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Kou marvels at each new fact she learns about Chigusa; she treasures every single one, scoops them up and holds them in her palms like tiny grains of sand. Invariably, they slip through her clumsy fingers, one by one by one, but she treasures them all the same.
Yesterday, Kou learned that Chigusa prefers to walk on the left side of the road for “no reason, really. I just like this side.” They were walking along the quieter streets, where the noise of the traffic and the sea were muted by the little houses bunched up together beneath the sun.
“What’s so different about this side?” Kou asked. Her cheeks reddened as Chigusa’s hand, soft and small, all slender fingers and pink nail polish, accidentally brushed hers.
“Hmm,” Chigusa mused, oblivious as ever. “Nothing is different, I guess. It just feels like it takes less time to get where you’re going on this side, you know?”
Kou hummed slightly in agreement, counting the puffy clouds in the blue sky and wishing her walks with Chigusa lasted longer.
Today, Kou learns that, though Chigusa’s favorite color is pink, she prefers blue pens because “the ink looks better on paper than pink.” Kou asks why she doesn’t just use a pencil.
“What if you make a mistake?” she asks her, red hair falling into her eyes. The sun peeked in through their classroom windows, watching their conversation with bright eyes. Chigusa, with her soft hands and slender fingers – artist’s hands – brushes the hair away from Kou’s eyes and giggles. Such a light, warm sound. It blows through Kou’s ears like a breeze swept from the waves onto the sand.
“That’s just like you, Gou,” Chigusa says. “Such a perfectionist.”
Kou frowns at her friend’s teasing and the use of her masculine name, but her red cheeks and quick-beating heart give her away. Thankfully, Chigusa has already turned back to her notes penned in blue ink, and Kou adds another grain of sand to her collection. Today, in a classroom warmed by the sun, Kou learns that Chigusa thinks of her as a perfectionist.
Another day, another grain of sand. Chigusa’s favorite flower is lavender.
“I thought that you would prefer pink flowers,” Kou says as they walk alongside the blooming meadows and drink in the warmth of the day. They walk on the left side of the road.
Chigusa rolls her eyes, blue-green and bright as ever (Kou always is reminded of the ocean when she looks at her eyes, the ocean and the sun and both of them working in tangent to create an enchanting scene). “Just because I wear a pink hair clip doesn’t mean I’m attached to pink flowers,” she replies.
Kou smiles a bit at that, at her choice of words. Chigusa couldn’t possibly know that Kou’s heart skips a beat at every patch of pink in the earth, at every pink petal and rosy-hued palette. Although Chigusa had no way of knowing that Kou attached nearly everything lovely to her (pink flowers included).
“Pink is your favorite color, though.”
“Yeah, but lavender smells the best.”
Kou tilts her head slightly. “I don’t think I’ve ever smelled lavender.”
“Then here.” Chigusa stops walking and offers her pale wrist to Kou. “Smell my perfume.”
Kou stops as well, blushing slightly and sniffs, her nose close to touching the skin of Chigusa’s wrist. She’s careful to take only a small whiff of the perfume – can’t let her know can’t let her know – but enough of the scent still clings to Chigusa’s skin, enough to make Kou smile and close her eyes as a sound of contentment rises from her throat.
Chigusa giggles, that airy, sea-breeze sound mingling with the slightly minty, flowery smell of her perfume to create a vivid mental image in Kou’s mind. She sees a field of flowers by the sea; deep purple rows of lavender rolled out to the water’s edge like a thick carpet, stained by the sea foam. The breeze causes them to dance and sway and their fragrance joins with the salt of the sea and spreads through the air. The image brings Kou a bittersweet peace, and when she opens her eyes she mirrors Chigusa’s smile.
That night, Kou dreams of lavender fields and the sea and grains of sand falling from a pink sky.
One more grain of sand. This one is given to Kou in a hushed whisper in the dead of night, when even the stars long for sleep. They lie under the covers of Chigusa’s bed – pink, of course – and stare into each other’s eyes, and it would be romantic if only Chigusa felt the same.
“I like girls.” It’s a confession breathed out so quiet Kou can scarcely hear it. Chigusa, though quiet, speaks in an unwavering tone, but her ocean-colored eyes betray her apprehension.
Kou is stunned, but happy, so happy. She smiles and takes Chigusa’s hand in her own – the hand of an artist wrapped up in the hand of a coward. “I do too,” is all that Kou says in reply.
Chigusa giggles, her blue-green eyes bright and damp, the smell of her lavender perfume clinging to her pink bedspread. She truly is the embodiment of the sea, gentle and rough and full of life and mystery, and Kou wishes she knew how to swim.
They fall asleep with their hands linked and their foreheads resting barely a thread’s width apart, both of them counting grains of sand by the sea in their sleep.