Kana paints flowers in oil behind the curtains of her room. Sunlight filters through the embroidered fabric, tinted by its colors, and scatters in bright glimmers across the canvases on the walls.
Aris, short for her full name, excels at sports and sometimes gets into fights with boys. She loves leaping out her bedroom window, sliding down the porch roof, and landing on the street in one bold motion, with a grin in her lips.
Every morning, she comes by to pick up Kana, and when she rings the doorbell, the sound tickles her inside, only because it’s the prelude to a voice she adores:
—Ohayō! —greet Kana.
—O-ha-yō! —Aris greets her back, laughing through every syllable.
On their way to school, Kana hops over the pavement tiles, two at a time, while Aris dares to flip and tumble, leaving passersby holding their breath.
Halfway down the hill, they stop. One strikes a ballet arabesque; the other takes up a batter’s stance.
—We look ridiculous —Kana says.
—Utterly ridiculous. Your tie’s crooked!
Kana straightens her friend’s tie; Aris adjusts Kana’s blazer lapels and pinches a stray wisp of bangs that curls in a little arc, as if it were almost angry.
When spring arrives, and the cherry blossoms like to pretend they’re snow, the two girls gather petals and toss them at each other, adorning the beach-sand threads of Kana’s hair and bouncing off Aris’s ponytail, which swishes them away in graceful S-curves traced through the air.
On the train, they tap their palms against the windowpanes as they share jokes, secret wishes, odd thoughts and daydreams; trace patterns with their fingers, play fingertip games when it rains, and dare each other to perform ballet steps under the stern gazes of fellow passengers.
At school, they never separate, and the boys already know the taste of Aris’s fists.
When night falls, Kana says goodbye to her friend at the door of her quiet home, where there are more flowers than atoms of hydrogen.
In the morning: more hugs, little hops, crooked ties, palm-gentle taps on train windows, cherry blossom petals tangled in hair, and Kana’s delicate fragrance shaking hands with the camellias.
—You look super cute today! —Says Aris, straightening Kana’s tie, then tugging her blazer into place before pinching her bangs.
—I’ve got a date after class…
—A date? What do you mean, a date? —Her voice, brimming and bold, like sea waves crashing against rocks, melts into the tide retreating from shore—. With whom?
—With the guy I like. You know him.
—I… I didn’t know you liked anyone. Who is it?
—The one from Chinese class.
—Oh… —she pauses, staring at the ground—. Do you want me to come with you?”
—What? Don’t even think about it!
After school, when Aris waves goodbye to Kana, she can’t stop thinking about Kana’s hair speckled with cherry petals, and suddenly, about someone holding her hand. As she follows, her heart gallops beneath the delicate fabric covering her chest.
In a downtown coffee shop, Kana orders strawberry-and-cream ice cream; a tall, athletic boy with a steady and confident gaze chooses rum raisin.
—Of course, rum. Rum raisin. Just like a pervert… —Aris mutters, swaying against the café window and twisting the curtain she hides behind.
Kana feels a hostile presence behind her, and Aris’s nosy eyes vanish the instant Kana turns around.
Their glances chase each other, sometimes brushing, causing Kana to gesture wildly for her friend to get out of there.
Already, her flustered reactions were drawing attention.
Kana gets so nervous she bangs her knee against the table, and then the boy raises his voice: —Do you know how to say ‘I love you’ in Chinese?
—What?
—I love you.
—Already?!
—No, I mean in Chinese.
—In Chinese, what?
—I love you.
—Excuse me?
She fans her face, mouth frozen in a grimace that startles a small boy clinging to his mother’s arm.
—That fast?
—I mean ‘I love you’ is “我愛你” in Chinese.
Aris loses her balance, tears off the curtain and crashes face-first into a tray of raspberry ice cream carried by a waitress.
Her face becomes a mural of chaotic wild cubism. Gasping, she lunges at Kana, cups her blushing cheeks with both hands and smears raspberry ice cream across her lips in a passionate kiss.
Startled, the boy knocks over his rum raisin sundae.
On the sticky floor, the waitress, mouth agape, holding a tray of raspberry ice cream now bearing a perfectly squashed noseprint, slips and flings it skyward like an Olympic victory toss.
A woman snaps pictures with her phone; her child laughs and claps; an old lady at the counter snorts with condescending delight; and behind it all, across the room, the ice cream master frowns, his eyes reduced to two slits beneath infernal brows.
—Sumimasen! Sumimasen! —Kana implores and bows over and over her palms pressed together with tears brimming in her eyes.
—We must run!
Kana lets herself be dragged along by her friend. They race through gray streets dappled with traffic lights until their breath is gone.
When they collapse on the grass in a nearby park, Kana gasps: —What on earth is wrong with you?! What was that?!
Aris takes as long to answer as it takes a drifting petal to touch the ground, carried gently by the breeze: —Wo ai ni…
