Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Aisawa, 3/3

[astrangestorm]

They had to detour back to the room when a staff member greeted them by the elevator, letting them know that the remainder of the afternoon session would be conducted outside. They retrieved their light jackets and followed signs in the lobby out into an empty field a five minute walk from the hotel. It was a pretty view here, woods on two sides, the hotel behind them, and mountains before them.

Asuka stretched her arms up cheerfully, taking in the mountain air. “They should just let us go on a nature hike. Not that I enjoy nature hikes, but when the air is this clean and fresh, I wonder if I might change my mind.”

“You seem the city type, Erika-san.”

She looked over in surprise, only to see that Kenta had used her fake name because Kagawa-san’s assistant was right behind them.

“Yes, yes, I guess it really is the city for me,” she said before linking her arm through his, putting on a show for the assistant presumably. “Masaki-san.”

The next activity in rebuilding partnership was called the “Trusting Catch,” but as Kenta, Asuka, and all the other couples were lined up, he realized it was really just an egg toss. While one staff member handed each pair an egg, another handed them a marker.

At the head of the line, Kagawa-san raised his hand. Kenta knew Asuka was itching to pull out her notepad, but now wasn’t the time. “Love is patient, love is kind, says the Christian Bible,” Kagawa called out. “But love is also gentle. The Trusting Catch is quite simple, but it will prove how gentle love can be. Think of the egg as the vows you made, to love and respect your partner. Your marriage is a partnership, a burden and blessing, a 50/50 compromise. When you toss this egg, toss with gentleness. Toss with all your feelings.”

“This makes no sense,” Asuka said, seeing murmurs of equal confusion among the couples around them.

“Please take the marker,” Kagawa continued, “and write your names on the shell. It’s inevitable that most of the eggs here will break today. I challenge each of you to examine what causes the break, and what causes the breaks that we can’t see. The cracks in your shells. The cracks in your relationships.”

“I’m so glad I didn’t pay for this,” Kenta whispered, earning an elbow in the side. But honestly, what on earth was Kagawa-san talking about? His metaphors were all over the place.

He watched Asuka’s handwriting, the scrawl he’d teased her about earlier, start to appear on the egg. Before he could say something, she’d already written the characters for “Kenta” and was starting on the characters for “Asuka.”

“Everyone line up and face your partners!” Kagawa-san shouted, clapping his hands. “Now take two steps back. We’ll start at the end opposite me and move down.”

It was too late for him to tell Asuka she’d used the wrong names, and the staff came to reclaim the markers. Asuka didn’t seem to realize her mistake either, holding the egg gently in her palm while the other couples began the “Trusting Catch.”

“This seems like a waste of food,” Kenta said when Asuka reached out her hand, setting the egg into his outstretched palm.

“And a pain to clean up,” Asuka agreed before Kagawa-san announced that everyone needed to take another two steps back.

Somehow, they made it through rounds two, three, and four, and Kenta was growing nervous. Some couples had already faltered, their eggs missing their target, falling short. But somehow he and Asuka were doing okay. She’d meet his eyes, nod her head that she was ready, and he’d toss it underhand, as slowly as he could manage. The egg inscribed with “Kenta” and “Asuka” was fairly lucky.

Round five, with everyone about twenty feet apart, wiped almost all the couples out. He and Asuka remained, along with the couple from Kawasaki they’d had breakfast with and another couple Kenta remembered from the video session earlier, the wife having fallen asleep with her head on her husband’s shoulder.

Round six began with several cheers of encouragement. Though some couples had disappeared, a jacket or shirt marred with egg yolk, most had stayed behind to see how things ended. The Kawasaki couple completed their toss, as did the video couple. Now it was time for Kenta to make his toss.

It was nervewracking, with all eyes on him. He heard a boisterous “let’s go, Aisawa!” from Haruko, wherever she was, and it made Kenta want to toss the egg her way instead. Asuka was standing with her feet wide apart and knees slightly bent, ready to run to wherever Kenta’s toss landed.

For luck, Kagawa-san had encouraged the two men before him to kiss the egg before tossing it to their wives. Kenta had found the whole thing bizarre, and yet the two men had done it. Nervously, he stared at the egg in his hand as the cheers became a steady clapping.

He brushed his thumb against “Asuka” on the egg, embarrassed as he brought the shell to his lips and gave her name a peck. Thank goodness she was twenty feet away. He did a few practice swings, Asuka telling him she’d count to three.

