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❦
On a warm summer day, Suzume steals the first kiss from Mamura, and it tastes sweet of vanilla and hope and yearning.
Summer comes to them warm and lazy, which is how Suzume feels as she wanders with Mamura. They are aimless in destination, content to simply share each others’ company and browse the windows of the bustling streets.
Sometimes she still can’t get quite used to Tokyo, with the congested markets and throngs of people, crowds of many who move as one. She thinks back to her village in the country and how much she has changed since then, the way she isn’t entirely sure she belongs there any more than she belongs here without sticking out.
But here, hand in hand and comfortable with Mamura, here she thinks she might belong.
They don’t always hold hands. Sometimes they are perfectly content to walk side by side. But sometimes the backs of their hands brush, their fingers meet, and her hand folds neatly into his, held lightly and comfortably, a thing cherished and cradled. It stays a welcome surprise, always unanticipated, but always welcome.
"Ice cream!" cries out Suzume when she spots the pastel storefront ahead. She points towards it, as if Mamura could possibly miss it. "Let’s get ice cream."
The warm, dawning summer is agreeable weather for ice cream, bearing down heat on everyone with bright sunshine and cloudless skies. Mamura obliges, giving her hand a squeeze. The faint coloring across his nose and cheeks could easily be mistaken for a sunburn, almost permanent when their hands clasp. Once, Suzume had thought the blushing would stop, that his nervousness would cease and leave his cheeks without the flush, but even once he found comfort and ease, the warmth still floods his cheeks.
It’s so cute! she told him once, sincere about his shy habits.
He grumbled and flushed deeper, looking away and insisting he was not cute, this was as annoying as she.
Suzume took it for a compliment.
"Ah! It feels so nice in here!" she remarks as they make they enter the cool ice cream parlor. The blast of air condition is icy where it chases heat from her face. "It’s already so warm outside."
"It’s probably going to be a hot summer," Mamura replies with a scowl and a distaste for extreme heat.
The parlor is full of people who seem to have the same idea as them - adults with tiny families, other teens, all falling into line, pressing fingers to the display case where a rainbow of ice cream flavors is dipped into.
"There’s so many flavors!"
"Haven’t you been here before?" Mamura casts her a sidelong glance as he asks her, appraising her bright eyes in an otherwise expressionless face. But he knows better by now how to read her, by the tone of her voice and the focus of her attention, how still she marvels at things he has taken for granted - and how food might truly be her most loyal love.
"I haven’t been," she admits. "Nowhere with so many."
There’s countless colors, an entire spectrum, and that doesn’t touch the display jars of toppings, the back counter of sauce and fruits and nuts and candies. Suzume is a daughter of the sea, a fishmonger in the body of a high school student, but here is a fish out of water, full of thinly veiled delight.
Mamura’s chuckle is low and brief, but she collects it as she collects his smiles, his amusement and entertainment. If she is a daughter of the sea, he is the son of earth, surrounded by stone walls that crumble when she nears him, clad in iron strong enough to guard a soft heart and gentle spirit. But against Suzume he can never steel himself, he can never repair his wall of stone, and though his body language is uninterested, his eyes are soft when they watch her.
In the end, from the spectrum of ice cream, in hues of pink and red and white, vibrant splashes of yellow and orange and green, vivid purple and solid brown, a varying sea of creams and whites and browns, she leaves with a cone of matcha. There is no surprise that Mamura takes his vanilla bean in a dish. She thinks again on his refined palette and wonders if it’s for lack of adventure, if he cleaves to something comfortable -
But she thinks also of how he cleaves to her hand, how he cleaved to her even when it was uncomfortable and hard.
Suzume marvels at him from over her cone, as she does so often any more, and it occurs to her that while she never intended to, she hurt him so much in the past. And yet here he stands with her, sharing ice cream on a warm, summer-bathed street.
The surge of emotion crashes like a wave carrying her to sea, overwhelming and powerful. It stings behind her eyes and flushes her cheeks, her chest warm and tight. She does not know if what she feels for Mamura yet is love - instead she feels a bond, she feels a connection, she feels the way he takes care of her and the ways she has helped him. She feels her best friend, a person for whom her heart can beat. Does she even know, she has wondered, what love even is? Would it ever feel like it did with Shishio sensei?
How is she supposed to know?
But she knows in that moment that she cares so very much about a boy who lets her in his stone-built walls, a boy she has let into her own heart, curled up and nestled in all the spaces that are empty.
Maybe love is a tender ache not of pain but pure emotion. Maybe love is a boy who falls in love with a stubborn, rough girl. Maybe love is not a feeling, but a place; at the side of a gentle boy with a soft heart who has weathered every storm just to see her smile.
She forgets about the ice cream in her hand and his name is a gasp on her voice, strangled by the adoration and giddy happiness that still courses through her. It falls from her lips so unceremoniously, without intention, and his gaze finds her face in a frantic moment with eyes wide and alert.
Her fingers find his face without thought; perhaps they have always known the path to his jaw and the soft planes of his cheek, which warm to a scorching heat. Even when he flinches they don’t fall away and she rises on her toes, following instinct even when her fingers tremble against his hot skin. Throngs of people move around them, a surge of people like the surge of emotion that courses through her, but she pays them no mind even when some glance their way.
"Thank you," she breathes out, unable to put these feelings into words she can say out loud.
Mamura stands frozen, eyes bright against his scorching, dark face. “It’s only ice cream,” he says, mistaken by her gratitude.
When her mouth first meets his he stands rigid, the deer caught in her headlights, and Suzume smiles to herself as she starts pull away. But Mamura mumbles “Wait”, so low she could almost miss it, and his free hand gives her wrist a gentle tug, pulling her back in, for his mouth to properly greet hers in return. It is awkward and fumbly, a little clumsy, with fingers that tremble against each others cheeks and lips that have not yet figured out how to work in sync.
He rests his forehead against hers, neither of them yet pulling away, and his hand lingers on her cheek while his thumb traces over its curve. They stand on a crowded street, lost to their own world, and just moments after, Mamura shifts away only to pull her into a crushing hug, burying his face in her shoulder, nuzzled into her hair. The heat emanating from his face scorches and he holds her with arms that shake from emotions he cannot control.
"What did you do that for, idiot?" he asks in a voice mumbled into her hair, and Suzume holds him tight against her, relishing in the feeling of his smile pressed to her shoulder.