Oct 21, 2025
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Journal Entry #37
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__________
Victor
So far, the North Range has been an experience.
I don’t mean that in a bad way. In fact, it’s been surprisingly good. For one thing, Yuri is coping much better than I expected. I know it’s not easy for him and that he’s still not feeling the greatest, but I have to give him full credit for trying to make the best of it.
I keep telling him how brave he is and that I’m proud of him. It would’ve been so easy for him to just give in to everything he was feeling and to stay back in Maple Grove with my mom, but he’s here facing his anxiety and fear, and in my opinion he’s doing amazing.
He went fishing with me and Leo this afternoon and did pretty good for somebody who’d never tried to catch his own food before. We only had two rods among the three of us, so Yuri and I took turns with mine. I had to bait the hook for him because he wouldn't touch the worms, but even if he would have, there was no way I was letting his delicate little fingers anywhere near a sharp fish hook. Still, when I showed him how to cast the line, he caught on quickly, and the steady way he handled the reel was impressive for a beginner.
Naturally, I took a picture of him with his first catch. It was a tiny one that we had to put back, but he was fine with that. He was so proud of himself and could hardly wait for me to post the photo on Instagram for everyone to see. He didn’t get the biggest fish of the day, but we did keep one that he caught, and he excitedly told Ellie all about it while she was cooking our catch for dinner.
I don’t know what happened between Yuri and Ellie this morning, but something definitely did because I’ve noticed a big change in the way they’re interacting with each other now. All I know for sure is that they went for a walk around the lake after their trip to the bath shack. Yuri was exhausted when they got back. He seemed a little bit stressed and was super clingy for a while afterward, but he’s okay now and he and Ellie are getting along like a house on fire, as my Grandma Lydia would've said.
I’m happy about it because up till this weekend, I’d been worried that Yuri didn’t really want to be friends with Ellie and Leo. I’m still not sure he wants to be friends with Leo, to be honest, but Leo can be a bit much for a regular person to handle, so if an introvert like Yuri finds him overwhelming, it’s understandable. Plus, Leo treats him like he’s a little kid, and he doesn't like it. It’s different when I baby him. He knows I take him seriously despite how much I fuss over him and do things for him, but I’m not entirely convinced Leo actually sees him as a fully-functioning adult.
Eventually, I’ll have to talk to Leo about it. I need to wait for the right opportunity though, and I don’t think this weekend is going to be it. As it happened, Leo had his own stuff to talk about this morning, and it was serious enough that I was willing to wait to discuss my own concerns.
After our bath in the frigid lake, we got dressed in layers and then decided to build up the fire and warm ourselves a bit. Yuri and Ellie were elsewhere, no doubt enjoying a warmer bath than we’d had, so it was just Leo and me at our campsite.
I was debating whether I wanted a snack or whether I could wait until Yuri and Ellie came back and the four of us would have brunch together. Leo was doing something in his tent, most likely looking for his allergy medication which he’s constantly forgetting.
He emerged after a couple of minutes, looking disgruntled. He trotted over to where I was sitting by the fire and demanded. “Move your butt, Nelson. I’m freezing.”
I laughed. “You could say please.”
“Please,” he obliged. “I need to sit by that fire too, you know.”
I moved over to make space for him. “Did you find your pills?"
“Yeah,” he said. “Stupid pills. They were in a different pocket of my bag than I thought. I wish they could invent an antihistamine that you didn’t have to take in a tablet form every day. It’d be so much simpler if I could, like, give myself a shot once a month or something.”
“You hate needles," I pointed out.
“I also hate trying to keep track of those stupid tablets. It wouldn’t kill me if I stopped taking them, but I’d miss being able to play with my dogs and going outside with pollen and spores and whatever. I just wish it wasn’t so inconvenient.”
“It could be worse,” I said. “You could have to take as many medications as Yuri does, and he can’t stop taking any of his. If he did, it’d be way more than inconvenient. Sometimes he’s really ill even with all his meds. I don’t want to imagine what he’d be like without them.”
“How can a person even be that sick at his age?” Leo wanted to know. "That's not normal."
“He was a premature baby," I said. "Like, thirty weeks, which is super early. We might've had the same birthday if he'd been born on time. A year apart, but you know... same month and day, possibly."
"Isn't his birthday around the end of September?"
"Twentieth of September."
"And yours is December second," Leo said. "Holy crap."
"Yeah, so you can see how it happened. Like, if everything doesn’t get a chance to develop the way it’s supposed to before the baby comes out, then people can have have problems their whole lives.”
“That sucks,” Leo said. “And you’re stuck taking care of him.”
“Don’t make it sound like it’s a big hassle,” I said. “I want to take care of him. It’s not easy, and I’d be lying if I said he’s not a handful sometimes, but I’m not doing it because I feel obligated.”
He shook his head. "I could not do that."
“Not everybody could.”
“You’re a legit superhero, dude.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “It’s just that I love him unconditionally. How I feel doesn’t change whenever things get bad. You know how you promise ‘for better or for worse’? That’s what it means.”
“I still can’t believe you’re married,” Leo said.
I smiled. “You know what? Every once in a while, I have to remind myself too. I'm still getting used to it."
"What's it like? Being married, I mean. Was it like... I don't know. Did you cross some invisible threshold or something? Is it different on the other side?"
"Not really," I said. "I mean, it was a pretty big moment, but our relationship really hasn't changed."
"Really?"
“Really," I confirmed. "We were already exactly where we wanted to be. Getting married was more a formality than anything, as far as we’re concerned.”
“Huh,” was all he said. “Interesting.”
I stared into the fire, considering what I’d said. Had marriage changed us? I was sure it hadn’t, at least not significantly. I have to admit there’s a certain emotional security in being able to refer to Yuri as my husband and in hearing him refer to me as his, but fundamentally, our relationship is the same as it it’d been before we said our vows.
We’ll change and grow together over time, regardless. How our relationship looks five or ten or twenty years from now won’t be the same as it looks right now, but I’m positive our impromptu courthouse wedding will have far less impact on it than the things we’ll learn about each other, the decisions we’ll make, and the experiences we’ll go through.
We didn’t need rings or vows to build our life together as a couple. We already had all we needed for that; him and me, a lot of hard-won faith and trust, and a fierce determination never to give up on one another.
“Hey,” Leo’s voice broke into my contemplation. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” I said.
“It’s going to be strange.”
“Since when have I had a problem with you asking me strange questions?”
“No, this is really going to be awkward," he said.
I turned slightly to look at him. “You know if you pull off a Band-Aid really fast, it hurts less?”
“Yeah.”
“Just come out with it, Leo. Rip off that Band-Aid."
He heaved a huge sigh and glanced away from me for a second. “Okay,” he said. “Here it comes. Would it be weird if me and Ellie were like, a couple?”
“You and Ellie?” I repeated.
“I told you it was gonna be awkward.”
“Maybe it’d be a little weird," I conceded.
“Yeah," he said. "That’s what I thought.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad kind of weird," I amended. "It’d just take some getting used to. Why are you asking, though? Is this hypothetical, or…?”
“I guess it’s sort of hypothetical since I haven’t said anything to anybody yet,” Leo said. “But it’s sort of not hypothetical because I think I might be in love with her.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he said. He picked up one of the sticks we’d discarded the night before and started poking at the fire with it. “I didn’t even know it was happening. That’s the crazy part. I figured there’d be this big buildup or something, but it just occurred to me one night at her place while I was watching her eat a slice of pizza.”
I laughed. “Yeah, it’s like that.”
“So, it’s normal?”
“I have no idea what’s normal,” I said. “All I know is, I didn’t go through any kind of mental process of falling in love with Yuri. I mean, I saw the potential pretty early on, but I didn’t keep thinking 'I wonder if I’m in love with him yet’ or whatever. One day I just realized I was.”
“How did you know?” he asked.
“He sent me this video he made of himself playing the violin, and I was laying in my bed and watching it. At the end of the video, he put his violin down, leaned in close to the camera and said good night with this sweet little smile. There wasn’t anything exceptional or special about it, but I remember thinking how happy it made me feel, and how my life wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t get to hear his voice every day." I offered a half-shrug, frustrated that I couldn't articulate it better. "I don’t know if that makes sense. I suck at explaining stuff.“
"No, it’s cool. I think I get it. My life wouldn’t be the same without a lot of people, but this would be like next-level not the same. Like you’d be missing a part of yourself.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Yuri is almost always the first person I think about every day. Not in a creepy, obsessive way, but like, whenever anything happens, he’s the first person I want to tell about it. And I have this overwhelming need to take care of him and keep him safe from everything, and… I don’t know. This feels like a super weird conversation.”
“You’ve never told anybody about this before?” Leo inquired.
“Not like this,” I admitted. “I’ve told lots of people I love him, but right now I feel like I’m giving you relationship advice or something, and I’m not usually the one who gives advice.”
“Yeah, it’s usually Ellie who gives the advice.”
“She’s the mature one.”
