Unbroken [Pendulum]

SUNDAY

He was late.

Noon was still a few minutes off, but Kyousuke was no stranger to how a boy was expected to behave around a girl—Aya had been very insistent that he be the one to wait for Yozora. Making a girl wait was unforgivable if Kyousuke’s mother was to be believed. With no other source to consult—Kensuke having opted to respond with a laugh rather than an actual answer—Kyousuke had tried his best to do as he was told, but fate, it seemed, seemed to have other plans. His bicycle tire seemed to have gotten itself inexplicably punctured sometime since Friday, so Kyousuke had set out from home at a slight jog instead, cursing his poor luck. He desperately wanted to avoid making a bad impression; he felt he had far too much riding on this first date than perhaps was realistic.

Kyousuke was not exactly experienced in this particular field, his tentative forays with Haruna had never really reached this stage—it had begun and it had ended as innocent time spent together in the library after school, until Kyousuke had simply let it run out into the sand. He simply couldn’t bring himself to turn their long relationship as friends into something more, despite everything she had done for him. Kyousuke had come to treasure Haruna Kotegawa all through middle school, and he didn’t want to run the risk of corrupting that.

But the book on Yozora had yet to be written in, the blank pages fresh and clean, ready to be filled with new experiences.

But still, he was late.

He was two, maybe three blocks from the station now, and as it came into view, he found himself scanning the sparse Sunday crowd for signs of the green-eyed girl. He couldn’t see her, and he wondered with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach if she had given up and left, disgusted at his tardiness. He desperately hoped that wasn’t the case, and squinted at the big clock on the front of the western-style stone building. Five minutes past noon, he wasn’t as late as he thought he was. Maybe she hadn’t—

Oh.

Squinting while running headlong down the street, in retrospect, wasn’t the brightest idea Kyousuke had ever had, and it very quickly became apparent to him as he caught sight of something in his peripheral vision heading straight at him. There was no time to stop, but he was, at least, able to determine that it wasn’t one of the many automobiles that seemed to throng about Osaka station. Instead, it was a girl.

She, too, seemed to be in a hurry, and Kyousuke had inadvertently shot out in her path as he moved to cross the street. There was a moment of silence that stretched into eternity, then she let loose a startled shriek that was cut very short by her slamming into Kyousuke’s side. The collision threatened to wind him, but he somehow managed to brace at the very last second and instead of toppling over in a tangled mess of limbs, Kyousuke threw his arms around her and staggered back, taking great care to stay out of the street.

The girl in his arms let loose a muffled groan, and he loosened his grip, allowing her to look up at him with a dazed expression on her face.

It was Yozora.

‘Oh, er, hello,’ said Kyousuke, not quite sure what to say in a situation like this.
‘You’re late,’ she replied, with almost no hesitation.

Kyousuke stared at her, at a loss for words. His mouth seemed to move on its own, yet no sound came out. After a while, a small ‘...Yes?’ managed to squeeze its way out, but Kyousuke wasn’t sure what effect it would have.

‘You should never keep a girl waiting, didn’t you know that?’

He still wasn’t quite sure how to react. ‘I, um, got a flat tire,’ he said, almost hesitantly. ‘Aren’t you, uh, late, too?’
‘Don’t be absurd, women can’t be late.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You smell good,’ she said, her tone light, and Kyousuke realized his arms were still wrapped around her slim frame. He had loosened his grip, but not removed it completely, and he released her with a hasty apology.

‘What’re you sorry for? Nothing wrong about wanting to hold the girl you like,’ she said, and Kyousuke silently cursed Friday’s abrupt honesty. He was quiet for a small moment, then spoke.
‘Hanazawa-san, on Friday, you said there was someone who was beginning to interest you.’
She feigned a look of puzzlement. ‘Yes?’
Kyousuke wanted to grab hold of her shoulders and shake her, shouting you aren’t making this very easy, but he managed to keep his urge contained. ‘Who did you—’
She placed a finger on his lips, silencing him. ‘Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to, Tsukimiya-kun,’ she said with an impish smile. ‘So, what did you have planned for today?’

Kyousuke had spent some time imagining what he would do with Yozora, but ultimately he had been unable to decide on any one thing.
‘Well, I figured since you’re new to Osaka we would just, uh, stroll around, taking in the sights. I have some things I’d like to show you but otherwise we can do what we feel like. Does that sound like a good idea?’
‘Sure,’ she said, slipping her hand into Kyousuke’s with a smile. ‘Lead the way.’

