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“Shiho, it’s gonna be fine,” Ichika said gently, pulling up to the front of the tea shop, as her GPS demanded, and glancing at Shiho over her shoulder as her car rolled to a slow stop, right next to a clearly marked No Parking sign. “She’s gonna love you, okay? She’s gonna… you’re gonna have a great time.”
Shiho sighed, resting her forehead against her knuckles. “I don’t even know if, like. Ugh.” She peeked over at Ichika’s perfectly attentive concerned expression, hands still on the steering wheel, nodding slowly like someone's therapist— which was somehow working to convince Shiho to keep talking. “Do I want her to remember everything from when we were little? Do I want, like..? Does she still know me? Or do I want this to be something totally new? Because, like… I don’t know. Maybe if she remembers it all she’ll be biased and more likely to still like me, but…” She groaned, burying her face in her hands. “What if she hates me?”
Ichika sighed. “Shiho, she wouldn’t have agreed on a date with you if she hated you. And I don’t think Saki-chan has it in her to hate anyone at all.”
“I’m so fucking stressed,” Shiho grumbled, still muffled by the heels of her hands. “Thank you for driving me.”
“Of course,” Ichika replied, a kind smile audible in her voice. “Just call me when you’re ready to go. I won’t be too far away.”
Shiho nodded, taking a deep breath before grabbing her bag and summoning the confidence to open the car door and step out onto the curb.
She recognised Saki as soon as she saw her.
Even regardless of the hair and the eyes, Shiho probably would’ve been able to identify Saki just by the way she was sitting— slouched in a large plush chair with her cheek cradled in one palm and her elbows on the table, looking at something on her phone with a smile— but she barely seemed to have changed at all since the last time Shiho saw her. Her proportions were a little different, maybe; she’d sort of grown into her adorably huge eyes, and she dressed a little more maturely, but she had her hair in the same twintails that Shiho saw in every picture of them as kids, still toeing the line between textured and messy, still tipped with a bright pink at the bottom. Shiho couldn't help herself from smiling, despite her hands starting to shake as she walked across the store. She’d missed Saki more than she’d been able to fully acknowledge. It was weirdly comforting to see her again and realise she’d hardly changed.
“Hi,” she said softly, easing into the chair across from Saki and setting her bag down by her feet. “Thank you for agreeing to meet up again.”
Shiho wasn’t sure what had finally convinced her to bite the bullet and send Saki a message asking if she wanted to meet somewhere and talk. Ichika mentioned her often enough that Shiho had a pretty decent idea of what had been going on in Saki’s life the past little while, and Instagram seemed to love constantly trying to convince Shiho to add Saki to her list of friends. It wasn’t like they were completely unaware of each other’s existence. More like… unconcerned. No reason to care about each other more than any other random stranger wandering around Shibuya. At least, that was probably how Saki saw Shiho.
How Shiho saw Saki, on the other hand…
Saki nodded, setting her phone face-down on the table and folding her hands. “Of course! It was really nice to hear from you after all these years!”
Shiho bit her tongue, trying to stop herself from reading too far into Saki’s words. Saki wasn’t the type of girl to make petty digs disguised as pleasantries. Shiho would know.
“So, uh… what did you want to get?” Shiho asked, reaching across the table for the menu. “We could share a pot, or each get something of our own… I’ll pay.”
“Awww!” Saki smiled even wider, blushing a bit. “You don’t have to do that!”
Shiho shrugged, trying to conceal her own grin. “I want to,” she replied, eyes firmly locked on the list of green teas lest she lose her grasp on her dignity. “I’m the one who asked you here, after all. It’s just manners.”
“So polite,” Saki teased, and Shiho could hear the giggle in her voice. “I didn’t know Shiho-chan had that in her!”
The world seemed to stop for a moment. Shiho’s eyes went wide, the tea list sliding out of her hands.
Shiho-chan.
Had her heart always beat so goddamn loud? Shiho wasn’t sure.
I didn’t know Shiho-chan had that in her!
And of course Saki didn’t seem to notice a thing.
It was really nice to hear from you!
