River of Stars

Chapter 11 - Via Láctea

Nishikata and Takagi's train took several minutes to arrive at the center's station. They got out of the train and Takagi made sure that the first thing they did there was to buy bandages for Nishikata's hand.

After taking care of that, they started walking around like they did in the previous year. The station was a bit far from the main intersection in which they had spent most of the time the last time they were there, so there was plenty of stuff to do and places to visit.

At that point, the clouds in the sky had disappeared, leaving it almost completely clean and open for the stars to shine, and there was no Moon to be seen that night. The streets themselves looked beautiful at night. They had been recently cleaned off, and the remaining snow on the ground and above the streetlamps and the roofs gave them a characteristic vibe. And that's not to say about the Christmas decorations. The streets were filled with Christmas Lights that competed against the stars in the sky. There were Christmas Trees and Santa Claus figures everywhere they looked. They passed through many archways lit up by LEDs, and the stores and buildings had many decorations that coloured their way in tones of red, green and yellow.

At some point, they came across an open ice skating rink, and Takagi thought it would be fun for them to skate together. But as she proposed the idea, Nishikata gave a smirk and turned it into a competition, in which the first one to complete three turns around the rink would be the winner, which made her even more excited. Nishikata was very confident, since he had always been really fast at skating, but Takagi also had experience, and at the last lap. They were roughly neck to neck for the most part, which Nishikata wasn't expecting, since Takagi was not the athletic type, and he tried hard to gain some advantage. At the last lap, Takagi took advantage of his concentration and said something that broke his line of thought and embarrassed him, he lost balance and fell down, giving her the victory.

Takagi returned to where Nishikata was while celebrating her victory. She giggled when he grinded his teeth, still on the ground and offered him a hand to help him get up. They stayed in the rink skating together, and one hour had passed before they left and continued to walk around town. As punishment for their game, Takagi made him buy her some Christmas candy in a store nearby, but she ended up sharing it with him anyway.

So it was that, not too long after that, they finally reached the intersection where they had been the previous year. Like before, it was crowded with several families, couples, and groups of people in general celebrating, going in and out of stores and walking around together. Though it was nighttime and the sky was clear, the streets were clear as day with all the decorations and Christmas lights, and the night sky was just a great dark blanket to them. And in the distance they could see, as a pinnacle on the top of a hill past the river, the great Christmas Tree, under which they stood in the previous year. Nishikata looked at it and a strange feeling took over him. The moment of his confession seemed closer than ever before, somehow even more so than when he ran to meet her at the shrine, months ago, with the very purpose of confessing to her. In a few hours, they'd be standing there, and he'd have to put his feelings into words, and he felt more and more anxious, but with an essential taint of excitement.

They walked a bit together around the area, talking and looking around. They ended up buying hot chocolate, and they continued to walk around until they had finished it. At that point, both of them knew what was to come.

They both stood at the center of the intersection, and Takagi took out her phone.

"Alright, it's 19:15 right now" she said "We have one our to pick out a present for each other, we'll come here after that and the one who can make the other happier wins"

Nishikata nodded confidently and they went their separate ways.

Nishikata then walked for almost 15 minutes the way they had come from, until he was close to the train station. The truth was that he already had an idea of what to give her. He had seen some accessory shops when they arrived, and he saw a hair rubber band that he thought looked particularly cute. They had been going biking together a lot lately, and Takagi was always tying her hair up when they did, so he thought it would be nice to give that one to her. It was pink, and it had the shape of a butterfly attached to the rubber.