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It is Shinobu’s household rule that nobody ought to put their feet up on the furniture, it is carved in the foundation of this house. That, and bedtimes, and the order in which everyone bathes–the order in which everyone used to bathe.
Shinobu’s unpainted toes curl on the upholstery of the couch, her bloodless fingers wrenching at her hair.
Everything else is wrung out of her, all of her shivers and sobs. She is still. She is thinking of nothing but battered skin, paling by the second, she is thinking of the kind officer who asked her softly Kawajiri-san, is this your husband?
Yes, it is. It is and is not. It is whatever her husband has become, these past few weeks, so mysteriously gallant.
Now there are tire tracks, road rash all over that girlishness, that twitterpated thing that he had made her.
Shinobu is thirty-three, no more or less, and she has never planned a funeral.
She knows she shouldn’t think of that. She knows that she should–she should know how long she’s been sitting here, or what time it is, she knows that she should be summoning her brave face. That she should be looking after Hayato.
He has always been solitary at times like this, a scarce presence shut in his room.
Still, it is only right that Shinobu should check in on him. That she should offer him succor and sustenance, a scrap of stoicism.
She should be offering all of that to herself. It’s what Kosaku would have wanted.
The new Kosaku. The warm one.
Shinobu sighs, heavy. The inertia is too great. Her body will not move.
The doorbell goes, just then, and the cheeriness of it makes Shinobu want to howl.
“Go away,” she mumbles. If it is the landlord, if it is the busybody old neighbor–oh, she could throttle them.
The doorbell chirps again. Shinobu’s fingernails steeple against her scalp, clawing crescents.
It is on the fourth chime that Shinobu is convinced that whoever is there is not leaving. That they will not leave until she–until she chases them out with a broom.
And she will, she is rising, her bare feet on the floorboards slap disdain.
She catches herself in the foyer mirror. A pall is over her, she is wild in the hair and the eyes.
Shinobu cares, and hates that she cares, and opens the door nonetheless.
It is not the landlord. It is not the busybody neighbor.
It takes a second, through the red swell of her eyes, to remember that this is Hayato’s teacher.
“Sensei,” she manages, the words slough from her lips like a melting glacier. “Is something wrong with Hayato?”
Sensei–Higashikata-sensei? Yes, of course, she remembers. Higashikata-sensei, because the old neighbor never stops going on about what a disgrace it is, that a tart like Higashikata should be responsible for the younger generation–yes, yes, Shinobu has heard enough.
She does not have the time for this. She does not have the bones for this, she is crumbling, she will buckle and slump right here on her front stoop, and God and Higashikata-sensei and everyone will see.
Higashikata-sensei just smiles, bright and gentle as the dawn. “There’s nothing wrong with Hayato-kun per se,” she says, coolly.
“I’m not here as Hayato-kun’s teacher,” Higashikata-sensei explains. Slowly, free of judgment. As she might speak to a student, a wayward little scholar who cannot remember the strokes of some kanji. “I’m here to see you personally, Kawajiri-san.”
Kawajiri-san. It is warm over her, she wears it like the time–so many years ago, now–when she was cold outside the cinema and Kosaku offered his overcoat.
Lost, Shinobu nods her head.
Higashikata-sensei holds out the parcel she’s carrying–an enormous tupperware, awkward with uneven weight.
“These are for you,” she says. “I made them–they don’t let you stay at the hospital all day, even if it is your son in there.”
It’s just then that Shinobu sees how harrowed Higashikata-sensei looks–the grey beneath her eyes, the thin bitten skin of her lips. The lines on her face, carved deep, unsleek without makeup.
She is trying to find the syllables that make I am sorry to hear that, or any such courtesy, but Higashikata-sensei won’t let her stand there and fumble.
“My Josuke’s a tough kid,” she says, summoning a rickety smile, “so you don’t need to worry about that at all. And neither do I.”
Higashikata-sensei is pleading with herself, even now.
Shinobu understands.
“What you need to worry about is you and yours. I figured you wouldn’t feel like cooking, you know? And I didn’t want to just mope around the house, so I made up some croquettes–listen, Kawajiri-san, I’m not a chef.” Higashikata-sensei’s laughter is forced. But it is still a gift, some small conciliatory thing, and Shinobu takes it graciously.
