Origami Girl

Chapter 30: Miss Otemo I

Origami Girl

Chapter 30: Miss Otemo I

"Miss Otemo

Weren't you married just recently?

As a matter of fact, I was. However,

Since my husband's face is all pockmarked,

We haven't had a proper ceremony."

-Otemoyan, Kumamoto Prefecture Folk Song

"Summer is always so short so far north," I said as the lecture ended.

"Of course," Yoshimura-san answered. "But there are quite a few things you can do in Summer which you can't do in other seasons."

"Such as?" I asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "Going to the beach, like what most people like to do."

"Do you like going to the beach, Yoshimura-san?"

"Honestly, not very much. I'll get sand everywhere." she replied. "Anyway, you don't have to be so formal with me. We're friends remember? Just call me by my first name already."

"So I can call you Ayumi-chan?" I asked.

It felt weird coming out of my mouth for the first time. I was too used to calling her Yoshimura-san. But she did have a very nice name.

"Of course," she replied. "Although I admit, it's very rare people call me that."

I giggled.

"You can call me Ayano-chan too then," I said.

Spring had turned to summer. The passing of the months made me more comfortable in Sapporo. I was getting used to where things were, and how things worked. For once, I felt like I fit in. I busied myself, and I was beginning to overcome the grief that I had come to Sapporo with, the excess baggage that clung itself onto my dragging feet.

"Where are you going after this?" I asked her as we walked down the lane cutting through the campus grounds.

"Well, it's Tuesday today," she replied. "That means I have a Literature Society meeting at two."

I took out my phone and looked at the time. It was eleven.

"That means you have some free time then," I said. "You want to go for lunch together?"

"That's fine with me," the young woman answered.

The two of us went to a small ramen shop not far away from our campus. It wasn't the first time we were there, having discovered it a few weeks ago when we stumbled upon it after I followed Ayumi-chan to settle something at the post office.

The place was pretty modest, nothing too grand, a far cry from the French restaurant in the hotel Ayumi-chan had taken me to the first time we met. Nevertheless Ayumi-chan didn't seem to mind.

The place wasn't crowded yet, since we managed to beat the lunch crowd. We both ordered two bowls of shoyu ramen and waited for them to arrive. Ayumi-chan ordered a serving of gyoza added on to it.

"What do you do at the meetings?" I asked her, starting a conversation as Ayumi-chan checked something on her phone.

"Sorry," she replied, putting her phone away into her handbag. "What was it? Are you talking about the Literature Society?"

"Yeah, that," I said.

Our drinks arrived, two glasses of iced green tea.

"Well, we generally talk about books, of course," she replied. "Sometimes we just share what we found interesting about a book or a certain text."