Otsu / 大津

Ah, the wonders of technology and progress. Three hundred kilometers an hour at the comfort of your living room's couch. Maximum velocity with maximum security. Truly one of the best displays of today's top-notch technology in the field of transportation. Our own top athlete could only dream of running this fast. For a spiky blue-haired hedgehog though, it'd be but child's play.

Due to the blistering speed of rail transport, we reached Kyoto in no more than three hours.

Having arrived there, we stepped out of the train. It was now past midday. Awaiting us outside was none other than the one who invited us, Kimura's older sister.

“Sakuraiiii!!!”

Oh. So it's genetic. Kimura's endless battery life. I mean, unbearably lively personality.

“Big sis!”

They both took off at the same time from opposing positions towards a common point. A mutual jump that formed a straight line by uniting both trajectories, reminiscing of the diameter of a circumference, the center being where they made contact.

Turning the excessive descriptions switch off, the moment was, truthfully, incredibly heartwarming. The only possible reaction was one of pure joy.

“Oh, you're considerably taller, little sis.”

“What'd you expect? I ate a lot of spinach to grow strong. Well, it wasn't just that, but the spinach was part of my healthy diet growing up while you weren't around.”

“I see,” she reacted with the face of an individual who had discovered the placement of all the remaining pieces of a puzzle.

With that said, she turned to the remaining four travelers from Fukuoka and greeted them.

“You must be Sakurai’s friends! I’m very pleased to meet you all, name’s Akari Kimura. As you likely already know, I’m her older sister.”

“Big sis, we should leave introductions for later, don’t you think?”

“Ah, you’re right! We must get going, time is of the essence.”

We left the station and caught a bus to Otsu. From there, we walked to the place where we’d be staying this weekend. Not a hotel or any of the sort. A house by the sea.

Arriving on the spot, we were welcomed by a light-brown-haired woman in her early twenties wearing a floral sundress and a straw hat.

“Oh, I see you’ve found your way here.”

“We’ve been living here for some time now, I’m pretty sure any normal person would,” Akari remarked.

Realizing everyone was already there, she continued the introductions stage without further ado.

“This beautiful woman you see in front of you is Haruka Konome, my girlfriend.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you swung that way, big sister,” the younger sibling commented with a smirky attitude.

“Well, now you do. Any problems with that?”

“No, not at all. If anything, I was taken aback by this revelation.”

“Jeez, you really didn’t change one bit in regard to that.”

“Huh?”

“Anyway, Haruka, I figured you should get to know each other. You already know all there is about this pest next to me, so, you four, go ahead.”

Becoming aware her time had come, she rushed to the front similar to how a cyclist within the peloton desperately attempts to reach the lead in the final sprint.

“I’m Hatsui Yokoyama, Kimura’s best friend!”

“You can address me as Sakurai, Yoko-chan,” she observed, a bit embarrassed.

“Y-Yes, sorry.”

I stepped forward.

“Yuki Ishida, nice to meet you… I don’t know what else to say.”

“Naoto Ueno, nice to meet you. Ishida here is my best friend,” he declared, spreading his arm around my nape, trying to cover for my lack of redeeming qualities.

And lastly—

“And she’s,” I added, unwrapping Naoto’s arm from the nape.

“A-Akira Natsuko. Pleased to meet you,” she completed.

“Nice to meet you all too. Now, shall we all head inside?”

First and foremost, we sought to leave our luggage near the entrance hall, intending to unpack later. Secondly, we probed every corner of the building. Lastly, we headed to where we’d be eating lunch. Entering the kitchen, a large rectangular table formed by two smaller ones stood ahead of us, with cutlery and food already there.

We all sat.

“Thank you for the meal!” we announced in unison.

Roughly an hour passed while we ate and talked in between.

Naoto and Yokoyama volunteered to help Haruka wash the dishes and cutlery. In the meanwhile, Natsuko questioned Akari about the nature of our adventures from now until dinner.

“Good question! Since you all arrived on time, we’ll take advantage of it and show you Otsu today. We can leave Kyoto for tomorrow.”

“Got it.”

When the three kitchen workers finished what they were doing, the older Kimura addressed everyone in the room.

“Okay! For those unaware, today we’ll stay around the area. There’s plenty to visit in Otsu.”

“Ok,” Naoto responded.

“Are you coming, Haruka?”

“I’ll stay. You go and have fun, I have some work to do. Besides, I already know the area backward.”

“Alright, good luck with your work! See you later!”

We left. Outside, we were informed of our sightseeing tour in greater detail.

“There’s a lot to do today, you all! First, we’ll go by bus to the farthest places. Then we’ll slowly go down until where we came from! Simple, right?”

“Wow, you really planned this out, Akari,” Natsuko noted.

“But of course! I want my Sakurai and her friends to have a fantastic time! I wasn’t about to let you down! However, I can promise you I’m leaving the best for last, tomorrow.”

“Big sis, that’s unfair. You can’t just tease us like that! Now I reaaally want to know!”

“Have some patience! Same old, aren’t you.”

Sometime later, when we dropped off the bus, we walked to our first destination.

Enryaku-ji Temple. It was no coincidence that the choice fell on this attraction—it closed earlier than the others, therefore a timely visit was necessary. Specifics aside, it was a majestic and important monastery located on Mount Hiei and founded in the Heian period, even considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. To conserve the building, there were multiple efforts of reconstruction throughout its extensive lifetime.

