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On a morning so young there are still stars punched like holes in the sky, Ukai finds a series of mysterious cavities in his family’s soybean field and thinks indignantly that alien abduction is too cliché a way for a farmer’s son to die.
He would never admit it, but the soybean field creeps him out worse than any horror movie he’s ever seen. If he worked afternoons with his old man, or if the thick of trees clustered on the far end of their property didn’t bounce back sound in such obnoxiously eerie fragments, then he’s sure the field wouldn’t bother him. But he works mornings, alone, and the one time he suggested chopping down the trees on their property for firewood, his mother reminded him they don’t have a fireplace. The next day the wind bent through said trees whistling like a vengeful ghost.
(Grade-A horror movie fodder, sure, but Ukai doesn’t dwell on things he can’t change. He resigns himself to Pavlovian discomfort when he stocks soybean products on the shelves in Sakanoshita.)
Anyway, the cavities. They’re too big and too intentional to be any of the usual rodents. There are four or five holes, maybe a foot in diameter and half as deep, scattered between the rows of plants. Meaning whatever creature dug them had no interest in soybeans. Meaning it’s probably a carnivore.
A drop of sweat rolls off the end of his nose into the dirt at the bottom of the hole.
So yeah, his first thought is aliens. It’s passé, but it’s always gotten to him, B-movie farmers abducted, experimented on, dismissed as crazy by the big city police when they reappear months later wandering naked and stark-raving alongside a country highway. Ukai can’t comment on the existence of extraterrestrials, but he can admit he handles late-night made-for-TV sci-fi poorly.
His second thought is ugh, at himself. For someone who believes in next to nothing, his superstitious leanings sure are trivial.
He peels back his gloves to feel around the soil at the bottom of the holes. Cool and wet. Wholly, embarrassingly dirt-like; he’s not sure what clues he thought he could find there. He runs a hand down his face, smudging dirt across his brow.
At the very least he’s right to be worried if some invasive species has found its way to Karasuno. If the creature ( animal , he corrects himself) isn’t indigenous to the area, it could wreck a whole season’s crops.
So it would be irresponsible to throw up his hands and assume the creature is just passing through. Carnivorous or terrestrial or bloodthirsty or not, Ukai resolves to get a jump on whatever thing dug these holes.
He spots a sixth cavity a few rows over, then a seventh. He pulls his gloves back on, wields his spade like a weapon, and follows the holes. His steps are cautious in the impenetrable, predawn haze. Paranormal Detective Ukai —that’s a B-movie he could get behind.
His investigation takes him to the creepy forest on the end of the property. The holes are fewer and farther between out here, just enough to lure him into the thick of the trees. If he really is a character in a sci-fi-mystery, he deserves to go out for lacking genre sense.
It’s even cooler in the copse. There’s rustling to the left, and the sound of metal jingling. He feels an unbalancing mix of justified and alarmed, but his feet follow the noise. Whatever it is, it sounds very alive and very unlike the chipmunks he’s used to dealing with. On the other side of a fallen trunk, something moves, and Ukai leaps for it.
The culprit has its nose in the dirt, its paws plastered with wet leaves.
Oh , he thinks. Disappointment overwrites fear. It’s just a dog.
“Found you,” sings a voice from behind.
Ukai leaps a foot in the air and mutters well, fuck me.
Takeda half-collapses laughing, supporting his side on a tree, “Oh my god—” stumbling over to Ukai “—I’m so sorry—” clamping a hand on his shoulder “—I didn’t mean to—” trying desperately not to laugh at how Ukai nearly just pissed himself. “Wow, what a colorful sentence to hear before sunrise. Good morning, Ukai-kun.”
Ukai straightens, which is only half-possible with Takeda using his shoulder as support.
“Sensei. Good morning.”
“Is it?” Takeda asks, still gasping for air. “You nearly just had a heart attack.”
“Well,” Ukai says. “Thanks to you.”
“You don’t need to be so polite to someone who almost just killed you.”
“I didn’t die.”
“I said almost .” Takeda finally removes his hand from Ukai’s shoulder, which burns as strangely as his face. Takeda motions for his dog. “This is Genji. He’s gotten good at running away lately, and, unfortunately, I’m no match for him. Say hi, boy.”
The dog sniffs at his shoes. “We’ve been introduced,” Ukai grumbles. “Why are you out this early, anyway?”
“I’m not a big sleeper.”
“You don’t say.”
“I really am sorry for scaring you, you know.”
Ukai dips his head, hoping it might hide his burning face. “Sure you are.”
“Are you always this insincere before breakfast?”
“I’m not being—insincere.”
“How convincing.”
“I’m not,” Ukai insists, a little more petulantly than he’d like to.
“Walk with me and Genji?” Takeda offers, as a truce.
“I’m working, technically.”
