Van der Windt Clause Added to Park Rules (See Page 7)

The line for the Ferris wheel moved at a slow but steady pace. A park staff member, clipboard in hand and sunburn on his nose, counted them off.

“Four per gondola.”

Naomi didn’t wait. “Dibs!” she declared, Without so much as a backward glance, she herded both Shinji and a very droopy Hana into the next available gondola. Akio watched dumbfounded, as the doors slid shut behind them. Hana, half-conscious and already slumping into Shinji’s lap, wasn’t going to be much of a third wheel.

Wait, Akio thought.

Wait… wait… that leaves…

“I got this one!” Amaya sang, already yanking open the next gondola’s glass door, narrowly avoiding elbowing a disgruntled staff member in the gut.

She whirled around, yanking Akio by the collar with her post-cotton-candy strength. “In, in, in!”

Before he could protest, retreat, or perform a tactical dodge-roll, he was hauled bodily into the gondola. The door slid shut with a polite little click.

Amaya flopped onto the cushioned seat opposite him, legs kicking out in front of her. “Aaahh,” she sighed, stretching her arms out. “Finally, my kingdom.”

“We’re barely twelve feet off the ground,” Akio muttered.

“Shhh!” She raised a finger to her lips. “The peasants below can hear you.”

The gondola continued its slow ascent, creaking as it climbed. Below them, the amusement park shrank into a glittering mess of colours and sound. Beyond that, The Tokyo skyline unfurled. Glass and steel catching the late afternoon sun like it had been dipped in honey and set on fire..

Amaya’s legs started bouncing up and down.

“Can you sit still for more than four seconds?” Akio asked, arms crossed.

“I can,” she said, grinning. “But it causes me physical pain.”

She suddenly turned and smooshed her entire face against the glass, her nose flattened completely. “LOOK!” she shouted, voice muffled and full of glee. “The buildings look like bento boxes from here.”

Akio blinked. “What?”

“Like…little rectangles with pops of colour bits. See? That one’s broccoli. That one’s clearly tamagoyaki. And that one—” she pointed at an office block, “—that one’s capitalism.”

“And all the people are the ants invading the bento boxes. Until, one day, a giant vacuum descends from the heavens and—whoosh! Sucks them all up. The end!”

Akio stared at her for a while.

“…You’re deeply unwell.”

“You sound like you’re in league with the ants.” She accused.

He opened his mouth, then shut it again. What did one even say to that?

She peeled her face off the window with a faint pop, leaving behind a perfect, little nose print.

She bounced back on her seat, all giddy and fizzy as though she’s been cramped in a small space for too long. Amaya is pretty, and strange, very strange, and the more he looked at her the more this weird fuzzy feeling stirred up inside of him.

She caught him looking.

“What?” she asked, eyebrows lifting suspiciously.

“…Nothing,” he muttered, colour rushing to his face. “You’re just… you’re cute.” The words slipped out before he could catch them, they were already out in the air, floating away like balloons in the wind, there was no reeling them back in.

Amaya’s breath hitched. “Huh?”

A fast blush bloomed across her cheeks, her legs bouncing even faster.

“You-you-you—what?”

Akio cleared his throat and pretended to be fascinated by a passing bird.

“You’re cute,” he repeated, more stiffly this time.

Amaya stared at him like he’d just started speaking backwards. Slowly, she turned to look back out the window. “Oh no,” she said in a dazed whisper. “I think the altitude’s messing with your brain.”

“That’s not—”

“No, no. It’s okay. I get it. Low oxygen levels.”

“I meant it,” he said.

Amaya whipped her head around so fast, her one braid looped around and smacked her in the face. “What?!”

“I said I meant it,” Akio repeated, now red from neck to ears. “You’re reckless, and loud, and you have no concept of personal space, but you’re not the worst thing to ever happen to me…”

It came out awkward and bumpy and very Akio, but he meant it.

Her bright green-grey eyes met his. There was still a faint popsicle-blue smear across her cheek. A loose strand of hair fell in her eyes. Akio leaned forward without really thinking, he carefully brushed it aside, though it bounced back in place almost immediately.

And then—

WHOOSH.

A sudden gust of wind rocked the gondola, just enough to tip the moment sideways.

THUNK.

Their foreheads slammed together.

“OW!” Amaya clutched her forehead, wincing, her eyes scrunched in pain.

Akio recoiled, gripping the edge of the seat with both hands, chest tight and heart hammering. The gondola groaned in a ‘just kidding but maybe not’ kind of way, before creaking back into stillness.

There was a long, pained silence.

“…Are you,” Amaya said slowly, one eye squinting at him, “scared of heights?”

“No.”

“You totally are.”

“I’m not scared,” Akio grumbled through gritted teeth. “I’m statistically aware.”

Amaya stared at him for a beat, wide-eyed and incredulous, before bursting into a laugh so violent she had to grip the seat to keep from sliding off.

“Statistically aware?!” she repeated, voice tipping toward a wheeze. “You are such a NERD!”

“I am not!” Akio snapped. “I’m just being rational!”

“Wait a minute…. Did you—” she gasped between giggles, “Did you just call me cute because you thought you were going to DIE?!”

“I SAID I’M—!”

But his protests were no match for her cackling. She was laughing so hard the staff down below actually looked up.

She leaned forward with the devil’s grin and started rocking the gondola. Akio made a strange gasp-choke-howl sound, a noise that couldn’t be spelled properly in any human language.

