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It’s cooler here than in the city, a welcome reprieve from the suffocating heat of a Tokyo summer.
That was Yuki’s first observation, before he’s being whisked away by Shindo towards his family home, where a flurry of introductions and greetings awaits him.
He stands, somewhat awkwardly, as he accepts the onslaught of warm welcomes and questions about his trip. He doesn’t quite know what to do with himself — he’s not like Haiji, who has some sort of natural charisma that makes everyone fall in love with him, or like Shindo, who doesn’t have an ill-mannered bone in his body. Meeting your friend’s family is different from charming a client, probably, but he can only do what he knows, so he bows, politely introduces himself, thanks them for their hospitality, and offers the boxes of castella he picked up at Tokyo Station.
Shindo’s parents don’t seem to mind, as they thank him for taking care of Shindo, saying how much they’ve heard about him. Yuki thinks back to Shindo’s encouragement before his race, and thinks Shindo was always the one who took care of him.
Really, it’s very kind of him to invite Yuki here, though he’s sure he would’ve done the same for anyone else. Without him, Yuki would’ve spent his entire department-mandated break in his apartment, either working or thinking about work, the way he’s spent all his days since graduation. Shindo himself has been home since his own graduation, having chosen to move back briefly until his contract starts in the fall.
When Shindo’s helped him settle in for the night, he thanks him again, mostly just to have something to say. He hasn’t seen him since the Ekiden, and in a group outing the summer before that, where he had the comfort of company and shared memories to fall back on. Here, in the confines of Shindo’s childhood bedroom, he feels out of his depth, months of unspoken words in the space between them.
Shindo pauses, his hand on the light switch, and says: “Well, I wanted to have you here, senpai.”
Yuki sighs, and lays back on his futon, staring at the ceiling. “You’re way too nice, Shindo.”
Shindo laughs, too, after a beat. “I’m really not all that nice, Yuki-san,” he says, a smile in his voice, before drenching the room in darkness.
The next morning, Shindo shows him around the orchard. He gives him a ripened cherry for reference, and teaches him how to hand pick ones he deems ready, how to keep the stem but leave the spur for next year’s growth.
Yuki listens intently as Shindo teaches him more about farming and harvesting cherries than he’s sure he would’ve learned in a lifetime without making this trip. Cherry trees do not bear fruit until their fourth year. The sugar content in each fruit only rises in the last few days before harvest. Cherries are picked early in the morning, before the temperatures rise and they soften. Yuki watches Shindo, entirely in his element, and sighs.
“You really are so dependable, Shindo.”
Shindo turns back to look at Yuki, grimacing.
“Please don’t offer me your daughter’s hand in marriage again, Yuki-san,” he says, looking pained, and Yuki laughs, and everything falls back into place.
He falls into a routine, rising with the sun, and spending his mornings in the orchard with Shindo until he’s bone-tired and certain he can pick the shade of a ripened cherry out of a lineup. It’s a change from the usual late hours he keeps, staying overtime in the firm, never daring to entertain the idea of leaving before their seniors do. But it’s a kind of tiredness that speaks of a job well done, a soreness that feels like a prelude to his body growing stronger and not a sign that his body’s starting to deteriorate in a well-conditioned room before the age of twenty-five. The type of tiredness you feel after running three laps around Lake Shirakaba.
He thinks he can understand it now, those characters in books and movies who run away to the countryside to escape the rat race and to find themselves. He doesn’t know about finding himself, preferring to believe that he hasn’t yet lost his direction in life, but it does feel like some part of him that’s been missing has found its way home.
On the second afternoon, Shindo’s sister approaches him, and invites him to make cherry crumble with her.
Yuki doesn’t quite know how to act around kids, which is half the reason he didn’t go home for his break, but Saya-chan is sweet and polite so he says yes and follows her directions as she puts him to work in the kitchen.
She tasks him with measuring ingredients as she starts pitting the cherries. He falters, unsure if he should leave her with sharp tools, but she convinces him that she’s much more comfortable with the task than he will be, and gets to work expertly.
Shindo joins them then, leaning against the sink to watch as Saya begins to question him.
