be like ‘Goodbye, everybody! Goodbye, Sensei!’”

Shimamura’s gaze grew wistful, like she was thinking back to a time long forgotten. Then she slowly raised her hand and waved goodbye.

In response, Hino waved back. Then she turned, took a step toward me, and stared me right in the eye.

“Hey there, Ada-cheechee! Have you been studying?”

Another day, another new nickname. I assume she just makes them up on the spot. “Sure, a decent amount.”

“Whoa, really? Look at you, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes!” Shimamura exclaimed, looking at me in mild surprise as she tucked her textbook into her bag. Apparently she’d given up on me ever turning over a new leaf. She knows me too well.

“Good for you! I should take a page out of your book,” Nagafuji mused.

“What? Why aren’t you studying?!” Hino demanded, smacking her lightly over the head. Nagafuji even crouched down so she could reach. Why would you do that?

Then I realized neither of them had invited Shimamura to hang out. Evidently they were both going straight home today. This came as a bit of a relief.

“Alrighty! Today I think I’ll hang out at your place, Nagafuji!”

“You do that every day. I always see you lounging by the kotatsu.”

“What? Nahhh! Don’t be silly! See? You’re just being silly.”

“You’re right… I guess I was wrong.”

“No, no, you were right! See? Doesn’t it feel like you were right?”

“Wow, you’re right! So that means…I do see you every day!”

And so Hino and Nagafuji filed out of the classroom, taking their idiotic conversation with them. I didn’t know them very well, but I already had a pretty good idea of who they were as people. Hino was a “what you see is what you get” sort of girl, but when it came to Nagafuji, you were better off not judging that book by its cover.

Man, they’re such good friends. I never saw one without the other. Kind of like me and Shimamura, except they hung out wayyyy more often. That, and Shimamura would sometimes spend time with other friends. Every now and then I’d see her with them and my throat would get all tight.

Once they were gone, Shimamura’s probing gaze settled on me.

“Did you need—no, scratch that! I shouldn’t talk to people like that. I’m sorry.”

She rubbed her forehead. Apparently her conversation with Hino had convinced her to mend her ways. She grabbed her bookbag and rose to her feet.

“So, what’s up? Oh, I guess that’s not much better. Ugh, what am I supposed to say?” Frowning, she adjusted her scarf. Apparently she was taking this very seriously. “Help me out here!”

“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. Who wouldn’t react with “What’s up?” when they saw a friend approach? It didn’t bother me. If anything, I actually appreciated having someone else initiate the conversation.

“Okay, we’ll come back to that subject later. All right, so, what do you need?”

Apparently she’d decided to put it off. Good. Maybe now I could get the ball rolling. Ugh, why did I always get cold feet inviting her somewhere? Probably because I was scared of rejection, I guess. Scared of making people feel uncomfortable.

“I was wondering if you’d maybe want to…study together?”

“Oh, a study session?” Surprised, she tapped her bookbag.

Admittedly, yes, I was a total delinquent who never went to class, but during finals week, this was the best excuse I was going to get if I wanted to spend time with her. I knew she wasn’t going to want to goof off downtown.

“Well now! You’re a regular honors student!”

“Oh, please. Everybody studies before finals. It’s common sense.”

“Maybe I’m rubbing off on you,” she joked, smiling playfully.

But to be honest, she was completely right. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have come to class at all. I was tempted to thank her outright, but I had a feeling she’d just look at me weird, so I kept it to myself.

“I wish you’d said something sooner. We could’ve invited the others.”

“Huh?”

“They may act like a couple of clowns, but their grades are better than ours.”

Her gaze shifted to the door. If I didn’t act quickly, I knew she might just dash out into the hall to call them back. Personally, I wanted it to be just the two of us—but I stopped myself before I could admit it out loud. No, I needed a different reason.

“They’re…too smart for us! I mean, we could try to study with them, but, uh…they wouldn’t get anything out of it, so…”

“Oh, I get it! You think I’m stupid!”

“What?”

