"I wouldn't say that buying a car is a great idea, mainly because there're fuel costs, repair costs, you need insurance, blah blah blah. All that is quite a hassle. Unless if you have to... but you aren't planning on visiting the city everyday right?"
"Well, I do want to visit Miyako. But she probably wouldn't be comfortable with me being there, you know, in between you two. I would just feel awkward anyway, and if Miyako's going to be gone I'll need to start working again."
"Do you want me to send you some money? Maybe for about a year or so. It should be easy, seeing as the cost for most things here are relatively cheap."
"No no! I couldn't ask you to do something like that, look it's getting quite late, I should head back to the kitchen. We should be nearly finished, so come to the living room soon ok? I really want you to try eating my wife's specialty dish."
Miyako walked into the room as her father was leaving. He glanced over at her for a second and continued walking. Miyako looked inside her room and saw Asahi looking at the floor. "What did you and my father talk about?"
Asahi got startled and jumped, he shook his head frantically and turned to Miyako who was wearing a red t-shirt, with a towel limping on her shoulder. "Is there something wrong?" She placed the towel onto the table, "oh, no... it's nothing."
"Is it my turn now?"
"Yes, I just finished so the floor is still wet, so try not to trip and break your neck." Asahi stared blankly into Miyako's face. "Yeah... I think I'll do that."
"Use this towel, It's the only one we have, but I already washed it thoroughly after I used it." Miyako took the towel off her shoulder and handed it to Asahi. But it was still dripping wet and the water splattered onto the floor. "Alright, alright. Give it to me."
He hurriedly rushed off, and Miyako's mother, who was behind the door. Entered behind her. Miyako quickly turned around when a hand touched her shoulder. "Hm?" Her mother was solemnly standing behind her and she patted Miyako gently on the back. "Come sit down with me."
She sat beside Miyako on her bed and gently placed a hand on her shoulder, "have as much fun as you can with Asahi... I see that he's a good person. I'm sure you'll enjoy his company. But don't take him for granted. If he makes you angry, then talk to him. If he makes you annoyed, then ask him."
Miyako looked at the ground, seemingly to be deep in thought. Her mother smiled and lifted her hand, as she stood and started walking out. Once she reached the door, she grabbed the door frame and turned around again. Miyako stared at the same spot she'd been staring at from when her mother entered. She sighed and closed the door behind her.
Miyako exhaled loudly and calmed herself. She quickly put a hand on her mouth when she felt her stomach churn. "Ow..." she was only breathing small amounts of air at slow rate, which caused her already injured body to feel pain. She continued placing her hand over her mouth and mumbled, "I don't think I can..."
As Asahi dried his hair under the squeaking fan in Miyako's room, Miyako stared at him continuously. He had realised from a while ago that she was staring at him.
When Asahi finished drying his hair, he went up to Miyako. "Is there something you want to talk about?" She nodded quickly, to Asahi's surprise. "Oh you do?" He hanged the towel on the door handle and fiddled with his hair before he sat.
"So what is it?" Miyako looked at Asahi, then right and left. "Miyako... this is a closed room with no windows. What are you looking out for?" Miyako ignored him and asked. "What would make you happy?" Asahi placed a finger to his forehead. 'what would make me happy?'
"Going on a trip with you is the best thing I could have asked for, any more and I would start to feel guilty."
"Is that a figure of speech?" Miyako slowly crossed her arms.
She couldn't understand how that would be enough to make someone happy. "Are you sure?" She asked. Asahi smiled and said "very sure, don't worry about it." She opened her eyes and Asahi was staring directly at her face. "U-uh... what is it?" She pulled her head backwards.
Asahi was staring at her face, and her hair. His hand firmly grabbing the lower part of his jaw, he mumbled. "Her face is so beautiful, yet the way she acts is cute. Her dark hair brightens her light green eyes. Her red t-shirt gets in the way of her overall look, but still somehow managed to make her look even better, because of her hair..."
He soon caught himself mumbling about her again, after Miyako opened her eyes.
"Ah, nothing..." Asahi continued talking, "It's quite strange." He climbed back to his side of the table, "what is?" He sighed and folded his arms, "the situation we're in."
"I suppose it is... though both of us didn't talk much about it so I didn't really feel it was." Miyako responded.
"Are we going to visit them too?" She asked. "Visit who?" Asahi's attention seemed to be fully on Miyako, "your family. Are we going to visit them?" Asahi suddenly seemed less cheerful and energetic.
"We don't need to do that, my parents already divorced and I use to live with my father, but now I just send him monthly money from my own apartment."
"Oh... I'm so sorry for asking."
"It's alright, I don't mind telling other people about it." He waved his hand frantically from side to side.
Asahi realised there was one last thing he could do for his father who stayed behind to take care of him as a single father for years, "I think I'll just give all my possessions to him on the last day, how about you...?"
"I might do the same then."
"I should really pay him a visit too actually... I haven't seen him in years." Asahi mumbled under his breath. Just then, they hear a yell from the other side of the house, even though it was only from the other room, it sounded faint. "We've just finished! Miyako! Asahi! Come over here, I want you to try my wife's dish!"