The gathered crowd joined her, and they counted down one…two…

He tossed on three, and his nervousness had won out. His toss was too long, the arc was too high, and yet people cleared away as Asuka moved, hands out and desperate to catch it. Kenta winced when it landed in her outstretched hands, breaking with a crack that made their audience let out a universal noise of “awww, that’s too bad.”

He hurried across the grass, running to her, having to bite his tongue to keep Asuka’s name from bursting out. He found her standing with the broken, runny egg all over her palms, and she gave him a disappointed look.

“Sorry,” he said as they moved aside, waiting for the staff to come with a cloth so Asuka could clean up.

As Kagawa-san made another speech about trust and love and eggs, getting round seven ready, Asuka looked up at him with a strange look in her eyes.

“Asuka-san,” he mumbled, hoping nobody heard him. What was she thinking, right now in this moment, with broken egg all over her hands?

To Kenta’s surprise, she reached out one of her messy hands and brought it to his cheek, patting affectionately. He felt the cold, goopy grossness of raw egg on his skin, hearing her laugh. “Hey,” he complained, feeling it run down his face. “Hey!”

“Marriage is a 50/50 compromise,” she told him plainly, taking the cloth from the staff member who’d finally gotten to them. She wiped her hands, and then lifted the cloth to wipe the nasty, slimy stuff from his cheek. “I don’t think it’s fair if you didn’t get egg on you, too.”

“You put the wrong names on the egg,” he said once she finished cleaning him, the couples behind them letting out a cheer when the next toss was completed safely.

She met his eyes, the cloth between her fingers. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, you did,” he said, standing closer. Nobody was watching them. Nobody was within earshot of their conversation. “I saw you write Kenta and Asuka.”

“Right.”

“But…”

Things seemed to slow to a crawl. He could smell egg and grass and the faint fruity splash of Asuka’s perfume. He could hear the couples clapping for the other pair still competing in the Trusting Catch. He saw honesty and openness in Asuka’s expression, the shining, playful eyes he couldn’t quite capture in a simple pencil sketch.

He wanted Private Couple Time, a second round. He wanted to take Asuka back to the room and confront her, to ask her what she felt. He wanted to put the burden of it on her, the burden of making her say it first, because it was all her fault that they were here doing a stupid egg toss and she’d written their real names on purpose. She wasn’t joking. Asuka wasn’t joking, because if she was it was too cruel, and the only cruelty in her he’d ever known about was the vengeance she’d taken on Nameless-san’s bike.

So if she wasn’t joking, then she was telling the truth, and what did it all mean?

He wanted to fast forward, past the awkward words he’d manage to spit out at her someday, and move straight to showing her and not just telling her what he felt. The Asuka who was always by his side, the Asuka who teased him, the Asuka who could talk him into a couples retreat and an obstacle course and an egg toss.

He wanted to fast forward right now, to ignore his fear and the eyes of the crowd, to ignore Kagawa-san’s strange comments on marriage and trust and love. To really give his mother and Nana something to talk about. He wanted to bypass all that so he could kiss her, right now, in the grass scattered with egg shells and yolk. To kiss her and take her hand and go back to the room and confess everything, everything, everything. To ask if they could be more and then more and then maybe even more to each other.

“Kenta-san,” she said quietly, and before he could break free of his cowardice, he heard the little popping crack of an egg in someone’s hands.

Trusting Catch had a winner.

-

Once everyone was cleaned up from the broken eggs, Kagawa-san announced a group hike on one of the easier trails not far from the resort. Of course, like most events that had happened so far, there was a Let’s Talk twist. The Partnership Promise hike required the couples to be tied together in the manner of a three-legged race, and before Kenta could say anything, a staff member was lashing a stretchy band around their ankles-Kenta’s right and Asuka’s left.

“Now this isn’t a race,” Kagawa was announcing as his staff handed each couple a bottle of water to share for the walk. “This is a Partnership Promise. You can take as long as you like, as the trail we’ll be on is circular and will bring you back here. Most of you should finish in thirty minutes and no more than an hour. The real test is one of cooperation. Work together, and you won’t stumble. Embrace the person you’ve married, your partner, and you won’t fall. It’s very simple in theory, but more difficult in practice than you might think. Let’s get started!”

Kenta was silent, and Asuka was too as they figured out what worked best. Without words, Kenta lifted his right arm, wrapping it around her shoulder. Asuka’s left arm initially wrapped around his shoulder too, but she lowered it, putting it around his back, which seemed more comfortable for her.