“Takashi-nii-chan says you’re a lawyer, Yuki-san?”
“Ah, yes,” he replies, unsure where this is going.
Saya ohhs, eyes widening. “So you question witnesses in the courtroom and put away bad guys?”
“Oh, no. I’m a corporate lawyer, so I mostly work in an office and help prepare documents or provide legal advice.”
Saya hums, thinking, before asking: “Is it hard?”
Yuki hesitates, unwilling to discourage her, but also not wanting to mask the realities of corporate life.
“It can be, yes. It’s tiring and takes a lot of attention to detail, and sometimes you have to deal with people you don’t want to deal with.” He pauses. “But all work is hard, so just do what you like.”
Saya nods, eyes wide, like she’s taken his words to heart. “You’re so cool, Yuki-san,” she says solemnly.
Yuki blinks, taken aback. It’s been a long time since he’s been called cool. Being cool is a sign of status when you’re young — high school classmates think you’re cool when you pierce your ears even though it’s against the school code, girls at bars less so when you tell them you passed the bar on the first try. The last time someone called him cool was probably when Shindo was teasing him about being uncharacteristically fired up in preparation for their time trials.
No one cares about being cool now, in the work field. You either get the job done or you don’t, and being cool carries no currency when you have nothing to show for it. But the compliment is surprisingly heartwarming to hear from someone to whom all you are, and not what you can churn out when you’re on the clock, is what you’re worth.
Yuki huffs out a smile. “I’m really not that cool, Saya-chan, but thank you. It means a lot.”
Shindo chimes in then. “He’s lying, Saya. Did he tell you that he passed the exam to become a lawyer on his first try? It’s considered one of the hardest exams in the world.” His eyes shift to meet Yuki’s. “That sounds pretty cool to me.”
“Cherry picking,” Shindo pipes up, so suddenly that Yuki nearly jumps out of his skin. He steadies himself on the ladder, and looks at Shindo, who’s gazing thoughtfully at the fruit in question. “It’s a logical fallacy, isn’t it?”
Yuki blinks, brain catching up before his mouth does. “I- Yeah. Huh.”
“‘Hand-picking only cases that support a certain position and ignoring the evidence that oppose it.’” Shindo recites from memory, nodding. “We learned about it in my senior year writing seminar. The class itself wasn’t very useful, but I suddenly remembered this, so I guess some of it stuck.”
Yuki nods. “It’s scary, isn’t it? It’s one thing to do it on purpose, but oftentimes it’s unintentional.”
Shindo hums in agreement. “Now that I think about it, there are so many fruit analogies. ‘Going out on a limb,’” he demonstrates, leaning forward on one leg to reach for a cherry. “Also ‘low-hanging fruit.’ Like how we pick our way up the tree, starting from those we can reach from the ground.”
Yuki tilts his head, mind now whirring. “I read a book by the Rikudo coach recently. Apparently one of his training methods is called the ‘Persimmon Tree Tactic,’ which uses the same concept of the low-hanging fruit. The idea is to get his runners to set a goal that is only half a step ahead of them, practical and achievable through effort. Once they taste the sweetness of accomplishment, they’ll put in the hard work necessary to taste it again, striving for the fruit just out of reach — and eventually they’ll be at the top.”
Shindo whistles. “That’s very systematic… Maybe Haiji-san should write a book about how he trained us. The ‘Tsurunoyu Tactic,’ using the onsen to build willpower and create an environment for team bonding. The ‘Diner’s Dilemma,’ using our dependence on his good cooking to get us to go along with his training regime.”
Yuki chuckles. “Don’t forget the section on ‘How to extort your housemates into joining your track team.’ I’m sure many people are just dying to know.”
Shindo laughs. Yuki continues, teasing, “And you? What are your training strategies, Sugiyama-san?”
Shindo smiles then, eyes crinkled and glinting with secrets, and Yuki thinks that maybe, maybe, he’s been looking at this all wrong.
I wanted you here, Yuki-san.
Maybe, he thinks, it’s time to reevaluate the evidence.
