Origami Girl

Chapter 8: Bastion of Hopes and Desires II

Origami Girl

Chapter 8: Bastion of Hopes and Desires II

"Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed. "

― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

"Ittadakimasu"

The three of us kneeled in front of the low table in our room, flat cushions between our knees and the tatami floor. The dinner spread lay before us on the low table. We each had a small bowl of rice, a plate of thinly-sliced sashimi, some steamed lotus root and a few delicately fried prawn tempura. In the centre of the table was a group serving of fine slices of raw meat, and a stack of small bowls for us to fill with soy sauce if we wanted to. This was just the main meal, the ryoukan's hostess, dressed in her midnight blue kimono, informed us that dessert would arrive at seven forty-five, and if we wanted it earlier, we could give her a ring from the room's telephone. As scrumptious and ornate the dining set-up was, I couldn't find my appetite.

We were each lent a yukata by the hostess when we all checked in earlier, which we could all wear as sleepwear. Despite that, only Sayaka-chan was wearing hers. I was rather undecided on whether to put on mine or not, while Ka-chan probably hadn't had the time to unpack her clothes to decide whether to utilise hers or just use her own clothes. Her black trolley luggage and haversack were placed beside the sliding door, just the way she left it when we all first entered the room. I remembered we checked in only an hour before the stipulated dinner time, and Ka-chan decided to use that time to socialise with a few friends instead of unpacking. Well, she could still unpack after dinner.

I watched in the corner of my eye as Kameko-chan and Sayaka-chan dined. Kameko-chan held her rice bowl close to her mouth with the palm of her left hand, while picked away clumps of steaming rice with her chopsticks delicately. Sayaka-chan, on the other hand, was taking small bites out of her lotus root. Meanwhile, I only ate a few slices of pink raw beef, and picked away meticulously with my chopsticks at my tempura, scraping away some of the golden breadcrumbs off the prawn. It was no wonder then that the other two finished their meals and I was still only a quarter through it.

"You know. . . You shouldn't be playing with your food," Ka-chan  said.

I just grunted in response, not really listening to her. Ka-chan merely sighed.

"You've been acting really weird today, is everything all right?" Sayaka-chan asked.

"You seem to be in some kind of daze. You're not paying attention to anything!" Ka-chan added in.

"No! Nothing's all right! What should I do Ka-chan, Sayaka-chan? Help me!"  Well I certainly couldn't tell them that without them prying me for more information, so I just clammed up and told them nothing was wrong.

They obviously didn't believe me, and continued with their own small conversation. Nevertheless, they were right. I've truly been in a daze today.

After seeing my silence, Adam-kun quickly blurted out that I needn't give him a reply immediately. Not like it helped anyway. I didn't speak to him at all on the train from Nagoya to Shin-Osaka. It wasn't like I was angry at him or anything, it just was that I was too embarrassed and confused to say even a single word. I tried once, I remembered, while the train was at the platform of Kyoto station. I opened my mouth, the dry air-conditioned air entering through the gap between my lips, only to end up choking on my words. We alighted at Shin-Osaka without a word. I called Ka-chan, and the bus came down at the taxi stand to pick me up. Adam-kun accompanied me all the way while I was waiting for the bus, but when I looked out of the window after I boarded and took my seat beside Kameko-chan, he had vanished.