“Oh,” Takeda says, looking genuinely sorry for the first time that morning. “I didn’t mean to impose—”
Ukai shrugs. “Nah. I don’t think I could get much done. My mom’s always trying to get me to take a day off anyway.”
“Oh,” Takeda says. “Good.”
“Good,” Ukai repeats.
Genji the dog barks. Ukai wonders if it means good , too.
As they make their way out from between the trees, Ukai notices for the first time that Takeda-sensei actually does look pretty frazzled. He probably was chasing after the dog for a while. It makes him feel strangely less self-conscious about his dirt-caked boots and overalls, but it also makes him uneasy. Like they’ve skipped ten steps in their relationship—friendship—straight from dimly lit izakayas to owning a dog together.
They reach the road. There’s no sidewalk; just a stretch of grass on either side of the empty highway. Takeda doesn’t speak except to tell Genji to stop pulling on the leash so hard, and Ukai finds himself sneaking glances at his coworker. He’s never seen Takeda outside of team-related activities, and he’s gotten used to his crappy-track-jacket-and-dress-pants ensemble. Surely that’s why looking at him now, with his hair sleep-mussed and his glasses a little crooked—surely that’s what’s throwing him off this morning.
The sun starts to burn away the morning fog, and Ukai feels his shaky hands warming up at last. He wishes Takeda would start a conversation, or that he knew how to start one, but he’s never considered himself good with words and Takeda is so great at them.
Ukai, on the other hand, struggles to say what he means. He wishes that he and a hundred other things were different as they walk through the pristine rural landscape. Wonders what he did in a past life not to have been awarded an ounce of conversational ability in this current one. Curses the way sound gets trapped between mountains and the way thoughts get trapped between his ears, never finding its way out.
They come to a vending machine. Takeda reaches out a hand to Ukai’s elbow to get him to stop walking. It’s effective in that it straight-up short-circuits his brain. He’s still jumpy, he thinks, from the mysterious holes in the soybean field. His hands shake worse; he compulsively lights a cigarette.
Takeda punches a button on the machine. “Coffee?”
“I don’t drink caffeine.”
Takeda’s eyes flicker to Ukai’s cigarette, but he doesn’t say anything. Ukai feels even more agitated. The dog barks at nothing, and he almost leaps out of his skin.
Ukai takes a deep breath. He notices a yellowing paperback sticking out of the pocket of Takeda’s cargo jacket. “What’s that?”
“ The Legend of the Kokura-Diary . And other stories,” he adds with a smile.
He studies Takeda. “You teaching that?”
“Not really. They’re good, but they’re mysteries. I was going to share them with the third-years since we’re ahead of the curriculum—”
Ukai’s not tall, not really, but he’s got five inches on Takeda, as many as they’ve got between them with how close they’re standing. Maybe five inches isn’t as much as he thought.
“—but, to tell the truth, I’ve already been asked to stop teaching detective fiction a few times before—”
His cargo jacket is the same color as the track jacket he wears every day, but the sleeves are boxy around his shoulders and too long.
“—and I’ve already read it a hundred times anyway. So do you want to borrow it?”
“Yeah,” Ukai says, without thinking. Then, “You look like Radar O’Reilly.”
Takeda frowns. “Who?”
“Never mind,” Ukai says. “Comb your hair.”
“Oh.” His hands fly up to his head self-consciously. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Ukai grumbles, hands buried in his overall pockets, and he hopes Takeda doesn’t think his attitude problem is Takeda’s fault. Because really he wants to kick his own ass right now for how weird and rude and awkward he’s being toward his coworker. And for no reason.
No reason , he thinks defensively, as Takeda hands him the book, thumb passing over his shaking palm.
Okay, well. Ukai may be out of touch with his feelings, but he’s not that out of it.
Takeda tugs on Genji’s leash. “Well, this is close to my house, so I’m going to go. I’ll see you at practice this afternoon, Ukai-kun,” he says. He straightens his glasses, smiles uncertainly—but he doesn’t look mad. He actually looks—kind of hopeful. And Ukai stands wide-eyed and with his cigarette dangling from his mouth and he thinks there’s a chance that his own face might look the same way.
He barely remembers to wave before Takeda and his dog are shrinking down the road. I have a crush , he thinks, and he feels vaguely ill and kind of excited and like maybe 26 isn’t as old and wise as he’s convinced himself. A big, stupid crush. Shit.
This is probably a bad thing.
This is definitely a bad thing.
He tries desperately to consider a universe in which this isn’t a bad thing.
Ukai Keishin has a crush, and as he thumbs through the dog-eared, yellowing pages of The Legend of the Kokura-Diary , he thinks about being loved by a person who can love a book this way, and maybe, maybe, maybe falling in love isn’t so sappy that he can’t find a way to stomach it.