Chapter 7.1

"Mom, I'm going to Megumi's!" Kaori called to her mother in the kitchen.

"Oh, a get-well visit?"

Yup, Kaori nodded. "I have a book to bring back to her, too."

"I see. There are some grapes in the refrigerator, bring those with you."

"It'll be all right."

"You can't go empty handed. I bought them as an offering for the holiday, anyway."

As told by her mother, Kaori opened the fridge. Inside were a box of chilled muscat grapes. Taking them out and bringing them together with the book, Kaori put on the slipper by the kitchen door and headed out. In the cooling night wind, people could be seen here and there standing about after lighting the welcoming fires.

Love popped his face out from his dog house wanting to go along, but Kaori shook her head and walked along the roads at night. The tap tap of her sandals mingled with the voices of the insects behind her.

Night in the village were generally dark but that wasn't the case at all in Kaori's neighborhood. As soon as she left the house, there was the Ootsuka Sawmill lumberyard, and beyond that wide field was the national highway. The highway was between that plot and the Kusunoki Stand. The bright light from the gas station shone undeterred, lighting up the surroundings, much more reliably than any telephone pole street lights could have.

The cooling night air was very settling and calming. Easy going, she passed by the lumberyard when, illuminated by the light of the gasoline stand, she could see Ootsuka Yasuyuki pointing towards the lumber. Yasuyuki was already past thirty, much older than Kaori, but he felt like a big brother figure from around the neighborhood. Maybe it was because ever since her little brother Akira was young, he'd let them come over and lpay incessantly. That Yasuyuki was pointing to the mountain of lumber, talking to a figure beside him about something. Even though it's Obon, he's working this late, thought Kaori as her walking slowed, when she caught sight of the woman she had never seen before at Yasuki's side.

Yasuyuki was still unwed. He had a good temperament but the problem was that he was shy, so she had heard that the little old lady from Ootsuka Lumber had said. He was looking to be set up for a marriage with somebody but, with that said, the problem was with who? The age to be doing marriage interviews is in your twenties, so it's believed.

[TL/N: Marriage Interviews

(O)miai

, usually translated as arranged marriages, are more like meetings and dates with the explicit intent of marriage. Typical ages for these meetings are 23-30, and are often set up by parents who feel the adult child is not seeking enough initiative to wed on their own. Marriage Interviews can be set up by family, friends, or by the person themselves, either formally with a company or otherwise. In the more formal ones, the families meet and compare their compatibility. Looks, education, employment, pedigree, social status, etc. are all considered, usually before the first actual meeting between the two to be wed. After the decision is reached based on the statistics on paper, and the first in person meeting, there are usually three to five dates had before determining whether to wed or not. The initial vetting process is ideally strict enough to avoid the potential embarrassment of an embarrassingly personal refusal at such a late stage.

They are declining in popularity as ideas of a more natural romance and courtship have become more popular. In a closed region such as Sotoba where new prospects are understandably harder to come by, the appeal is obvious. This is how Junko and other women who married out of the town into Sotoba most likely met up with their husbands, if they did not meet in college such as Kyouko and Toshio. The woman typically moves in with the man rather than the reverse, so Sotoba women who have interviews would generally leave the village upon deciding to wed]

Marriage interviews and weddings, maybe it was because those talks still lingered in her mind, and because the woman was dressed in her best. She was in a white summer-knit one piece, and a transparent top over that. In white heels and a white bag, her hair was loosely put up. Her earrings glistened in the light.

(She's beautiful...)

Kaori's feet stopped. Of course her facial features were gorgeous; how to put it---she felt very sophisticated. Like an actress who would be on TV.

Maybe Yasuyuki noticed that she had been thoughtlessly just staring at them, as he turned towards her. He smiled shyly.

"Hiya, Kaori-chan. On an errand?"

"Going to Megumi-chan's."

Is that right, he said, almost blushing as he motioned to the woman beside him. "This here is the Madame of the Kirishikis. She says her name is Chizuru-san. You know, from Kanemasa."

"Heh? Kaori murmured. This was her? Then, Yasuyuki definitely wouldn't propose to her. With Yasuyuki seeming so completely flustered, she suddenly got the feeling it was a shame. It'd have been good if he could have gotten engaged.

"Good evening," Chizuru greeted. Something was coquettish about her, like a star who would be on TV, like she'd thought.

"I just met her over there a while ago. This seems to be the first time the Madame of the Kirishikis has seen a lumberyard."

Hmm, Kaori mused. When a smile rose on Chizuru's face as Kaori received her gaze, she was suddenly conscious of herself, in a childish T-shirt and culottes with an elastic waste-band. Somehow, it was very embarrassing.

"This girl is from the neighborhood, she's called Tanaka Kaori. Right now, she's in middle school."

As Chizuru's eyes narrowed, Kaori became more and more embarrassed. You could even call her timid. If she had at least put her hair up or something. As it was, she had barely just run a comb through it.

"She's a really good girl. --Madame, do you have children?"

"I have a daughter. She is in her first year of middle school but, unfortunately, her body is weak, so going to school is..."

