#tsusaki

Though he cannot raise his head, his gaze next finds Tsumugu standing in the doorway.  “My brave children,” he murmurs, low and scratchy, and his words send hooks into Tsumugu’s heart.  Suddenly, Tsumugu’s throat feels too tight, like a fishing line about to snap.  

He says, “I’ll find you something to drink,” and turns away. Because if Chisaki sees him break, she’ll splinter, and then neither of them will be able to keep the other afloat.

So he walks.  The screech of wheels echoes off the hospital’s walls, but Tsumugu has always been good at tuning things out.  His stomach growls, reminding him that evening has approached.  For a beat, Tsumugu thinks of his homework, shoved in the bookbag he dropped at the sound of Chisaki’s cry.  And then he brushes that thought away, because Chisaki won’t want to go to school tomorrow.

He finds a vending machine down a faintly lit hall and buys two waters and a tangerine soda.  The can gives a fizzy sigh as he pops open the tab, and while he drinks he thinks of Chisaki crying herself hoarse.  His school uniform’s jacket still feels stiff from the salt of her tears, and he rubs the back of his hands across his eyes, chalks his sudden sniffle up to the bubbles rushing to his nose.

They’re still so young.  And it’s unfair, he thinks, for the world to constantly yank the carpet out from under them, to watch them wobble on unsteady legs like sailors after long months at sea.

After draining his soda, he heads back, the water bottles cool and comforting in his hands.  The room is as quiet as he left it—more peaceful, even, because when he enters, he sees that Chisaki has fallen asleep at his grandfather’s bedside.

The monitor beeps steadily.  Tsumugu wonders if he’ll have to tell his parents about this. Wonders if they’ll insist he move back with them.  Wonders—

Chisaki shifts in her sleep, her cheek rubbing against the scratchy hospital sheets, her brow wrinkling slightly.

Crossing the room, Tsumugu sets the water bottles on the table.  He shrugs off his jacket and sets it on her shoulders, pulls the sticky strands of her ponytail away from her face from where they have gotten stuck to the dried tear tracks on her cheeks.

Isamu takes a deep, rattling breath.  Tsumugu looks at the two of them, grandfather and girl, both fragile in their own ways, and promises himself this: I won’t leave you behind.

-2-

The bus rattles as it makes its journey, and Tsumugu’s elbow jostles hers as he brings his bag up into his lap.

“You were really good today,” Chisaki tells him.

“Thanks.”  Tsumugu had changed back into his uniform after the athletic festival, but he still holds the headband she decorated for him, the white fabric stark against the gray cloth covering his knee.

Chisaki is proud of that headband.  She pretended Manaka was beside her when she made it, giggling advice into her ear: a fish, Chisaki, make sure you sew on a fish!  For a while, it was enough to distract her from other thoughts.

Namely, that they’re graduating soon.

Chisaki turns her head to look out the window, watching the scenery run by.  She presses her hand to the glass, feeling the motion of the vehicle, and thinks, sadly, I can’t stop this.

Beside her, Tsumugu tilts his head back, bumping it against the window and jolting her from her thoughts.

“What are you doing?” she asks, shooting him a sideways look.

“Sleeping.” He flashes a brief smile.  “All that running made me tired, you know.”

“Hm,” she says, returning her gaze to the inside of the bus. She runs her hands over her skirt, pondering what to cook for dinner tonight, when a soft weight bumps against her shoulder.

Chisaki stiffens.  This is wrong, she thinks, because once upon a time she sat like this, only it was Manaka resting against her, Manaka with her baby’s breath and angel eyes.  Manaka, who watched Tsumugu like he was the sun, and Chisaki feels hot and cold all over and wrong, wrong, wrong.

But underneath it, a tiny, traitorous part of her whispers, This is life.  This is friendship.  This is…

Something.  

