Loss 1: Briny Confessions

Loss 1: Briny Confessions

Loss 1:

Briny Confessions

T HE TSUWABUKI LITERATURE CLUB WAS SITUATED in a lonely corner of the west annex. Yanami and I knew the way. We slowly walked down the final hallway, groceries in hand.

“Don’t forget,” I said. “No exams. No studying. Not a word about college. We keep things light.”

“Relax, dude. Have a little faith in your girl’s conversational skills.”

Faith, I was short on. But I was willing to cede this specific field to her.

At the door, we each took deep breaths before entering.

“We’re back,” I timidly announced.

It was only Komari inside. She was standing on a chair, trying to pin decorations to the wall. “T-took you long enough. Come help me.”

“I see Senpai isn’t here yet.”

Komari tottered down, then held one of the long, dangly decorations out to me. It was a series of strips of paper linked together like a chain.

Yanami studied it. “Looks like something you’d hang up for a birthday.”

“I-I thought it would set the m-mood,” Komari replied, grinning shyly.

I shook my head. “I get that you wanna cheer her up, but this is a little patronizing.”

“Agreed,” said Yanami. “At least make the colors black and white.”

Not helping.

“Huh? B-but—”

Before Komari could finish, jaunty footsteps came tapping from the hallway. We all glanced toward the door, where the footsteps stopped.

A second later, it flew open. “Hey, everyone! How ya been?”

There, wearing a beaming grin, was our ex-vice prez, Tsukinoki Koto with her trademark pigtails. She seemed a little skinnier than the last time we saw her, and her eyes, framed only by her long eyelashes and liberated from plastic, had a more mature look to them.

“Wait, your glasses!” I blurted. “Did you switch to contacts?!”

“Noticed, eh?” She smirked.

That was some transformation to make this close to graduation. Brave.

Senpai took a big, graceful step forward—straight into the table. “Ow. Sheesh, I’m blind without these things.” Feeling her way to a chair, she fished her glasses out of her pocket and put them on. I was betrayed. To what end? “Thanks for shopping, you two. Let me reimburse you.” She felt around for her wallet.

Before she could find it, Yanami thrust a taiyaki at her. “I know life isn’t fair, Tsukinoki-senpai, but hang in there!”

“Uh, thanks? Why’s this got teeth marks on it?”

I poured some soda into a mug and set it in front of her. “A year’s not so long in the grand scheme of things. Hey, think of it like one long commute. You’ll get there eventually, and who knows what you can accomplish in the meantime?”

Yanami threw her head up and down in agreement. “What he said! My dad was all over the place when he was a kid, but now he almost kind of has it all figured out! If he can do it, so can you!”

Tsukinoki-senpai bit into the red bean-filled pastry, tilting her head. “Hold up, I think we’re on different wavelengths.”

Oh god, did we screw up already?

“Komari, quick. She needs unsolicited, half-assed life advice!” I said in desperation.

But Komari shook her head. “Sh-she passed, you guys.”

Yanami and I shared in a harmoniously stupid, “What?”

“That’s right.” Tsukinoki-senpai hoisted her mug up proudly. “You’re lookin’ at a college student.”

Silence followed. Until Yanami cleared her throat. “It was Nukumizu-kun’s idea. I believed in you all along.”

Talk about a load of bull. She was trying to make me out as the villain.

“So, uh, which school is it?” I asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Good question.” Tsukinoki-senpai pulled out her phone. What kind of an answer was that? Everyone held their breath while we waited to be disappointed. “Ah, found it. See here? Says ‘passed’ on the log-in screen.”

We squinted at the tiny screen.

“Meiai Gakuin,” I read aloud. “Going into management? Huh.”

“Meiai? That where I’m going come April?”

“Yes. Please. You really don’t have much of a choice.”

Once assured that she had actually, for real, gotten into college, we could finally celebrate in earnest. All bets were off. Yanami busted open one potato chip bag after the other, and no one even cared to call her out for it.

“Yanami-san, did you already eat all the white shoyu flavor?” I asked.