"Oh yeah? That must be difficult."

"Thanks to that, she's very shy of strangers. If she's able to become more healthy here, it would be good if she could make friends, but." Saying this, Chizuru smiled towards Kaori. "If you'd like, please do come by sometime."

"Ah... Yes. Likewise. Thanks." Kaori said, chewing out a response, hastily bowing her head and leaving as if running away.

(...What a surprise.)

While running clack-clack ahead, she turned back to look at the lumber yard. Yasuyuki was, face red, talking to Chizuru about something.

There really are people like that, she realized. She was like a wife in a TV drama. And furthermore.

(Her body is weak...)

A first year middle school girl. The same age as Akira. She probably didn't go to school. She was really like the star of a TV drama.

Still flustered, trotting through the night streets, if she had gone any further she'd have went right past Megumi's family's house. She hurried her limbs to a stop, hurrying towards the entryway. Though she haf always gone around to the kitchen door, tonight for some reason or other she felt like visiting from the entryway. For what was practically the first time, she stood at the entryway, pushing the doorbell.

There was an immediate response, the door opening. Megumi's mother's eyes were wide.

"Oh my, it's Kaori-chan. I thought we had a guest."

Kaori felt herself blushing. She always opened the back door and called out. There were even times when she'd just call out and go on up on her own. So she herself didn't understand very well why she was in the mood to ring the doorbell.

"Uhm.... how is Megumi-chan's condition? This is a get well visit. Uhm, this is from Mom,"

Kaori presented the box of grapes. As Megumi's mother accepted them, she murmured in surprise. "Oh, well. Thank you. ....What's wrong, Kaori-chan, you're so stiff."

"Well... this is a get-well visit...."

"Well. It wasn't such a big deal. It was only anemia. Anyway, go ahead on up."

"Sorry for intruding," Kaori said formally, stepping into the entryway. She slipped off her shoes and, even while told to go upstairs, she nodded, and headed to the second floor. Was this always the kind of house she had, she thought while going up the steps.

Megumi's house was, compared to Kaori's, very new. The walls were mortar and plaster but adorned with wallpaper, and the floor was distinctly western in style. Megumi's mother, being a fastidious person, kept the house well cleaned, with flowers arranged in the entryway, and small trinkets lining the shelves. Kaori had always thought of Megumi's house like this, as a place that had felt very stylish.

And yet, tonight, it looked different. Megumi's mother didn't go as far as to wear casual night gowns like Kaori's mother but, she was indeed dressed comfortably and normally, and she had no makeup on. The inside of the house, too, if you looked closely, was already starting to show the colors of age, and the florists's decorations, too, seemed somewhat jumbled up.

With a complicated feeling, she climbed the stairs to Megumi's room, where there was a stuffed animal beneath the bedroom door nameplate, holding onto a dried flower but, something about that, too, seemed to have a layer of dust, as if it, too, were going terribly downhill.

She knocked ant opened the door. The truth was that Kaori had always admired the perfectly western room of Megumi's, overflowing with girlish little knickknacks and yet, tonight under the florescent lights, it seemed terribly washed out. It was a completely ordinary room. The only thing different from Kaori's old worn out room was just that it was filled with newer things, nothing more---

"Megumi-chan, how are you feeling?"

She entered the room and came by the bedside. It didn't seem like Megumi was asleep, her eyes were open, with a gloomy look.

"You're looking pale. Are you okay?"

Megumi gave a sluggish nod, but she might have just been half asleep.

Kaori pulled out a small stool that a stuffed animal had been sitting on, moved the stuffed animal out of the way and sat. Considering the strange lack of vividness in the room tonight, she looked at Megumi, thinking that this was what Megumi had been staring at all this time. Kaori had come to think of Megumi's room as just amazing but maybe to Megumi it had always looked to be these colors. So, she always went up and down that hill, always looked up to that house. Certainly there was no comparison to this house and Kaori's huose with that house at Kanemasa. Although, there was no doubt that the "something" that this home seemed to be faking was a "something" that house genuinely possessed.

The voices of the insects rode in on the wind through the open window. Kaori peered into Megumi's face, that seemed somehow so vastly far off.

"So, like, it was really amazing. Just now, who do you think I met?"

Megumi didn't answer. Still, her gaze, if only that, shifted towards her.

"They said their name was Kirishiki. The people from that mansion. I met the lady of the house. She's called Chizuru-san. She was such a pretty person!"

Megumi's shoulder had only a twitch of movement.

"It's the first time I'd seem someone put on makeup and earings, even though she was just walking through the village! But, it really suited her. It didn't feel flashy like, it was more what you'd call elegant, maybe?"

"I know...."

Eh, Kaori looked at Megumi. Megumi's expression seemed to possess a certain bite to it.

"I know... at least, that much."

Kaori blinked as Megumi wore a thin smile. Some part of her expression seemed to be scoffing at Kaori.

"She's beautiful.... so, very beautiful...."

Kaori tilted her head, watching Megumi's facial expression attentively.