Epilogue: Shiratama Riko of Class 1-F

Epilogue: Shiratama Riko of Class 1-F

Epilogue:

Shiratama Riko of Class 1-F

F IVE DAYS PASSED. JUST LONG ENOUGH TO LOOK back and shudder at just how stupid what we’d done had been. Up until recently, my philosophy had been to mind my own business. Never rock the boat. My high school career would be an unremarkable one. Little did I know my second year would open with a heist.

I pedaled up to my house and parked. Two weeks. The lit club had been relatively disbanded for two weeks. That was to be our punishment. I thought we’d pulled off a relatively clean operation, but I’d forgotten one very important thing: Komari. Komari had barged right in without a disguise to help us escape. It was no wonder that’d come back to bite us. Despite our best excuses—that being it was all part of a surprise Shiratama-san had been planning, which the venue staff actually bought—the Tsuwabuki faculty who were very much there at the time weren’t forgiving.

What did being “relatively disbanded” entail? What did it mean? I did not know. Neither did anybody else.

“I’m home,” I announced. I noticed many pairs of shoes at the door and sighed. Reluctantly, I trudged into the living room.

“Took ya long enough, Nukumizu-kun.”

“B-be better.”

Greeting me were the faces of the lit club, Yanami and Komari. One thing relative disbandment did, apparently, entail was revoked access to our club room. Making my house our new meeting spot for whatever reason.

Shiratama-san trotted over and took my bag for me. “Evening, President. They’re throwing me a welcome party!”

“Huh. That’s nice,” I said. “Er, I can get my own coat.”

“Please, it’s my pleasure. I’ll just go hang this up.”

Shiratama Riko was our newest face. An official member of the literature club. Nothing like a do-or-die situation to forge and strengthen bonds.

“Breaking news, hot air moving in from the north,” Yanami droned. “Wind speeds over five meters per second.”

“H-hope your head pops,” Komari added. All in the name of friendship, of course. The banter was naturally a testament to our bonds. As was the fact that she had helped herself to my secret stash of manga, and that Yanami was eating my pudding.

Wasn’t it just heartwarming?

“Nukkun’s back? Hey!” Yakishio appeared, drying her hair with a towel. Her excuse for being here was that the run from school made a good warm up, apparently. Which was all well and good, but I wished she’d stop borrowing our shower. For my heart.

Shiratama-san handed her a glass of tea. “For you, Yakishio-san.”

“You’re the best, Tama-chan!” She chugged it down, then sat at the dining table with Yanami and Komari.

I didn’t have it in me to insert myself, so I took a spot on the couch. From behind me, I smelled something sweet.

“The cheesecake is done!” Kaju emerged from the kitchen with a big ol’ cake in her hands. Yanami cheered.

I looked down at my phone. Message from Konuki-sensei. Apparently, we had a lot to thank her for regarding the whole relative disbandment thing. It would have been no surprise for them to hit us with the full thing, but for how unlucky it was that faculty from both schools had been at the venue, it ended up being a blessing in disguise. Among them had been…acquaintances of Konuki-sensei’s. I didn’t ask. Too scary.

“Gotta remember to thank her properly,” I mumbled.

In any case, the message was about potential house visits. Being the supervisor of a club that was ambiguously on the brink, I figured she wanted a way to stay connected to her students.

As I started to fiercely type out a firm “no” so I could get some of that cake, an email notification dropped down from the top of my screen. It was from Shiratama-san, and it came with an attachment. Looked like a story of some kind.

“Better get your butt over here, or there won’t be any left!” Yanami said to me.

“Don’t wait up,” I replied. “Go on and eat.”

I opened the file.

***

Literature Club Activity Report: Shiratama Riko The Fixer in the Sunless Row House

On the outskirts of Edo Castle, before the great maw of Sujikai Gate, and south along the Yatsukoji, was the Nihonbashi fish market. Far removed from there stood a seedy row house, in which a man wielded a brush with great passion. A concoction of warabi bracken and persimmon tannin coated its hairs, then the sturdy wood of the rib of a bangasa. When he was satisfied with his work, the man did not let out a breath but held it as he aligned the oil-paper to his meticulously crafted frame. He admired this work too, then took up the brush again.

It was then that a bell rang through the quickly darkening sky. The sound of evening. Hongokuchō’s Bell of Time. Oil was getting very expensive. The man, quite literally, could not afford to make mistakes fumbling in the dark. He set his brush back down.

“Yuunosuke-san? I’m coming in.”