“Chill, there’s another bag. Unless I ate that on the way from the store. Oops.”

No chips for me. Yanami, however, was going strong. Three chips at a time. All different flavors.

I left her to it and asked Tsukinoki-senpai, “So are you going to move in April?”

“That’s the plan,” she said. “I’m meeting with a real estate friend tomorrow.” She wore a bit of a sad smile.

Meiai was in Nagoya, on the western end of Aichi Prefecture. Toyohashi was east. It wasn’t not commutable, but knowing Tsukinoki-senpai, that would be asking for trouble. She’d pretty much need her boyfriend around to make sure she actually went to class. And that was a whole ’nother can of worms.

“How are things going for Tamaki-senpai, by the way?”

Tamaki Shintarou—boyfriend and ex-president of the lit club. He was going all in on one of those selective national universities in Nagoya. He didn’t even have a fallback.

“Tomorrow’s the second phase of exams. He’s in sprint mode now.” She tossed a chip in her mouth. It was a strong attempt at nonchalance, but there was clearly worry in her eyes.

“H-he’ll pull through,” Komari said reassuringly. Quietly, though, as if to herself. She gripped her oolong tea tight.

“He sure will.” Yanami patted her on the head. “Our Prez’ll be just fine.”

Technically he wasn’t Prez anymore. That was me, thanks.

Tsukinoki-senpai smiled and opened a big bag of chocolate. “Didn’t mean to bring the mood down. C’mon, we gotta pig out or all this food’ll go to waste.”

“M-maybe we should just save some,” Komari started to suggest. In defiance to her modesty, however, Yanami had turned a chip bag up and was funneling the contents into her mouth.

She noticed Komari’s scrutiny. “Wanna try? Hang on, lemme open a new bag for you.”

“Y-you don’t have to do that!” she squawked.

“The real flavor comes from the back of the throat. Here, head back. Open wide.”

Down the hatch. The look on her face as she drowned in potato, you’d think this was a kind of new-age torture.

Tsukinoki-senpai looked on in relative safety, nibbling on mitarashi dango. I set some tea in front of her. “In case you’re thirsty,” I said. “Just brewed it.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet.”

“Hey, you sponsored all this. You can have a little pampering as a treat.”

She took short, timid sips of the piping hot liquid, glancing askance at me. “Ready for next year? Gonna be some new faces.”

“I haven’t even thought about it, to be honest. Seeing you in the club room every so often has kinda made the fact we’ll be second-years soon slow to sink in.”

Tsukinoki-senpai chuckled. “Tell me about it. Hard to believe I’m graduating.” She spun the skewer of dango in her fingers. “Probably won’t hit me till I wake up the next morning and realize, oh, I don’t have to be at school. That I’m heading into a whole new world.”

Only a week left. We were talking in “only”s now. Wasn’t too long ago that goodbye was “still” a long way off.

“Think I’ll still pop in when I can though,” she said. “I’ll be bored until I move out for real.”

“I mean, feel free.”

We went quiet, instead focusing our attention on whatever it was that Yanami and Komari were doing. But the silence didn’t last long.

“Congrats, Senpai!” came a shrill yet booming voice as the door exploded open again. Who else but Yakishio?

“Look who showed up! It’s been a while, Yakishio-chan,” said Tsukinoki-senpai.

“Sure has. I was real worried about you, Senpai. Nukkun kept talking about how you were totally gonna fail.”

“Did he, now?”

I didn’t remember saying that. I probably had. But I didn’t remember it.

I made a tactical retreat to brew more tea, and as I poured the hot water, Yakishio came up to me with taiyaki in hand. “Make me a cup too?”

“We’ve got oolong and soda if you want that,” I said.

“Eh, I’m okay. Don’t wanna cool off too much.”

Was I crazy, or was she being uncharacteristically meek? She kept shooting glances at the others out of the corner of her eye.

“You can sit,” I told her. “I’ll bring it to you.”

“Hey, you free this Sunday?”

