A Tendered Moment

 A week had passed by after their day at the beach and the summer vacation was coming to an end. Mitori and Hayako planned on watching their prized ‘Robot Girlfriend’ at Hirugami’s house. They headed over to his house to watch it. They put the DVD in Hirugami’s TV recorder. Although it was Hirugami’s favourite show, he paid very little attention to the show and just stared blankly at the TV. He kept thinking about the night when Kitomi ran away from him, hearing his story and hid herself from the others. It made him feel guilty about the matter. After the incident, Kitomi hadn’t contacted Hirugami and didn’t keep any connection with him whatsoever. Hayako, seeing Hirugami staring blindly at the TV screen, asked him what the matter was. On speaking about it with Hayako, Hirugami felt a big weight lifted off his chest. Hayako decided to confront Kitomi on this matter and ask her directly, going to her house. At first, Hirugami flatly declined it but on seeing the desperation and seriousness in Hayako’s face, he finally gave in to his desire.

They decided that they would visit her house after they had completed the episode on ‘Robot Girlfriend’, after Mitori had left. After they finished their episode and Mitori left, Hayako and Hirugami got ready and set on their mission to Kitomi’s house. They knew where her house as Hayako had heard about it from Ichiko. After about a walk of about twenty minutes, they came upon a house, on whose nameplate was written ‘Seiko DressMakers’ in bold. It was a shop and above it was the house. They knocked on the front door and they heard a shrill, female voice from inside saying, ‘We are closed today. Come back tomorrow.” That must be Kitomi’s mother, because that didn’t sound neither like Kitomi nor her sister. They knocked once again and a grunting voice came from inside and the door was opened by a Kitomi’s mother, “I told you we are closed for-”. “She must be about my mother’s age but still she looks just a bit older than me”, thought Hayako on seeing Kitomi’s mother, awestruck by her beauty. Hirugami also understood that she must be Kitomi’s mother as she looked a lot like her daughter, Kitomi.

“Oh, who might be you be?” asked Kitomi’s mother.

“I am Hirugami and this is Hayako”, Hirugami replied by pointing at Hayako. “We are Kitomi’s friends and are here to see her. We have been trying to contact her but aren’t fable to get an answer from her, so we came here to check on her. Is she okay?”

On hearing this Miss Seiko said, “Hirugami? That Hirugami? My daughter talks about you so much. She says that you are helping her with her dream of writing a romantic manga and being a successful mangaka, though that goes against our family business. It looks like Miyomi has to continue the family business and no, she isn’t ill or anything. She is upstairs with her sister. If you want to meet him, you go upstairs. First room on the left. You go on and I will bring some sweets.”

“Okay ma’am, I will head upstairs then”, said Hirugami awkwardly as it was his first time visiting a girl’s house, heading upstairs, Hayako following close by.

“Oh, and Hirugami!”

“Yes, Miss Seiko?”

“Thank you for always taking care of my daughter.”

Hirugami felt happy on hearing this and nervous too at the same time, as he was about to enter a girl’s room. He gulped and hesitated a little before finally knocking on the door of the room upstairs. A voice came from within, “Come in.”

Hirugami entered and found Kitomi and Miyomi, sitting together on a bed and talking about something in each other’s ears. “What is it, mom-” asked Kitomi, looking at the door and found Hirugami and Hayako standing their looking towards them and waving at them, “Hey there, Kitomi.” said Hirugami. Kitomi got flustered and shouted at them to get out of the room. She jumped out of the bed and ran towards the door, closing it on their face.

After a few minutes, Miyomi opened the door. Hirugami looked at the embarrassed face of Kitomi sitting on her bed inside the room and noticed that her room looked totally different now and much cleaner. As soon as Miyomi opened the door she jumped and kissed on Kitomi’s cheek. At the peck on his cheek, Hirugami got surprised and he jumped back in response. Miyomi raced down the stairs, smiling and laughing. Kitomi apologized to Hirugami, who sat down on the bed beside her, and told him that Miyomi always tries to take away the things she cared for and loved. While hearing from Kitomi, Hirugami looked around her room and saw that she had many bookshelves, full of books of romantic genre. There were also some scripts lying on her table. But, Hirugami had come here to talk with Kitomi. He laid aside all her thoughts and focused his thoughts towards Kitomi and asked her that why she ran away that night at the beach. At this Kitomi replied to him that his story made her think about the death of one of her close relatives.

On hearing this, Hirugami thought that she must not be telling the truth. He looked at her face and in her face he could clearly see that Kitomi was lying. She tried keeping a straight face but she got caught by Hirugami. He thought that Kitomi must be hiding something and she didn’t want to discuss the matter with Hirugami. Realizing that she didn’t want to discuss the matter with him, Hirugami apologized to Kitomi for telling her his story and it had made her sad. He apologized to her again and went up and went towards the door to leave when suddenly Kitomi jumped up from her bed and hugged Hirugami, stopping him from leaving the room. She looked up at Hirugami and he stopped in his tracks. Hirugami looked down at Kitomi and saw that she was crying and he hugged her back and turned towards her. It was an awkward situation for Hirugami and he could think of nothing to do, so he patted her head awkwardly.