Saki was still talking. Shiho swallowed hard, doing her best to remember how to breathe like a normal person and glancing up to actually look Saki in the face. She was so chill. So calm. So collected. Definitely not freaking out over being on a date with a girl she’d missed like hell but been certain had hated her guts for the past decade and getting called Shiho-chan less than three minutes in.
“So, if you’re okay with it, I think maybe I wanna do that?”
“Um.” Shiho coughed, trying to smile despite almost certainly having already made herself seem like a total doofus. “Yeah. Whatever you want.”
“Great!” Saki slid the menu a tiny bit towards Shiho, finger lingering in the middle of the page. “Since I decided what we were gonna have to drink, kinda, how about you pick what kind of tea we have?”
Even upside down, Shiho could tell what Saki was pointing at. Gong Fu Cha Dragon Balls. 150ml gaiwan & free refills. ~8 to ~16 steeps. ¥1800.
You’re fine, Shiho. It’s just tea.
“These all look great,” Shiho said, pulling the menu towards her with both hands and scanning the options without really reading a thing. “Do you like green tea, or..?”
Saki smiled again. “Whatever you want! I’m okay with whatever. You said you really loved this place, right? I trust you!”
Shiho nodded, going over the list again and attempting to actually process the words. It was true that she frequented this tea shop to a point that all the employees knew her name, and she hadn’t had to look at a menu to know what she wanted in ages, but she’d never actually turned to this page. She hadn’t had gongfu in years. The opportunity had just… never arisen. And it wasn’t like she had any reason to go out of her way for it. No special preference. Certainly no special memories.
“This first step is called the rinse, OK? Watch carefully now. I’m going to pour— Saba, please stop trying to eat that.”
Saki wasn’t here to listen to Shiho’s bittersweet childhood bullshit.
The last time she’d had gongfu had probably been while Shiho and Saki and Ichika and everyone were still friends. So… more than ten years. More than half her life ago. Would she even remember how to pour it?
“Now, it’s hot, so hold it by the rim, and don’t pour higher than this line…
She could practically feel her grandfather’s rough hands laying over her knuckles, guiding her fingers to the right spot.
…and be sure you secure the lid so we don’t have any accidents.”
She would know. It didn’t matter how long it had been. Her Papa had never forgotten, and neither would she.
She cleared her throat, trailing her fingertips over the page and leaning a bit closer to Saki, rotating the menu so Saki would be able to read. “How does this one look? The tangerine shou mei? Or if you want something lighter, we could try the jasmine.”
“Huh. Is this one sweeter?”
Shiho craned her neck, squinting to see what Saki was looking at. “The shu long zhu? Probably, but that stuff’s rich.”
“Expensive, too,” Saki murmured. “Okay. I trust you. Let’s get the one you want.”
Shiho smiled, tucking the menu under her arm. “Alright. I’m gonna go order.” She trusted Saki to keep an eye on her bag while she walked up to the counter and made small talk with the cashier, picking out a cute tea pet she thought Saki might like. She was fine. She wasn’t gonna cry. She was just another Japanese girl having fancy Chinese tea because it was fun and it tasted nice.
“We’re gonna be here a while, don’t worry. Open tab. Just one gaiwan, but could I get two cups?”
She headed back to where Saki was sitting, adorable as ever, just watching her walk with her chin in her hand. “Oh, Shiho, um… like I said, I don’t really know how to do this, so is it okay if you’re in charge of the actual tea-water stuff?”
Shiho nodded. “I’d be happy to.”
She wasn’t gonna cry. She was gonna do it all just as her Papa had taught her, and everything was gonna be fine.
“I want all of you to be careful, okay?” Softly, Papa put a shallow bowl and a wooden tray on the table between Shiho and her sisters, stacking one on top of the other and setting four cups by its side. “This water is really really hot, so Papa’s gonna pour it to start with, but I want all of you to try feeding the tea pet, okay?”
“What’s that?” Saba asked, reaching across the table for the tightly rolled ball of dry leaves sitting in one of the small teacups. Papa smiled, gently grabbing for Saba’s hand before she could touch anything.
“That’s the dragon ball,” he said. “We call it Longzhu. It’s gonna make the tea for us, but right now it needs water before it can work.”