Kyousuke was unsure how to feel about holding Yozora’s hand. It was an awfully forward move on her part, but then everything about her had been pretty forward. It was almost as if she was marking him as part of her territory, but in a more direct way than Haruna had ever done. Haruna kept her distance from Kyousuke—as she no doubt knew was the proper thing to do—but wasted no time in making anyone who dared approach him feel very uncomfortable indeed. Yozora seemed unconcerned by what others thought and instead focused on one thing: making it clear to Kyousuke himself who he belonged to.

It was interesting how his own feelings seemed to mirror both girls’ methods; he felt pleasantly distant from Haruna, and was attracted to the assertiveness that Yozora displayed. Haruna’s interest was intruding and possessive somehow, whereas Yozora’s was simply an expression of confidence in budding affection.

She knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t afraid to say so openly.

They set off at a leisurely pace, with Kyousuke trying his best not to succumb to the rising heat in his cheeks given the fact that he was holding a girl’s hand. Yozora seemed unperturbed, and despite her earlier request for Kyousuke to lead the way, she seemed intent on being the one to take charge. Kyousuke didn’t really mind; he had always been the type of person to take his hometown for granted—what was there, really, in Osaka that he would show someone who had only just arrived? There was very little grand and spectacular that came to mind—the cherry blossoms were still budding, the riverbanks were tranquil but dull, and the only places Kyousuke went with any regularity were bookstores and the dojo next to his home. Spending time with people his own age wasn’t something he enjoyed, after all. At school was one thing, but outside of the school grounds he kept to himself. When invited out, he would tag along and stay just long enough for people to remember him being there, then he would quietly make his exit—all he wanted to do was blend in, and a few hitches aside, he was doing an admirable job.

When it all came down to it, Kyousuke simply didn’t care about his classmates or their social lives, just as he was certain they didn’t really care about his. He was quite sure that had it not been for his exceptional grades and one incident in particular a year or so back, he would be truly invisible, and part of him wished that the standards he held himself to weren’t quite as absolute as they were. Invisibility appealed to Kyousuke Tsukimiya; he preferred to watch from the sidelines as things unfolded. It was a shame, really, that so many things often forced him into action.

Almost as if she had been reading his mind, Yozora broke the brief silence that had fallen over them. ‘So, Tsukimiya-kun. What do you like doing in your free time?’

Kyousuke hesitated. There were two ways he could play this—he could tell Yozora the truth, or he could tell her about the things he was good at.

For some reason, he felt compelled to be honest with the chestnut-haired girl at his side.
‘I like to read,’ he said, and then his face finally succumbed to the mounting blush. ‘And I like to help my mother cook.’

Her response was predicable: Yozora stifled a giggle and then burst into peals of laughter that made passersby turn to look, deepening the reddish tinge on Kyousuke’s cheeks.

‘What’s so funny?’ he asked, trying not to sound cross.
Yozora squeezed his hand and moved in close as they kept walking, her shoulder occasionally rubbing Kyousuke’s.
‘That’s not a very common thing to hear a boy say, that’s all,’ she said, wiping a tear from her eye with a smile. ‘Particularly not from one that never seems to lose in gymnastics.’
Kyousuke gave her a questioning look.
‘The girls can see you boys practicing your budo from the main school building, you know,’ she admitted with a coy smile. ‘From where we’re standing, you seem like the Lieutenant’s favorite, and it’s very strange indeed to hear that you like to cook. I was expecting you to say you liked to practice your form.’
‘I usually practice my form every other day,’ he said, his words coming almost automatically.

Yozora seemed to pick up on the hidden undertone. ‘You don’t enjoy it?’
‘It’s not that I don’t like it, but... It’s not my favorite thing to do. I’m good at it because I do it often and I do it often because I’m good at it—and I suppose because my father expects me to. It’s good exercise and I have to do it anyway, so there’s no reason not to try to be the best, is there?’ A sullen look had come over Kyousuke as he pondered his motivations for learning what essentially boiled down to hurting people. It was practically in his blood, for one thing, and boys picking either judo or kendo for practice in school with the military’s supervision had been mandatory for two years already. When Kyousuke had asked his father about why, Kensuke had responded with a vague it has something to do with Manchuria. What had begun as a young child’s fascination with his father’s activities had been swept away by the father’s enthusiasm, and now Kyousuke found it difficult to leave behind him. Violence, it seemed, followed him around, always lurking beneath the surface like an unspoken threat. As much as Kyousuke wished it wasn’t so, it was a harsh reality he faced, made all the more real by the regional politics. The Empire could always grow larger, after all.

