Kita always goes to the fields on his birthday. Nature yields to no man, and Kita would never ask it to yield to him—not when he works in tandem with the earth, nourishing the tender green shoots until they go gold beneath his hands, Midas gone generous.
He intends for this year to be no different. But it is not the low croon of his pre-dawn alarm that wakes him. It’s the shift of the bed. He stirs, but then there’s the click of the bathroom door. He closes his eyes again, slides his hand into the space you’ve left behind. The warmth is as familiar as the sun’s.
He doesn’t mean to fall back asleep. This time, he wakes to his alarm, humming itself to life. He shuts it off quickly, never one to disturb your rest, but the next thing to filter in is your absence.
His other hand is still resting where you’d last been; the cotton sheets, worn soft with age but kept with care, are cold.
He glances toward the bathroom, but the light is still off. He calls your name; you don’t answer.
Kita’s halfway down the hall when he hears the click of the front door, the scrape of it that you insist adds character to the farmhouse. Then comes the distant spill of voices, a radio just a click off from a station.
He would know your voices anywhere.
He rounds the corner and you’re there, lightly dressed in the wet lick of the heatwave that’s settled, tired but luminous, your grin wide. Next to you, small but no less bright, like the morning star dotted in the sky, is Granny Yumie.
“Shin-chan,” she says, warm like the spring sun. “Happy birthday.”
Kita’s eyes burn. “Granny,” he says. “How? Who—“
She tuts. “Don’t ask silly questions.”
You cough, clearly hiding a laugh. Granny pats your hand—caught underneath hers from guiding her up the steep step from the genkan, her fingers knotted like a crabapple branch, but still nimble—and says, “Don’t tease.”
“Of course not, Granny,” you say.
She nods. “I’ll make breakfast,” she announces, “and then we’ll plan out the day.”
Kita cannot bring himself to protest. Granny is a willow tree, he thinks—she bends beneath the weight of age. She doesn’t break. Not yet.
She pauses next to him on the way to the kitchen, her eyes knowing. She pats his hand, just as she’d done to yours, and then she’s gone.
Kita watches her flit around the corner. When he looks back to you, you’re rocking on your heels, still grinning.
“That’s cheatin’,” he tells you.
“I know,” you say with a laugh, sweeping in close. You press a quick kiss to his lips. “But you’ll stay home today, right?”
He catches you by the waist, reels you in close to kiss you deeper, longer. He can feel you smiling against his lips, so sweet he can almost taste it. He breaks the kiss and presses his forehead to yours.
“They call this entrapment,” he tells you, knowing he sounds unbearably fond.
You laugh again. “They do,” you agree.
Kita glances towards the kitchen, where he can hear Granny murmuring to herself as the stove clicks on. His eyes go hot again.
“Thank you,” he tells you. “For—“
He can’t find the words, he realizes.
You touch his cheek, then cup his jaw. “Always,” you say softly. “Happy birthday, Shin.”