“Ugh… maturity. Who wants to grow up?”
“Good call,” I said. “Growing up is scary as hell. Zero out of five stars. Would not recommend.”
“But you make it look so easy,” he said.
“Only because I’ve got Yuri to help me,” I told him. “You know it’s true love when you’re stressed out about some part of adulting you think you can’t handle and you’re ugly crying on the floor in the middle of the hallway, and your partner doesn’t judge.”
“That’s probably not a great benchmark for me and Ellie. She’d laugh her ass off if she saw me crying, and then she’d tell me to get over it.”
“True,” I said. “You guys probably wouldn’t be as emotional and needy as me and Yuri. Or what did Uncle JP call us? Touchy-feely.”
Leo laughed. “I think the full phrase was 'touchy-feely gay boys’.”
“Which is kind of hilarious since only Yuri is technically gay. But I’m not sure if gay even applies when you’re asexual. Romantic orientation is different than sexuality, right?"
"I guess?" he said. "You're probably asking the wrong person. Like, I can recognize a cute boy when I see one, but I'm way too into girls to be anything but straight."
"Fair enough," I said. "At least that's something you won't have to explain to Uncle JP."
“Uncle JP isn’t big on nuance.”
“A lot of people don’t really get it anyway, even after we explain it,” I said. “I think Mom thinks I was secretly gay the whole time I was dating Savannah, Katie and Jenna. You know, dating women to hide it or something.”
“I remember Katie. She was the older one with the awesome boob job,” Leo said. “I still can’t get over the fact that you hooked up with a university senior when you were only nineteen.”
“I showed her my medals. She was impressed.”
“I’ll bet it wasn’t just your medals she was impressed by," he said.
“Probably not, but the feeling wasn’t mutual.”
“Too bad. That woman was seriously hot.”
“She was the one who put her tongue In my mouth and then laughed at me when I got scared and started crying,” I said. “She broke up with me a week later because she heard me having a panic attack in the bathroom after we slept together.”
“That's what happened?" he said. "You never told me that before."
“Maybe 'cause it was embarrassing?" I responded. "Anyway, it was more likely she broke it off because I told her I thought I might be asexual and that I didn’t want to sleep with her any more."
“So, the moral of the story is ‘never judge a woman by her boobs’?”
“Dude, if you ever actually judge people based on their boobs, we’re no longer friends,” I said. “I’m not joking. That’s literally disgusting.”
“What can I say? I really like boobs.”
“Boobs aren’t a reliable indicator about whether a person will be good for you or not. Besides, it shouldn’t be about bodies anyway. That’s just objectifying people.”
“I know,” he said. “Great boobs are the icing, not the cake.”
I shook my head, laughing. "God help us.”
He held out his hands in a gesture of feigned confusion. “What?”
“Maybe you and Ellie should be together,” I said. “You know how she’s always on the lookout for cute men with nice abs.”
“My abs are invisible to her,” he lamented. “I mean, I had it all out there this morning, but I might as well have been wearing my snowsuit, for all the attention she paid me. Meanwhile, Yuri was staring at you like you were the icing and the cake, and you guys aren’t even into naked bodies.”
“Actually," I said. "We’re very much into each other’s body. We have our ways of satisfying each other.”
He looked intrigued. “Yeah?”
“Don’t even ask, because I’m not going to describe it.”
“Do I look like I’m going to ask you to describe it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Sorry.” He had enough class to look embarrassed. “But how do you get it on when you’re asexual? Like, how is it satisfying if you don’t do… it?”
“Nobody has to insert their body parts into anybody else’s body parts to have a good time,” I said. “There are other ways of getting there. Use your imagination.”
“Ohh…” he said, and judging by his facial expression, his imagination was equal to the challenge. “And you can get all the way to the finish line with... I don't know. Your hands?”
“If we’re really in the mood, yeah.”
“Huh,” he said. “You learn something new every day.”
I laughed. “I guess so.”
What I didn’t tell Leo is that Yuri and I had only recently discovered we could get to the finish line, as he put it, or at least that Yuri can get me to it. Yuri isn’t comfortable with me touching him there. He used to be reluctant to touch me in that particular spot, but we were both feeling brave and adventurous and one thing had led to another, as they say. I doubt we’ll be making it a frequent occurrence, but it's nice to know I can experience that intense pleasure without having all kinds of negative feelings about it afterward.
“So, can we get back to me and Ellie for a second?” Leo said. “You have to help me figure this out.”
“What’s to figure out?” I said. “If you love her like that, you should say something.”
“But, what if she doesn’t love me like that?”
“If you don’t talk to her about it, how are you going to know?”
“Yeah, but what if I totally embarrass myself? Or what if she does love me but it doesn’t work out for some reason? We could never go back to how we are now. It’d break up the team forever.”
“You have to decide if it’s worth the risk,” I said. “What if it would’ve worked out, but you missed the opportunity?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It seems like too big of a risk to me.”
“Then maybe you’re not ready yet.”
“How am I supposed to know when I’m ready?”
“Dude, I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose when you’re ready, you won’t have to ask whether you’re ready or not.”
“Well, how did you know you were ready?” he asked. “When you realized you were in love with Yuri, how long did you wait before you told him?”
“I accidentally told him the next day,” I said. “We were hanging up from a phone call and I said something like 'love you’ without even thinking about it,” I smiled at the memory. “He called me back about fifteen seconds later, just to ask me to repeat what I’d said. He got really excited. It was adorable.”
“Did he say he loved you too?”
“He did. I was already crying like an idiot, and when he said he’d known for a while and had been waiting for me to say it first, I kind of fell apart. I didn’t know it was possible to be that happy and that upset at the same time. It was suddenly killing me that we were ten thousand kilometres away from each other.”
“But you guys were long-distance for like, three years or something.”
“Yeah, and sometimes it was torture. I kept myself busy learning Japanese and hoarding all my money so I’d eventually be ready to go there,” I said. “You and Ellie are lucky. Neither of you has to immigrate.”
“I’m glad about that. I don’t think I’d have the guts to do what you did.”
“I didn’t think I could do it either, honestly,” I confessed. “It’s still a struggle to be away from here, but being with Yuri is worth it.”
“Maybe you should move back.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it,” I said. “I really want to, but there’s a lot to consider. It’s not as easy as just hopping on a plane.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’d be awesome if we could all be together again,” Leo said. “It might not be exactly like old times, but it’d sure be a hell of a lot better than it is without you here. And we could get to know Yuri and maybe he could be part of the team too.”
“He’s already part of the team,” I said.
“Nominally.”
“No, not nominally. He is part of it. If he’s not, then I’m not.”
Leo stared at me like I’d just said something utterly shocking. “You’d literally break up the team for him?”
“That’s the last thing I want,” I said. “I never want to make that choice, but if I had to, I’d choose him.”
“You’ve only known him for five years.”
“I know what you’re going to say. I’ve known him for five years, and I’ve known you and Ellie forever. But it doesn’t matter how long I’ve known him. He’s my husband and I love him, and he comes ahead of anyone else.” I looked directly into his face. “Would you put Ellie ahead of everyone else, including me?”
I could see his discomfort written all over his features. I think he tried to hold my gaze, but after a second he looked away. “I don’t know, dude. That’s a really big ask. I’d hate to make that choice.”
“I’m not asking if you’d like it. I’m asking if you’d be willing to do it if you had to,” I said. “I wouldn’t expect it to be easy or for you to enjoy it. It’d tear me to pieces to have to choose between Yuri and anyone else I love, but I know what I’d do if it was necessary.”
“I don’t know what I’d do,” he said. “Do you think that means I don’t actually love her?”
“No,” I said. “I think it means you need to think about it a little bit and you know, decide what your priorities are.”
“Priorities?”
“Being in love with somebody isn’t just about being in love with them. There’s responsibilities and stuff. You have to take care of them and think about their best interests and figure out how to communicate and solve problems together.”
“Sounds like work,” Leo said.
“It is, but look what you get out of it.”
We were quiet for a while, and Leo started poking around in the fire with his stick again.
"It’s weird,” he said at last.
“What?” I said.
“You’re different than you were when you left. It’s still you, obviously, but you know stuff now.”
“It’s called 'becoming an adult’,” I said, recalling what Yuri had told me when I’d been worrying out loud about how much I thought I’d changed. “It’s not fun, but I’m pretty sure we all have to do it eventually, despite how much we joke about not wanting to.”
“Yeah.”
“Try not to stress about it.”
“Easier said than done," he said.
“I know," I agreed. "But you can always talk to me, or your dad or Julian. Talk to Ellie too. If you guys really are going to get together, you need to learn how to share stuff and figure out how to grow up together.”
“Do you think me and Ellie could really be together?”
I tried to envision a future in which Leo and Ellie were together like Yuri and me, and to my amazement, it didn’t seem to be that big of a mental stretch. It would take some adjustment on the part of all of us if it became a reality, but I could see us navigating that. Maybe it wouldn’t be the smoothest transition, but I reasoned that you can never reach the destination without making the journey first, and there’s no such thing as a road with no bumps or cracks at all. After some time, the situation would seem normal and we’d all be fine.
