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A gentle breeze made the leaves of the trees that framed Araya Shrine’s clearing sway and twirl in a charming little dance. The greenery served as a sort of border between the shrine and the rest of the world, and cast a comfortable, cool shade onto the children playing below.
Past the torii gate, the rest of Rengedai distorted in the visible heat waves like a mirage.
“Rock… Paper… Scissors…!”
“...Awww…” The boy in the Yellow Owl mask whined as he looked at everyone else’s hands. He quickly cheered. “Well, Big Sis is the leader today!”
The rest of the children were similarly cheered by this- even if most of them wanted to win, whenever it was Big Sis’s turn to choose what they’d do for the day it always ended up great… As long as she didn’t try to ride bikes, or carts, or anything at all, really.
“Ehehe, I’m it!” Big Sis grinned at the rest of the children. “And it’s really lucky, too, because I actually brought something to do today!”
“Show me! Show me!” The girl in the Pink Azas mask rallied.
Big Sis kneeled down and reached into her school bag... and rummaged around... and rummaged around some more… Until she brought out a worn red box of cards.
“Betting large sums on this one will give anyone a thrill!” She gave a comical leer as the rest of the children goggled at it and gave soft oohs and aahs.
The three letters on the cover spelled out ‘UNO’.
“Ah, but we won’t be betting anything on it, of course. Ahaha.” She laughed again, then calmed. “This is a game my Dad got for me a long time ago… And it’s really fun, I’m sure you guys will like it!”
Jun leaned back a little bit, his Black Condor mask obscuring his face. “...Is it really okay if we play with these cards? If they’re special…” There was a weight in his pocket that seemed to grow heavier.
“Well, yeah, I brought them because I wanted to play.” Big Sis tilted her head to the side. “It’s one of my favorite games! None of my friends from class will play it with me anymore… Dunno why, though!”
“Well- Well, we’ll play it with you! Always!” Yellow began to wave his hands frantically.
Tatsuya- the boy in the Red Hawk mask nudged at Jun’s side. He turned to look at the other masked boy, then looked back at Big Sis.
“Ah, how exactly do we play it?” He asked.
Big Sis lifted the tab on the box, let the cards fall in one hand, then started shuffling them with practiced ease. “I’ll show you!”
She untied her school uniform’s bow and laid it out in a square on the ground, and began laying cards down for the rest of them to see...
“Uno!” Pink tittered as she placed her second to last card on the pile- a red one.
“Aaargh, I can’t believe you’re already there,” Big Sis groaned in mock frustration, placing down a red 3. “But great job, Pink!”
Tatsuya- Red Hawk and Jun both placed their cards on the pile with little fanfare, neither changing the color from red.
“Sorry, Pink, but..” It was Yellow. The pudgy boy placed down a draw four card. “I’m setting it to blue. Uno.”
“No!” Pink balled her fists up and shook them at him. “No no no no! You take that back, Yellow! You take that back right now or I’ll clobber you!”
“Ahhh, Pink is getting lively..” Big Sis whispered with a grin.
“N-No, I won’t take it back! I deserve to win too!” Yellow said, scooting back from the game circle. “Now draw four!”
“As if I’m gonna!” Pink hollered, winding up her arm.
Jun’s eyes widened under his mask as he grabbed Pink’s arm and dug his feet into the ground to hold her back- she was always a lot stronger than he expected.
“But you have to, it’s the rules. Besides, Pink..” He put a hand over the mouth on his mask and whispered to her. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”
“Hey, what did you whisper to her?” Yellow asked, and Red tilted his masked face inquisitively.
“Oh, nothing,” Jun said sweetly. Pink crossed her arms, sat back down, and picked up her four cards and sent him a conspiratory look from underneath her mask. But a conspiratory look from under the mask looked just the same as any other kind of look from under a mask.
Big Sis put a blue three down, Red, a blue seven.
Jun placed a wild card over the deck. “Red,” he said, throwing a thumbs up in Pink’s direction.
Big Sis nodded sagely. “Turnabout is indeed fair play.”
“Ohhh… No...” Yellow began to whine, looking from his one card back at the pile. He pulled a card from the draw pile and looked it over.
“Nooo…” He pulled another card.
“Noooo!!” He pulled another card, and another card, and another card, and so on… Until his hand had more cards than he’d started the game with. Yellow sniffled as he placed a red six down.
“Serves you right!” Pink shot at him, placing down a red two.
“Now, now…” Big Sis said, then placed down a red skip card and held up the final card in her hand. “Sorry, Red. Uno!”
Jun blinked, and it seemed the rest of the masked children were also surprised. They hadn’t been watching how many cards she kept in her hand- actually, now that he thought about it, hadn’t she been keeping them in one hand, layered so it would be nearly impossible to tell…?
The boy in the red mask shrugged, then nodded to Jun.
Jun glanced through his cards, squinting his eyes through the holes of his mask… Maybe this one could slow her down. He laid a green skip card over the pile- forgetting who came directly after him, as Yellow made an absolutely pitiful noise. He’d just have to hope Pink had something good from those four cards she’d drawn, maybe a green draw two or a skip, or even a reverse.
Pink tilted her head, then placed a green nine down.
Well, hopefully Big Sis didn’t have any green cards…
“...Eheh.” Oh, bother.
Big Sis slapped her last card, a wild card, onto the pile and rose up from the ground in triumph, pumping her fists. “I woooon!”