Curiosity stirs within Chisaki and she looks down at Tsumugu’s hand, which rests on his knee, so close to hers.  Clutching that headband.  The headband that she—and she alone, because Manaka isn’t here none of them are here—made.  She has watched those hands untangle nets and skin fish, has watched them point to squares on a shogi board as they taught her to play.  But never has she watched them under the sunlight on the bus ride home, like islands and enigmas all their own while their owner drifts, asleep and unaware.

With trembling fingers, she reaches out to touch the back of Tsumugu’s hand.  Just once, to see how it feels.

It burns.

-3-

The weekend after graduation, Chisaki gets drunk.

Tsumugu gets the call from Shun—he’d been at home going through his room and trying to decide what he would take with him to university, all the while imagining Chisaki in the house all by herself.

He hears scattered laughter in the background as Shun says, “Dude, you gotta get over here.”

“Where are you?”

“The pier,” answers Shun; from farther off, other voices call faintly, No, Chisaki, you can’t go in the water, and Tsumugu’s blood freezes.

When he gets to the dock, he finds Chisaki leaning against one of the other girls in their class, her lips drawn into a pout.  She brightens when she sees him, pushing away from her caretaker, stumbling and slurring, “Tsumugu!  Let’s go swimming!”

Tsumugu rushes to catch her before she trips; her forehead hits his shoulder and she mumbles, “Ow,” before sagging against him.

“What were you thinking?” he asks, question directed more at his friends than at Chisaki.

Egawa senses the tension in his voice.  “Relax, Tsumugu,” he reassures, “we kept a close eye on her.”

Chisaki giggles, pushing her face closer to his.  “They didn’t…want to go swimming,” she confides breathlessly before dissolving into laughter.  Her face is flushed red and she’s grinning, but Tsumugu sees the cloudiness in her eyes, the swirling vortexes of memory—crashing pillars and flimsy boats and voices lost to the deep—and knows.

“Let’s get you home,” he says firmly, steering her away.

Behind him, their friends bid goodbye as Tsumugu starts Chisaki on the arduous trip back home, one foot in front of the other.  They’re almost clear of the pier when he hears footsteps.

“Kihara-kun! Wait!”

Halting, Tsumugu turns to face Ayame, who brushes her bangs out of her face as she stares at him determinedly.  Per her request, Tsumugu waits silently.

“Chisaki…she’s just—she’s just sad, you know?” starts Ayame, and Tsumugu’s grip tightens around Chisaki’s waist.  I know.

“About you leaving,” Ayama continues to explain, and Tsumugu blinks at that, momentarily stunned.

“I’m not—” leaving, he opens his mouth to say, but then he thinks of the suitcase he dragged out of the closet the other day and his grandfather in a hospital bed and Chisaki as a solitary, drooping figure on the pier.

I’m not leaving, he promises silently. I’ll always come back.  And one day I’ll bring them back, too.

Out loud, he says, “Thank you for watching over her.”

Ayame looks at him searchingly before nodding, once. Her bangles clink against each other as she turns and jogs back the way she came, and Tsumugu looks down at Chisaki, whose eyes flutter as she rests her head against his shoulder.

Sighing, Tsumugu bends his knees and hoists her onto his back. During the trek home, he passes the time by mentally cataloguing the things he’ll need to do tomorrow morning to help Chisaki cope with her hangover.

He only stubs his toe once as he deposits her back into bed. The scent of drink and sea still clings to her skin; Tsumugu wonders, briefly, if that’ll have any effect on her dreams.  Chisaki barely stirs as he adjusts the blankets around her, but as he starts to leave, her hands fumble clumsily, snagging on his sweater.

“Don’t—” she starts, the rest of her words dissipating into the air.

“I’m not going anywhere,” says Tsumugu, making himself comfortable on the floor, and he waits until Chisaki’s grip slackens before retrieving a glass of water and a bucket.

He holds her hair away from her face when she vomits.

He rubs circles on her back when she groans awake the next morning.

And the night before he leaves for university, he hides all the alcohol in the house.

-4-

Chisaki had forgotten how hot summers could be.