“Only you and Ellie can know for sure if you could,” I said. “But I don’t see why not.”
“Thanks,” he said. “If there are any developments, I’ll let you know, okay?”
I grinned at him. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t tell me. When have we not shared too much information with each other?”
“I hope things don’t change too much,” he said.
“You’ve got to expect a little bit of change,” I told him. “But yeah, I hear you. Change is hard, and it’d be great if things would level off for a bit. But with you and Ellie, though? I can’t see a whole lot changing right away. It’s not a magic spell when you tell somebody you love them. It might feel like one for a minute, but trust me, you’ll have time to ease into it.”
“I hope it doesn’t change the team too much either.”
“Me too,” I said. “Try not to dwell on it. That’ll just hold you back from what you really want.”
“What I really want,” he echoed. “You ever have a fantasy about a house and a minivan and a bunch of kids?”
“The house, yeah. Not so much the minivan and the kids. Yuri would hate having to drive a minivan, and neither of us are crazy about the idea of kids. We’ve got other dreams.”
“Mine’s about kids,” Leo said. “Three or four would be awesome. It’s probably stupid, 'cause I don’t even know if Ellie wants any, but…”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I said. “Maybe just tell her how you feel, first.”
He shook his head and laughed in a sort of self-mocking way. “Right.”
“You got this,” I assured him. “You’ll know when the time is right, and you’ll do it, and it won’t be as terrifying as you think. It’ll be fine”
“I wish you could promise me that.”
“You really don’t need me to," I said. "If she feels the same way you do, you’ll wonder why you were ever worried in the first place.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then, you try to move on. But if you want my guess, I’d say you’ll be okay.”
“Do you know something I don’t?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I just think you guys would be good for each other. Plus, Yuri says I’m a hopeless romantic, so maybe I want everybody I care about to have the happily ever after they deserve.”
He punched my shoulder playfully. “You’re such an idiot, Victor.”
“Maybe, but I know what I’m talking about.”
“I’m glad you do,” he said. “Joking aside, I really needed this, so thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “That’s what best friends are for, right? Remember I’ll always be here for you, no matter what happens.”
Today’s disabled character of the day is Leo Deluca (Toggle) from Doonesbury, who has a traumatic brain injury, expressive aphasia, and visually impaired
Requested by Anon
Journal Entry #33
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Victor
I spent the day with my lifelong best friends, Leo and Ellie, and it was amazing, but also kind of bittersweet.
I love Ellie and Leo so much and I’ve missed being with them ever since I moved to Japan. Growing up, we were always together. In fact, the first time we were ever apart was when Ellie went to another town to do her nursing practicum, and even then she was home her days off. Plus, Leo and I could always make the drive to visit her if we wanted to.
When I took off to Japan, it was different. We really were separated then, and if I’d known how painful it was going to be, maybe I wouldn’t have done it. The worst part is, I didn’t even understand just how much it would hurt until we were reunited. I know that probably sounds stupid, but it’s how I feel. I was super happy to have the team back together, but at the same time I was sad because I didn’t want to think about being away from them again.
For context, Leo is my cousin. He's Uncle Stephen and Aunt Millie's oldest kid, and if I haven't already mentioned it before, Mom and Uncle Stephen are fraternal twins. Leo is only about three and a half months older than me. Ellie isn’t biologically related to me, but we call each other cousins nevertheless. She’s Julian’s daughter, and we basically grew up together. She’s exactly four months younger than me; my birthday is December second and hers is April second. We always joke that she barely missed being born on April Fool’s Day. Just like Ellie, to be slightly late for everything.
Ellie’s tendency to habitually run five minutes behind schedule was the reason we all decided to meet at her house. Leo texted me after breakfast and said he’d pick me and Yuri up in his car.
As it turned out, Yuri didn’t want to join us. When I asked him why, he said he wasn’t feeling well, but I don’t know if that was true or not. If I were to guess, I’d say it’s more likely he didn't want to hang out with my friends. It's not that he's antisocial or anything, but he is an introvert and he knows Leo and Ellie are loud, spontaneous and high-energy. A whole day with them probably sounded like torture to him.
I'll confess I didn't know exactly how to feel about Yuri declining the offer to spend the day with us. On one hand, I half expected he wouldn't come along, but on the other hand, I think I was kind of offended that he didn't.
Anyway, I told Leo that I'd make my own way to Ellie's house, and then I got my old bike out of the garage. It was the perfect day for biking, sunny and warm without being humid, and I enjoyed the short trip to Ellie and Julian's place.
To my surprise, Ellie was ready when I got there, and it was Leo we had to wait for. According to him, he was trying to figure out how to fit his bike in the trunk of his car.
“You should’ve just rode it over here, dude,” I told him.
“Couldn’t,” he said. “I’m going to need the car later.”
I didn’t ask him what for, but I was sure I’d find out eventually.
We agreed that Ellie and I would ride to Royalty River Park on our bikes, and Leo would meet us at the municipal parking lot across from the park. We’d do a little bike racing once we got there.
Before we left, we set up all our phones on the fence in front of Ellie’s neighbour’s house and put them on self-timer so we could take a bunch of silly photos of ourselves. Far be it from us to make serious memories. That’s not our style.
I’m pleased to say, I haven’t lost any of my bike racing prowess, despite not having done it for a while. It’s not my best sport, but I guess you all know that. Still, I’m not bad at it, even if I say so myself.
Speaking of my best sport, Leo told me there’s already been snow on the North Range. I’m hoping we’ll see a decent snowfall up there while I’m here so Yuri, Leo and I can get a few good runs in. I’m dying to show Yuri where I learned to snowboard. It may not seem like much compared to Arashiyama, but I love it. It was my first love, you could say, and it’s where I trained for the Canada Winter Games and so many other important competitions prior to relocating to Japan.
It’s hard to believe it’s already been over seven years since I won my Canada Games silver medal. That was my first really big win as an adult competitor, and it was the moment when I realized people other than my family, friends and coach would take me seriously as a professional athlete. It feels like it was only a short time ago that Mom, Julian, Ellie and Leo travelled out west with me and Luke, my former coach, to watch me compete and cheer me on. That’s another one of my most wonderful memories with my friends.
Unfortunately, our bike racing only lasted as long as it took for us to annoy some old people who were playing chess and drinking lemonade at a table with a yellow and white striped umbrella. One old guy picked up his cane and waved it at us, and literally yelled at the top of his lungs, “Stop making so much noise!”
We cracked up laughing at the sheer irony of it. To be fair, we were making quite a lot of noise, but it’s a public park and there’s no law against having a good time. In the interests of not aggravating the elders to the point where they decided to call the park patrol on us, however, we wheeled our bikes over to the fence. Then we retrieved a soccer ball from Leo’s car and started up a random game of kick and chase.
We played ball until we were starving and ready for a rest. Ellie spotted a hot dog vendor, so we all searched our pockets for money, and ran over to the food truck.
The food truck guy looked at us funny when we ordered nine hot dogs, but a paying customer is a paying customer, and he didn’t complain. He just loaded all the hotdogs onto a large Styrofoam plate, gave us a fistful of napkins and some mustard packets, and took our money without comment.
We found a picnic table in the shade and settled down to enjoy our lunch. Behind me, I could hear kids on the playground equipment, laughing and talking. Someone was cooking something in one of the public fire pits, and the smell of wood smoke and roasting food drifted in the air. I closed my eyes for a minute, wanting nothing more than to soak in every non-visual detail, longing to commit every sound, scent and sensation to my mind and aching a little because I knew there would be elements I could never recreate in my imagination no matter how hard I tried.
Ellie nudged my leg with hers under the table. “Victor? You okay?”
“I’m good,” I said, opening my eyes again. “Just thinking.”
“You gotta be careful doing that,” Leo said. “You could start a fire.”
“Shut up, dumbass,” Ellie said. “I think he’s having a nostalgia moment or something.”
“I kind of am having a nostalgia moment,” I affirmed. “We used to come here all the time, and I don’t know what it is about the hot dogs from food trucks, but they always taste the best. You can’t get good hot dogs in Matsumori, and it’s been like a million years since I’ve had any kind of hot dog at all because Yuri can’t eat them.”
“The only hot dogs that are better than food truck ones are the ones cooked on campfires,” Leo said.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “Now that I think about it, I did have hot dogs during my trip to Kainani Island back in late spring, so I guess it hasn’t been that long. Maybe it’s the company that makes them taste so great.”
“How was that, anyway?” Ellie asked. “Kainani is on my list of places to go before I’m too old to enjoy it.”
“It was fantastic,” I said. “If you get a chance to travel, you should definitely go there. You’d love it.”
“I don’t know about her, but I’d love it,” Leo said. “Kilometres of golden beaches and lots of cute girls in bathing suits? Yes, please.”