“Shall we try walking?” she asked, the first thing she’d said since the end of the egg toss.

“Sure.”

He was taller and had longer strides, but they managed to get a system working. Asuka kept the pace, murmuring “one, two, one, two” as she had when she was helping him on the obstacle course earlier in the day.

Kenta focused on keeping pace, keeping them both upright. They ended up behind some couples that were slower than them, and as the trail narrowed, they couldn’t pass. They could overhear snippets of conversation, mumblings about money wasted, about bills that needed paying. They heard couples in better moods, saying that even if the program was a little strange, it was nice to get out of town, enjoying the weekend “like we used to do.”

All these things Kenta knew Asuka was filing away, desperately memorizing since she couldn’t reach into her pocket and get her notepad. She could make them stop, pull aside and rest, have some water and take notes, but she didn’t. Was she as aware of him alongside her as he was aware of her? The warmth of her body against him, the spill of her hair over the sleeve of his jacket, the steady gentleness of her voice as she kept up the “one, two, one, two” pace, presumably so neither of them would have to yet address what had happened with the egg toss.

He wasn’t quite sure how long their little hike had taken, but he was sweating in his jacket by the time they finished, emerging from the woods again. There was a real disconnect when the band holding them together was slipped off, and they detached. Hot as he was from walking at their strange, measured pace, trying not to stumble over branches, he missed the feeling of her arm around him.

There were two final sessions that day, which would be followed by dinner and free time to enjoy the onsen and the resort’s other amenities. The first session, another lecture from Kagawa-san, went in one of Kenta’s ears and then out the other. Asuka spent the entire section filling her notepad, but he didn’t dare look down to see what she was writing this time. Instead, Kenta looked at the back of the head of the man in front of him, counting hairs, losing seconds, not knowing what to do.

Toward the end of the lecture, Kagawa invited people to come forward, to say what problems they had, what they hoped to achieve. Only one couple came forward, admitting that the obstacle course had made them realize the value of talking to one another. Kenta didn’t miss how disappointed Kagawa-san was that only one couple felt like talking on the Let’s Talk weekend, but surely the money he made off of all these couples made it all worthwhile.

The final session was in a banquet hall that had been partitioned into several stations, and in Kenta’s eyes, the whole thing looked like a speed dating set-up. He’d been to one a few years back, a friend begging him to come along, and he’d gone home alone and more unsure of himself than ever.

But Kagawa-san informed them all that there was only one rule to the seating arrangements in the room. You could not sit at the same table as your spouse. This session, the Swapping Confessional, was so they could unburden themselves to someone who didn’t know them, but could probably understand them. It didn’t make much sense to Kenta, but then again, not much about this weekend had.

Despite Sakai Haruko’s best efforts, Kenta managed to seat himself at a table with an older woman, Chie-san, who had been walking in front of them on the hike. She and her husband had been joking that they could have spent their money more wisely on their bills than on the Let’s Talk weekend. In Kenta’s mind, they were likely a couple with strength enough to survive.

“You did very well in the egg toss,” Chie-san greeted him, Kenta glancing quickly over his shoulder to watch Asuka sit down at a table with one of the husbands who’d made it with them to round four of the Trusting Catch.

“Oh, well, we still lost,” Kenta said, feeling a little uncomfortable. Kagawa-san had set a thirty minute time limit for their strange confessional. He hoped that Chie-san might be willing to do more of the talking, just so he didn’t slip up and refer to his “wife” as Asuka or something. “So Chie-san, tell me more about your husband.”

The woman took the bait, and Kenta was pleased as she rambled on about a son who’d just gotten married, a daughter in graduate school, and her hope that her husband would retire before a third heart attack took him away from her for good. “He’s so young, still, and he’s giving his life to that company. I was surprised he even agreed to this weekend, as unhelpful as it is.”

“My dad’s always worked a lot,” Kenta admitted. “He missed meals, stayed late a lot, but he’s gotten better, as he’s gotten older.”

Chie looked a little embarrassed. “I suppose we would be your parents’ age, wouldn’t we, Masaki-san?”

Kenta turned red, looking down. “Ah, forgive me. I’m sorry.”

Chie graciously forgave him, and they ended up talking more about the sessions that day than about either of their relationships. Chie had been the one blindfolded for the obstacle course, and working one on one with her husband that way had made her feel like they were young again. She’d hated most of the other sessions, finding them pointless and silly.

“But you’ve done fine! It seems like you and Erika-san get along quite well.”