“Ooooh.” Saba nodded sagely. “Is it yummy?”
“The tea will be yummy,” Papa explained, “but Longzhu isn’t for eating.”
“What’s this guy?” Shiho interrupted, poking at the round clay bird sitting on the tray. “He looks funny.”
“He does look a little funny, doesn’t he?” Papa patted the bird on the top of its head, turning it a bit so its eyes and beak were facing Shiho. “He’s our tea pet. He drinks the tea with us and gives us good luck when we feed him.”
“I wanna feed him!” Shizuku said, grinning at the little bird. “He’s so cute!”
“He is,” Papa said, setting the teacup with the dragon ball in it next to the bird. “Alright. This is hot water, so be really, really careful, but Papa’s gonna show you how to pour a cup. We’ve been doing this for a long time, and it means a lot to a lot of us. Even though we live here and Mommy’s from Japan, I don’t want you girls to forget you’re from China too, okay?”
Shiho nodded, leaning forward over the table as she watched her Papa fill the teacup with water and cover it with the lid. Her parents had always made sure that she and her sisters knew about their families and how Papa had moved from China when Daddy was still a baby. Shizuku and Saba didn’t seem to care about it much, but Shiho thought it was super cool, and so did all the kids in her class when she told them she was specialer than them. She was gonna pay so much attention. Papa would never have to worry about her forgetting anything he taught her.
The longer Shiho and Saki sat there making small talk while they waited for the gongfu set, the clearer it became to Shiho that everything she’d thought about Saki all these years was true. She had a part-time job at a cafe that she loved, because of course she did, and by the way she talked about it it was obvious to Shiho that every single customer Saki served was one of the luckiest people in the world to experience Saki’s dedication and genuine excitement over her work. She was smart, and she seemed to be busy pretty much all the time, and if she wasn’t hanging out with Ichika or her coworkers, she had an apparently endless list of close friends she spent time with. Shiho was definitely less surprised now that Saki had agreed to their date. It seemed to her like Saki would accept an outing with a chimpanzee if it gave her something to do.
This grown-up Saki was a sweetheart, a social butterfly and a genius, just like she had been when they were little. What about grown-up Shiho? An off-putting bass guitar nerd in too many bands?
“Saki, what did you think was gonna happen when you came here?” Shiho leaned back in her chair, wincing a bit at Saki’s obvious immediate confusion. “I mean— sorry, that sounded weird. Like. What did you expect from me?”
“Well, it’s been a long time,” Saki said. “But I know we used to be really good friends before everything, and Icchan mentions you sometimes, so I knew you were still around. I was always too nervous to approach you, though. I mean, you… you kinda seemed kinda angry at everyone. So I was worried I would upset you if I tried to ask you to hang out.” She shrugged, pulling a Sanrio-patterned pen out of her bag and examining it. Anything to avoid Shiho’s eyes. “Plus, I thought it would be weird, maybe? Or at least you would think it was weird. So. I really liked it when you texted me!”
Shiho nodded slowly, taking in everything Saki was saying. “I mean, I’m glad. I kinda felt that way about you too, y’know? So I’m glad we got to hang out again.”
“I always thought you were so cool when we were little.” Saki smiled shyly at Shiho. “You were so smart and always knew what to do all the time. Really easy to talk to. And you knew how to do everything.”
Right. And now you’re doing nothing but band rehearsals with people you don’t even like, and—
“And it’s like nothing changed.”
“What?”
Saki looked down at the table, messing with the ends of her hair, obviously embarrassed. She was so goddamn cute. “I really missed you.”
“I— I mean… thank you.” Would now be a good time to reach for Saki’s hand? Was that coming on too strong? “I missed you too. Um. I think our tea is ready.”
Shiho used to visit her Papa once a month or more. Her dad would pile her and her sisters into the backseat, nearly crammed in each other's laps until Shizuku got old enough to sit in the front, and almost every time they saw each other, they’d walk into Papa’s house and he’d greet his granddaughters with a hug and some candy and an already warmed up gongfu set on the table. All three of them loved it, enchanted by the process and the pretty teacups and the cute clay pets, and eventually Papa had a special tea pet for each of them: a bunny for Shiho, a little bear for Saba and a pretty white swan for Shizuku. All Shiho’s cousins were boys, on her dad’s side at least, and Papa doted on his only granddaughters like they were his own.