“Ignore him,” Ellie said. “Tell me about the cute boys in bathing suits.”
I grinned at her. “Well, I was there.”
“Shut up!” she kicked my foot. “I can’t have you, can I? I meant the other cute boys.”
“I have an idea, Ellie,” Leo said. “We can go together, then there’ll be at least one cute boy and one cute girl in bathing suits on the beach.”
Ellie kicked him as well. “Can I get new friends, please?”
“Come on,” I said. “You love us.”
“Yeah, I do,” she acquiesced. “Probably way more than I should.”
“Victor, are you still planning to go to Brazil after Christmas?” Leo wanted to know.
“During the Christmas holiday period actually, because Mom's coming to see us after Christmas, but yeah. That's the current plan,” I said. “Why?”
“Well, I had some thoughts about that.”
“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow. “What thoughts would you have about me and my husband going to Brazil?”
"God, that sounds so different," Ellie commented. "Husband."
"What?"
"My brain's still not used to it," she said.
"Excuse me," Leo butted in. "I was trying to tell my thoughts, you know."
"Sorry," said Ellie.
"Go on," I said.
“You can say no to this if you want,” Leo said. “But, I was thinking we could turn it into a group adventure. The trip to Brazil, I mean. When you first told us you were going, Ellie and I talked about it and we thought it’d be fun if we all went.”
“Really? You guys want to come to Brazil with us?”
“We wouldn’t exactly come with you,” Ellie said. “Not unless we both came to Japan first or you and Yuri came back here. We were thinking that the four of us could arrange our travel plans together and meet up when we arrive.”
"Or somewhere along the way," Leo added. "I don't know what the routes would look like, so..."
“That…” I began, but had to stop and take a breath. “You guys, I would love that. You’re serious, right? Please say you are because I totally want to do this with you now.”
“Of course we’re serious,” Ellie said.
“I’ll talk to Yuri about it,” I promised. “I think he’ll agree, but let me ask him and get back to you. Then we can start organizing it.”
“Sweet!” Leo exclaimed. “If you can’t convince him, let me try to talk him into it. I’m very persuasive.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” I said.
“You’d probably scare him, Leo,” said Ellie.
“Me?” Leo retorted “Like he wouldn’t be scared of you?”
“He’d be nervous of both of you acting like this,” I said. “He needs to get to know you a little more. Let me see what he thinks of the group adventure, and if he’s okay with it, maybe we can all do something he enjoys while we’re here so he can have a chance to get used to you.”
“What’s he into besides snowboarding?” Ellie asked.
“Music and art and history. He likes video games and movies, and one of our friends recently started teaching him how to knit, so he’s been into that lately. And he can swim now, so there’s that.”
“If he likes art and history, maybe we can go to the museum,” Ellie suggested. “It’d be boring as hell for us, but it’d be a low stress environment, and maybe we could go to the municipal pool afterwards.”
“Great,” I said. ‘I’ll ask him when I get back to Mom’s house tonight.“
"Sounds like we have a plan.” Ellie gave us a thumbs-up.
We finished our hotdogs and then — I kid you not — we took a nap. The three of us laid on the cool grass under a tree, all heaped together in a cuddle pile and dozed off to the soft whispering rustle of leaves overhead.
These are my people, I thought, as I drifted toward sleep. The only other person in the world I could lie down with and sleep this close to is Yuri, but I still feel like I have to be careful with him. With Ellie and Leo, I’m not the protector. I’m the one being protected. Or perhaps all three of us are protectors and protected in equal measure. With them, I’ve always felt absolutely safe, and I was infinitely grateful to discover that fact hadn’t changed one bit in my absence.
I’m not sure how long we slept, but It must’ve been at least an hour and a half, judging by how far the sun had crossed the sky by the time we woke up. We disentangled ourselves and sat up, favouring each other with stupid, sleepy grins. Ellie picked leaves out of Leo’s hair, and I picked one out of hers. I shook my head vigorously to dislodge any leaves that may have been stuck to me, and my friends laughed when all I accomplished was to make myself dizzy.
I flopped backwards into Ellie’s lap, and she plucked a leaf from my hair with the teasing comment, “Look, Victor. You’re turning into a tree.”
“Are you saying I’m tree-mendous?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
"Hey, don't leaf me out." Leo found a twig snagged in his floppy curls, pulled it free and held it up. "We have to stick together."
Ellie and I groaned, but no one disagreed. I want them to always be in my life, and I'm certain they want me to always be in theirs. I can't even begin to imagine what my existence would look like without them.
We climbed to our feet and brushed ourselves off. Not quite ready to call it a day, we wandered around the park, chatting about everything and nothing. When we passed by the grandstand, we saw there was a band just setting up for an outdoor concert so we bought some snacks and bottled water and returned to get a good spot on the grass by the stage before the area started to fill up.
The band was a local one, and although they probably weren’t going to make the Top 100 any time soon, they weren’t too bad. We had fun and danced a bit and tried to sing along to some covers. Sadly, Ellie is as bad at singing as I am. Leo is the only one of us with any musical talent whatsoever. It didn’t matter, though. Musical ability isn’t a requirement to be a member of the team.
The sun was beginning to set by the time the band wrapped things up, and we made our way back to the spot where we’d left our bikes chained to the fence.
“What should we do now?” Ellie inquired. “Do you guys want to go to the Blue Velvet for some burgers and drinks or something?”
“I’d love to, but I gotta get going,” Leo said. “I promised Uncle JP and Aunt Lia that I’d babysit the girls overnight."
"So they're back from Kenya, obviously," I said.
"Yeah. They came back at the beginning of September," Leo replied. "In time for Maddie and Bella to start school."
"Aren’t they too old to need a babysitter?" Ellie asked. "They’re like, fourteen and sixteen, aren't they?”
“How old were you when your dad let you stay home alone overnight?” Leo asked.
“Um… never?” she said. “If Dad had to be away overnight for some reason, I was always at Victor's house, or my Grandma's. The first time I stayed overnight anywhere by myself was when I did my nursing practicum up in Sudbury and rented that sketchy little bachelor suite."
“Right,” Leo said. “Anyway, Victor knows what I'm talking about. You can't leave Bella and Maddie home alone. They’d probably fatally wound each other if they were left unsupervised.”
“Not much like your sisters then, I guess” Ellie commented. “It's like Alessia and Kiki are practically joined at the hip.”
Leo grinned. “Kind of like us.”
“Yeah, except we’re capable of wounding each other even if we’re not left unsupervised,” I said.
“Mostly because we’re doing some crazy plan you guys came up with,” Ellie pointed out.
“Us?” Leo said. “You come up with the craziest plans. Remember that time we decided to build our own hang glider? That was totally your idea.”
“True, but you two are just reckless enough not to have said no.”
We all laughed at that, and it felt so good. I remembered the adventures we used to have and I recalled the hang glider incident all too well. It was lucky we’d only decided to jump off the roof of Uncle Stephen’s garden shed with it because, although the contraption we’d built kind of worked, it wasn’t capable of sustained flight and we probably would’ve killed ourselves if we’d tried to jump off anything higher. As it was, Ellie had ended up spraining her ankle and Leo had accidentally hit me on the head while we were trying to position the ladder to climb up to the shed roof. Somehow, Leo had been the only one unscathed, and we’d called him Super Leo for weeks afterward.
“A fine example of why supervision isn't enough to stop us,” I commented. “I mean, I assume Aunt Millie was watching us that day. Oh, and do you guys remember the whole sailing incident? The time we built the raft and became Maple Grove’s first pirates, remember?”
Leo laughed. “It was all good until the cops found out.”
“How were we supposed to know you’re not allowed to sail homemade rafts in the canal?” said Ellie.
“Hey,” I said. 'I was the one who said we should’ve stuck to sailing in the river, in case you forgot."
"The river with the rapids out past the town limits, you mean." Leo pointed out. "Yeah, 'cause that totally would've been better."
"I thought your mom was going to lose it when the police car pulled up to the clinic with all three of us in the back,” Ellie said. “It’s one of those times when I wish I’d had a camera, just to capture the expression on her face.”
“Your dad’s reaction wasn’t much better,” I reminded her. “Not to mention how Aunt Millie screamed at me about accidentally almost drowning Leo.”
“Mom overreacted,” Leo said. “The way I remember it, I nearly drowned myself and you were trying to rescue me. And like, I’m still here to talk about it so obviously you succeeded. Mom should’ve been thanking you.”
“I don’t think she saw it that way at the time,” I said.
“No, probably not,” he conceded. He sighed. “I’d love to continue this, but I really have to get going. Catch you tomorrow?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“Ellie?”
“I’m off tomorrow,” she said. “I’m definitely up for whatever you’ve got in mind.”
“I have to work till three o'clock,” he said. “After that, though?”
“Awesome,” said Ellie.
“I’ll text you in the morning, Leo,” I told him. “We can do something when you get off work. I’ll try to talk Yuri into joining us too.”
