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“Let’s play,” he says, after almost an hour of saying nothing at all.
They’re sprawled on the floor of his room, a small mountain of homework on the table lying unfinished on the table next to them. All around them—the hum of the A/C, distant cicadas, wiggly lines in the air outside the window from the sunshine.
“Huh?” She turns her head toward him, smiling, languorous. “Play what?”
“A truth-telling game. Say something, truth or lie. Then see if your friend knows which is which.”
“What are you, twelve?” She snorts, ignoring the slightly skeptical lift of his eyebrow. She knows she’s never been able to shed a good few of her more unladylike mannerisms, but it’s gratifying to know that he doesn’t really care. “That’s a dumb game.”
“I’m bored. Come on.” He reaches for her hand, tugs gently at her fingers like the child she’s just accused him of being. “I’ll give you a gift if you call it right.”
There’s a gleam in his eye that sends a little bolt of electricity right into the pit of her stomach, and that’s enough to make all her earlier objections evaporate. “Fine, fine. But you start.”
“Okay.” He brings his hands behind his head, studying the ceiling. “When I moved away to Nagasaki, I was scared that there was this woman living in our cupboard at home. And that she only came out when mom and I weren’t around, and ate our—”
“Bluff,” she says, before he can finish. “You believed that about your house here. I remember.”
“There could have been a cupboard lady in Nagasaki too,” he protests, but it’s been years and Nagasaki feels like it’s half a world away, so he gives it to her. “Your turn.”
“I, uh.” She bites her lip; he always did say she was a bad actress. “I like bread more than anything.”
“Bullshit. You don’t like bread as much as you like me.”
“I don’t like bread as much as I like rice.” A slap on the arm. “Or cake.” Slap. “Or you, but whatever.” Slap, slap, slap—sharp sounds in the muted, slow-moving summer air, but he’s laughing too much to be hurt.
“Same difference.” His eyes roll up so far into his head she can almost imagine them hitting the back of his skull. “I think my brother makes the best curry rice in the world.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Are you calling me out?”
“No. Of course it’s true.” She rolls onto her side, props herself up on one elbow so he can see how her grin stretches from ear to ear. “But you’ll die before you tell him.”
“You know it, moron.” Kou lifts a hand, and she closes her eyes on reflex, anticipating a nose pinch or a forehead flick—they snap open again in surprise when the hand comes to rest like a butterfly against the side of her head.
Futaba looks down at him, questioning, face uncomfortably warm. Never mind that the windows are closed—summer is outside, and can’t touch them here—and they’ve got the air conditioning running on full blast, and that when they don’t speak it fills up the silence with this muffled, murmuring sound that’s almost like breath.
“I did notice you, first term,” she says. Too tentative. She already knows from the annoying smirk on his face that he doesn’t believe her. “I was just waiting for you to talk to me first.”
“That’s a lie.” There’s no bite when he says it, though. His voice is even and faintly amused, like she’s just tried to tell him a joke and while he doesn’t want to embarrass her by faking a laugh, he does appreciate the effort. He’s still holding her hair, tugs gently. “Though you’re right—I should have talked to you, probably. I did owe you, for standing you up and all.”
“You made it up to me eventually.” It’s been a few years and a good number of dates since then, spanning Sankaku Park and beyond. “Y-your turn.”
His eyes stray from her face, locking suddenly with fierce concentration on her hair—on twisting a lock deftly around his finger, twirling, untwirling, a perfect spiral.
“My mom really wanted to meet you.”
Her heart comes up into her throat and she discovers she has no idea what to say to that—has no idea what the right answer is. The room seems to spin. Does it count if you wish it were true? Can they just go back to doing homework?
“I don’t think I know that one.” Her answer, when it finally comes, is pitifully small, little more than a croak. “How about you just tell me something true?”
“It is true,” he tells her, and it is much too soft to be anything close to a lie. His hands move to her shoulders, his arms lift and draw her down toward him, so they can smile a little against each other’s mouths, so he can speak the next few words up close.
“And so is this.”