Out of nowhere, Shimamura pointed an accusatory finger in my face, grinning at me like a bratty child. “Just because we have the same grades, you think I’m a total moron, don’t you?”

“What? No! Not at all!”

Wait… Is she implying I’m stupid, too…? But before I could ask…

“Honestly, you’re not wrong. Okay then, just the two of us it is.”

Instantly, I no longer cared how stupid she thought I was. I felt something creep up the back of my neck—faint hope, perhaps.

“Where would we do it? I think there’s a library somewhere in the neighborhood… Oh, wait, there’s a library right here at school. Duh.”

No, no, no! I wanted it to happen somewhere more private. Somewhere we could relax. “Can’t we just do it at…your house or whatever?”

“What? But it’ll be dusty!”

She seemed reluctant. Wait, what? Dusty? I didn’t remember her room being very dusty at all. Then I remembered everything else about my last visit and screamed internally. Fortunately Shimamura appeared to have forgotten about it, but to me, my behavior that day was humiliating and objectively creepy. It was a miracle I didn’t crash my bike on the way home
from that.

“What about your house?” Shimamura asked.

“Mine?”

Before I could reject the suggestion by insisting my house was too far from hers, I remembered the empty Pocari can sitting in my room. If she were to recognize it as the one I took home from our trip to the park that one day, I’d be forced to make another run for it—and this time, I’d have to run out of my own house. No way.

“That…wouldn’t be a good idea.”

“Actually, you’re right. Things could get awkward,” Shimamura muttered, her eyes wide in some sort of realization.

“Huh?”

But she ignored me. “Sure, we can do it at my house. Just be warned: It’s really dusty.”

Why was she so hung up on the dust factor? Was her house really that old? Because I was pretty sure it wasn’t.

Together, we left the classroom—something that was still fresh and novel to me at this point. As we stepped out into the hallway, I felt a strange weight on my shoulders…or maybe it was just the weight of my self-conscious mind, which is to say, maybe I was just really nervous.

I was walking on Shimamura’s left side, next to her free hand. Not that I really cared or anything.

I glanced down at it. It was just dangling there, bored. I started to reach for it…but then I stopped myself and glanced around. We were at school, in the middle of the hallway, surrounded by people we knew. If I grabbed her hand right now, she’d probably pull away.

It was easy to forget, but Shimamura wasn’t an especially warmhearted person; she was just very tolerant. But even she wouldn’t tolerate me trying to hold her hand at school.

So instead, I pretended I was just stretching my arms.

 

***

 

Together, we rode on my bike all the way to her house. In winter, the sun was quick to vanish beneath the horizon, and the garden lamps were flickering to life on the lawn by the time we arrived. I could already tell it would be pitch-black outside by the time I headed home… What time would that be, anyway? How long could I stay without it being weird? I don’t remember how this is supposed to work.

I encountered this problem a lot when it came to Shimamura. I knew the rules of normal friendship, but I didn’t want to be a normal friend—I wanted to be special. I did not, however, know the rules of special friendship. Here in the dark, recklessness looked an awful lot like courage, and as a result, I frequently made an ass of myself. Afterwards I would scream into my pillow and…you know…whaddafaaa about it.

Here I was, cognizant of all this, yet still unable to do a single thing about it. This crush is terminal.

“Oh god, she’s home,” Shimamura groaned as she peered through the gap between her house and the garage, where a bright orange bicycle was currently parked. Apparently that was the one her mother supposedly rode everywhere—which was why she couldn’t take it to school, or so she’d explained to me a while back. “I’m hoooome!” she called out as she pounded on the front door.

A few moments later, I heard footsteps thumping in our direction from inside. Then the lock clicked, and the door opened to reveal…Mrs. Shimamura. Her skin was faintly flushed, and her hair was damp. Evidently she was fresh out of the tub.

“Welcome home… Oh! Friend! Oh! Visit!”

She reacted with surprise not once, but twice. The first time made sense, but the second I didn’t really get. Was it supposed to be like, “Oh, your friend is here to visit”?