“We have our problems, just like anyone else,” he said, the words heavy on his tongue. He hated lying to this woman, who had pretty much given Kenta her whole life story. “It’s similar to your situation. She thinks I work too much.”

“But you care about her.”

“Of course,” Kenta said, without even hesitating.

“You love her so deeply.”

“I…yeah,” he said, bashfully looking down, not even sure how much of what he was saying was trying to fulfill the role Asuka had given him and how much was the complete, unfiltered truth.

“You work together well. You’ll have your bumps in the road, but I can see how hard you’re working to make the best of things.”

“It’s…difficult, sure.”

“But for you young people, things are more easily managed, aren’t they? Working through problems, being able to forgive and forget. You’re more open with your feelings. People my age, my husband’s age,” Chie continued, “we never told each other words like ‘I love you’ or anything. It wasn’t done, still isn’t. ‘Please take care of me’ was always the more sensible thing to say, if anything.”

“It’s not easy to say those words,” Kenta said, still unable to look up from where his hands were fidgeting in his lap. “No matter what age you are, Chie-san.”

“You don’t say them?”

“I’ve never said anything like that to her,” Kenta admitted, happy for once that he was telling the truth.

Chie-san leaned forward, tapping a finger on the table. “Do it. Tell her!”

He glanced up, seeing a bit of a sparkle in the older woman’s eye. “What? No!”

“This weekend, Masaki-san, this is your chance. You came to this session because you’re committed to one another, because you do love one another.”

“Not…it’s not because…”

Chie-san would not let up. Was she a love coach or something and hadn’t told anyone? Or maybe she was a spy that Nana and his mom had sent along. “It will mean the world to her, I just know it will. And don’t be scared, if you say it, she’ll say it too.”

“Chie-san…”

A bell rang, and Kenta slumped back in his seat, frustrated. Kagawa was clapping his hands at the center of the room, getting their attention. “Husbands and wives, can I have your attention please?”

Looking around, Kenta saw uncertainty cloud the faces of the people in the room. He was waiting for Kagawa to make some sort of terrifying announcement, that everything they had just said in the Swapping Confessional had been recorded or that they now had to go sit at the table with their partners and say everything all over again, having used their other partners as practice.

But what Kagawa-san announced in that moment was even worse.

“Underneath each of your chairs, we’ve taped a pencil and a notecard. Would you please get them?”

Kenta slipped his hand beneath the chair, finding those two things. Chie-san did the same. The notecard was neatly labeled ‘Table 9,’ and Kenta suspected the staff knew exactly who had been sitting where.

Kagawa waved his hand, drawing their attention. “I want you to write one sentence on that notecard that summarizes what has been confessed to you…”

There were nervous grumbles around the room, some angry even. “This was a confession. They should be private!” Kenta heard one man complain a few tables over. Perhaps someone had confessed infidelity, thinking himself immune from his wife’s reaction if he told a stranger.

“Please think carefully and write. The staff will be coming around to collect them in one minute.”

Kenta saw a big smile cross Chie-san’s face, and he couldn’t help freaking out. In no uncertain terms, he’d told this stranger that he was in love with Asuka. Well, that Masaki loved Erika at least. What were they going to do with the cards? Oh god, were they going to give them to their partners? He shot out his hand, wrapping it around the older woman’s wrist.

“Chie-san, what are you going to write?”

If she was angry that he’d grabbed her so suddenly, she gave no indication. He apologized, letting go. “Masaki-san, let’s not get in trouble. Honesty, in these situations, is best.”

“Chie-san, please!” he hissed, lowering his voice. “Just…can you just write that I’ll work harder to be a better husband? Or…or that I’ll come home earlier! Please!”

The older woman just chuckled, hurriedly writing something down on her card. Kenta could barely keep a grip on his pencil as Kagawa-san announced they had thirty seconds remaining. He managed to scribble “Chie-san wishes for your good health and for you not to work so hard” on the card before him.

Before he could do much else, a staff member snatched the card from his fingers and then the one right out of Chie’s hand as well.

“Please, I haven’t been completely honest,” Kenta begged her. “Please, can you get the card back?”

Chie-san, not seeming to realize the full extent of his distress, merely patted him on the hand. “Erika-san is a very lucky lady to have such a devoted man by her side.”

There was more complaining around the room, and Kenta assumed that some of the swapped partners were trying to negotiate just as much as he had. Although he’d failed. He looked behind him, saw a staff member taking a notecard out of the hand of the man who was sitting at the table with Asuka.