Before the man could answer one way or the other, the girl slid open the shoji screen door. She was a very small thing with hair done up neatly in the yuiwata style, of no more than fifteen, perhaps sixteen, years of age. Lips pressed together to a point, she stepped inside and onto the earthen floor.

“O-Rin-chan. Impeccable timing. I’m rather short on funds.”

The girl called O-Rin invited herself in, stepping up from the doma into the room proper before seating herself there. She regarded the umbrellas by the wall to her side, her expression an iron mask, and opened and closed each. “Three bangasa?” She wrapped them in furoshiki cloth. For them, she placed a single silver shu.

“Awfully stingy, no? I have debts to repay.”

“You were given an advance. This is the remainder.” O-Rin was not going to change her mind. But she was weak to the look on Yuunosuke’s face. From her silk, drawstring purse she produced a second silver chip. “Never say I didn’t help you.”

“My sincerest thanks. With this, I can have rice for dinner.” The man stowed the shu into his sleeve, then studied O-Rin’s expression. “Is something the matter?”

“Perhaps not, if you can explain the reason you have not come to teach me arithmetic, as per our arrangement.”

Yuunosuke withered slightly at the girl’s disgruntled tone. “I believe it best if I keep my distance from the Shirota estate.”

“Why? Is it my sister? She’s…” O-Rin bit her lip and hung her head.

It was not so long ago that Yuunosuke was to be married into the Shirota family. They were affluent people in Terifurichō, primarily dealing in the sale of umbrellas and geta. Far better than the fourth-born son of a Sanshū samurai with no hope for inheritance could ever ask for. O-Rin had made herself ready to welcome her new brother-in-law into their home. That was until the loss of Mino, her older sister.

“I have no place among magnates. From the start, it was too good a proposition for somebody like me.”

“Please, ‘magnate’ is hyperbole. We stay afloat merely wholesaling umbrellas to our larger peers.” O-Rin held the bundle of umbrellas close to her chest. She had played the part of an adult well until then. “There’s talk of wedding me. To the third son of the Sakakis.”

Yuunosuke nearly choked on his breath. He was fifteen years apart from the girl. She was but a child to his eyes. And yet she was old enough to be wed.

“I wish you the best,” he said.

The Sakakis earned their fortune through the sale of clothing at Nihonbashi, and rumor had it they had come under the purveyance of the Imperial House. There were certainly worse men to marry from a practical standpoint.

O-Rin stood, unimpressed with the man’s reply. “Expect more materials tomorrow. Do not be late.”

Yuunosuke nodded, and the girl left. She did not shut the door. The man simply stared out it in a daze. For him, Mino was ever in his heart, ever unchanging from the girl she had been three years ago. For him, time had not moved a second since that day.

“O-Rin-chan’s getting married, is she?” A young man entered through the open door, placing a small tobacco box onto the dirt floor, then producing a kiseru from his breast.

“Eavesdropping is rude, Nukuzou.”

“No such thing as privacy in row houses, much less one as shabby as this.” The tobacco merchant lit his pipe, sucked, then blew. His favorite activity. “The Sakaki’s thirdborn. Infamous, that one.”

“Is he?” Yuunosuke was not good at feigning interest. He instead busied himself putting up his tools.

“His folks sent him to study swordplay, in the hopes martial pursuit might hammer the boy into shape, but word is he’s running with an even worse crowd these days. Methinks old man Shirota’s not found himself with a son-in-law but a problem.” Yuunosuke was not moving anymore. Nukuzou shrugged and held out his hand. “Want answers? I’ll make it cheap. For old time’s sake.”

“You’d rob the poor?” Yuunosuke fished inside his sleeve, then handed his shrewd, former colleague a single shu.

“Pleasure doing business. I’ll put the rest on your tab.” Nukuzou collected his things and stood to leave but turned to the umbrella maker one last time. “You can always come back. Blood is not so easily washed from a blade.”

Yuunosuke shook his head, gesturing to the daishō leaning against his wall. “It’s no longer mine to clean. What you see are imitations. The real ones were taken as collateral.”

“I see. Shame that look in your eyes can’t be so easily sheathed.” Nukuzou said no more before taking his leave.

Once certain Nukuzou was gone, he removed a single, old tatami mat. From beneath it, he retrieved the past he once thought long forgotten. Mikawakuni Kanetsugu. A katana that had been left to him by his father upon his departure from his homeland. He gripped the sharkskin hilt, and it gripped him back.

He would never wield this blade again. Or so he had once told himself.

“Suppose you can’t let some things go,” the man said to no one. A theatric soliloquy to an invisible audience.