Shimamura scowled and walked past her into the entryway to take her shoes off. “We’re gonna study, so don’t bother us.”

“You’re Adachi-chan, right?” Mrs. Shimamura asked, casually ignoring her daughter.

“Hello again,” I greeted her, inclining my head slightly as I removed my shoes and set them neatly next to Shimamura’s. Meanwhile, Shimamura’s scowl deepened. It was rare to see her so sulky, and I couldn’t help but stare. In my experience, she almost never wore her emotions on her sleeve like that… Clearly her family members had special access to the real her.

Lucky, I thought to myself. I envied her for having such a nice family…and I envied her family for having her.

“Satisfied? Now go away!”

“Oh, don’t be such a hormonal teenager.”

Just then, I felt someone’s gaze on me and turned my head. There, at the end of the hall, Little Shimamura was peeking out from behind her bedroom door, watching me. When we made eye contact, however, she hastily disappeared inside. According to her older sister, she was a “total brat,” but in my eyes, she really didn’t look the part. She just seemed shy, the same way I was at her age.

Did her little school friends call her “Shimamura,” too?

“Come on, let’s just go. Shoo!” Shimamura shouted, waving her mother away as she climbed the stairs to the right of the hallway… Wait, what? I thought your room was on the first floor! I stood there, confused, until she gestured for me to follow her, at which point I gave up wondering and went up after her.

The stairs were a bit steeper than I was expecting. At the top was a short hallway with bare walls, save for a single door at the end. Shimamura led me inside. As I crossed the threshold, I instantly felt the lack of humidity in the air, and a moment later I noticed the dust floating around right in front of my face.

Coughing, Shimamura tugged on the lamp cord. After two flickers, it clicked on, illuminating the room. An assortment of miscellaneous furniture and old, frayed cardboard boxes came into view. In the far corner, a beat-up leather chair lay in pieces, missing its screws. The window was concealed behind some old, moth-eaten curtains. Maybe the lack of natural light explained why the room’s interior felt even gloomier than the empty hallway.

For some reason, this storage room was outfitted with both a kotatsu table and an electric fan, like they were trying to cover all the basic necessities with the bare minimum. I got the sense this room’s only real purpose was to enable Shimamura to stay up late studying whenever the necessity arose.

“See? Told you it was dusty.” She set her bookbag down and switched on the kotatsu heater. I heard it groan to life a moment later. “Brrrr!” she murmured as she slid in under the blanket.

Once she was settled, I walked over and sat opposite her.

“Need me to go get you a cushion?” she asked.

“Nah, I’m good,” I replied, waving my hand dismissively.

There was no carpet or rug, just ice-cold hardwood, and my thighs were freezing, but I didn’t want to make her get back up again. Then I noticed a blue happi coat lying folded on the floor nearby. Curious, I picked it up, and Shimamura looked over at me.

“Oh, I keep that around just in case my back gets cold,” she explained.

“Gotcha.”

“For now, let’s hang out for a bit until we warm up.”

Using her bookbag as a pillow, Shimamura laid herself down on the floor and wriggled even deeper under the blanket. Shouldn’t you change out of your uniform first? At this point, I wasn’t really sure what to do. I didn’t feel like hitting the books without her, but the kotatsu was too small to accommodate more than one sleeper. Her feet were already touching mine.

You know…maybe this place isn’t so bad. The room was dusty and cluttered and quiet, reminiscent of a secret hideaway untouched by any intruders. This might just be the perfect place to migrate for the winter, I thought to myself as I shivered, waiting patiently for the table heater to do its job.

“Do you listen to music when you study?” Shimamura asked without looking at me. I thought for a moment.

“Yeah, usually.”

Now that I actually stopped to think about it, it occurred to me that I put music on almost every time I broke out my textbooks—including yesterday, where I lasted for about thirty minutes before I got distracted and started agonizing over Christmas to the point of having a migraine. Of course, I could already picture what would happen if I told her that: She’d look away awkwardly and say “Oh…that sucks.” End of conversation.