From there, we moved on to the following attraction—the “Floating Temple” of Ukimido, borrowing the nickname from its lakeside placement. It contains one of the remaining “Eight Views of Ōmi”, traditional scenic views of the Ōmi Province, nowadays referred to as the Shiga Prefecture.

We paid a visit to more attractions, but I’ll refrain from mentioning those, as the list would get too lengthy. The final one we visited was Ishiyamadera Temple. It was directly related to the “Eights Views of Ōmi” as well, therein referred to as “The Autumn Moon at Ishiyama”.

Oh, did I say final? My apologies then, as it wasn’t exactly the last one. With the evening kicking in strong, we decided to spend some time in Nagisa Park, treasuring the gorgeous sunset view and warm weather.

By dinner time, we had already returned.

“Oh, the explorers are back!”

“You know how it is, Haruka, couldn’t afford to leave you all alone for too long.”

“You missed me already? Ah, you dummy,” she got closer and kissed her on the cheek.

Staring at the two acting cutesy and lovey-dovey, Yokoyama and Kimura interchanged observations between each other with whispering voices.

“They’re so cute together! Your sister truly got herself an S-tier girl, I tell you, crème de la crème!”

“Right? It’s a match made in heaven!”

Akari, noticing the two and suspecting they were up to no good, addressed them.

“Sakurai, what are you two muttering about?”

“Ah, nothing.”

“Sure, sure,” she chose to ignore it, focusing on more pressing matters instead, "Oh, Haruka, could this smell in the air be our dinner?”

“Yes, it is!”, she responded, proud her girlfriend picked up the smell of her cooking.

“Looking forward to seeing what you cooked for our guests. Let’s see if you can maintain the quality of today’s lunch! In their opinion, of course. I know for a fact that your cooking never disappoints me.”

“Don’t underestimate my culinary skills!”

While replying, she recollected what her beloved partner cooked for those very guests earlier that day.

“Since we’re on the topic of cooking, didn’t you make something yourself this morning? Did you not tell them?”

“Akari, what’s she talking about?”, Natsuko asked.

“Ah, crap, I completely forgot.”

“That’s right, my Akari-chan here made a nice cheesecake for our eating pleasure tonight, right?”, she assertively revealed to the five visitors, placing her hand on her partner’s shoulder.

A brief reminder—Akari Kimura was never a huge fan of being placed in the center of attention. Hence, as an unsurprising and natural sequence of events, she attempted to deflect that very attention away from herself.

“Y-Yeah… it’s in the fridge, you can eat it later. Now, let’s get ready for dinner!”

“Okay! Natsuko and I are just going upstairs. I promise we won’t take long!”

“Alright.”

A whole meal and cheesecake later (yes, we ate all of it in one night), when most of us had already headed to our respective rooms, Yokoyama was still around the kitchen, for some unknown reason. Maybe she wanted to help wash the dishes? Or no particular motive at all. Perhaps a bit of the former, but her key motivation lay elsewhere.

She carefully approached Kimura’s older sister, attempting to not bother her too much with her incoming request. Unbeknownst to Yokoyama however, she really didn’t mind people interrupting her current task, so disturbing wouldn’t be an issue.

Akari sighted her edging closer to the sink and turned around.

“Thank you for the cake, Kimura—I mean, Akari. It was very good.”

“I guess you haven't gotten used to it yet,” she giggled, “Glad you liked it.”

“Do you do a lot of baking?”

“Well, I haven't done it in a while, though I used to do it a lot, as Sakurai loves cheesecake…”

Learning her friend was a diehard fan of cheesecake, she got curious about the secrets behind the confection of the cake—too curious, which led her to incisively step forward, unable to restrain herself.

“Umm—if you don't mind, could I have the recipe, please?”

“How about you give me your contact info so I can send it to you later? I'm in a bit of a pickle right now, sorry.”

“It's fine, really! Do it when you can!”, she energetically reassured, as if an electric current was coursing through her body.

She showed her Line profile to the older woman in the room.

“Hatsui Yokoyama, is it?”

She picked up her phone, previously in her pocket, and added her to the phone contacts.

“There we go. If you'll excuse me, I have to finish washing the dishes now.”

“Yes! Thank you very much!”, she headed upstairs when she finished the sentence.

As Akari sought to finish the small chatter, memories from less than twenty minutes ago pertaining to the chore she was performing at the moment resurfaced.

“Well, well, would you look at that? It's someone's else turn to wash the dishes today!”, Haruka affirmed with a smug face, passing it on to her lover.

“I know,” the lover retorted with a pouting face.

“I’m off to my room now, don’t take too long, ok?”

End of memory.

Slightly later that night, when Yokoyama was lying on her futon side by side with Kimura in the same room, her phone beeped—the sound of a new message. The girl rushed to check it, already certain of what it was—and she was correct.

“Akari”

“Cream Cheese 200 g”

“Fresh Cream 100 g”

“Sugar 60 g“

“1 Egg”

“Wheat Flour 20 g”

“Wafer Cookies 90 g”

“Butter 40 g”

“1. Crush the cookies”

“(...)”

She smiled.

Noticing her friend outstretching her arm to grab the phone when she was leaning her head that way, she inquired her.

“What is it, Yoko-chan?”

“Ah, nothing.”

Downstairs, seemingly all alone, after sending the message, Akari notified her partner she’d be staying there a bit longer before meeting her in their room.