Fifty Words for Rain(16)

“Where will we go?” she demanded. If this newfound autonomy didn’t take her to where Akira was, it was as worthless as tainted drinking water.

“Your brother is most likely in the kitchen, little madam.”

Nori’s mind tried to conjure up an image of the kitchen for reference and could not. She jutted out her bottom lip. It struck her that she had never been in there before, thus the reason she was drawing a blank. She had a vague memory of another kitchen, in the time before. Her mother hadn’t really liked to cook. Most nights, she would bring food home. The noodles were always too salty and the rice was always dry. But she did remember that they would get ants in the kitchen every summer and her mother would spray them with a bottle of water and vinegar. The whole apartment would smell of vinegar for days.

The memories were coming back to her, one by one, as if to herald the arrival of another piece of the puzzle her mother had left her.

She started towards the stairs, and Akiko fell into step behind her. She didn’t falter at the first set of stairs, or the second, or the third. She marched with the purpose of a soldier. All of her previous hesitation seemed to have evaporated into thin air.

She proceeded down the stairs as quickly as she could without dragging poor Akiko down completely. The bottoms of her feet became very sweaty all of a sudden in her socks. She paused at the landing, removed the socks, and offered them to Akiko. Akiko took them without a word and slipped them into her apron pocket.

Realizing that she, in fact, did not know where the kitchen was, Nori waited as patiently as she could for Akiko to lead the way. As the maid took her hand and led her down the long, winding hallways, Nori couldn’t help but notice how nice the house smelled.

She spotted some flowers in a vase on a mahogany end table. They were a soft white with a small butter-yellow center, and they smelled of rain. She was possessed with a fierce urge to run them underneath her fingers.

It had been many years since she’d seen flowers this close up. She didn’t remember what they felt like, if she’d ever known.

“Akiko-san, what are those?”

The maid looked behind her absently before they turned a corner. “Those? Those are kiku no hana. Chrysanthemums. They are the sigil of the imperial family, your cousins. Your grandmother always keeps them around the house.”

“They’re pretty. Are they very noble, then?”

“Yes, they are.”

“And Grandmother is royal, isn’t she, Akiko-san?”

“She is, little madam. She has royal blood in her. She is very proud of it.”

Vaguely, Nori wondered if that meant she had royal blood in her too. But somehow she didn’t think so. Somewhere along the way, it had been diluted out of her. Something had canceled it out, and that’s why things were the way they were.

The kitchen was separated into two parts, one part counters and cooking appliances (she counted three ovens). There were two women standing there, chopping vegetables. They didn’t look up at her when she walked in.

Then there was another part, a little off to the side, surrounded by large windows and a skylight above. The windows were hung with sheer curtains, long and billowing in the slight breeze. The sunlight flickered through them, and Nori could see the dust particles in the air. There was a round silver-rimmed glass table with more chrysanthemums in a vase resting in the center. There were plush silver-backed chairs with luscious white cushions around the table. Nori counted six.

And there, in the chair closest to the wall, was her brother.

He had his head buried in a book, long lashes casting the slightest hint of a shadow on his face. His dark hair was messy, as if hastily combed through once or twice, more to get the task out of the way than to actually tame it. He wore a plain short-sleeved button-down the color of the summer sky and white shorts. She let out a little gasp.

Akiko released her hand, bowed slightly, and whispered softly, “I’ll be back soon. Be good.”

Nori couldn’t help herself. She made a clumsy, mad dash to where Akira sat and scrambled into the chair next to him. The women across the room shot her irritated glances as her chair screeched loudly across the floor.

Akira raised a dark eyebrow at her, shooting her a sidelong glance while still keeping his eyes on the book.

She waited for him to speak. To reveal his masterful tale of how he’d managed to convince their grandmother to extend the length of Nori’s leash. She waited for him to tell her something. Ask her something. Anything.

But most of all, she wanted him to tell her why. Why he’d wasted even three sentences to help her. Why he was even allowing her in his presence. Why he, unlike the rest of the world, did not hate her for something that had happened before she was born. And then there was another part of her that was waiting to hear a harsh remark, a snide comment, or to feel the hiss of a slap against her cheek. There was a part of her that was waiting for this, this simple moment of contentment, to be snatched away from her.

She was waiting for God to send down something horrible, to remind her who she was and what her life was supposed to be. But there was nothing from God. And there was nothing from Akira.

Several moments passed in silence. Nori drew her knees up to her chest and waited.

Finally, after what seemed like a decade, Akira put down the book.

“Nori,” he said, “aren’t you bored?”

She stared at him blankly. Bored? What kind of ludicrous question was that? How could she possibly be bored?