VIOLET SKY, takigawa chris yuu

━ chapter twenty-four

She grimaces. "Yikes."

"Feel free to give him a hard time," he says. "This is a long time coming. You're allowed to be angry over his words. I know I am."

"In any other situation, I would," she admits. "Because you're right in that I am totally allowed to be mad at him, but it's also your dad. I don't know if my moral conscience will allow me to be mean." In the end, he had good intentions. He was just looking out for Chris. She understands that.

His face softens and he strokes a thumb over the apple of her cheek. "I won't be mad if you are or you aren't. It's your decision on how you want to handle him and whichever path is justified."

"Yeah," she sighs. It's not something she wants to think about now, given how awkward it's going to be, so she asks for her phone and absently looks at the birthday wishes from Chiyo and Hiro and some of the boys. Apparently, they are out on a date, while Isashiki and the others are joining practice today. Distractions, maybe, probably — she doesn't care. She rubs her eye.

"This is such a set-up," she mumbles.

"It's not —"

She shushes him. "It doesn't matter. It's my birthday and I don't care . . . and at the risk of sounding sentimental, can we, maybe, go to Nakatsuwa?" To the park, specifically.

She's just curious that's all. It's been a hot minute since she went. Chris goes semi-regularly for PT but he doesn't stop by there. Despite it being the middle of a stark winter, the kids might be there. That's all. Maybe she'll see them again.

Chris, to his credit, doesn't poke fun at her, nodding thoughtfully. "I don't see why not. We could get a late lunch there, too, there's this gyoza place a couple blocks from the train station."

"We can do that." She finally sits up, wincing at the stiffness in her joints, and reaches up to redo her messy ponytail.

"Do you think the kids will be there?"

"Maybe," she says. "Hopefully. It'd be nice to see them but I did kinda tell them goodbye already, just because of school and stuff, so it's fine if not."

He just hums in acknowledgment and she finally gets up, grabbing a fresh set of jeans, a white long sleeved fleece, and underwear. She turns on the shower to let the water heat up, and brushes her teeth in the meantime. Chris uses the shower after, with her instruction that all the bottles in English are hers and free to use — they're for her hair specifically, but it would be fine for him just this once.

While he showers, she brushes her hair and does her makeup and packs up her bag. She usually has her duffle bag of dirty clothes to bring as well but Eiko dropped by the school yesterday to take it.

I was in the area, she said brightly, but Amara thinks that it'd been in preparation for the impracticality of dragging around a bag of dirty clothes along with her messenger bag while spending the day with Chris.

She is doing a last minute search in her makeup bag for chapstick when Chris steps out, toweling his hair dry, unfairly handsome in a grey long sleeved fleece and dark wash jeans.

"Do you have chapstick?"

He directs her to a small pocket on his duffle bag and she gratefully puts some on, making a note to buy herself another tube of chapstick since hers seems to have gone missing. He puts his clothes back into the bag, then shrugs on a black Seido hoodie. She follows suit with a thick light pink cable-knit cardigan.

"Food first," she says as they put on their shoes and step out of the dorm into the chilly late-morning temperatures. Her stomach has been grumbling like crazy for the past couple minutes.