Time moved once more.

***

A period piece, huh? It was surprisingly well written. Character names and content aside. I decided not to point that part out because I valued my life.

“You read my story, I see.”

I turned toward the voice in my ear. Shiratama-san was behind me. “How long have you been there?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She circled the couch and took a seat next to me. “I’m really happy you got to be my first.”

She was doing this on purpose. Everything about her, from her mannerisms to her choice of words, was calculated. I knew this. I also knew it was the adult’s job to let the young’uns have a win every now and then, so when I made note of her particularly sweet scent or the oddly short length of her skirt, it was with perfect lucidity. I was ready to be manipulated.

But Shiratama-san defied my expectations when her expression softened. “It was a beautiful ceremony.” Her usual smile was replaced with one of a different kind. The genuine kind. “They looked so happy. My sister and Oniisan. And seeing them like that, it made me happy.” Behind us, Kaju was refilling cups of tea. Shiratama-san shot a glance that way, then whispered in my ear. “You would’ve been the cherry on top, you know.”

There she went again. Manipulating me. Not that I was actually smitten or anything. It was a president’s job to be receptive to his constituents’ words. But if I had been a little bit smitten, it wouldn’t have been my fault. Could anyone blame me?

“Speaking of, want to see pictures?” With nary a betrayal of her actual motives, she pulled her phone out. On the screen was her sister in a wedding dress standing next to Tanaka-sensei in his tuxedo. The resemblance to Shiratama-san was uncanny. Her dress hung low, and in her hands was a white bouquet.

“Wait, is that…?”

It was. In Tanaka Minori’s hands was the bouquet Shiratama-san had made. We never did go back for it, but how had it made it all the way to her?

She knew. My god, she knew. But how much?

I looked up and locked eyes with Shiratama-san. “Always one step ahead of me,” she said. “A worthy opponent.” Then she smiled and even laughed a little. It faded, though. “I think I know what it is that makes me feel so comfortable around you, President.”

“Uh, you do?” I wasn’t sure how to reply.

Her lips curled back up, ever so slightly. “There was this lot in my neighborhood where tall susuki grass grew. We used to play hide-and-seek there as kids. The three of us, I mean. It’d wither come autumn, and my sister and I used to joke that it smelled like Oniisan.” She sniffed the air. “You smell the same. I like it.”

Oh. Apparently I smelled like dying susuki. Guess I’ll die.

“Now that he and my sister have gone and gotten married, I don’t really have anyone to lean on the way I used to with them. That part makes me sad.” She placed the tips of her fingers gently on my lap and leaned into my ear. “But maybe you can be my new Oniichan?”

First little brother role-play, now big brother? Interesting. I was more familiar with the latter, personally.

Just then, my blood ran cold. Murder. Murder was in the air.

“Oniisama.” A voice from behind crept down my spine. “Tea?” Kaju stood there with a cup in one hand and a teapot in the other.

I was chilled to the bone and also sweating bullets at the same time. “I-if you’re offering, I guess.”

Shaking, I took the cup. Kaju poured. From a concerning height. The piping hot liquid drew a perfect arc into the cup, clouds of steam obscuring my view. And an instant before it overflowed, she stopped.

“Drink it while it’s hot. My dearest Oniisama.”

“D-don’t mind if I do.” I put my lips against the rim and drank it down before the bulging liquid could spill out. It was frigid. But how could that be? What about the steam?

Shiratama-san grinned at Kaju. “You’re awfully close, hm? I’m jealous. I always wanted a brother like you have.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It is a sad reality that my Oniisama has and will only ever have one little sister, but I’m sure you’ll get over it.”

“Suppose I’ll have to make do with just kouhai.”

“Now and forevermore.”

“Aw, you’re such a cutie, Kaju-chan.”

It should have warmed my heart, seeing them beam at each other. And yet all I could do was tremble. There was an easy remedy for this: the non sequitur squad. I looked to them for help, only to find them about to leave.

“Where are you guys going?!” I pleaded.

“Hungry!” Yanami shouted back. “Goin’ to a convenience store!”

“Gotta get back to practice,” Yakishio said.

“B-buy the next volume of that manga,” Komari commanded.

Then they were gone. Traitors. Leaving me to die. Kaju subsequently claimed my lap for herself.

Shiratama-san smiled. “You two have such a beautiful bond, President.”

“Yes,” Kaju said. “We do, don’t we?”

“R-right,” I said, staring despondently into my tea.

Shiratama Riko of class 1-F. The literature club’s newest weirdo, and its newest lease on life. What a way to kick off the year.