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“Do you ever wonder?” Miki asked, rowing the boat. His hands weren’t meant for such constant work. His fingers burned, and the wood of the oars dug into his palms. It was such grueling work, and Juri hadn’t offered to take over at all yet. Still, he kept his mouth shut. He wouldn’t complain. Not to Juri.
“Wonder about what?” Juri asked, eyes shut, face tilted towards the veiled sun. He had thought they might need an umbrella, but Juri had said it’d be fine. It wasn’t warm at all, and while Miki could barely fight his shivers, Juri had the top two buttons of her uniform undone.
“What you’ll do when you’re older?” he continued. Then, he stopped rowing. “What will you do, Juri?”
“That’s not for a while,” she said, sitting up and looking at him. “I still have time.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“What will you do?” Having the question volleyed back to him was unfair. Then again, Juri was always unfair. She was the best fencer, and she made everyone practice against her, knowing she’d never lose. She had him rowing the boat, even though she knew he didn’t like it.
This boat was cheap. He didn’t know where she had gotten it from or when she’d had the time to bring it over. She was always doing something. The oar grips were rotting away, and he could feel splinters trying to bury themselves in his skin.
He started rowing again and said, “I don’t know.” And as he spoke, he could feel his face heat up. There was no need to be embarrassed. Juri knew just as little as him about the future. So, why was he embarrassed? Why did Juri look so amused?
“Then, forget about the future,” she said. “You don’t like thinking about it anyways.”
One leg hooked over the over, Juri took the oars from him and started rowing herself.
“But—”
“The future is about growing up,” she said simply. Her rows were much more fluid than his, like she’d practiced this a thousand times before. “You hate grown-ups. They’re so secretive. They look down on you.”
“Juri, stop it, please.”
The boat turned and turned and turned, and Juri made it so. She spun them around and around until Miki felt nausea overcome him, and he stuck his head between his knees to find a fixed point. The wood looked a little thin at one spot, and without thinking too much about it, he reached out and poked the floor of the boat.
“They would look down on me, too,” Juri muttered.
“Would?” His nail scratched idly against the thin spot. It was smooth like the keys of his piano, so different from the coarse grain of the rest of the boat. How did it get like that? And would it break if he pressed down on it just right?
Juri sighed, and Miki, without much else to do, sighed, too.
The boat stopped spinning. He looked up at her. Juri always looked so sad to him. He wondered—just for a moment—if he ever looked sad to her, but Juri was just a few steps away from being a grown-up. She thought he was childish. And naïve. She thought his milkshake before bed was silly and that he should learn a new song.
“I think you should buy a new locket,” he said unthinkingly.
“I think we’ve been out here long enough,” she said, taking off her shoes and socks. Miki did the same. There was no point in ruining their clothes. They both rolled up their pant legs, stepped out of the boat with their shoes and socks in hand, and walked to the edge of the inflatable pool.
“I think we should leave this for Nanami,” Miki said, grabbing a towel from their table.
“Oh? You think she’d enjoy it?” Juri buttoned her uniform jacket up again. She patted out any potential creases, put on her shoes and socks, then fixed her pants.
“No.” Miki didn’t bother with his shoes and socks, just held onto them as they descended to the school below.