That came out of nowhere. The answer, though, was obvious. “Uh, yeah? But why do you ask?”

Yakishio leaned in close. The smell of her citrus deodorant tickled my nose. Her shoulder touched mine. Then, right into my ear, she whispered, “Wanna go on a date?”

***

That word never stopped bouncing around inside my head. Even as I climbed the stairs back home, I kept repeating it.

Date.

An ambiguous term. A relative term. It could mean many things of varying implications. Often confused, but Yakishio had put it as plainly as possible. She had asked me on an honest-to-god date, and frankly, I never thought something like this would ever happen to me.

I opened my bedroom door, heart still pounding, and inside I found Kaju holding a tape measure. “Oh. There you are.”

“Welcome home, Oniisama!” She placed the tape measure on my desk, then circled around to help me take off my blazer. “I hope you had a good day at school. We’re having that buri daikon I know you love for dinner!”

“Oh, nice. Looking forward to that.”

Kaju deftly hung my blazer on a hanger and then undid my tie. I kind of just let her do her thing, but that tape measure still bugged me.

“What were you measuring?” I asked.

“I was thinking of remodeling.”

Interesting. Normally people remodeled their own rooms.

“I’m, uh, kinda fine with how everything is. What’s wrong with it?”

She gripped my tie, which now hung loose in her hands. “Nothing, really. Just weighing the possibility of fitting my bed in here.”

“I’m gonna go with probably not.”

“Okay, but what if it was a single full -sized—”

“Still no.”

Classic Kaju. I thought back to Valentine’s Day. Things had gotten a little messy, a few wires crossed, but it was nothing a heart-to-heart couldn’t fix. She’d been feeling anxious about the future and what it meant for our relationship. Things were a lot better now. Granted, these days, she was even clingier than usual. That part was a little concerning.

She went to put my tie in my closet. I stared past her as a thought occurred to me. What would I wear?

“Hey, where’d the shirt I bought last year go?” I asked. “The one with the newspaper print.”

“Some bugs got to it, so I threw it out. Holes right through the letters. Totally illegible.”

Well, that sucked.

“What about the one with the chill dragon that’s just vibing?”

“Vibed straight off into the great blue, I’m afraid. It was a very windy winter.”

Couldn’t argue with that. Toyohashi was breezy on the best of days. That left me with some pretty bland options.

“Maybe too bland for this weekend,” I thought to myself.

Kaju’s eyes gleamed. “This weekend? Do you have plans, Oniisama?”

“Uh.”

With a masterful flurry of um s and well s and other attention-diverting filler words, I successfully dodged the question and shut my closet. She didn’t need to know about my personal life. What kind of clingy older brother goes reporting dates to his little sister? Not this one.

***

Sunday. The weather was suspiciously nice. No wind. Pleasantly sunny. It was a decidedly “almost Spring” kind of morning. I was in front of Takeshima Aquarium, not far from Gamagori Station, itself only about a twelve-minute train ride from Toyohashi. Wondering.

Why had Yakishio asked me out? I must have asked myself that question at least a hundred times, and I still lacked an answer.

Dates. What were dates? Things men and women went on together, typically under the assumption of mutual attraction. But the existence of things like group dates implied a kind of versatility to the term. And that raised enough doubt for me to squash any notion whatsoever that a girl like Yakishio could be at all romantically interested in me.

“She was just messing with me, right?”

That had to be it. Us? Alone together? In secret? At an aquarium? Sure, that was a little suspect, but I was a professional at scenarios just like this. Yakishio was just stringing me along on another one of her weird whims.

Right?

I awkwardly straightened my jacket collar. Today’s outfit was courtesy of Kaju and our dad’s wardrobe. I wore a light turtleneck underneath said jacket, and it made for a pretty sophisticated look, but I couldn’t help but cringe at the thought of Dad trying to pull it off. I figured this stuff had probably been shoved so far back in his closet that he wouldn’t miss any of it.