“Cool,” Leo said. “The more the merrier. See you tomorrow.”
“See you later, Leo,” Ellie said.
We all gave each other a playful, exaggerated wave goodbye.
Leo unchained his bike and walked it up to the road. Ellie and I followed him for a short distance, but then we stopped and watched him trot off in the direction of the municipal lot where he’d parked his car.
Ellie reached for my hand. “Just us now.”
I smiled, loving the familiarity of her hand in mine. “Want me to walk you home?”
“What about our bikes?”
“They’re chained on,” I said. “They’ll be fine till morning. I want to take the slow route back to the house.”
“Maybe I should walk you home,” she said. “You can invite me in for homemade ice cream and a movie. You know, if your husband isn’t the jealous type and doesn’t mind me cuddling you on the couch, that is.”
“Uh… about that,” I said. “Yuri probably wouldn’t like us cuddling even if it is totally innocent, but you can still come over. Ice cream and a movie sounds awesome, and you can even stay the night if you want.”
“I’d like that,” she said. “If I’m staying over, we’ll have to stop at my place for a minute so I can grab some stuff. So, you can walk me home and then I’ll walk you home. Everybody wins.”
“Everybody wins,” I echoed happily. “I feel like I always win when I get to be with you, though. I’ve missed you a lot.”
“Me too,” Ellie said. “You don’t even know how excited I was when you told me you were coming home. I almost offered to meet you at the airport myself.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Mostly because I thought I’d start crying all over you and make a fool of myself in front of your husband,” she admitted. “That, and I didn’t want to deny your mother the opportunity to be the first to see you.”
“You think Mom didn’t cry all over me?”
“I’ll bet you cried all over her.”
“Yeah,” I confessed. “You shouldn’t have worried about crying in front of Yuri. He’s used to people crying in front of him by now.”
“And by 'people’ you mean yourself,” Ellie teased.
“You know I cry over everything.”
She squeezed my fingers gently. “I know. You’re sensitive. Most guys would try to be all tough and macho and keep that stuff in, but I like that you don’t.”
“Yuri says the same thing. He doesn’t judge me for it.”
“You wouldn’t be with him if he did,” Ellie said. “He seems like a sweet guy. I’m looking forward to getting to know him better.”
“I think you’ll get along,” I said. “Remember not to be too loud and not to touch him, and it’ll be fine.”
“So, that’s really a thing? He actually doesn’t like to be touched? Like, at all? Because you guys look like you’re all over each other in the pictures you send.”
“He lets me touch him now, but generally, yeah. He has a lot of anxiety about being touched. Like, it took a while before he was comfortable with me doing it, so…” I shrugged one shoulder. “If you want to upset him, that’s the way.”
“Good to know,” Ellie said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
We walked along in silence for a while after that. The sun was sinking lower and the air was starting to cool off dramatically, the way it always does on autumn evenings here. After having acclimated to the consistent cold temperatures in our mountain neighbourhood of Kiyosaka, I barely felt the damp chill. It entertained me to think that two years ago, I would’ve been reaching for a sweater right about now.
Ellie pointed in the direction of the river. “Look how gorgeous the trees are. Does it look like this in Matsumori?”
“Sort of,” I said. “Down in the valley, the leaves change colour like this. I took Yuri to Hanamigawa for his birthday back in September and this is kind of what it looked like, but without the river."
“Want to go down by the water before it gets too dark?”
“Okay,” I said. “Take me to our spot.”
Our spot is about half a kilometer downstream from the park. The river runs slowly there, and there’s a huge old tree that reminds me of Grandmother Willow from that one Disney movie. It’s a little challenging to get to because you have to scale the safety fence along the side of the road and climb down over an embankment, but once you’re down next to the water, the ground is level again.
Growing up, this was the place we sought out when there was something serious going on in our lives and we needed to talk it over. Sometimes all three of us would gather here and sometimes only two. In any case, it was always a safe space for us. No one bothered us there. It was perfect for discussing things that we didn’t want anyone else to hear.
Ellie and I sat on the ground facing each other, and I tried to think of how many times over the course of our lifetime that we’d positioned ourselves like this.
We were about eight years old when we found our spot for the first time, and it was due to Ellie wandering away from her father and getting lost. Me and Leo and Uncle Stephen had found her here, leaning on the fence and staring at the river. She hadn’t been scared. Once she realized she didn’t know how to get back to the park, she’d stayed where she was and waited for help.
Clearly, she’d paid attention on the way back because the next time we visited the spot, it was on purpose and Ellie had told us that her mother was getting remarried and that she didn’t want to be in the wedding. Leo and I had attempted to help her hatch a plan to avoid wearing a princess dress and to mind her manners around a bunch of people she didn’t know, but all our scheming had been to no avail. She was forced into the frilly daffodil coloured monstrosity, and had an utterly horrible day. Leo and I saw some pictures after the fact. Ellie looked murderous in every single one.
“What’s so funny?” Ellie demanded.
“Nothing’s funny,” I said.
“You’re smirking.”
“Oh.” I shook my head. “Thinking about those pictures of you at your mom and Patrick’s wedding in that gross yellow dress.”
“Ugh.” Ellie scrunched up her face. “I hated that thing. Can you not remind me?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of stuff today. Not all the memories are good ones for everybody, apparently.”
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re remembering a lot of stuff. I have as well. I guess it’s the team being back together.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s mostly what I’ve been thinking about. I want to spend as much time with you guys as I can. I don’t want to waste a moment." I sighed. "Maybe I have more thoughts than moments.”
“I hear you,” Ellie said. She picked some long blades of grass and began idly weaving them together. “Know what I’ve been thinking about?”
“What?”
“All the fun we used to have on camping trips. Leo and I haven’t done that since you left.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not the same without you,” she said. “Know what we should do before you go? We should drive up to the North Range and camp for a couple of nights.”
"I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think Yuri would like that. He’s not much for roughing it.”
“He doesn’t have to come if he doesn’t want to,” Ellie said. “Anyway, I was thinking you, me and Leo, just like old times.”
“All right. I’ll see if it’s okay with Yuri.”
“It’s so weird that you’re married,” Ellie said. “I mean, it’s great. I knew you’d find somebody at some point, and I’m happy for you. It’s just strange, you know? You go away for two years, and you come back with a husband.”
“You knew me and Yuri were together for like three years before I even left.”
“Yeah of course, but if I’m being honest, I never expected you to leave in the first place. I guess I didn’t realize how serious your online relationship was.”
“Maybe I didn’t either until I got there. Once I was physically with him, I knew I never wanted to be apart from him.”
“I get that,” Ellie said. “There are some people you need to have in your life, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And some people you have to leave behind to make that happen.”
“I guess.”
“There was a time when I thought you, me and Leo would be literally together forever, just like your mom and my dad, but I guess life doesn’t always go how we imagine, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “I’m sorry I broke up the team, but no matter what, I’ll always be your friend. I’m never going to be out of your life, even if we’re not in the same place.”
“I know,” she said, “But, it’s not the same.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s not.”
“Sorry if this sounds selfish, but sometimes I wish you’d never gone there. To Matsumori.”
“It’s not selfish. It’s honest.” I said. “You want to know something?”
“What?” she said.
“There’s a part of me that wishes I’d never left Maple Grove too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“What about Yuri?” she inquired.
“I love Yuri more than anything and I don’t regret being with him, but being so far away from everything and everyone else I love is super difficult. Sometimes I feel like crying because nothing’s familiar. And trying to be an adult when I don’t think I’m ready and there’s nobody to help me is just… terrifying as hell.” I sighed again and looked away from her. “All those feelings hit me really hard when I walked into Mom’s house the other day, and I… I don’t think I want to go back to Japan now.”
“Does Yuri know that?”
“No,” I said. “He’s never going to know.”
“Don’t you think you should tell him?”
“What would be the point? It’d only upset him, and it’s not like I have a choice anyway. We both have jobs and responsibilities there and Yuri’s family is there. Plus, my immigration process was finalized a couple months back, remember? Don’t you think it’d be kind of stupid to leave a country I just got permanent resident status in?”
“It’s more stupid to make yourself miserable just because you think it’ll help somebody else stay happy,” Ellie said.
“I don’t hate living in Matsumori and I’m not miserable all the time,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d miss boring old Maple Grove that much, that’s all, and the dumbest thing is that I didn’t even know how much I missed it until I was back. I don’t know. I’ll probably get over it once I’m in Matsumori again.“
"You don’t always have to get over stuff, you know.”
“What am I supposed to do, then? I can’t drown in self-pity continuously. It’s easier to figure out some kind of way to let it go.”
“Easier for who?” Ellie asked. “You have to live with it, so it can’t be easy for you, and I can tell you it’s not easy for your friends to watch. Obviously I don’t know Yuri that well, but I doubt it’s easy for him either. If he loves you, don’t you think he’d want you to be happy instead of torturing yourself trying to please everybody else?”
“He always says that. That he wants me to be happy.”