A brief look of dismay at the direction the conversation was going in flickered across Yozora’s face, and she tried to salvage what was left of the good mood earlier. ‘Is that why you come at the top for tests, too? Just because you want to be the best?’
Kyousuke grinned boyishly at that. ‘No, those I win at because I love to learn. There’s something very admirable about a strong mind, I think, something that appeals to me more than a strong body. A strong body is really only temporary, but a man’s knowledge can live forever, Hanazawa-san.’

The improvement in her date’s mood seemed to lift Yozora’s own spirits, and she smiled again. ‘And how does cooking fit into all this?’
‘It’s a combination of the physical and the intellectual!’ he replied with a laugh. ‘Besides, it’s a very good way to show my parents how much I appreciate them.’
Now it was Yozora’s turn to look crestfallen. ‘You appreciate your parents, then?’
‘Very much. Don’t you?’
For a short while only their footsteps on the pavement could be heard, and then Yozora seemed almost to slump dejectedly into Kyousuke’s arm.
‘I don’t know. My parents never have time for me. They’re always busy with so many other things, and while I can’t bring myself to hate them because I know they don’t hate me, I can’t bring myself to love them either, for the same reason. It just feels like they don’t pay attention to me.’
Kyousuke swallowed, the blush returning to his cheeks as he gripped her hand a little tighter. ‘If you like, er, I could pay attention to you.’
She laughed and straightened up again, giving Kyousuke a coy smile. ‘I get the impression, Tsukimiya-kun, that you already do.’

They wandered through Umeda, stopping for Yozora to look in through shop windows and for Kyousuke to point out things about the city Yozora may not have known, and eventually they arrived at one of Kyousuke’s favorite places in all of Osaka: a small bookshop that sold antiques, rarities, and foreign books. When Kyousuke had first stumbled across the place years ago, the proprietor had eyed the young boy nervously as he had sifted through the aisles, gazing longingly at the books waiting to be opened. It hadn’t taken many visits for the old man to catch on to the fact that Kyousuke was no hooligan, and after Kyousuke had introduced himself, the man had told him that he was free to browse the wares at his leisure.

The place had become a home away from home for Kyousuke, and he treated it like his own personal library, taking great care to leave each book in a state where it was difficult to tell if it had even been taken off the shelf. The old man seemed not to mind that Kyousuke never bought anything—the books weren’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination and Kyousuke had very little money to spend on extravagancies such as these—but instead seemed to take great pleasure in recommending new things to his young customer. One of the newest additions to the shop’s stock, however, had caught Kyousuke’s eye almost immediately: an Edo-period copy of A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto. The illustrations were marvelous, and Kyousuke had been admiring it for several months now, hoping to save up to buy it as a gift for his father’s birthday on Monday. The price tag wasn’t quite as obscene as some of the other works in the shop, but it was still an unrealistic goal for a 16 year-old.

‘I’ll buy it for you,’ offered Yozora, without a trace of hesitation in her voice.
Kyousuke laughed despite himself, unable to see the statement as anything but a joke.
‘No, really,’ she insisted, reaching for her purse.
Kyousuke looked shocked for an instant, but before he could voice a protest, the shopkeeper shook his head. ‘Not today, miss,’ he wheezed, his voice papery but kind. ‘It’s gonna rain this afternoon and I wouldn’t want Kyousuke-kun to have his book ruined on the way home. Come back tomorrow, and we’ll see how it looks then.’
‘Hanazawa-san, I can’t let you buy—’ began Kyousuke, but Yozora quickly silenced him once more with a finger on the lips.
‘Think of it as a thank-you gift for today, Tsukimiya-kun. We’ll be back tomorrow, sir,’ she said with a small bow, and then pulled Kyousuke out of the shop.

Their walk inevitably took them down to the riverbank, where they sat for a few hours idly chatting about minor things. Yozora’s parents were indeed wealthy, Kyousuke learned, and business had apparently never been better. They had moved from the capital to the Kansai region for Yozora’s father to oversee the construction of a number of new factories, and as a result, what little time the Hanazawas had for their daughter had dwindled from very little to none.

‘So what do you think of it so far?’ asked Kyousuke as he gazed out across the Yodo River in the afternoon sun. The rainclouds had gotten quite close and the sky was almost visibly darker.
‘Of Osaka?’ Yozora touched a finger to her lip in thought, and then grinned. ‘I like the way you talk. It’s different. It’s cute.’
I know what you mean, thought Kyousuke and tossed some grass at the girl at his side. ‘Don’t make fun of me,’ he said, trying to subdue his own grin.
‘See? It’s cute!’ She giggled, shielding herself.