She saw that he was looking at her, and she waved, as though nothing in the world could bother her. What had she confessed?

“That concludes the Let’s Talk sessions for this evening,” Kagawa announced. “We’ll now break for dinner. Again, you have the rest of the evening free, although any couples looking for additional one-on-one time can come see me or my staff and we can provide a quiet place or guidance. The weekend concludes with tomorrow’s breakfast, although some of you have signed up for the group hike and…”

Knowing they had been dismissed, Kenta got up and left the room. He was halfway to the restaurant when he heard Asuka’s voice cut through the grumbling complaints of the other attendees, who were noisily discussing how dumb the ‘confessional’ had been.

“Are you that hungry?” she called, jogging to his side. “Slow down, would you?”

He said nothing, wanting to eat and then spend the rest of the night in the baths, letting his skin shrivel up like a prune until they closed, anything to get through this without having to sit in that tiny room awake and alone with Asuka.

The room had been reorganized in their absence, the Let’s Talk private area of the restaurant transformed into a romantic spot. Instead of the low tables with four cushions, there were now tables set for two with a lit candle on each. The lights had been dimmed, and he could hear some of the complaining quiet down. A romantic meal might make up for the indignities of the afternoon, at least for some people.

He and Asuka claimed one of the tables that would give her the best vantage point, though with the low lighting he wasn’t sure how much she would really get out of it. But he’d long since stopped caring, pouring some sake into her cup and settling back while she started taking her notes. Appetizers arrived, but she didn’t touch them. He ate them without saying a word, not wanting to interrupt.

He thought back on this strange weekend, wondering if one day of blindfolds and three-legged races was really enough to fix a relationship in trouble. If anything, that final confession would be enough to cause more problems, depending on what was admitted. He hoped Asuka got what she wanted out of all this at least. That her article would answer those questions she had about Japanese marriage and whether it could be fixed or not.

After all the sessions, Kenta thought there was one rather universal thing about Let’s Talk. Most of the couples didn’t like it and didn’t seem to think it was helpful. But maybe, united in their disappointment, they actually would get talking. Maybe that was Kagawa-san’s master plan. Annoy a couple into talking to each other? Irritate them into working through their problems?

When dinner was served, a surprisingly tasty looking steak with grilled vegetables, Kenta wanted to see how long it would be before she started to eat. Kenta estimated that five minutes passed, her plate untouched, and Asuka still didn’t put down her notepad.

“It’s bad for your eyes,” he said finally, not wanting their food to get cold. “We can eat fast so you can get back to your computer.”

She looked up, pen in hand, completely startled. He supposed it was because he hadn’t spoken in at least half an hour now, though neither had she.

Though she’d been taking notes all day without shame, he saw a different look in her eyes, her skin bathed in the warm, golden glow of the candle. Beautiful was the first word that came to mind, but lonely was the second.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” she said, setting down her notepad. He wanted to grab it, put it under his butt and sit on it so she didn’t change her mind, but he dug into his dinner instead.

They ate quietly. He told her he planned to go to the baths when they were done, and she nodded, saying that she was going to write. She even turned down dessert, telling him to eat hers before getting up, taking the key from him, and heading back to the room alone.

When Kenta headed out of the restaurant a short time later, Sakai Haruko caught him in the corridor. She had a pack of cigarettes in hand, was apparently heading outside. “Trouble in paradise, Masaki-san?”

“Hmm?” he asked, wanting to get away, but taking comfort in the fact that he’d never see her again after tomorrow’s breakfast.

“Anything I can help with?” she asked slyly.

“No,” he said bluntly. “We’re fine.”

“It’s all about communication, honey,” she said, winking at him. “Isn’t that what we’ve learned today?”

“Have a good night,” he said as calmly as he could before walking quickly back to the Forest View wing.

-

Asuka had left a note for him on the table, that she was going to be working in the resort’s business center. Her computer and cord were gone when he returned to their unlocked room, along with the bag of suckers he’d bought. Had it just been yesterday afternoon?

He changed, heading for the onsen. He saw more couples going into the mixed bathing area than he had the previous day, and if Kagawa-san had been around, he supposed the man would have been happy to see it. Kenta found the men’s bathing area mostly deserted, and he nearly fell asleep while he sat in the cool air, only stirring when he heard someone else get into the water.

He was more tired than he’d realized, although he felt more mentally taxed than physically taxed after all the sessions they’d gone through. The halls were quiet as he made his way back. Thankfully there was no sign of Sakai Haruko in the corridor this time, though he wasn’t looking forward to trying to sleep if she intended to keep up her usual “activity.”