Tsumugu comes home to find her lying on the floor, a wet rag draped across her forehead.  She hears him drop his bags and the amusement in his voice as he says, “You didn’t meet me at the bus station.”

“I’m sorry,” mumbles Chisaki, fanning herself with the newspaper clutched in her right hand.

Oshioshio seems to get the worst of it, these days. First it was the saltflake snow; now the whole week has been a string of record-setting temperatures, the highest since before the thaw.

Tsumugu goes into the adjoining room, leaving Chisaki to contemplate the motions of the ceiling fan overhead.  She hears the refrigerator open and something that sounds like the clink of ice against glass; she’d get up to see what Tsumugu’s doing, if only it didn’t require the type of energy that, currently, she sorely lacks.

“I saw Kaname and Sayu on my way home,” Tsumugu discloses as he reenters the room, sitting crisscrossed on the floor beside her.  “It looked like they were on a date.”

“I’m glad,” murmurs Chisaki, turning her head to look at him.  He’s wearing the shirt she bought for him—a simple, striped, summer linen—and Chisaki watches as Tsumugu unbuttons it and shrugs it off, revealing a plain white t-shirt underneath.  Beside his knee, he places a glass filled with ice and nothing else.

“What’s that for?” squints Chisaki.

“This,” Tsumugu says simply, lying down beside her.  He reaches for a piece of ice, dragging it across his forehead.  Chisaki watches as the motion whittles it down, leaving a track of cold water behind.

“You’re wasting it,” she teases.

Tsumugu raises an eyebrow, propping himself up on one elbow. “Do you have a better idea?”

“No,” she sighs, holding her palm up toward him.  “Give me one.”

Tsumugu obliges before easing onto his back again. Chisaki alternates between rubbing ice over her face and fanning herself, content with the sound of cicadas chirping and the sensation of Tsumugu’s arm pressed against hers.  

“Do you think things will always be this peaceful?” she wonders eventually.

Above her, the fan circles lazily.

“Tsumugu?” she nudges his arm slightly.  No response.  Frowning, Chisaki sits up, biting her lip, and rolls her eyes fondly when she finds that Tsumugu has dozed off.

She reaches over to brush the hair away from his forehead. His skin is warm, but it doesn’t burn—not anymore.  Not now that their feelings have finally reached each other.

Tsumugu’s discarded shirt sits by his head; Chisaki grabs it and folds it neatly, sliding it under his head before pressing a kiss to his temple.  Picking up the glass cup, she swirls the remaining ice around, listening to the pieces chime softly against each other before she brings the glass to her lips and downs the water and heads to the kitchen to start on dinner.

  -5-

“You aren’t asleep yet?”

Tsumugu barely looks up from his papers as Chisaki slides the screen door shut behind her.  “No.”

Chisaki frowns, crossing the room to climb onto his bed.  “What are you reading?”

Tsumugu pushes some of his papers out of the way to make space for her, one arm looping around her waist, even while his attention remains fixated on the chart in his hand.  “Current patterns,” he starts, finally turning his attention to her.  “After the second Ofunehiki—”

She cuts him off with a kiss.  Tsumugu pulls back, blinking slowly, the light in his eyes replaced with a different one.  “What was that for?”

“It’s late,” Chisaki says simply, tucking her head under his chin.  “We should go to sleep.”

Tsumugu sighs, his breath stirring her hair, and Chisaki takes the opportunity to ease the papers out of his hand, setting them on the table.  

“You’ll have tomorrow,” she tells him.  “And I don’t have to wake up early for work.”

The corner of Tsumugu’s mouth rises as he silently concedes defeat.  The rest of his reading slides to the floor as he tugs the blankets upwards, reaching over Chisaki to turn off the lamp.

Chisaki wriggles downwards, one leg tangling with Tsumugu’s, her hand seeking out his heartbeat in the darkness, its reassuring rhythm. Tsumugu rests his palm over her hand in return, squeezing gently as he murmurs, “Good night, Chisaki.”