Cold Fever - Chapter 2 - Part 2
Spring
Fujishima woke up to the sound of the window
panes rattling. He reached out with his right hand to where Tohru should have
been but found nothing. As he slowly looked around the dark room, he saw Tohru
standing naked by the window, staring outside.
A strong wind had been blowing since the
afternoon. Now that it was night and everything around was quiet, the sound of
the wind was even more noticeable. Fujishima recalled his boss at work
grumbling about it being a spring storm. “At this rate, all the cherry blossoms
might fall before we can even go flower viewing...”
As Fujishima kept looking, Tohru soon returned
to bed. His bare skin, when touched, felt cold like glass. Even while embracing
Fujishima, Tohru seemed distracted, as if his mind was elsewhere.
The unsettled man eventually got out of bed. He
turned on the room’s light. The sudden brightness made Fujishima instinctively
close his eyes.
“...Are you sleepy?” Tohru asked.
Fujishima glanced at the clock. It was 2:30
a.m.
“A little.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday, and you don’t have work,
right?”
Fujishima nodded.
“We’re going outside. Get dressed.”
“Where are we going?”
Tohru didn’t answer. Not knowing where they
were headed in the middle of the night, Fujishima changed his clothes. He was
about to go out in just jeans and a light sweater, but Tohru put a jacket on
him. Tohru himself only wore a long-sleeved T-shirt.
Even before they left the apartment, Tohru was
tightly holding Fujishima’s right hand. Walking briskly against a headwind that
made Fujishima want to close his eyes, they hurried along to keep up with Tohru’s
fast pace. They passed through a park, crossed in front of a shopping street,
entered an alley unfamiliar to Fujishima, and finally arrived at an old
embankment along the river.
Tohru stopped under a large cherry blossom tree
at the edge of the river. Under a retro wooden streetlamp, the white petals of
the cherry blossoms appeared vivid.
“I wanted to bring you here when the blossoms
were in full bloom,” Tohru murmured quietly. “But it seemed like they were
going to scatter soon...”
A strong wind blew, scattering the white petals
into the darkness. There was a soft rustling sound, and looking down, Fujishima
saw petals rolling across the concrete ground.
“…I heard a sound,” Fujishima said, looking up
at Tohru. “I didn’t know petals could make a sound.”
Without saying a word, Tohru silently picked
the petals from Fujishima’s hair one by one.
Tohru seated Fujishima on the edge of the
embankment, then stood beside him, looking up at the tree. They gazed blankly
at the beautiful yet ephemeral sight.
A petal gently landed on Fujishima’s lips. He
noticed but pretended not to. Almost immediately, Tohru’s large fingers removed
the petal from Fujishima’s lips.
Tohru placed the petal on his tongue and
swallowed it. For some reason, Fujishima suddenly felt embarrassed and looked
down. At his feet, petals continued to rustle softly.
“Shall we come again next year?”
When asked, Fujishima nodded slowly and firmly.
He wanted to keep coming, next year and the year after that, as long as Tohru
would invite him to come along.
Watching the profile of the man beside him,
Fujishima felt it was a happy night.
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