“That’s cool. I hear that’s really common.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Hmm…”

Her interest was starting to fade, and if I did nothing, the conversation would peter out like usual. But today I decided to be a little more persistent.

“What were you like as a kid?” I asked—a question I’d been contemplating since yesterday. This was one of the potential topics of conversation I’d come up with for whenever we ran out of things to talk about.

“I dunno… Normal? Probably the same as I am now,” she shrugged.

In my mind, I envisioned a miniature version of Shimamura. Then I imagined myself taking her by the hand and walking down the street. It didn’t really fit. Yeah, it only makes sense the other way around.

“I was never the star athlete or the class president. The most I did was school lunch committee. That’s all I can really remember.”

She talked about herself the same way one would try to remember a classmate they never spoke to.

“Oh, but my hair was shorter back then. And I didn’t bleach it.”

She picked idly at her chestnut-colored bangs. In other words, her hair would’ve looked like her sister’s, I guess? I imagined her with shorter hair, then imagined her with darker hair.

“What about you?” she asked, though I got the sense she only asked out of obligation.

“Yeah, same as I am now, I think,” I replied vaguely.

“Same as now, hmm?” Shimamura closed her eyes. “I bet you always wanted the preschool teacher to hold your hand,” she teased, a mischievous smile playing at her lips. Apparently she was utterly convinced that I was some kind of needy little baby.

“I’m not like that, you know.”

“Like what?”

“You know…um…”

I stopped short. Unexpectedly, I was too embarrassed to say the word needy out loud. Considering I had both grabbed her hand and asked her to pet me within the past couple of months, perhaps I couldn’t exactly deny it. It didn’t sound convincing in my head.

“I don’t…I don’t act that way with just anyone.”

As soon as the words left my lips, I realized the implication: that I wanted her, and only her, to hold hands with me and pet me. I may as well have confessed my love—No! No, no, no!

“Hmmm…why me?” Shimamura wondered quietly. Did the thought bother her? Her voice sounded sort of…feeble.

The answer was simple, of course. Because you’re you. That’s how love works. At least, I remembered someone once said something along those lines. Or maybe I read it in a book. Or maybe I spontaneously came up with it just now as an excuse.

I couldn’t bring myself to look up from the floor. If I told her the truth, it’d come off the exact same as if I were to hold up a giant sign that read I’M NUTS ABOUT YOU. I groaned under my breath, conflicted. The silence was killing me. No matter what you have to say, I can take it. Please, just say something!

Finally, once I’d summoned all my courage, I looked up. There, across the table, I found her lying still…a peaceful expression on her face…her eyes closed…her breathing slow and rhythmic. I stared at her for a moment.

She was asleep.

Was that why her voice had sounded so feeble? Because she was sleepy? Careful not to make a sound, I slid out from under the blanket and snuck around to the other side of the table. First, I knelt beside her…

Wait, what? “First”? What am I getting ready to do?

Hesitantly, I peered down at her. Her pleasant smile had faded; her expression was now blissfully unguarded in her slumber. The more I looked at her, the more restless I felt. My whole face felt like it was on fire. This was a rare opportunity to see Shimamura at her most vulnerable—almost like there was a little hole in the walls she built around herself, and now I could see through to the inside. I felt guilty for peeking, but at the same time, I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

What do I do now?

We were supposed to be studying. Of course, no amount of studying would help us now—it was just a convenient excuse to hang out. But sitting here staring at her felt like kind of a waste. A “waste?” Of what? Am I supposed to prank her or something?

Suddenly, I became very conscious of her lips. They were a little chapped, probably from the dry winter air. I reached out to touch them, then immediately drew my hand back. Instead, on a whim, I leaned forward a tiny bit.

We were alone, and Shimamura was asleep. This was the perfect opportunity to kiss her…if I wanted to…you know, as an experiment… My head began to spin as my mind filled with static. I could feel a headache coming on.