It’d been years since I last visited an aquarium, but it was just like I remembered it. There was something nice about places that just didn’t seem to change. Takeshima was particularly classic, having been around since my grandparents’ time, and you could tell by the compact architecture. Still, business was evidently doing well. Most of the clientele were families, and there were a lot of them. Next door had apparently once been some kind of souvenir shop, but it was out of business now, and the whole ensemble came together in this weird, vintage kind of way that made me oddly nostalgic.

That was when I saw her walking over from the parking lot. A crop of short, fluffy hair bounced and swayed over a tawny face I’d know anywhere. It was Yakishio all right.

I started to raise my hand in greeting but froze. Her outfit was a simple thing—a tight miniskirt and a baggy, cozy-looking sweater. But on her specifically, damn was it eye-catching. It felt like I was seeing her in a whole new light. Yakishio was pretty.

Yakishio finished my half gesture and waved. “Hope you weren’t waiting long, Nukkun. Whatcha starin’ at?”

“Er, uh, nothing. Sorry.” I wasn’t even sure what I was apologizing for. Don’t get me wrong, I never considered Yakishio un attractive by any means. It just felt like I’d been sucker-punched with cute. “Should we go and, um, get tickets?”

“Hold it right there.” Yakishio grabbed my arm as I started to escape. She brushed her hair aside, and an earring glimmered in the light. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Was I? I wasn’t late. Didn’t owe her money. And that left only one cliché I could think of.

“You, um, look fancy.”

“Just fancy?”

“Nice. You look nice,” I stammered out.

Yakishio gave a wide, toothy grin. “I’ll allow it.” Praise be. “Let’s hurry before they sell out.”

“I don’t think that can happen at—hey, stop tugging!”

I wiped some sweat with my handkerchief. That pretty much clinched it. My doubt became certainty.

This was a date.

***

Takeshima wasn’t a big aquarium. All of its exhibits fit on a single floor, and you could see everything in just a few minutes. It had charm, though. There was a reason it was popular.

“This says horseshoe crabs aren’t that tasty. You think that’s true, Nukkun?”

“They do have blue blood.”

That reason was the handwritten labels accompanying each exhibit, which included the staff’s firsthand accounts of the animals’ flavor profiles. Yanami could have whiled away an entire day here.

We were taking our time, savoring each fish on display. As we came to the next tank, Yakishio howled in excitement. “That’s a crap ton of eels!”

As she so eloquently put it, there were indeed about ten or so large eels squirming around in the water. According to the text, there were eight different species in that one tank.

“What’s the point of them coming in different types?” she wondered out loud while she ogled. “Not like you can tell ’em apart.”

She’d have to take that complaint to the big guy up top.

“Well, if there weren’t so many, we wouldn’t have any bio…whatever. Biodiversity. Or something.”

“Right. Biversity. Gotcha.”

This conversation was definitely skewing to one end of the bell curve, and not the good end. Next on our tour was a big, low tank in the center of the room. It was about the size of a living room rug and short enough that you could see straight into it from above.

Yakishio scurried over like it was the coolest thing ever. I took my time following, not even attempting to match her energy. I was shocked at how normal this was going. That four-letter word still hung over me, ominously, but Yakishio was Yakishio’ing so hard that it kind of distracted me. I was keeping my cool.

I was keeping my cool, right? God, I hoped so.

“Hurry up, Nukkun!”

“I-I’m coming.”

I peered into the aquarium with her. Colorful, tropical-looking fish darted and weaved around clusters of platelike coral. We stopped talking and just stared. Stared at the fish.

And then my mind wandered to last summer. That night at the shrine. The smell of dirt and wilderness. Yakishio, crying next to me. Now, all I could smell was makeup and perfume.

I glanced at her to find her big, brown eyes already studying me. “What’s up?” she asked.

“Wh-what’s up with you?” I shot back.

She smiled. I caught a flash of maturity in it. “Pretty, huh?”

“Y-yeah.” I flitted my gaze back down to the water.

I caught her eyes again in the reflection, and we grinned at each other.

The surface of the water glistened. Yakishio’s earring gleamed. The ripples captured it. And I caught the ripples.

