Sublime

A little after two, we made it back to Minowa, the closest station to my place. Stopping along the way for a 210-yen bowl of noodles, we braved the heat and walked the ten minutes home, while the cries of cicadas smeared the atmosphere.

By the way, I wanted to ask – what was it you had me put in Hideji’s soup right at the end? You know, that stuff in the jar.’ ‘Instant dashi powder. He’ll need to get used to that stuff if he’s going to live with Nami.’

She would have liked a lotus, or China asters or the Japanese Iris, or meadow lilies—yes, she would have liked meadow lilies, because the very word meadow made her breathe more deeply, and either fling her arms or want to fling her arms, depending on who was by, rapturously up to whatever was watching in the sky. But dandelions were what she chiefl