After a few minutes of awkward patting and a lot of crying and consoling, Hirugami came down the stairs, where Kitomi’s mother had prepared a cake for Hirugami and Hayako. After the awkward incident with Kitomi, Hirugami felt uneasy. He quickly left her house and went home with Hayako who couldn’t walk properly due to the whole cake he had eaten.

The next day, Hirugami and his friends, Mitori and Hayako were sitting in a park with juice cans in their hands. Hirugami was silently drinking his juice, whereas Mitori was possessed in fantasizing about Ada and Hayako was thinking about plans of initialising a conversation with the literature teacher during the period. Just they were talking between themselves, they heard a shrieking sound and they all looked at the direction from where the sound was coming, and suddenly out of nowhere Kitomi entered the park on a bicycle and went straight up and crashed at the wall of the park, while constantly waving at Hirugami, who on seeing her got flustered. After seeing the accident, all the three boys jumped from their seats and went to check up on Kitomi.

When they were helping Kitomi getting back upon her feet and checking her for any injuries, Ada and Ichiko came cycling in the park. On seeing Ada, Mitori’s heart started pounding faster and a great deal of happiness spread in his heart. While Hirugami and Hayako helped Kitomi to get up, Mitori was daydreaming. Ada and Ichiko checked Kitomi and when asked their reason to visit them at the park to meet them by Hirugami, Ada replied that they were going to the summer festival which was supposed to be during this weekend. Hayako and Mitori readily agreed and they told that they will be looking forward to it. Hirugami wasn’t enthusiastic about the festival but on seeing on his friends’ approval, he too agreed reluctantly. Ada told them that this year, like all the previous years and there will be many food stalls and game stalls. Hirugami, unlike others was a bit uncomfortable about the whole idea of the summer festival as this would be his first time attending the summer festival with his friends.

Kitomi spent most of her days before the summer festival with Hirugami for the manga and the story. Their chemistry improved in these days before the summer festival and Hirugami had overcome his awkwardness of the day, when he went to visit Kitomi’s house some days before. Sometimes they stayed up all night discussing their plans about new stories and their plans about the manga. In days when his old, painful memories would make him suffer mentally, Kitomi would make him laugh by talking with him with her soft and talkative lips and glowing eyes. He would forget his sorrow and sufferance when he would talk with her and he would laugh up in joy and paint with her. The final week of summer ended joyfully between the two of them.

It was finally the end of the week and the last day of summer. It was the summer festival and everyone got ready for the big day. Upon the decided hour of arrival to the summer festival, Hirugami departed with Mitori for the summer festival. After walking for a few minutes, they finally reached the summer festival. They saw that like all the previous years, this year too, the area shined with the lights of orange lanterns, which were tied on the heads of different stalls. Many beautiful trees were surrounding the festival area and they were covered with light bulbs and glowing ribbons. The whole festival was full of different families, friends and couples, who had gathered there.

Soon Hirugami and Mitori noticed, Kitomi, Ada and Ichiko, who were standing in front of a shooting stall. They greeted each other. When Hirugami looked at Kitomi, he noticed that she had worn a beautiful patterned kimono with a beautiful obi tied at her waist. He was awed at Kitomi’s beauty. Looking at Hirugami being awed at her looks, Kitomi blushed and averted her look from his eyes. Mitori was also awed at the looks of Ada and started talking with her. Mitori asked Ada if she had seen Hayako. Ada told him that Hayako was in the shooting stall where he found the literature teacher and was trying to impress her with his shooting skills. It was obvious to Mitori that the teacher was taking advantage of him by making him buy takoyaki and yakisoba noodles and other things for her. Mitori called Hayako and warned him about the whole matter, but Hayako, on hearing it called him jealous of not getting to be with a beautiful woman. On the other hand, Hirugami was busy playing games of fishing and shooting and eating takoyaki with Kitomi.

After a few minutes of celebrating and enjoying, a female voice announced through the loudspeaker that the fireworks display was about to start. On seeing that the summer festival was about to start, Kitomi decided to search for a good place to see the fireworks. They decided on a good spot and as they reached their spot, the fireworks display had already started. Everyone enjoyed and cherished the fireworks display. They were all looking at the fireworks with awe. Kitomi tried to go a bit closer whey she slipped her ankle and she suddenly got misbalanced and she was about to fall when she felt a hand sliding in her waist and another hand taking hold of her own hand. He pulled her close into his arms and when realizing what he was doing, he abruptly left her arms. On seeing Hirugami getting flustered, Kitomi started laughing and she suddenly hugged Hirugami, and in their background, a firework went up the sky and burst with immense grace and beauty and the fireworks display ended. The fireworks display ended with Kitomi hugging Hirugami lovingly.

After the fireworks display had ended, they walked down a street towards Kitomi’s house, as they were worried about Kitomi’s leg’s condition. Kitomi regretted that due to her, the others couldn’t enjoy their fireworks display. When they were returning, Hayako, who didn’t attend the display with them, ran upto them with a bag of fireworks which the teacher had given to him as a gift for being with her the whole time of the festival. This turned out for good and they all went in the park near Kitomi’s house and they all lighted the fireworks happily. As their fireworks were about to wither away, Kitomi looked at Hirugami, who looked back at her, smiling and seeing his beautiful smile, Kitomi’s heart skipped a pace and just like that the summer vacations were over.