When he knocked on the door upon returning, he was surprised when he heard Asuka’s voice saying “come on in.” He thought she’d be down in the business center for much longer. She was out on their tiny balcony, in her neon shorts and a thin t-shirt. Her laptop was beside her duffel bag, closed and turned off.

“Get everything done?” he asked, feeling a little self-conscious in his yukata.

She came back inside, gently sliding the door closed. It was then that he noticed the little envelope in her hand.

“I was in the shower when they slipped them under the door,” she said, gesturing to the table where there was a matching envelope for “Aisawa Masaki.”

He felt his stomach drop. “What is it? Bill for the room?”

She shook her head. “I was tempted to take it and throw it out before you got back, but I thought that would be dishonest.” She sat down by the table, setting the envelope down. “It would be dishonest because I already looked at the one for me. It’s the notecards, from the Swapping Confessional.”

“Oh.”

She looked at him with a tiny grin. “If you want to change, you can do that first.”

“Alright.”

The card that Chie-san had written on, it was there, and Asuka had already read it. He was a little incensed, angry with Kagawa-san and his staff for sneaking around and giving the notes to them this way. He wasn’t happy about this at all, but Asuka had been honest and was going to let him read the card that had her feelings on it as well. Although whatever it said might be a lie, something she’d crafted to make her story sound better.

When he finally emerged from the bathroom, having wasted plenty of time brushing his teeth about three times and staring at what might soon become a pimple on his chin, he saw that she hadn’t moved. In his sweats and t-shirt, he sat down across from her. The little envelope was still waiting for him.

“What did mine say?” he asked nervously, unable to look at her.

“You should read mine first. I don’t mind if you look at it,” she said calmly. How could she be so calm when he felt like he was about to pass out?

He picked up the envelope, seeing that she really had opened it already, had torn it a little while tugging it open. He took out the card to find what Asuka’s partner during Swapping Confessional had written. The one sentence that was supposed to summarize what she’d talked about.

Mitsuyama-san wasn’t sick.

He looked up, confused. Mitsuyama-san, Asuka’s co-worker from the magazine? “Huh?”

“Watanabe-san…that’s the man from my table, I told him the truth,” Asuka said, her voice not wavering in the slightest. “After he spent the first twenty minutes of the confession time complaining that his wife had dragged him to this weekend retreat, I gave him a two-minute summary of how we got here. How I’m a reporter covering couples’ therapy and that he wouldn’t be mentioned by name in my article.”

“Okay…”

Asuka took the notecard from Kenta’s hand, smiling at it before setting it back on the table. “I told him that my editor had asked me to take someone from staff with me, but I didn’t really want to go with him, so I told Mitsuyama-san I’d go with my boyfriend instead. He believed me. And then I told you he was sick. I lied to you, Kenta-san, I’m very sorry.”

He was very slowly processing the words that were coming from Asuka’s mouth. Mitsuyama-san wasn’t sick. But Asuka had begged him to come because Mitsuyama-san was…wait a moment…

Asuka grabbed the “Aisawa Erika” envelope. She opened it, holding out the card to him. “So now that you know about mine, I was wondering if you could tell me what this means.”

When he didn’t take the card, she laid it down on the table, face up with Chie-san’s handwriting, the note she’d written that he’d begged her not to. He expected it to say something like “Masaki-san loves you” or “Your husband confessed to me that he loves you, but is afraid to say it.” But it didn’t. Chie-san was a tricky woman.

Masaki-san has something he really wants to say to you.

He stared at the notecard for a moment. Chie-san was leaving it up to him, in the end. The words that he felt, but couldn’t say. For what it might do to their friendship? Yes. For fear of rejection? Sure. For knowing he could never take it back? Definitely. For…

“What does Masaki-san want to say?” she asked him.

“Nothing,” he said quietly.

“Hmm?”

“It’s not…it’s not Masaki who has something to say.”

“Oh, I see. Kurata Kenta does then?” When he nodded, Asuka’s voice finally wavered a little. “Are you mad at me for lying to you?”

“No.”

“You have every right to be.”

“The second time we met you accused me of being a stalker,” he blurted out.

“Huh?” she cried out, her voice loud enough to wake the dead. Even Sakai Haruko might have been irritated by the noise.

