The unfamiliar sense of plastic homeliness felt wrapped tight around Cotes Ward in particular. Obviously. No place in the quartered city seemed to mimic Japan quite like it, though these things are just designed to elicit a type of welcome to them and crush the fear of the unknown, Ryoji could tell that much. Each time he steps between the houses and catches an eyeful of that eternal cherry blossom park lining the corners of this bottled city, he feels it too. The September air really never was that warm or welcoming, freezing against the soft petals as they fell through it onto the ground. Again and again, all year round. The sleek library peaking its head over the tops of these pink trees did little to ease this feeling either, almost looming over him in the park like a shadow approaching in the dark.
But what can be done about that? The morning sun was so kind to him, and the trees seemed to stretch their arms out further while he stood beneath them, reaching his own hand out to stroke the knot of the branches before they splayed out into the cold, open air. Funny, someone seems to have tied a green stray tanzaku under the flowers too.
Enough of this, though, he could see a figure approaching from not too far away; somewhere close to where the cobbled pathway lined the grassy park, and little wooden benches dotted along the joint, just outside the metro branch. A familiar face, not really ‘approaching’ him per say, but definitely playing the role of being the only other person out here. Someone easy enough for him to recognise from a million miles away too, though the distance wasn’t being so kind to him as he might have hoped, and she always had a way of drawing attention towards her without really trying.
So away from the tree he looks over to where Mitsuru stood, perhaps freshly emerged from the library or wherever it is she appeared from. Hard to talk about predictability here, shivering under the blooming cherry blossom tree. “Nice, isn’t it?” he smiles, eventually pulling his hand from the branches back to his side, pushing it out of sight into his own pocket. “Almost like we’re in a dream,” he calls out, turning to find wherever she’d been standing. “A little long for my tastes, I’ve realised! Ahaha.”