The noise around us sounded light-years away. I stood in that void and just stared. Stared at the fish painting her profile.

***

We were watching the capybaras through the glass when she finally broached the subject.

“Hanging out, just the two of us. Reminds me of that night. Remember? When we went to Aoki. The elementary school.”

“Last summer?”

Yakishio nodded.

It was right around the end of summer break last year. She and Ayano were meeting to have one final talk. To settle things for good. She and I walked there together the night it happened. The night her first love became past tense.

I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t know what they talked about, how Yakishio felt about it, nothing. The only thing I could reasonably assume was that, whatever happened, it meant a lot to her. It was a part of her. A big, gleaming shard of a memory gatekeeping the way to her heart.

I noticed her staring at me. My inner monologue quieted itself. “Wh-what?”

Yakishio didn’t answer. She just stared. I did my best to meet her gaze, heart pounding out of my chest.

Then she looked away.

What? Had I upset her? How? Resigned to ignorance, I started making my way to the next exhibit but felt it again.

I turned. And she looked away. She covered her mouth, and her shoulders shook. So that was it. This girl was toying with me. Unfortunately for her, I was feeling spiteful.

I faced forward and started walking again—then turned right back around.

“No fair!” she whined. “Fake-outs are cheating!”

“All’s fair in love and war, Yakishio. Now we’re even.” I resumed walking for real.

“It’s two-to-one at best, buddy.” She followed, most displeased.

Foolish girl. All according to plan. While her guard was down, I whipped around yet again.

But she’d been quicker. My cheek turned right into her finger.

“Three-to-one,” she said. This girl. She was toying with me. In a game I didn’t even know the rules to. “I’m hiding, Nukkun. Try and find me.”

Gluing herself to my back now, was she? I turned. But she grabbed my shoulders and turned with me.

“Four-to-one!”

“Can you not?” We were drawing attention now. No doubt everyone thought we were the most annoying couple in the world. “All right, you win. I give up.”

“Aww, already?”

“We’re making a scene. Come on. More fish.”

“Fine.” She stuck her tongue out before giving me a little shove.

Yakishio was firing on all cylinders today. I wanted to pretend I was above it all, to put on a straight face, but my lips wouldn’t listen. They wanted to curve up.

“Huh,” I murmured to myself.

Turns out, dates were pretty fun.

***

My first ever date was going well, all things considered. After a quick bathroom break, I came out, made sure Yakishio wasn’t around, and took a second to breathe. Our weird little glancing game had evolved into seeing who could stand in each other’s way the most, which was exactly the kind of stupid game little kids would play. But we were on a date. Which somehow made it flirting?

This was the discovery of a lifetime. For me, anyway. I had to get Yanami and Komari’s input later. Would make good material for my next story.

“Slow down,” I muttered to myself. “Be rational”

Yakishio and I? Friends. Just friends. Friends on a date. And Yakishio was never not acting like a little kid. This wasn’t special.

Convinced with my well-reasoned arguments, I suddenly noticed a figure flit just out of the corner of my eye. It lingered long enough that I swore I could recognize it. The silhouette of a tiny gremlin I was used to seeing huddled in some corner of the club room with a book or otherwise hurling insults at me.

I went to investigate.

“Whatcha doin’, Nukkun?” But Yakishio stopped me.

“Huh? Oh, just thought I saw something over there.”

“Y’know what?” Yakishio peered past my shoulder, down the hall, keenly interested all of a sudden. “I bet it’s an animal. There are zoos that let geese and stuff run loose.”

“This is an aquarium. Fish don’t do much running.”

“Splash some water on ’em, they’ll be fine. Anyway, we gotta get going!”

She was right. It was almost time for the pièce de résistance: the sea lion show.

Yakishio and I headed outside. The stage was fairly modest—only about two lit-club-rooms in size—but in front was a pool about twice as large. Still, it was a very cozy venue.

Seating was layered in five staggered rows. We found a couple seats on the third.