She hadn’t had gongfu since she and Saba were nine, maybe ten, just a couple weeks before Papa was crossing the street in front of a too-excited driver. They didn’t even have to take him to the hospital to look at him. It was obvious he was dead.
Shiho’s dad and his sisters ended up in charge of Papa’s stuff, and whichever one of the girls ended up with the gongfu set clearly didn’t give a single shit about it because they hardly looked at it before selling it online for some extra cash. And that was it. She’d never sought it out again. She saw other people drinking it, sometimes, walking past restaurants with Saba on the way to school, and in the early days Saba would start crying when she caught sight of a tea pet or a bag of longzhu, but they still never talked about it.
Her hands shook as she carefully set the gongfu set on the table, slightly adjusting the gaiwan so it sat level in the tray. “I got you this little fish,” she said, glancing up at Saki with the bright koi tea pet in her outstretched palm. “I thought you’d think it was cute.”
Saki gasped in delight, taking the tea pet from Shiho and turning it around in her hands. “I do!”
Shiho smiled, sitting down and pushing the gongfu set slightly towards Saki, taking the lid off the gaiwan and grabbing the pitcher. “Alright. The first thing we need to do is open up the leaves, so… hold on, put the little guy right here and I’ll show you what to do.”
Saki watched with wide eyes as Shiho talked her through how long the ball would need to steep during the rinse and then how to agitate it so the water got to all the leaves. “Is it gonna burn me when I grab it?”
“No,” Shiho replied softly, her Papa’s voice echoing in her mind. “Hold it by the rim like this, and don’t overfill it to make sure it doesn’t spill on you.”
“Okay.” Saki stared determinedly at the gaiwan, slowly adjusting her grip around the lid, occasionally glancing at Shiho to make sure she was still doing it right. “Okay…”
“Yeah,” Shiho said. “Now push down on the lid with this finger…”
“It’s gonna be a little tricky to pick this up for the first time, so I’m gonna show you.” Papa stood up, looking at each of his granddaughters to make sure they were still watching. “Grab it with your thumb and one of your little fingers like this, and then push down on the top. Here, Shizuku, try it.”
“Okay.” Shizuku squinted at the gaiwan, slowly folding her fingers around it until Papa hummed in approval and moved the next cup closer to her.
“Hold it just like that and then pour it in. And we’re not gonna drink this one, okay? This one is for him. And then after that, Shiho, I want you to try pouring the next steep into the gaiwan.”
“I think I got it,” Saki said. “So now what do we do with this?”
“This is the rinse,” Shiho replied. “When I was little, and, uh— um, sorry, I used to drink gongfu with my sisters when we were younger. Our grandpa taught us, and we were really little the first time.” The little glass cup trembled in her hand, its edges going a bit blurry as Shiho did her best to take a deep breath. She was not gonna cry. “When I was little, Saba tried to drink the rinse the first time Papa let her do it herself, and Papa freaked out because he takes it really seriously— he really, really loves gongfu— and you’re not supposed to do that. So the rinse all goes to this little guy.” She bowed her head, trying to super subtly wipe her eyes with the back of one hand while she tapped on the tea pet with the other. “We’re not gonna drink this one.”
“That’s perfect, Shiho. Good job.”
“But there’s leaves!”
Papa chuckled, turning his attention to Saba. “You’re right, Saba, but I’m gonna show you something else now. Shiho, pour cups for your sisters, and make sure you leave a little in the cha hai, this glass here. Outside China they usually call it a fairness pitcher, or something similar, but we’re gonna call it cha hai, okay? And all the leaves are still in there. See that?”
Shiho handed full cups to Saba and Shizuku and then set down the glass. “Did I do it right?”
“Yes.” Papa picked up the pitcher and swirled it around. “This isn’t enough for a full cup, and it’s full of leaves, so what we’re gonna do now…” He put the pitcher down in front of Shizuku. “Shizuku, you can feed the pet again, and he likes the leaves, so we give them all to him.”