Her amusement subsided, and a pleasant silence fell between the two, the comfortable kind of silence that required nothing to fill it. The clouds ahead loomed ominously, but Yozora seemed to pay them no mind.
‘Hey, Tsukimiya-kun. Why don’t you take a more active interest in your school life?’
‘What, aren’t my grades enough?’
‘No, that’s what I mean. You could be in charge of student council or something, but all I ever see you do is keep to yourself.’
‘I don’t like being in the spotlight. I just like being left alone. The test rankings I can’t do anything about, but the judo isn’t anything I’d necessarily like to share with the world.’
A probing look from Yozora. ‘Then why did you show it? Why not take up kendo instead?’
Kyousuke paused, and leaned back on his hands, thinking back to the events that had unfolded when the Lieutenant had first arrived at their school.
‘Because the decision was forced, in a sense.’
‘Forced?’
‘I’ve always done my best to stay out of trouble, Hanazawa-san. I keep my nose out of other people’s business, because it doesn’t really concern me. Back when the Lieutenant first came to our school with the government’s decision to make all the boys practice martial arts, my father had been teaching me everything he knew for almost a decade. There weren’t very many people who knew that, and the people who did said nothing about it.’
‘I don’t really see how that forced you into anything, Tsukimiya-kun.’
He took a deep breath. ‘You know there are some boys in our class that are strong, just as some boys in our class that are weak. When news of this reached us, the strong took it upon themselves to make life very difficult for the weak. To them, I must have seemed like one of the weak ones, because I had never given them any indication otherwise. I was just another young boy too smart for my own good, they thought. One boy in particular tried to bully me.’
‘Tried?’
‘I lived with it for about a week, thinking it wasn’t as bad as everyone made it out to be, until one Monday when I came to school and several pairs of indoor shoes had been filled with water, my own included. The bully’s words had turned into actions.’
Yozora’s voice was tentative. ‘What happened?’
The answer came immediately without pause or hesitation. ‘I fractured his jaw and broke his arm in three places. After that, they wouldn’t let me do kendo. Once upon a time, they would have forbidden me to even participate in gymnastics, but the Lieutenant forced me to pick judo, knowing that I would give the others something to strive toward.’
‘That’s why you’re his favorite?’
Kyousuke shrugged. ‘I never wanted any of it.’ He smiled, almost apologetically. ‘I just like to read books, that’s all.’
Yozora was staring at him. ‘You know what stood out the most to me when I came to Osaka and joined your class, Tsukimiya-kun?’
Kyousuke shook his head.
‘Everyone was so nice to one another. With the exception of Kotegawa-san’s antics, everyone seemed to get along so well with one another.’
‘And now that you’ve heard what happened, you think I’m going to ruin it?’
Yozora sighed softly and shifted closer to him. ‘No, Kyousuke,’ she said, and Kyousuke’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of his given name. ‘I think you’re the one responsible for it.’

The rainclouds seemed to reach them, and as if in defiance of the elements, the couple calmly watched the surface of the Yodo River break up into an uneven surface as the odd drop began to fall on them. A moment later, the sky seemed to open up, drenching both of them, and their nerve failed them. Quickly getting to their feet, Kyousuke grabbed Yozora’s hand—still a strange feeling—and pulled her in the direction of the nearest bridge. It was several hundred meters away, and by the time they finally reached shelter, the two of them were drenched from head to toe.

As they stood there, holding hands and shivering, Kyousuke couldn’t help but flash Yozora a sheepish smile, and she burst into laughter.
‘Perhaps I should take you home, Hanazawa-san,’ suggested Kyousuke, as he tried desperately to store the spectacular view of her wet hair and brilliant green eyes somewhere safe in the recesses of his mind.
‘Yozora.’
‘What?’
‘My name is Yozora, Kyousuke.’
Kyousuke hesitated. ‘Well, perhaps I should take you home, Yozora.’ His cheeks flushed red as he said her name.
‘No, I don’t want to go home quite yet,’ she replied, planting herself very deliberately in front of Kyousuke and affixed an intent stare up at his face, her hand still comfortably in his. Yozora clearly had no intention on going anywhere until her desires had been satisfied.

Oh dear, thought Kyousuke as the distance between them started to narrow. I think I’m in love.

* * *

The radio in the Tsukimiya kitchen was blathering on about the Empire leaving the League of Nations when Kyousuke got home, but he paid it no mind and shuffled, trancelike, past his parents, who seemed very amused at his appearance.
‘You seem pretty happy, Kyousuke. Something good happen?’
Kyousuke smiled dumbly, as he had done the entire way home.
‘That good, huh?’
‘Happy birthday, father,’ said Kyousuke, absent-mindedly, before he headed to his room.
Aya laughed. ‘The 27th is tomorrow, Kyousuke.’

Kyousuke didn’t hear her, and instead collapsed into his bed, still smiling. He was in love.


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