It’s cooler here than in the city, but it’s warmer in all the ways that matter. He spends his mornings in the orchard, and in the afternoons Shindo shows him around his hometown, where all the photos he’d seen on Shindo’s wall back at Aotake come to life.
They take boxes of less-than-perfect cherries to the Sugiyamas’ neighbors, their family friends, local shop owners, Shindo’s elementary school teachers. And they welcome them, even Yuki in all his pierced glory, with open arms, swapping tea and biscuits for some fresh produce and old stories.
It’s interesting, being here, the only place where Shindo is not “Shindo”. To his parents, he’s Takashi, to his sister, onii-san. To the town, he’s the dependable eldest child, the Sugiyama boy.
He says as much, and Shindo tilts his head, like he’s never thought about it before.
“Oh, you’re right. Even though I’m sure the nickname started when I was in school…” A beat. “You can call me Takashi too, senpai, if you want.”
Really, calling him senpai is just unfair. Yuki thinks of the fresh-faced, timid Shindo he’d been introduced to at the beginning of second year, and thinks he definitely wasn’t this way before Haiji and Musa corrupted him.
Then he thinks of Shindo’s captaincy, how he led the team in securing another seeded position, winning his section, a cherry tree that begins to bear fruit in its fourth year — and thinks that’s all Shindo.
The rain patters softly against the leaves outside. They sit on the edge of the veranda, safe from the splash but close enough to revel in its coolness, a bowl of cherries between them.
Shindo produces a stem from his mouth, tied neatly into a knot, and Yuki stares.
Shindo flushes. “Ah, I’m sorry. Is it gross? It’s just a trick my sister is impressed by, so I sometimes do it without thinking…”
Yuki reaches for his own piece, feigning nonchalance. The rain drums on, in time with his heartbeat. “Shindo,” he says, “I don’t know if you know this, but I lived with a bunch of other guys in an old, cramped house all throughout college. Nothing fazes me anymore.”
Shindo laughs, pops another fruit into his mouth, tugging the stem away gently to dispose of in the paper box between them, and Yuki can only stare some more.
Shindo’s sister joins them, later, when they’ve reached the bottom of the bowl. She’s holding a bag of karakara senbei, and she offers one to Yuki, showing him how to crack it open to reveal the toy inside.
Yuki crunches on the hard shell, and lifts his hand to examine the charm in the light. It’s a small bell, brightly-colored, the size of a cherry pit.
Shindo’s sister smiles at him then, before dutifully returning to her summer homework. Yuki toys with the bell, and thinks maybe he can afford to swing by home with a box of cherries after all. And if he’s going to go home, he might as well ask Saya-chan where he can buy some of those crackers, for his own sister.
“You must miss this when you’re away,” Yuki says, staring up at the sky. They’re lying at the top of a hill, the afternoon sun just starting to fade. This is the type of scenery one misses, he thinks, all sloping hills and rolling clouds. He’s going to miss this, and it won’t just be the scenery.
“The first semester away was the hardest,” Shindo admits. “But it got easier with time. I was really lucky to have landed somewhere like Aotake.”
Yuki hums, having long accepted this fact himself. He sits up, and Shindo does the same.
“Do you know what Haiji-san first asked me when he was trying to convince us to run? I didn’t remember until much later, after the race, but...”
Yuki glances at him, curious. Shindo’s staring into the distance, somewhere on the other side of the valley, the wind ruffling his hair.
“‘Which do you think are steeper, the slopes of Hakone or those of your home?’”
Yuki huffs out a breath. That does sound like something Haiji would say. And Shindo, who has run up the hills of Hakone twice and those of Yamagata for two decades before that, is the most qualified person to answer that. “And what is your verdict?”
Shindo stands then, stretching his arms out above him. “Well, I wasn’t the only one who took on the slopes of Hakone.” He turns, glances down at Yuki. “How would you like to find out for yourself?”
Yuki breaks out into a grin, getting to his feet, and Shindo smiles back, his eyes crescent moons but holding the warmth of a thousand suns. He turns and begins running down the hill, his laughter something like windchimes in the breeze. And like a moth drawn to a flame, Yuki follows.