Tsunagari

Chapter XXX.

Yūsei Nishoji checked his watch again.

'What is she doing?' he asked himself. 'She's late!'

He had arrived in the park since a quarter of an hour now and still, there was no sign of the ginger-haired girl.

Just as he raised his head to look athwart of himself one more time, he finally caught sight of Natsui Mizoroge, who was arriving from afar. The girl was running towards him, with an apologetic look on her face.

When she reached him, she was panting so hard- having evidently been running a much longer distance than this- that she had to bend down to take support on her knees, and was unable to speak for a minute or two.

'I'm really sorry!' she told him, when she had finally caught her breath, straightening up. 'You see, every morning, I go to deliver milk and the newspaper at people's houses as a part-time job. Normally, when I have to deliver both to a client, I leave these under the porch of their house, but for those clients who do not take milk, I simply throw their newspaper into their front yard. It's the normal procedure. And today also, I was following this same procedure when, one client's newspaper became stuck in a tree when I threw it over the wall of his house. I had no choice but to get down from my bicycle and climb on top of the tree to take it out, but that's when a stray dog started to bark at me. I think it took me for a thief! It wouldn't let me come down from the tree! And I got stuck there for several hours, before it finally grew fed up and left. I'm truly sorry!'

The blond young man's mouth had gone slightly agape and he stared at the girl's face awkwardly.

That- That was really unlucky!

Scratching the back of her head and smiling in embarrassment, the ginger-haired girl added, 'But, well, I guess that these are the type of things that happen on the job sometimes! I'll have to be more careful the next time I aim!'

He giggled awkwardly.

The two young persons moved to sit at the closest picnic table in the park after that, and taking out their books and copybooks, they got to work without any delay.

***

After Yūsei Nishoji had left, Naoyasu Hanabusa and Sōken Nishoji had come around the other side of the house, to sit under the veranda and smoke a cigarette. They smoked a first one, then a second, and after that, a third one. None of the two spoke to each other, until the blond man broke the silence between them at last to say, in a mumble, 'Perhaps, I should never have returned! Yūsei has already suffered a lot like this! I don't want to shatter him even more!'

Naoyasu looked at the blond male's face instantly with alarm.

'Stop it!' he told him, in an un-contradicting tone. 'He doesn't know it yet, but he needs you in his life!'

Sōken looked at his friend's expression. The latter seemed to be almost angry.

'I don't want you to doubt it ever again!' Naoyasu stated, and looking back ahead of himself, he took a large puff on his cigarette again.

The only problem was that he had almost finished it, and as he took a puff of it, the end became fully consumed and he burnt his forefinger.

'Ai-ch-ch!' he winced, before he noticed that the cinders which he had fallen onto his lap, were burning tiny holes into his kimono. He sprang to his feet in a panic to slap them off, while the blond male chuckled to himself, teasing him, 'You still lack finesse as I can see!'

'Oh, shut up!' he muttered, peevishly.

And Sōken chuckled to himself again.

***