Jun let his cards fall onto the red handkerchief, and Red followed suit. Pink threw hers down with theirs, and Yellow still clung to his.
They quickly forgot their loser’s malaise as Big Sis drew back down with them and gave them such a charmingly sweet smile that they couldn’t help but clap for her and join her in her merriment.
“I didn’t see that coming at all!” Yellow exclaimed.
“I can’t believe you hung onto that wild card this whole time, Big Sis!” Pink Azas remarked. “How come you didn’t use it earlier?”
“It’s my secret strategy! ‘Don’t use your best card until you absolutely have to’. Works every time.”
“...Well, I’m sure there’s also some luck involved.” Jun said.
“Yeah… I didn’t get any…” Red said, his mask inclined down as he looked back at his cards. Jun leaned in and patted his back.
"Aww, guys, there’ll always be a next time.” Big Sis said, and then she sat right back down, and started grabbing all the cards, putting them back into the box and then back in her bag. “Anyways, what do you guys wanna do next? We could go in the caves and play base, or play shiritori, or, whatever, y’know.”
“You’re still the leader,” Jun said. His stomach suddenly gave a very loud groan. He covered it with both his hands. It’d felt empty all afternoon, but he’d pointedly been ignoring that painful little ache. “...So that means you still get to choose.”
Red turned to look at him.
He pointed at him and addressed the others. “Black’s hungry. We should eat.”
“No, I’m, I’m fine!” Jun assured the rest of them as they turned to face him. His cheeks felt hot under the mask- he didn’t want them to know there wasn’t any food at his house. “...I just didn’t have lunch, is all. I can eat when I get home!”
“He’s lying.” Red said bluntly. “He hasn’t eaten all day.”
“Huh!?” Pink exclaimed.
How’d he know?
“Is that true, Black?” Big Sis asked, concern twisting her brow. He didn’t like seeing her troubled...
Jun bit his lip and shot Red an accusing look. Though under a mask an accusing look looked just like any other look, Red seemed to get the message. He crossed his arms.
“You need to eat, Black Condor.” Red said, with all the commanding force he could muster.
“...I just forgot to have breakfast and lunch today, that’s all…”
“Sometimes I forget to eat, and it hurts…” Yellow mumbled.
“Well, well, It’s okay, guys!” Big Sis brought her hands up to calm them. “I brought lots of food anyways!” And she reached into her bag and pulled out a huge lunch box tied by a handkerchief.
“Wooaahh…” The children said as she laid it out on the makeshift surface she’d made earlier with her uniform bow, and- if she’d had the handkerchief with her lunch, then why had she used her bow…? Jun decided to stop thinking about it as she lifted the lid and revealed a veritable bounty of food.
Wrapped sandwiches, rolled eggs, octopus wieners, crab rolls, rice, and katsuobushi, and several of those little fish soy sauce containers and pickled plums, and a great variety of other side dishes as well. They all shone in the light between the dappled shadows that the trees above them cast.
“Woooaaahhh!” They said, louder this time, Pink holding her hands up to her mask, Yellow’s fidgeting.
“Go ahead, dig in, guys! There’s plenty for everyone.” Big Sis said, then reached back into her bag again. She pulled out one set of chopsticks… Two sets of chopsticks… Three, four, five- five sets of disposable wood chopsticks, and handed them out to the children, leaving the last set for herself.
They pulled them apart- (Tatsuya’s came apart wrong, uneven on one side) and Jun brought his hands together. “Thank you for this meal-” And the rest of the masked circle repeated after him.
“Mmm, this is really really really good, Big Sis!” Yellow said between mouthfuls. The masked children had all moved their masks up so that they could eat- though Jun still kept his head bowed enough so that his eyes were visible only from the bento box’s position.
The rolled egg, fluffy, and light and sweet over his palate, tasted so good he couldn’t help but sigh pleasantly. Who would’ve imagined that Big Sis was this good at cooking? She excelled at so many things; these days he wanted to be just like her when he grew up, rather than like Papa or Mama… His Papa, being so awkward, and Mama… Well. He smiled as he took another bite. “...It’s so tasty.”
Tatsuya nodded, and Jun could just barely see his little smile under the mask as he ate a piece of beef. He could feel a strange little stirring overtake the middle of his chest.
The sunlight that fell on his back suffused his shirt with such a pleasant kind of warmth- though, never growing too hot as the trees shaded them, and as that cool, gentle breeze came and passed. The warmth of the sun was as the warmth that filled his heart; the life-giving light that nurtured all living beings and fed plants through its gaze alone.
“Big Sis, you really made all this? That’s so wonderful…” Pink gazed down at the sandwich in her hands.
“Oh?” Big Sis lowered the octopus wiener in her chopsticks. “I didn’t cook any of this.”
Ah?
“What?”
The children all paused in their eating and looked at her.
“Yeah, my friend Ulala made it for me! She’s really good at cooking, right?” She ate the wiener in one bite and had to close her eyes and grin just from how good it was.
Jun was struck speechless… He began to laugh. A soft, happy bubbling kind of laugh, that Big Sis and the others joined in on, until they were all laughing.
“Y’know, if you guys ever get to meet her, you gotta tell her she’s really good at it!” Big Sis said, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye. “And that she’d make a really good girlfriend, too, and as long as you say that, then she’ll definitely make food for you!"
“High schoolers sure are weird…” Pink said, chewing her sandwich.
“Yeah… Except for Big Sis, of course.”