“So, what is it? You don’t believe him?”
“No, I do believe him, but…”
“But what?”
“This is going to sound dumb,” I said.
“Go on,” she said. “I’m used to you sounding dumb.”
“You ever love somebody so much that you want to keep them safe from everything that could possibly hurt them? Like, even bad feelings and stuff? That’s how I feel about Yuri,” I said.
“It’s impossible to protect someone from everything.”
“Yeah, I know it’s impossible,” I said. “But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to do it anyway.”
“I’ve never loved anyone like that,” Ellie said. “I don’t think anyone’s ever loved me like that either, but then again, I’m not sure I’d want them to.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because as much as I’d want my partner to be my hero, I’d prefer him to be honest and open with me if there was something he thought might hurt me. I wouldn’t want him hurting himself and suffering in silence because he thought it’d make my life easier.”
“But what if he knew you couldn’t handle it?”
“If I really couldn’t handle it, I’d expect him to support me through it.” Ellie levelled her gaze at me. “If he didn’t ask me and was just assuming I couldn’t, I’d be mightily pissed off at him for lacking faith in me and underestimating my ability to cope.”
“Yuri isn’t like that. I don’t think he’s angry at me for wanting to protect him. He likes it when I protect him.”
“But would he want you to protect him if you had to put yourself in harm’s way to do it? Unnecessarily in harm’s way, I mean. Think about that before you answer.”
I did. I tried to imagine what Yuri would say if he knew how badly I was hurting, how he might respond. I pictured him putting his arms around me and letting me cry like he did the night I’d told him what happened with Ren at the fitness center. He’d be patient while I stumbled my way through a clumsy explanation of my feelings, and he’d surprise me with his insight and his resilience.
I know I shouldn’t be surprised by that any more, but sometimes I think I can’t see past his physical frailty and tiny stature and how he always says he needs me and wants me to keep him safe. My desire to shelter him overshadows my own need for him to take care of me, and maybe sometimes I deny him the opportunity to show he’s capable of that because I’m too determined to not be a burden to him.
I didn’t even bother to hold back my tears or try to conceal them from Ellie. She’d seen me cry enough that it didn’t matter any more. I had nothing to prove to her.
I sniffled. "What am I supposed to do?”
“Trust him,” Ellie said. “Trust him the way you trust me and Leo.” She reached across the space between us and placed her hand on my knee. “Make him part of the team.”
Hearing her say that, I felt like she’d knocked all the air out of my body. The team was me, Ellie and Leo, and it was… everything. I often tell Yuri he’s everything, but in that moment I started to feel scared that it wasn’t really true. How could I love someone so intensely, and yet not trust him as completely as I trust my friends?
But, I do trust him, I insisted to myself. I trust him in so many ways that matter.
But not in the way that allows him to protect you, some other part of my brain chided.
That night at the hotel in Kyoto, Yuri promised that from now on he’d protect me the way I protect him and it’d sounded good in my ears, but I wondered if it had penetrated my heart or my mind enough for me to believe it.
I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand, but it was no use. “I love him so much,” I managed to say. “How could I fail this hard at being a good partner for him?”
Ellie stroked my knee. “I don’t think you failed. You know what Dad says. You’ve only failed if you stop trying. You’re not giving up on him, are you?”
“N-no,” I said. “I’d never do that.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said. “You’ve just got some stuff to work on.”
“It’s all so hard,” I said “Growing up and having relationships and dealing with real life in general. You know what I mean?”
“Nobody said it’d be easy. You didn’t think it would be, did you?”
“No, but I wish it was easier.”
“Me too,” she said.
“How am I supposed to tell Yuri that I don’t want to leave?”
“Just tell him. You know you have to leave in a couple weeks in any case, but if you don’t tell him, how will he know you want to come back?”
“Do you think he’d want to live here? Like, permanently?”
Ellie smiled. “I think you’d know that better than I would. Honestly, Victor, talk to him. Let him help you work through whatever’s going on inside your head. You told me before the he’s really good at that, so you should let him do it more often.”
I nodded. “You’re right.”
“Naturally,” she said. “Why else would I be the team leader?”
I laughed even though I was still crying. “I love you, Ellie.”
She got up and held out a hand to me. I took her hand, and she pulled me up to my feet and straight into the tightest embrace.
“I love you, Victor,” she said. “I will always love you and I’ll never stop. You can go to the ends of the earth, and I’ll still love you.”
“The ends of the earth and back,” I whispered, and suddenly I remembered where that phrase had originated. Ellie had said it into my ear as she hugged me goodbye at the airport on the day I left for Matsumori. Unwittingly, I’d started saying it to Yuri and he’d started saying it to me.
We stood together for a long time and I found it easy to calm down and stop crying in the security of Ellie’s arms.
Eventually, we both stepped back.
“You look awful,” Ellie said. “Let’s go to my house and get you some cold water and something to get that redness out of your face.” She gave me a mischievous little smile. “Yuri won’t want to be my friend if he thinks I did something to make you cry.”
“It wasn’t you,” I said.
“A likely story. 'I was alone with your husband and he was crying, but it totally wasn’t my fault, I swear’.”
“Okay, maybe he’d be suspicious if you said it like that. But yeah, let’s go to your house. You were going to get some stuff and come over, right? You still want to?”
“Only if you’re not planning to have that conversation with Yuri tonight.”
“I don’t think I’m ready to have a deep discussion tonight,” I admitted. “Come over and spend some time with us. Maybe we can figure out a way to make homemade ice cream with almond milk so Yuri can have some too, and if you’re nice, we might even let you pick the movie.”
“Maybe we should let Yuri pick the movie,” Ellie said. “You and I would probably choose the same sort of thing, but I’m curious to find out what he’s into.”
“I hope you have a secret passion for historical romances,” I said.
Ellie groaned. “Ugh.. big no to that. Now I’m one hundred percent convinced of how much you love him. The Victor I know wouldn’t sit through five minutes of a historical romance, so you’ve got to be doing it for him.”
“You have no idea how many historical romances I’ve sat through for him,” I said. “Mostly, I’m in it for the cuddling. He watches the movie, and I’m the warm and comfortable human cushion he sprawls on.”
“Okay. Historical romance it is,” Ellie said cheerfully. “I’ve got to see that. Like, I’m already dying of how cute you guys are. Seeing it in person is gonna finish me off.”
“I can’t speak for me, but Yuri is pretty cute.”
“Don’t worry. You’re cute too.” She slipped her arm through mine. “Come on. You’re going to walk me home, aren’t you? We’d better get going if we want to have movie night and not stay up past bedtime.”
“Right,” I said. “Ice cream, movie and a sleepover. Everything might not be exactly like it used to be, but I’m glad some things haven’t changed.”
Journal Entry #36 (part one)
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Yuri
Whoever called it The Great Outdoors clearly wasn’t camping in North Range Provincial Park with my husband and his friends.
Don't get me wrong. I like the outdoors when it's warm and sunny and not insect-infested. Where we are now is cold, damp and populated by a million mosquitoes. On top of that, it's obvious I’m surrounded by children trapped in adult bodies. Nevertheless, I’m out here doing my best to learn something and to try to have a good time. I’m not sure I’d call it fun so far, but I survived the night and everyone said I look cute in my outdoor gear, so there’s that.
Our adventure began yesterday afternoon when Leo and Ellie arrived at the house to pick us up. I had a hard time saying goodbye to Sango, and I think she was also struggling with it when she understood I wasn’t bringing her.
It’s amazing to me how fiercely we’ve become attached to each other in such a short period of time, and the thought filled me with both gratitude and stress. I hoped she didn’t think I was abandoning her. I promised her that I’d be back soon even though I knew she had no clue what I was actually saying. She whimpered in Dr. Grace’s arms as we left. Everybody made fun of her a bit for being so clingy, and Victor commented that Sango and I really are a lot alike.
As much as I wanted to disagree, I couldn’t. I’m willing to admit that we’re both clingy, and neither Sango nor I were ever meant to live a common life. Luxury and comfort are more our style. I didn’t blame her for being upset, but knowing that we were heading into the wilderness, it was in her best interests to stay behind. I couldn’t bear the idea of her sleeping on the ground or the state her beautiful white fur would be in after a weekend out in nature, not to mention how dangerous the forest was likely to be.
Victor did his best to distract me by putting me in charge of fitting all our stuff into Leo’s already packed little car. It took more than a minute or two to find places for our backpacks, sleeping bags, cooler, and Victor’s fishing rod. The experience was like playing a real-life game of Tetris.
As an aside, I didn’t even know Victor owned a fishing rod. The same basement closet that produced his old sleeping bag and backpack also gave up the rod and a veritable history lesson about my husband’s past life. I just wanted to sit and let him tell me stories about things we unearthed in there. Maybe when we get back from camping I'll suggest that we should organize the closet, and my curiosity will be satisfied.
But let’s get back to the main subject.