It had just become dark out and they walked into the living room of the house. The glass table at the front of an old tv looked expensive. "That table doesn't look like something you'd get from around this area. Where'd you get it?"
Miyako's grandmother walked up to Asahi, and with her bony hands, she pointed at the table. "It's an old gift from a friend of mine, who lives in the city. I told her she didn't have to buy us anything whenever she visited but she still insisted... I'm worried about her, so could you please go check up on her when you get the chance? She runs a flower shop if I'm not mistaken..."
"A flower shop? I think I know who you're talking about."
"You do...? Thank you, please do go tell her something, here's my phone number, you can text me what she said." Asahi was shocked to see an elderly person that was so engaged with newer technology. "Don't you have her phone number?" He asked. "I don't... the last time she visited, I was still trying to figure out how to use it... so could you give her my phone number?"
"Of course I will."
"Thank you..."
"Presenting! My wife's Udon!" Asahi was disappointed at the turnout. "I was expecting, something more extravagant." Miyako's father shook his finger, "but you haven't even tried it yet." Asahi stood infront of the table, as her parents pushed tall bamboo chairs towards the table. "I'll go eat at the sofa." There weren't enough chairs for all of them.
"I'll eat at the sofa as well, excuse me." She walked past her father, who was holding two bowls of Udon. "Oh, I see..." her mother grabbed the bowls that he was carrying and quickly placed them on the glass table.
Miyako went into a secluded room and dragged out two extremely short chairs made of bamboo as well. The glass table was too short for the taller chairs that were used at the dining table, but the short bamboo chairs were the perfect size for adults like Miyako and Asahi to sit on. "Aren't these for kids? Why do you have two?"
Miyako was still holding the two chairs, so she looked down at her hands. "We would use them in the park, so of course I'd have more than one." Asahi sat down on the chair, beside Miyako and they both grabbed a pair of chopsticks and started eating.
Not only was the chair unusually comfortable. But the Udon Miyako's mother made, was actually delicious. "This is better than the Udon you'd find in the city..." he controlled his urge to swallow the whole bowl, and chose to preserve his dignity as he ate.
"Is it good?" Miyako asked. "Mm- mM, Mmm!" Asahi tried to speak with his mouth full, he'd failed to control his urge. He heavily swallowed and cleared his throat with water. "This is delicious!" Miyako's father had overheard his statement. "Isn't it!" He yelled and rejoiced. "I'm glad you enjoy it. We have more if you'd like?" Asahi finished his bowl and drank the soup.
"Is this homemade?" Miyako's mother suddenly seemed happy, "You realised? Yes it is!" Miyako's parents seemed like entirely different people to him, the more he spoke to them, the more he knew about them.
Still a bit more time before Asahi and Miyako slept, they went to look through an old box of Miyako's belongings from when she was a child still living in the small rural town, a small doll made of straw was near the bottom of the box next to a couple of rocks.
"What are those rocks?" He picked up a stone pebble and examined it. "It looks normal to me." He placed the rock back into the box. "Oh- Uh- These are... nothing." She handed him the doll and slowly tucked the pebbles into a corner of her closet.
Asahi stared at the face of the doll and nonchalantly remarked, "this doll looks quite a lot like you." Miyako quickly turned to Asahi who was showing the doll to her. It had black strands of yarn for hair and green buttons for eyes. The doll itself was made of a high quality wood, but was aged and dusty. It also wore a small white cotton dress.
She took the doll from him and looked at it closely. "If I remember correctly, my mother made this doll for me back then because she thought I was lonely since I didn't have many friends."
Miyako realised she had talked out loud and froze, she quickly hid her face behind her hands. Simultaneously dropping the doll on the floor.
Ignoring what she'd said, Asahi looked at the doll and it was surprisingly smooth when he was examining it earlier despite it being about around two decades old, it didn't look that bad either, Miyako's mother was a good doll maker back in her prime, but she had never told Miyako, neither did her father as well. Perhaps they had simply forgotten it.
The floor was hard as it was made out of wood, "will you be comfortable sleeping on the floor?" Miyako asked worriedly, "you might wake up with back pain." Asahi lied down on his bed, "it's fine." sleeping this way gave Asahi a nostalgic feeling.
He'd never lived somewhere like the countryside before so he shouldn't have felt this way, but something about the countryside just gave him a nostalgic feeling, like returning home after a long and exhausting trip, then going back to your room, taking a short shower and turning on the air conditioning while drying your hair, it naturally gave him the same feeling.
The only real problem was how hard the floor actually was, he realised too late that he might actually have back pain when he woke up, but at this point Miyako was already fast asleep, so he just went to sleep as well, while trying to ignore his aching back.
With that, Asahi turned off the lights, and when morning came, they ate breakfast, had a shower and put back on their traveling clothes.
Miyako's parents waved to them. "See you soon." they handed Asahi a famous local bracelet as they exited the door, and were still waving even as they went their way and left the area.
The smell of fresh air after cold rain, of the water in the fields, the sound of the farmers working, the feeling on the surface of your skin on a cold but sunny day, the scenery he saw as he turned back to look at the house atop a hill and the feeling of being able to go around with someone, made the moment all the more special to him yet an indescribable feeling was nagging at his neck.
Unfortunately they had to go to their next destination.