Revealed

Misaki waits for her to introduce herself, but she just stares back at him. His name makes her thoughts start reeling; the remaining effects of the drug don’t help. Kyo never wrote anything about Misaki’s surname, so she couldn’t be sure, but is this who she’s been looking for? But all this time….

The man’s smile begins to droop, and he looks concerned as their hands remain in the same position for way too long. He says something to get her attention. “Oh, right, my name.” His words knock her out of her stupor, “I’m Asuka.” It occurs to her to imitate the way he introduced himself, so she starts to say her last name when a loud noise interrupts her.

It’s her stomach.

They’re both silent until Misaki breaks it with his laughter. “You must be hungry,” he says getting up. “I’ll bring you something to eat, do you like bread?” She nods stupidly but thinks better of letting him leave so soon. She tries to stop him, but the sudden movement triggers pain in her abdomen, and he slips out the door.

Defeated, she rolls back over on the bed. While she waits, Asuka begins to think to herself again, mind racing. All this time, she had convinced herself that Misaki must be a woman. What else was she supposed to think? She had never seen Kyo go out with a man before. Misaki isn’t that rare of a name. It might just be some cruel joke the universe is playing on her. Either way, she has to be sure.

After a while, Misaki comes back with a bag of pastries and leaves it with Asuka before stepping out of the room again, promising her something else and saying she can pick whatever bread she wants. Reaching inside the bag, the first thing she pulls out is a Danish pastry with what looks like strawberry jam smeared inside the middle.

It makes her mouth water. Unable to wait for Misaki’s surprise, she takes a bite, and the sweetness feels like it’s bringing her back to life. She’s halfway done with it by the time Misaki returns, holding two mugs. Thin wisps of steam waft up from them as he hands her one of the cups before taking the other for himself. It smells fragrant, like herbs and ginger. She blows into the mug to cool it off a bit before taking a sip.

The unsweetened tea washes over her palette, matching perfectly with the sweetness that remained on her tongue from the pastry. Not only that, but the tea itself was probably the most delicious tea she’d ever had.…

Another switch flips in her head.

“How is it?” Misaki inquires.

“I love it…what kind of tea is this?”

He smiles satisfactorily. “It’s a blend of Jasmine and Green Tea, with a hint of ginger. I mixed the leaves myself.” He says it in a tone that suggests he’s bragging, but she can tell he means it good-humored way. They continue to drink until their cups are empty. Asuka silently lowers the cup into her lap and glances at Misaki. He’s smiling at her over his mug as he watches her with a wistful expression. They lock eyes and he catches himself, “sorry for staring,” he says, “your expression just reminds me of…someone.” He looks away with a solemn expression overtaking his face. Everything he does, everything he says makes her believe he must be the one. She steadies her nerves, aided by the calming tea before calling his name.

“Misaki-san…?” He looks at her as he chooses one of the pastries from the bag he brought. Since they don’t know each other, it would’ve made more sense for her to use his surname, Fujiwara. But she can’t wait any longer, she must know…!

She grips the cup in her hand, and finally says it, “did you know Tachibana Kyo?” It’s sudden and awkward, but she manages to get the words out. Trepidation fills her heart as she waits for his answer.

The man lowers the croissant he was about the eat and stares at her like he’s peering into her soul. “Are you really that Asuka?” Seeing confusion by what he means, he explains, “the other night, Dr. Arimura and I checked your bag for any identification so we could contact your family and let them know what happened to you. We saw your student ID card and, that’s how I got your name.”

Asuka thinks about this, but it makes sense, she was still a minor.

“Your family name made me wonder if it could possibly be you, but I wasn’t sure. I’d only heard about you a few times from your brother, and he’d never shown me any pictures,” he tilts his head and smiles, “you look just like him.”

This almost makes Asuka sentimental enough to cry. She smiles with tears pricking at her eyes. Her smile falters as she realizes what she needs to ask next. It had never occurred Asuka that she might have to break the news when she finally met up with Misaki.

“Do you already know? About him.”

He looks down and shakes his head and response, a grimace forms on his face. At first, Asuka took that to mean he didn’t know. Preparing herself to drop the bomb, he speaks up before she can. “Yeah. I’ve known that he was dead…for about three weeks now.”

Her words catch in her throat. “That’s what you mean right?” His suddenly weary eyes look up at her. She nods in acceptance, “how did you find out?”

Misaki looks back at the floor, “I noticed he’d stop coming to see me a long time ago. Normally I would have checked up on him, but we’d had a stupid fight the last time we spoke, so I figured he just didn’t want to see me, so I’d decided to be stubborn, too.”

He puts a palm to his head, “as time went on, I thought I could accept that and gave him space. But, as I said, three weeks ago I asked the person who had been making deliveries to my shop in his stead. That’s when I found out.

Asuka feels for him. She involuntarily imagines the look on his face when he realized someone he cared about had passed away and there was nothing he could do about it. 

She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him every detail of the story, hearing what he might say once he realizes she was at fault. They spent the rest of the time in silence until Dr. Arimura comes in. Apparently, she’d stayed there overnight while Asuka was bedridden and that’s how Misaki had come in that morning after going home. She was also getting the clinic ready to open for the day when she saw the doleful expressions on the others’ faces.

“I’m not going to ask,” she turns her head away from them and moves to the desk, placing some paperwork inside of a folder organizer. She strides over to Asuka and asks how she’s feeling. Asuka confirms she’s much better than before and takes the opportunity to thank her. “Just try not to get into any more fights,” she says dismissively. She hands Asuka an orange bottle of something and tells her to take it every 2 hours with a meal.