He kept going despite her incredulous reaction. “So from the beginning, it’s always been a little hard for me to understand you and what you actually think. I don’t always know when you’re joking and when you’re not. And at first, that didn’t matter because…well, that’s just how Asuka-san is…”

He looked up, feeling that he ought to look at her when he said these things. Her face was still a bit startled, confused even by the words he was saying.

“But we’ve been through a lot together, with Nameless-san, we both know that. You’re a very important person to my family and…and to me…”

He crossed his arms, feeling goosebumps rising on his skin.

“So now when I can’t tell if you’re being serious or if you’re joking, it can be a problem for me. And this weekend has made it a really big problem. With the lying and this tiny little room and being in here with you and that stupid egg toss with our real names on it…”

“Kenta-san…”

“No, no, you wanted to know what the notecard means, so I’ll tell you because you asked, even though this is the last place I’d ever want to say something like this, when we’ve been here all weekend as a lie. I wanted this to be special and serious, whenever I did it. Because when I tell you this, I want you to know that it’s not a joke or an exaggeration. It’s something I really feel.”

He could see the moment when she realized what he was about to say to her. He could see it in the way she froze up, her eyes wide, her swift mind holding itself back from making some silly comment to ease the tension between them.

“I don’t want to screw everything up, but if I don’t tell you I’m going to go crazy from keeping it from you. And if I don’t tell you now, I’m guessing someone else might tell you and you deserve to hear it from me first.”

He took a deep breath.

“It took me a while to figure it out, to realize what I was actually feeling, because I’m really bad with these things. And I had to think about it objectively, you know, because of my mother and because of Nana and because of everything we’ve gone through. You and me, I mean. I had to think about it without all that clouding my judgment or influencing what I feel.”

He paused, seeing the slightest quirk to her lips. Was that a good reaction or a bad one?

“Asuka-san, I like you. I want to be your friend, I mean, I’ll always want to be your friend. You mean so much to me. But I want you to know that for a while now, my feelings have changed. They’ve become more…well, they’ve become more than feelings of just friendship. And being here, being so close to you, I think it’s made me more certain of that. But if you don’t feel that way about me, I’d…I’d understand, and I’m sorry…”

“Stop,” she said, her voice clear and determined.

“Stop?”

“Stop,” she repeated, holding her hand up for emphasis this time. “Kurata Kenta.”

“Yes?”

“I accept.”

“You what?”

She inclined her head respectfully, her tone no different than if he’d told her about a good book he’d just finished. “I accept your romantic feelings for me.”

He felt his blood boil. “You’re making fun of me.”

Her face paled. “No! No, I’m not making fun. I’m telling the truth.”

“‘I accept your romantic feelings for me’,” he said, mocking the way she spoke. “Who says that?”

She got to her feet, throwing her hands up, letting out a scoffing breath of disbelief. “I say that. That’s what I said, that is my reply to you, and why are you angry?”

“I’m not angry!” he said angrily.

She looked down at him in irritation. Her tone was accusatory, as though they were on an investigation but Kenta himself was the culprit they were chasing.

“You just gave the strangest confession I’ve ever heard in my life, and I still accepted it! Because I’ve been waiting so long, you could have just pointed at me and said ‘let’s go out sometime’ and I’d have said yes to that too!”

“You’re making fun of me again and…” He stopped, looking up at her as she looked down at him with smug satisfaction. “Wait.”

She crossed her arms, nodding. “There. You’ve finally listened.”

He stumbled to his feet, and now it was Asuka who had to look up at him. “You…you’ve been waiting for me? To confess to you?”

“Nana-chan said you were bad at this sort of thing, but I’m very patient. It is one of my finest qualities,” she said without a trace of humility.

“You knew?”

“I suspected,” she clarified.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

She smiled, a beautiful smile of complete and total victory. “Because you’re worth waiting for.”

He could feel himself blushing. “You’re serious?”

She stepped closer, into his space without a care as she often did, but this time he suspected she wasn’t just doing it to annoy him. Or to tell him there was food stuck in his teeth. She was close because she wanted to be close to him. “When that jerk pushed me down the stairs, you went after him. Stupidly, I’d like to add, since he kicked your ass, but you meant well. I suppose that’s when I decided you were worth waiting for.”

“For that long?”

She stepped even closer, so close he could feel the slightest brush of her body against his. “Well, I don’t spend every waking second thinking about you, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I wasn’t saying that…”

“So are we dating now or not?”

His mouth went dry, enjoying Asuka’s proximity and still a little bit stunned by how she was reacting to his confession. She returned his feelings, absolutely she did, but it was still the same Asuka before him, the Asuka he knew and had fallen for. She wasn’t treating him that differently, was she?