“Stop that!” Akio barked, clinging to the seat. “That’s not safe—!”

“I thought you weren’t scared!” Amaya grinned. “So you shouldn’t miiind~!”

“Amaya.” His voice was dangerously tight now. “Rocking the gondola increases the chance of mechanical failure by 17%, and it’s also explicitly against the park rules.”

“Oh nooo~ the statistics! What will we do about the scary percentages?!”

“For the love of physics—STOP MOVING!”

The gondola began its slow descent, but the damage was done. The rest of the ride down was chaos.

Akio tried to explain the structural weaknesses of vintage 1960s Ferris wheel models, the unreliability of weekend maintenance checks, and the inconsistency of weatherproofing weld joints.

Meanwhile, Amaya was going “Wheee!” every time she swung the gondola slightly to the side, fully committed to making him live out his worst-case-scenario graphs in real time.

“If you don’t stop, I swear I’m reassigning all the laundry and you’re doing the dishes for the rest of the month!” Akio snapped, white-knuckled and trembling.

Amaya, mid-swing, struck a peace-sign pose and snapped a selfie.

With him in the background.

Mid-scream.

“Ooh! Nice one!” she chirped, grinning at her screen.

Akio tried to argue, but no sound came out. Just a soft, broken wheeze.

By the time the gondola reached ground level, Amaya stepped out positively radiant, glitter-kissed, and still giggling. Akio staggered out behind her, pale as a ghost, eyes vacant and haunted. He was about 70% sure he hadn’t made it and this was the afterlife. Somehow, the afterlife smelled like churros and his personal poltergeist was wearing a sundress.

Waiting near the exit, Shinji turned around as their gondola docked. Hana-chan was fast asleep in his arms, head tucked under his chin, her little fingers curled loosely into the fabric of his T-shirt. Naomi stood beside him holding Hana-chan’s giant plush panda.

“Did you two have fun?” Shinji asked sweetly.

“Yup!” Amaya chirped, looping her arm through Akio’s like she hadn’t just psychologically ruined him 377 feet in the air.

Shinji raised a suspicious eyebrow.

Naomi bit the inside of her cheek, but her shoulders were shaking.

Akio looked vaguely shell-shocked. “Never again,” he mumbled, dazed. “Never again. Never again. Never again.”

He was already mentally drafting an eight-point lecture on Ferris wheel safety protocol, complete with footnotes and colour-coded for clarity.

They made their way toward the exit, the sky dipping into a sleepy lavender behind them. Amaya and Naomi took the lead, walking up ahead, whispering and laughing, probably already planning their next crime.

Shinji and Akio lagged behind, partly because little sisters were heavier when they were made of dreams and cotton candy and partly because Akio needed time to process that he was, against all odds, still alive.

Shinji adjusted Hana’s weight gently, careful not to jostle her.

“She’s out like a light,” he said softly. “Thanks for coming today. She had a lot of fun.”

Akio looked over, still slightly pale, but grounding back into himself.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was… tumultuous.”

He paused.

“But good,” he added, almost surprised to hear himself say it.

Shinji looked down at his kid sister.

“Sometimes I worry,” Shinji said softly. “That she doesn’t get to just… be a kid.”

He was calm, but there was something worn-in underneath, making it sound like it was a sentence he’d repeated too many times in his own head, like he wasn’t saying it for the first time, just finally out loud.

“Dad walked out after Mom passed and I work too much, I know that.” He glanced down at the sidewalk. “Sometimes it feels like she’s growing up in the margins of my calendar.”

Akio didn’t answer at first. He just walked beside him, quiet, hands in his pockets. But inside, his thoughts were turning over.

Shinji always made things look easy. He was the guy who never missed a deadline and delegated with a calm voice and brought coffee when things went to hell. He was sharp. Respected. The person people called when things were on fire and somehow, he was doing all this while carrying a whole kid through life, literally and otherwise.

Akio thought, not for the first time, that Kubo Shinji was kind of… impressive.

Akio, awkwardly but sincerely, said, “She doesn’t seem like she’s missing much. She’s lucky to have a big brother who cares as much as you do.”

Shinji gave him a sideways look.

“I mean,” Akio added quickly, rubbing the back of his neck, “she’s loud, and sticky, and terrifyingly good at guilt-tripping people into buying her overpriced theme park snacks.”

That earned a quiet snort from Shinji.

“But…” Akio glanced at the small sleeping shape slumped in Shinji’s arms. “She’s safe, and she’s happy.”

“Yeah,” Shinji murmured. “Yeah, she is.” The corners of his mouth curled into a small smile, like it was a truth he needed to hear.

Akio looked straight ahead, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the path. “You’re doing a great job,” he said.

Up ahead, Amaya spun in a full circle, braids flying. “Hurry uuuup!” she shouted back, cupping her hands around her mouth. “We found a takoyaki stand!”

Akio squinted. “Haven’t they eaten enough?”

Shinji chuckled. “Guess they burn more calories than normal people.”

Akio sighed, his pride was dented, his stomach still tied in knots, and his nerves were frayed in a way that felt permanent, but he kept walking.

Because up ahead, Amaya flashed a big, messy grin that shone brighter than the sun. Somehow, that grin, made everything else feel okay.

Even if his T-shirt was covered in sticky cotton-candy fingerprints

Even if his dignity was somewhere back at the top of the Ferris wheel.

Even if he didn’t have the words for whatever was happening in his chest.

Even if everything still felt slightly upside-down.

None of it really mattered.

Not when she was smiling like that.