Yakishio soaked it all in. “It’s been forever since I saw the show here. Five years or something. Looks the same as ever, though.”

The same for me. The older I got, the less family outings we went on, and the more time we all seemed to spend on our own. It didn’t make me particularly sad. Just acutely aware of the passage of time.

“Last time I came must’ve been when my sister was in elementary school,” I said. “Hard to find excuses to do things like this without a younger sibling.”

“Guess so. My sister’s in sixth grade.” Yakishio. An older sister. Now there was a surprise. Images of her and Asagumo-san playing house assaulted my mind completely and utterly against my will. “She’s real quiet, though. Big smarty pants too. Yeah, yeah, ‘so the opposite of you.’ I know you’re thinking it.”

“Whoa, how’d you read my mind?”

Yakishio gave me a look and tugged my ear. It did not feel good.

Meanwhile, amid my unjust torment, the seats around us began to fill. About the time people started having to stand, a woman came out with a sea lion in tow. They got into position, and the show began. The woman threw rings, and one after the other, the seal caught them around its neck.

“Look at it go, Nukkun!” Yakishio cheered. “That’s the coolest friggin’ seal in the whole world!”

A child trapped in the body of a sixteen-year-old. That was what Yakishio was. True, the woman knew how to throw those rings, and the seal sure knew how to catch them, but…

Actually, damn, that looked pretty difficult. I never really appreciated that as a kid. The tricks weren’t at all too complicated, but by the time the little guy made its last jump from the pool into the air, I just had to applaud.

“Did you see how high he went that time? I can’t believe we almost missed this!”

“Y-yeah,” Yakishio stammered. “Right.” Completely sapped of her earlier enthusiasm, her hand hovered in the air, like she’d just been reaching for me. She fidgeted nervously.

“What’s wrong? Catch a bug or something?”

“I, uh…” The rest of the audience started to filter out, and Yakishio leapt to her feet. “I gotta go make a call!”

“Uh, okay. No problem.”

“I’ll be right back!” Phone in hand, Yakishio scurried back inside.

I stayed sitting in my seat. What in the world was that all about? Absentmindedly, I glanced down at where she’d been sitting and found a folded piece of paper. Bus times, I figured. Nothing else. So when I picked it up and read it, big, cutesy bubble font was the last thing I’d expected.

Step 1: Holding Hands

Don’t rush it! Drop hints. Try to steer things so that he makes a move first!

I had not accounted for this possibility. Not a bit. Nope. There were other steps beyond that first one, but those were none of my business.

“We’ve totally held hands before, though,” I muttered to myself.

So what was the note for?

I stood. A sudden phone call. A secret note. I’d read enough manga to know that these were all signs of an upcoming major plot twist. Then, as I was heading inside, I saw it again. Out of the corner of my eye. A gremlin lurking behind the seats, an entire head shorter than me in stature. The little, bouncing tuft of hair was a dead giveaway.

Gee, wonder who that was.

I snuck around to confirm my suspicions as to the nature of the bouncy tuft. What I found beneath the fluffy anomaly was a girl. About a head shorter than me. Her back turned.

Before I could croak out a question, something gave me pause. Her outfit. She had on a bright yellow hoodie and short shorts. On her back hung a green bag absolutely infested with tin badges and other miscellaneous accessories, jingling and jangling together. On her feet, the same green shade of sneakers.

Yeah, it was Komari. Her hair made that obvious enough, but the rest of her? What was I looking at? I peeked over the stranger’s shoulder at her phone, where a video of the previous show played.

“G-good shots.”

“What are you wearing, Komari?”

The little one squawked and flinched away from me. Her mouth flapped like a fish out of water as she clenched her phone. I had only one theory to explain this ridiculous behavior.

“That supposed to be a disguise?” I asked.

She shook her head fiercely. “I-I’m not Komari!”

Uh-huh.

I hadn’t told anyone about the date today, and based on the way Yakishio had asked me about it, I had a feeling she’d kept it a secret from the others too. And yet here Komari was. And that could only mean one thing.