The trip toNorth Range Provincial Park from Maple Grove took about an hour. Leo drove and Ellie sat in the front with him. Victor and I were in the back and I had to sit in the middle seat because the car was so full. An enormous cooler was on the back seat on the driver’s side and Leo’s guitar case was standing upright on the floor on that side, wedged between a duffel bag and a rolled up sleeping bag tied with what looked like an old boot lace. To be fair, I didn’t really mind the spot I ended up in because It meant that I was close enough to Victor to be cuddled for most of the journey. You’ll never catch me complaining about that.
I fell asleep for part of the car ride. Although I was feeling better than I had been earlier in the week and wasn't in pain like I had been, I was still uncomfortable and fatigued. The discomfort I typically experience from my illness is a difficult sensation to describe. It’s as if my belly feels stretched and too full, even if I haven’t eaten anything, and sometimes it’s tender to touch. I wouldn't necessarily call it painful, but it is very distracting. It often limits my ability to do physical things, and it makes it harder for me to relax and rest properly. When my body is behaving like this, I usually only fall asleep from sheer exhaustion.
Victor had to wake me up when we finally arrived at the campground area of the provincial park. I was groggy and had momentarily forgotten where we were supposed to have been going. When I asked sleepily where we were, Victor laughed and gave me a kiss on the top of my head.
“I think you might need a bit more sleep,” he said. “We’re at the North Range. And I know you know this, but we have to speak English, okay?”
“Hmm…?” I said.
“English,” he said in English this time. “Leo and Ellie don’t speak Japanese, remember?”
“Oh. Sorry.” I rubbed my eyes, belatedly realizing I wasn’t wearing my glasses.
I must’ve looked confused, but Victor understood why. “I took your glasses off you when you fell asleep. They’re in your bag. Just a second.”
As he poked around in my backpack, which was on the floor between his feet, I said, “I’m not off to a very good start, am I?”
“Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.” He took my glasses out of their case and put them on me, and then gave me a playful tap on the end of my nose with a forefinger. “It’ll be fun, and you’ll be the cutest camper up here this weekend.”
Meanwhile, Leo and Ellie were already out of the car. Leo stuck his head and shoulders through the still-open driver’s door. “Hey, lover boys, are you going to help us set up or what?”
“We’re coming,” Victor said. He rested a hand on my knee. “Do you want to stay in here and rest while we get everything set up?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll help if I can.”
When all was said and done, I’m not sure I was very helpful. I carried my own sleeping bag and backpack over to the spot where Victor and Leo were putting up the tents. Victor wouldn’t let me carry anything heavier than that, and I don’t know the first thing about tent-pitching, so I sat at the picnic table and watched as Ellie carried a bunch of other items from the car over to our campsite.
It actually didn’t take long for everything to be set up. I was happy someone had ultimately made the decision that we’d have two tents instead of just one. That solved the problem of Victor and Ellie potentially sleeping next to each other. I was gratified that I wouldn’t have to share his company or his body heat with anybody else at night.
I spread out our sleeping bags inside our tent and placed our backpacks in the corner farthest from the tent flap. I thought about unpacking a few things, but the tent wasn’t really big enough for that. If I had to wear wrinkled clothes for the next two days, I guessed I’d have to live with it. I did pull my insulated bottle and flashlight out of my pack, though. I figured I’d need those sooner rather than later.
I wished I’d brought a raincoat. The sky was dark and overcast, and I could easily imagine it’d be pouring before too long.
The one thing I could do by myself without being taught was to make a fire. Victor said I should get our campfire going, and I was only too glad to be able to contribute.
I remembered when we’d first moved into our house in Kiyosaka, Victor had said making a fire in the fireplace was just like starting one in a fire pit. Confident that the reverse was also true, I had no problem generating a good campfire. As an added bonus, the smoke seemed to keep the worst of the bugs at bay.
Much to my surprise, Victor and I had found tofu hot dogs while grocery shopping in the morning, along with rice bread, soy cheese, green tea and tinned fruit. He’d spent part of the day making my favourite avocado onigiri and a small batch of dairy-free chocolate cookies. I wouldn’t have to live on protein bars and Gatorade for the next two and a half days, although we did bring along both those things as well.
I’m happy to report that tofu hot dogs can be roasted over a fire the same as the regular processed meat ones can. I’d never cooked anything on an open flame before, but I think I did all right. I didn’t burn my hotdog or myself, so I’m calling it a win.
Unfortunately, one hot dog was all I could manage. It tasted so good, wrapped in a slice of rice flour bread with honey mustard drizzled on it, but even before I got halfway through it, I had the feeling I’d literally bitten off more than I could chew. I finished it anyway, and chased it with a few mouthfuls of Gatorade.
While I was busy conquering my one hot dog, Victor, Leo and Ellie ate at least three each. They devoured a large bag of chips, an entire bottle of Gatorade each, and half a bag of marshmallows, and I finally understood why the two coolers we’d brought were so big.
By the time we finished eating and tidying up, it was really getting dark and the sky was definitely threatening rain, but everyone was determined to stay outside as long as possible. We all took turns telling ghost stories and urban legends, some of which were a little scary and some that were just ridiculous.
I was waiting for Victor to get around to telling Ellie and Leo about the alleged ghost in the house across the street from his mother’s place. Ever since we’d met Kim and Robert and they’d told us about Sachiko, Victor has been preoccupied with the idea of seeing her for himself. He seems to genuinely like Kim and Robert, and I think his suggestion that we should visit them again was made in true friendliness, but I’m sure he’s at least somewhat motivated by the ghost.
I wasn’t waiting in vain. When we’d all had a chance to tell a story and Victor’s turn came around again, he started with, “Me and Yuri have an actual ghost story that really happened to us this week.”
Ellie and Leo both looked intrigued, and Ellie said, “Really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Did you know the house across the street from Mom’s is haunted?”
“You mean the vampire house?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah, except the vampires don’t live there any more. An older couple bought it about five years ago. We met them on Tuesday and they told us all about this Japanese ghost lady who likes to arrange flowers. They invited us over, so we went there on Wednesday afternoon to visit and to see if we could meet her. The ghost, I mean.”
“I didn’t realize the vampires moved out,” Leo said. “It’s not like I don’t go over to Aunt Grace’s any more, but when I do, I’m not usually paying attention to the neighbours, you know?”
“Vampires?” I said. “Seriously?”
“Maybe?” Victor said. “This really weird couple used to live in that house before Robert and Kim did, probably since we were like… what, Leo? Ten or eleven years old?”
“Yeah,” Leo said. “I remember the night they moved in too. Me and Kiki were staying over because that’s when Alessia was in the hospital getting her tonsils out, remember? Mom and Dad stayed overnight at the hospital with her.”
“That was the night when we first noticed Kiki was going silver like us,” Victor said. “Remember how excited she was? I swear she was waiting for that.”
“She just wanted an excuse to dye her hair funky colours,” Leo said.
“She woke up when she heard the moving truck, remember? And then she woke us up and we all had to sneak upstairs to see what was going on.”
“I still can’t believe I missed that,” Ellie said.
“I think you must’ve been at your mom’s,” said Leo. “You totally would’ve been with us otherwise.”
“Why did you think the people moving in were vampires?” I asked.
“Who moves in the middle of the night?” Leo said. “Normal people don’t do that.”
“Besides,” Victor added. “Once they were all moved in, we never saw them outside during the day. Any time they ever left the house, it was always after dark. Plus, they always dressed in black."
“When you hear hoofbeats, do you usually assume it’s a zebra?” I said. “Maybe they worked night shifts.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t explain their vampire car,” said Ellie. “It was this big, black thing that looked like a hearse. Oh, and they had two black cats that they used to walk on leashes, and they totally had vampire names too. The people, not the cats."
"Tatiana and Sergey," Leo supplied.
“They sound Russian,” I said. “Russians who were into the Goth aesthetic?”
“Remember the creepy way Sergey said your name, Victor?” Leo asked. “Veek-tor.”
Victor laughed. “It was like something from a movie,” he said. “But, can we get back to the ghost for a minute? Like, I swear that house is in a supernatural zone or something. First vampires, and now a ghost.”
“So, did you actually see the ghost?” Ellie asked.
“No, but I think we smelled her.”
Leo laughed out loud. “You smelled a ghost? What do ghosts smell like?”
“Like plum blossoms,” Victor said. “Like the Hanamigawa valley in spring.”
“You’re making that up.”
“He isn’t,” I said. “I smelled it too, and that’s exactly the scent he’s talking about. I doubt it was a ghost, but the scent was real.”
“It was the ghost,” Victor insisted. “Anyway, Robert told us that they accidentally brought her here from Japan in this antique vase they bought about four years ago. They said they got it at a shop in Matsumori that’s famous for occult stuff. Right, Yuri?”
“Yes, the part about the shop supposedly having occult objects is true,” I confirmed. “I’ve been there with my friends.”
“Awesome!” Leo exclaimed. “When me and Ellie come to visit you, we have to go there. I need to check that out.”