“They might look a little busted,” says Higashikata-sensei, “but I promise you they’re tasty. And, you know–my dad passed away a few weeks ago, and these were the only things that made me feel like a person at all, so I hope they can do the same for you.”
Shell-shocked, Shinobu takes the tupperware. It is still warm, it still sends off some sign of life.
“I,” stutters Shinobu. “Uh, thank you. Really.” The words feel like sand in her mouth, fragmented, grating.
Higashikata-sensei smiles anyway. “Of course. We’ve got to stick together, you know?”
She nods her head. Nobody has stuck together with Shinobu for years.
There is a silence. She wonders, in her mind’s limping gait, what it would be like to have had Higashikata-sensei for a friend.
“But hey,” Higashikata-sensei says. Like she’s going somewhere, like she wants Shinobu to follow.
Now? With croquettes in her hands, with unexpected kindness painted on Shinobu’s brow? She would follow Higashikata-sensei anywhere.
“Listen, Kawajiri-san, I know it’s a tough time for you, but could we talk inside for a little bit? I’ve got, you know, I’ve got some stuff to tell you. Plus you probably oughtta get those croquettes in the fridge.”
Shinobu nods, soft, she staggers back. Motions Higashikata-sensei through the door.
When she’s back from stuffing the croquettes into the fridge, Higashikata-sensei has found the guest slippers, has perched herself matter-of-factly on the sofa.
Shinobu cannot muster up the strength to mind it. She can do nothing but sit down beside her, but rub her own temples, but feel the outer atmosphere of Higashikata-sensei’s warmth.
She doesn’t have to say anything.
“Look…” Higashikata-sensei’s voice is gentle, warm. Like bedsheets, like bathwater. A refuge, to take away the stains of the day. “I’m sure you’ve heard enough about your husband in the past couple days. I’m sure it hurts, and you just want to lick your wounds, you know?”
A little purse of the lips, a nod of the head.
“I just wanted to let you know a couple things. One, the story about the gas main burst–it’s not the whole thing.”
It falls on Shinobu’s shoulders like so much volcanic ash, still somehow it leaves her cold.
But there are no shivers left in her. There is nothing but the last dregs of her words, she murmurs Higashikata-sensei?
There is a hand on Shinobu’s shoulder, then. Gentle, with nails lacquered a pink that she could just fall into, that would hold her fast.
“Tomoko. I’ve never liked to stand on ceremony. But… yes. I don’t really understand it myself, Josuke is on too many painkillers to really explain and that relative of his is just impossible to talk to, but… it seems like there’s a lot going on in this town that we don’t notice.”
Six weeks ago, Shinobu wouldn’t have believed it.
But now? After Kosaku—after everything with Kosaku, the new one, the one who cooked for her and kissed her brow and… and this, coming from Tomoko? It feels true, somewhere deep and hollow and aching.
“Yeah,” she whispers. “Yeah, probably.”
Tomoko nods, her fingers curl in the fabric of Shinobu’s sweatshirt.
Well. It is Kosaku’s sweatshirt, or it was, once.
Either way, Tomoko’s hand is on her, Tomoko’s little smile is on her.
“That same guy, that–oh, he’s stiff as a board, that relative of Josuke’s, he said there was gonna be some follow-up. ‘Damage control,’ he said, from the Speedwagon Foundation. If you’ve heard of them.”
Shinobu has, vaguely. Maybe on the news.
It was always Kosaku’s thing, to watch the news. He never liked to be bothered then.
“Well. I thought, you know, I should let you know that that all was coming. That they were gonna send the damage control, whatever that means. Maybe they’ll have answers for us. Maybe they won’t, in which case I’ll do my damnedest to get it out of them, but, like. I don’t know.”
She sighs, shakes her head.
“I always thought I was the one for damage control. Higashikata Tomoko, that miserable slut, all she can do is pick up pieces. Well, I got good at picking up pieces.”
There is a pride, a righteousness to this. Something untarnished.
Shinobu is pale under its glow.
“So yeah,” Tomoko murmurs. Soft, but not diminished. “I thought I’d help you with yours. If you wanted that.”
“You know, because we gotta stick together.”
Shinobu knows. She knows, and she is covering with gratitude like poppies over ash, and somehow she is lighter.