Saki was too focused on the tea process to notice Shiho crying. Probably. Shiho wasn’t too experienced in first dates, but even then, she was pretty sure sobbing her eyes out was a bad plan. So she was gonna pull herself together, and then pour Saki the first steep, and then everything was gonna be fine.
She picked up the pitcher of hot water again, gesturing for Saki to take the lid off the gaiwan. “See how it’s a little more open now?”
Saki leaned closer, eyes wide in excitement. “Woah! Yeah, you’re right!”
“I know I’m right,” Shiho chuckled. “I was taught by the best. So what you’re gonna do is… well, I’m gonna pour, and then you’re gonna give it twenty or thirty seconds to steep before you pour it into the cha hai, right here, and then from there you want to pour from the cha hai into the teacups. And if you have any left in the pitcher after we both get cups, you feed the pet again.”
“Okay!” Saki sat and watched Shiho fill and cover the gaiwan, tapping a finger on the table til she reached 25. “I pour it now, right?”
“Yeah,” Shiho said. “Remember how I showed you?”
Saki nodded, narrowing her eyes in concentration as she reached for the gaiwan. At first, she’d only wanted to try the dragon ball thing because it sounded cool, and all the brews seemed really tasty on the menu. But Shiho seemed to be really into it, and Saki was determined to impress.
“Not quite like that,” Shiho said softly. And then, before Saki had time to think about it or even look Shiho’s way, Shiho was standing next to her and Shiho’s hand was on top of hers, her fingers gently curving over Saki’s, the skin of her palm soft on the back of Saki’s knuckles. Saki’s heartbeat quickened. Shiho was nearly whispering in her ear now. “You want to hold this side with this finger.”
She nodded again, adjusting her hand according to the pressure Shiho was putting on it. “Good. Now hold tight with your fingertip here and let your pinky kind of float off to the side.”
Saki did her best to do what Shiho was telling her, shifting her grip until Shiho, apparently satisfied with the security of the lid, let her go.
“Do you remember when we had that band when we were kids, in elementary school?”
Saki nearly dropped the gaiwan in surprise. “Wh— I mean, yeah. Yeah! I didn’t think you’d remember that!”
“This whole… this reminds me of when I was trying to teach you the guitar, and I was grabbing your fingers and moving them to put your hands in the right spot.” Shiho was smiling, but there was something else in her eyes. “We were so little.”
Saki paused for a moment, her face falling as she noticed tears on Shiho’s lashes.
“Shiho-chan?”
“Hm?”
“Did I make you sad?” Saki hoped she hadn’t done anything to upset Shiho, but she wasn’t sure what else could’ve been the problem, so… “I’m sorry, Shiho-chan. I honestly don’t really understand why we stopped talking, but I hope I didn’t…”
“No,” Shiho murmured. “It’s okay. It’s not you. I’m having a really good time, I promise.” She glanced at Saki. “It’s really nice to see you again.”
“So…” Saki wasn’t quite sure what she was doing, but she slid out of her chair, inching closer to Shiho until they were nearly face to face. “What..?”
Shiho sighed. “I haven’t done this for a while.”
Saki only stared at her.
“I learned from my Papa. And I haven’t actually… done all this since he…”
“Ohhh,” Saki breathed. Shiho shrugged, the way she always did when they were little and she was trying to convince people she didn’t care, but Saki knew better. She reached for Shiho’s hand, gently wrapping her fingers around Shiho’s palm. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Shiho said. “It’s good. I— I meant it when I said I was having a good time. I just miss him.”
“That’s okay.”
Shiho shrugged again, keeping her hand in Saki’s while she wiped her face on her shoulder. “That steep is probably ready now. Well. Definitely ready now. It might be a little bit too bitter for you.” Her voice shook as she stared at the gaiwan. “Papa always liked it that way.”
“You said it’s custom to pour cups for everyone else before yourself, right?” Saki gently detached herself from Shiho and sat back down, slowly picking up the gaiwan and pouring the steep into the cha hai, only hesitating for a moment before filling both teacups, sliding one over to Shiho and the other to rest in front of an empty chair. “That one can be for him.”