Page 24 of The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop
Upon knockingon her big sister’s door, she heard a brief ‘Yep’. After a short pause, the door opened. Her sister’s carpet was a faint blue, a colour she wouldn’t describe as traditionally ‘girly’. The only reason this caught her eye was because the room was practically empty. She noticed the cardboard boxes stacked against the wall.
‘Sorry – you busy? Preparing for a house move must be hard work, huh?’
Dressed in a sweatsuit, her sister touched the rim of her black-framed glasses as she shook her head, saying that it wasn’t as bad as she expected.Liar, Kaho thought bitterly to herself. Her sister had a habit of bringing her fingertip to her glasses whenever she was being dishonest. Did she really think that Kaho hadn’t noticed? Maybe she didn’t even know that she had developed such a habit. Not that any of that mattered. Again, Kaho kept these thoughts to herself as she brought up the topic she was here to discuss.
‘So… Got any plans tomorrow, Shiho?’
‘Nope,’ Shiho answered without missing a beat. Her reply was as curt as before, but this time, she didn’t bring her hand up to her glasses.
‘Apparently, the cherry blossoms along the river have opened – you know, the ones on our school route. Chii sent me a message about them. I was wondering if you wanted to see them – go for a little Hanami together?’
‘Hanami? You mean just us two?’
‘Well, we walked that route together for six whole years, but we didn’t really get to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom, did we?’
‘That’s because we were usually on our spring break during peak season. We never went that way unless we were going to school.’
‘Exactly. So I thought it might be nice for us to go there together, before you leave.’
‘I don’t mind.’
The two of them fell into silence.Don’t I get any credit for mustering up the courage to ask you?thought Kaho. Then, she found herself saying something that even she didn’t see coming.
‘Isthatall you have to say?’
‘What?’
‘It’s just?—’
Kaho stopped mid-sentence, too embarrassed to follow with the words that had floated into her mind. At the same time, she knew that this might be her only chance to say them.
‘From April, we’re going to start living apart from each other for the first time in our lives,’ Kaho continued. ‘In fact, since we’re twins, we were together evenbeforewe were born. Don’t you feel – something? At least a little bit emotional or sentimental or whatever?’
‘Well, I guess I feel—’ Shiho began. Then, touching her glasses again, she continued, ‘—like I need to thank the gods that I no longer have to worry about my ice-cream andpurinsuddenly disappearing.’
‘That goes both ways.’
‘And I don’t deny that, but Tae-chan has definitely been found guilty before.’
Tae-chan was their mother. At some point, the two of them had stopped calling her ‘Mum’ or ‘Mama,’ and began using her name instead. If there was something that had prompted them to do so, Kaho could no longer remember. But she was pretty sure that it was Shiho’s idea. At least, according to their mother, it was Shiho who’d suddenly called her that one day. Although, when this was mentioned to her, Shiho shrugged it off with a nonchalant ‘Did I?’ and that was the end of it. As for Kaho, she simply followed her sister’s lead, never thinking much about it.
‘Whatever,’ Kaho said.
Then, holding up her hand, she continued, ‘Anyway, we’re going tomorrow. Don’t forget.’
‘Okay, then. Night.’
‘Goodnight.’
Once Kaho was on her way, her sister gently closed the door.
* * *
When Kaho was younger, she believed that she and Shiho were two halves of a whole. In fact, according to their mother, even after they’d become old enough to be aware of the world around them, there were moments when she questioned whether the girls fully understood that they were two separate beings.
For instance, if Shiho finished her meal quickly, then Kaho, who had barely touched her food, would claim that she was full and stop eating. Other times, Kaho would fall and scrape her knee, and Shiho would start to cry, saying that she, too, felt pain in the same spot. There were even times when, if one of them had a particularly bad injury, say on her right knee, their mother would find mysterious welts on the other – also on the right knee.
However, whether it was because of her laid-back personality – she was, to put it positively, the happy-go-lucky type, and to put it bluntly, extremely naïve – their mother didn’t find it particularly strange. It might have also been because she was a first-time mother, but whatever it was, she just dismissed it as twins being twins. Even their father wasn’t too bothered, believing that one of them had scratched herself because she wanted to be the same as her sister. Still, their parents made sure that the two sisters were treated equally.