“Are we?” he managed to squeak out.

She poked him in the chest with her finger. “This is when you’re supposed to sound confident, you know.”

“I’m sorry.”

She stepped back, but kept smiling at him. “Well, I suppose I should have expected that.”

Gathering his courage, Kenta stepped forward and before Asuka could get away he was reaching for her, tugging her arm. Their first kiss would probably not go down in history as a very good one, but she didn’t back away or hesitate when he leaned down, brushing his lips against hers. He thought he could smell strawberries, maybe one of the suckers from the bag he’d bought her.

He stepped back, nervous, when she brought her fingers to her lips, shyly tracing where he’d just been. But then she smiled, nodding happily.

“Well done,” she said, and he knew she meant it, that she wasn’t teasing.

“I can do better,” he vowed, feeling like a huge weight had lifted. And it had. It really had.

“I look forward to it,” she said, laughing quietly. “But I think it’s been a very long day, and we have a lot to think about. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

He wanted to kiss her again, now that he’d done it just the one time. God, he wanted a do-over, to make his confession to her far less lame, something more romantic at the very least. But Asuka accepted him as he was, and he was glad for it. Whatever pace she wanted them to set, he’d abide by it. Though he supposed a spontaneous kiss here and there wouldn’t be entirely out of line, given her positive reaction to their first.

He kind of wanted to go out on the balcony and scream. A happy scream of course, but he decided against it because it might freak Asuka out. It might freak his girlfriend out. The thought of that was dizzying. Asuka was still Asuka, but now Asuka was also Asuka, his girlfriend.

It was time for bed, and they got into their separate futons, and Asuka switched off the light. Kenta set his alarm for the morning, and then they lay there in the dark. Several minutes probably passed, his mind consumed with the possibilities ahead. He’d have to step up in a big way, would have to take Asuka out properly. On a real date. He wondered what she’d like to do, where she’d like to go.

To punctuate Kenta’s thoughts, Sakai Haruko got started again with her bedroom noise, and Asuka sighed heavily in the darkness.

“Would you like the earplugs this time?” she asked.

“You don’t mind?”

“You’ve suffered the last few times. It’s the least I can do.”

“Okay. Thank you then.”

He heard her rummage around, and before he knew it she was pressing them into his palm, kissing his cheek. “Good night, Kenta-san.”

“Good night…”

“Ohhhhhhh!!!!!!!!”

He laughed, squeezing the little earplugs in his hand. “Good night, Asuka.”

--

She’d spent the entire bus ride back to Tokyo on her laptop, working on her article. He didn’t really mind, because she had already given him a direct order that morning, that he was to take her out the following Saturday. He was very eager to comply.

What he didn’t expect was to come back to Hamamatsucho bus terminal and find his parents and Nana waiting for them.

“Oh no,” Kenta murmured in embarrassment.

“You don’t mind if I told them that we’re together, do you?” she asked. “I sent them a message when you were in the shower this morning.”

Before he could answer, his mother and Nana were racing forward through the terminal to them, hugging Asuka and letting out annoying little squeals of happiness. His father merely patted him on the shoulder.

“Congratulations, Kenta,” he said, smiling.

“It’s not like we’re getting married or anything,” Kenta grumbled, rolling his eyes. “We’re just…”

“I’ve prepared a whole celebration lunch!” his mother was saying, her arm wrapped around Asuka’s back while Nana had taken Asuka’s bag from her hands. “Let’s hurry home!”

“Ah, really? Thank you!” Asuka said, beaming.

“What about your article? Shouldn’t you go home and work on it some more?” Kenta asked rudely, a little disappointed that his alone time with his new girlfriend had already been shattered by his pushy family.

“Nii-chan, you’re a horrible boyfriend,” Nana complained, shoving Asuka’s bag at him. “You take this!”

He accepted the bag without any further grumbling, his parents walking ahead with Asuka between them as though she was their daughter-in-law already. Nana stayed back with him, pressing for lurid details like some tabloid reporter. He stayed silent, bringing Asuka’s bag to the car.

“What was it like to be fake married, huh?” Nana kept asking. “Was it motivating?”

He felt the back pocket of his jeans, feeling the little rustle of paper, remembering the sketch of Asuka he’d made. He didn’t say anything, just thinking about the way Asuka had smiled when he’d kissed her, thinking back on all the strange memories they’d made together that weekend.

And thinking about all the memories they had yet to make.