No, no, no! Snap out of it! I smacked myself hard on the forehead. There was no guarantee she’d stay asleep for the next twenty-four hours! If she woke up while I was kissing her, my whole life would be over! Besides, it wasn’t like I wanted to kiss her; I was just willing to consider the idea—you know, if she asked. And those were very different things. I didn’t want to put my lips on hers. I wanted her to want me to do it.

As I waffled back and forth, Shimamura opened her eyes slightly and looked at me. I stiffened. Was she wondering what I was doing, kneeling next to her?

“Mmm…”

Then she grabbed my thighs and wriggled her body over in my direction. What?! What’s going on?! I shrieked internally. Then she laid her head down on my lap, shifted around slightly, and closed her eyes once more.

“There we go. Much comfier.” She smiled sleepily. Apparently she wanted a pillow.

I wanted to casually brush it off with something like Oh, okay, that’s cool, but my mouth wouldn’t work. My cheeks were so hot, you’d think I’d pressed them directly against the heater.

“You, uh, you must be pretty sleepy, huh?” I stammered.

“Mmm…no… I’m not sleepy… I’m awake,” she murmured, her voice muffled by my thigh. To her credit, her eyes were open, at least. “You sure you’re not cold?” she asked.

“Nah, I’m fine.”

“Oh yeah. Want my coat?”

Without getting up, Shimamura felt around on the floor for the blue happi coat. Once she found it, she lifted it up, and since she was offering, I figured sure, why not.

“Okay.”

I took it and pulled it on over my uniform. With all the layers I was wearing, I felt like a marshmallow. Plus, I could feel myself starting to sweat, but that was probably from nerves more than anything.

“So tell me, uh, what do you usually do for Christmas?” I asked casually. My voice nearly cracked, but I continued to play it cool.

She turned her head, her squished cheek shifting back to its normal position, and looked up at me sleepily. “We have chicken karaage for dinner, then cake for dessert. No candles, though.”

“Gotcha. Sounds like pretty standard stuff.”

Not that I’d tallied up the statistics or anything, but it struck me as the most traditional way to celebrate Christmas in Japan. Whether it was homemade karaage or takeout from KFC or Mos Burger, everybody ate chicken in some form or another. Other countries ate turkey, but not us.

“My sister still believes in Santa Claus, and she still gets Christmas presents.”

“Awww, that’s cute!” Man, that takes me back. Sounds like Nee-chan’s not a believer, though. “How old were you when you found out he wasn’t real?”

“I never thought he was real,” she replied curtly. “I mean, what kind of jolly old man travels around the world to give out free stuff? You know?”

Classic Shimamura—tolerant, but not warmhearted. This sure is a productive study session we’re having.

“What about you?” she asked.

“I thought Santa worked at my preschool.”

“What? Why?”

“Probably because the teachers there were the only grown-ups who ever talked about him.”

My mom sure as hell didn’t talk about Santa Claus. One year, she asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I had lots of ideas, but I couldn’t decide on one specific thing, so I didn’t answer…and after that, she never asked me again. I guess she assumed I just didn’t want anything.

“We both had kinda crappy childhoods, huh?”

“Yeah, maybe,” I agreed. Technically we were still children, but whatever.

“At least back then I didn’t have to use my brain, you know? I could just live my life however I wanted… Honestly, it’s a miracle I survived this long. Those were the days…back when back pain was just a thing grown-ups had…”

She closed her eyes and reminisced, smiling faintly as she enjoyed my thighs. Her wording suggested she wished she could go back, and for once, it felt like she had revealed her more childish side. Was this a side effect of lounging in my lap? Apparently I was just as comfortable as a kotatsu.

Before I knew it, my nerves had faded and my body had gotten my temperature under control. It was like we were back in the gym loft, except the usual lethargy I felt was nowhere to be seen…and I wished we could stay like this forever.

“…Forget it.”

My plan was to ease into the topic of Christmas, then ask her to hang out…but I decided it could wait until some other time. For now, I just wanted to cherish this moment while it lasted.

I was the mother robin, keeping watch over my nest.