She looks at the bag of bread Misaki has sitting at the desk and narrows her eyes at him. “I’ll clean it up I promise,” he says, his playfulness returning. She shakes her head and reaches into grab a pastry herself.

Soon, clients start pouring in for the day and she has the two of them leave. Asuka thanks Dr. Arimura once again she smiles at her before closing the door. She still has to lean against the wall for balance, but she knew she couldn’t impose on the clinician without paying any longer. 

Misaki ends up inviting her to his teahouse where she can rest for the remainder of the day before heading home. Asuka accepts, wondering if it’s the one Kyo had written about. Misaki offers her his arm and they head out.

The teahouse is a short distance away from the clinic until they reach the front entrance. The name of the shop is written on the outside of the building in fancy kanji as “Akari-ya”. Opening the door with a key, he offers her a seat at one of the tables, taking the chairs down so they can sit on them.

First things first, Asuka looks around in her bag until she finds the package she got from Miyuki. She holds it up to him with two hands, “this is from Kyo.”

A surprised expression appears on his face. “When I went to the delivery company the other day, someone who works there said that he dropped this. Your name was written on it, so I wanted to give it to you.”

He slowly reaches for the light brown package. He holds it up like a precious jewel and is somewhat hesitant to open it. After a while, he removes the sticker and peels it back to reveal the inside.

He pulls out a small, round tin.

He gets up to brew the tea. Asuka wonders if she should help but suspect he might also want to be alone for a while. She takes the time to inspect the interior. The walls are adorned with a yellow power wallpaper that has some green ivy drawn sprawling throughout the walls. At the front of the shop is a chalkboard menu with various items sold listed on it. A box that looks like it regularly holds sweet snacks sits on the counter next to the register, but it’s currently empty.

Many minutes pass until Misaki comes back holding a tea pot. He sets it down with both hands before going back to retrieve mugs like he did at the clinic. Pouring some out for the both of them, they say “cheers” to each other and take a sip.

But she doesn’t feel like this blend of tea was as tasty as the one Misaki had served her earlier. She silently chastises her brother for picking this blend and carefully looks at Misaki to see his reaction. She’s surprised to see him with his eyes closed. He covers his mouth with a hand; a tear rolls down his face. Her expression turns into one of softness and she finishes her tea without saying anything.

“I’m sorry,” he wipes the tears from his eyes with napkins that Asuka found for him. “This was the kind of tea my grandmother would make for me as a child.” He observes the black tin of leaves, rubbing his thumb over the silver label that read “Kukicha”. “I'd mentioned it to Kyo, but that was a long time ago. I never thought he’d remember a trivial thing like that.”

Asuka nods. “Kyo was thoughtful like that.” She tells Misaki about how he would always try to keep her favorite snacks in the house, always generous, especially when it came to food. He laughs bitterly.

“And to think the last thing I told him was to ‘eat a tire.’” which makes Asuka laugh. “I’m sure he got you this to make it up to you she assures him. Whatever argument you too had, it never overshadowed how much he loved you.”

Misaki smiles softly before realization hits him. “Wait…Asuka-chan, what do you mean by ‘love’?” Asuka was confused, the way he spoke about Kyo, it made it pretty obvious they must have been together, right?

Oh. That’s why the bucket list entry said, “confess to Misaki.” Had they never officially gotten together? Even Miyuki had come to this conclusion when she was telling her about the gift.

Asuka prepares herself for the last part of her mission to carry out Kyo’s will, but how should she go about it? Nothing she says would be better than it coming from Kyo himself, but she’s all there is right now.

Asuka turns to Misaki.

“That’s why I’m here in the first place, to find you” she takes the notebook out of her bag and flips to the page with the third item on the bucket list. “This was Kyo’s journal. One of the items he put on his bucket list…was to confess his love for you. I knew who you were almost the second you told me your name.” She thinks about saying the words to Misaki how, but all of a sudden it feels like she should do it in a more dramatic way, like Romeo and Juliet. She hadn’t prepared anything, though, and getting on her knee, spreading her arms and declaring Kyo’s love for him felt like it would ruin the moment.

Instead, she just lets Misaki read what Kyo had written about him himself. She can tell Kyo is probably rolling in his grave with embarrassment, but it’s the best way to confess for him that she can think of. She’d read it herself already, so she knows there’s not anything especially damaging he’d written. Except maybe what he mentioned about how “Misaki’s butt looks cute in denim jeans.”

Misaki’s facial expressions change as he reads the notebook entries. His eyebrows fly up and down, and he laughs a lot. When he’s done, he returns the notebook to Asuka. Tears well up in his eyes. “Thank you so much for this,” he holds her hand on the table. “I didn’t know what to do after I found out about Kyo. I haven’t even opened the shop back up since.”

Misaki offers to take Asuka back home. Inputting the address Asuka gives him into his GPS, they set off in Misaki’s boxy “Kai car”. They talk more about various things on the way back. About themselves, about the weather, and about Kyo.

When they reach, the sun has nearly set, burning an orange glow onto the horizon. “Thank you for the ride,” Asuka removes her seatbelt. “of course,” feeling like she should be doing more, she invites him inside, asking if she wants to see Kyo’s room or something. He says he appreciates her offer, but declines, feeling it a bit invasive. But she still didn’t want to leave yet. She lingers inside of the car, trying to come up with something else to extend their company.

“Asuka-chan,” she turns to him, “do you want to exchange numbers?” she lights up and nods frantically. After they input each other’s numbers, they finally say goodbye. Asuka waves the whole time Misaki’s car drives off into the distance. She feels a similar sense of sadness to when she left Youta, but knowing they can remain in contact with each other soothes the pain.