“Are you coming to visit us?”
“We’re all going to Brazil together this winter, right? Wouldn’t it be fun if we all travelled together from the beginning?”
I glanced over at Victor. “Did you know about this?”
“You said you were okay with all of us going on a group adventure to Brazil,” Victor said.
“I meant the visit.”
He shook his head. “First I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s cool, right?” Leo said.
“As long as you don’t mind sleeping in the sitting room,” I said. “We only have two bedrooms.”
“Why would we have to sleep in the sitting room?” Ellie said. “You and Victor don’t sleep together?”
“Usually we do, but—”
"That’s fine, then,” she said. “You two can sleep in one room, and Leo and I can sleep in the other. Problem solved.”
“It’s a double bed, I hope,” Leo said. “You know how Ellie likes to spread out.”
“Shut up,” Ellie said. “At least I don’t snore.”
“You both snore,” Victor informed them. "It’s lucky you both sleep like you’re unconscious, or you’d keep each other up.”
“I’m looking forward to visiting you,” Leo said.”Snowboarding on the famous Arashiyama? Yes, please. And I hear the girls are really cute in Matsumori. I already know the boys are.” He winked at me.
Ellie punched his arm. “Cut it out, idiot. You’ll embarrass him.”
I was already blushing a little, but I was trying to have a good sense of humour about it. “I could probably introduce you to some cute people, Leo. The language barrier might be an issue, though.”
“Love is a universal language,” Leo said.
Ellie groaned, and Victor attempted to cover his laugh with a cough. I smiled. It occurred to me suddenly that I was actually participating in a group conversation with people who had previously made me want to run and hide from them. Was this progress? Maybe it was a small step, but Victor always likes to tell me that every step counts.
It was Ellie’s turn to tell the next ghost story, but she only got halfway through her tale of a haunted shipwreck when the rain started. It wasn’t a slow buildup. It was as if the clouds opened and we were caught in a downpour before we could do anything about it.
We grabbed our lanterns and scrambled for our tents. It was too early to go to bed, so we talked through the thin walls of the tents for a while. Ellie finished her story, and then we turned our focus back to planning Leo and Ellie’s visit to Matsumori and our subsequent excursion to Brazil.
Eventually we all wound down, and although it was still relatively early, we mutually agreed to call it a night. Victor helped me into my sleeping bag and then zipped it all the way up, so only my neck and head were sticking out. It was surprisingly cozy.
I watched, fascinated, as Victor deftly zipped himself into his own sleeping bag, and I became determined to learn to do the same in the near future. A few seconds later, he stuck one hand out just far enough to reach the lantern and turn it off.
I hadn’t even considered the impossibility of cuddling when each of us were in individual sleeping bags. When I pointed this out to Victor, he unzipped his a bit, freeing his arms so he could at least pull me close and hold me. He smelled like wood smoke, and it was oddly comforting. I wondered if I smelled as smoky as he did and whether or not he liked it. The rain pattered against the tent. I closed my eyes.
“Hey,” Victor said softly against the back of my shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yes,” I said. “This is different, but I think I’m handling it.”
“If you start feeling like you can’t handle it, tell me,” he said.
“I will, but so far I’m all right.”
“Good.”
“Are you doing okay?” I asked.
“As long as this rain doesn’t turn into a thunderstorm, I’m good,” he said.
“If it does, I’m here,” I assured him. “We’ll do like we always do. I’ll hold you till it’s over, and you can cry as much as you need to. No judgements.”
“I wouldn’t want Leo and Ellie to hear me crying and freaking out like that,” he said, practically whispering it, even though we were speaking Japanese and his friends wouldn’t have understood even if they could’ve heard us. “I’d never live it down.”
That comment caught me by surprise. “Ellie and Leo don’t know you’re afraid of thunderstorms? I thought they knew everything about you.”
“Not that,” he said. “They know I don’t like thunderstorms, but they don’t know how I get when there’s a storm going on. You and Mom are the only people who know about that.
"So, you do have secrets from them.”
I felt him nodding. “Yeah, of course. There’s things about me that literally only you know. I’m married to you, not to them. There’s stuff only your partner should know, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “There are things about me that only you know, too.”
“Like how you love being kissed on the back of the neck?” he said, a note of teasing in his voice. I felt him shift position, and then I sensed the warmth of his breath just above the neckline of my shirt. “I thought it was the funniest thing at first, but now I really like knowing you’ve got a secret spot.”
I smiled in the darkness. The back of my neck was the first place I’d ever let him kiss me. It’d happened unexpectedly, but completely naturally, one rainy Sunday morning when we were being lazy and lying in bed well past nine o'clock. We were snuggling spoon fashion, with my back against his chest. At first, I don’t think I’d realized it had been his lips brushing across the base of my neck, and I’d asked him rather breathlessly what he was doing. I remember, he really did seem to think it was funny, and he’d asked me if I liked it. I did, and I hadn’t been shy about asking him to do it again. He’d strayed along my shoulder to where my birthmark is before I’d asked him to stop.
That had been our only tentative foray into intimacy beyond cuddling up to that point, and it’d been our last for several weeks afterward. We shared our first real kiss about a month later, and that had been equally as unexpected, at least from my perspective.
We actually don’t kiss on the mouth all that often because we both have to be in the right frame of mind to be comfortable with it, but we’re more than happy to kiss each other’s forehead, cheeks and hands, and of course our 'secret spots’.
Victor’s secret spot is along his collarbone, and I love his reaction whenever I touch him there. I have to say, I was slightly disappointed that I was kept from reaching it by layers of clothing and sleeping bags and couldn’t repay the gentle attention he was giving the nape of my neck as we lay there under the nylon canopy of our tent.
“Remind me to thank you when we get back to your mother’s house,” I said.
“For what?”
“For helping me relax.”
“Mmm…” was his response. “And by 'thank’, I presume you mean 'play in the bath’?”
“Isn’t that where we usually start?”
“I have a feeling you’re not going to want to share your bath with me by the time the weekend’s over. You’re gonna be in there with bubbles and aromatherapy soap and all your beauty products, and you’ll be whining about how I dragged you out to the middle of nowhere to suffer from lack of access to moisturizer or something.”
“Maybe as a punishment for your insensitivity to my needs, I’ll make you come in and wash my back and help me wash my hair. Then, you can dry me off and put lotion on me. That’d serve you right.”
“Worst punishment ever,” he said dramatically. “How could you be so cruel?”
We both laughed. I worked my arms out of my sleeping bag, and rolled over so that we were facing each other. Our embrace was awkward, but we made it work.
Lulled by the cadence of the rain, it wasn’t long before both of us were asleep.
When I woke up in the morning, my first discovery was that the rain had stopped. My second discovery was that I was alone in the tent. I lay still for a minute, attempting to hear anything from outside that might give me a hint as to where Victor was.
The only sound that came to my ears was Ellie shouting. Curious, I wriggled my way out of my sleeping bag. As I unzipped the tent, I was met by the fragrant, earthy scent of the forest and fresh air that seemed slightly warmer than it’d been the previous day.
I poked my head through the tent flap just in time to see Victor and Leo running toward our campsite from the direction of the lake. They were both hollering and waving towels around like fans might wave pennants at a baseball game.
Aside from sneakers that had clearly seen better days, they were both utterly naked.
“What…?” I began.
Ellie glanced over her shoulder at me. “Yuri, don’t look! Just… go back in your tent for a minute or something.”
“Why?” I said, perplexed, as I did the exact opposite of her instructions. I pulled on my boots and emerged from the tent, and then zipped it closed as quickly as I could to minimize the amount of mosquitos that were likely to invite themselves in.
“Holy crap!” Leo yelled as they got nearer to us. “If you guys want to clean up, you better hike over to the public washrooms for a shower, 'cause that lake is freakin’ cold!”
The fact that there was a public washroom somewhere in the campground with actual running water was news to me. Last night when I asked Victor where I should go, he took me to a secluded little spot behind our campsite and I relieved myself in the bushes. It was terrifying and embarrassing, and I was horrified at the idea of doing anything other than peeing out there. Victor hadn’t seemed particularly ruffled by the experience and hadn’t even tried to hide behind a tree. As for me, between the rain and the exposure, I’d been practically crying with anxiety by the time we’d returned to our campsite and crawled into our tent again. I’d needed all the attention he gave me afterward to help me calm down.
I didn’t care how far away the public washroom was. I decided I was willing to hike anywhere for a shower and a bit of privacy.
“I think I shrunk a bit,” Victor said.
“Dude!” said Leo. “That water’s enough to make the boys go into hiding completely."
“You idiots! What the actual hell…?” Ellie exclaimed, and I thought she was going to give them a lecture for bathing in the lake. This did not seem to be her issue, however, since she followed up with, “Do you think it’s appropriate for Yuri to see the two of you letting it all hang out like that?”
“There’s a lot less hanging out than there was before,” Leo said.
“Cover it up, dumbass,” Ellie retorted. “And stop being so gross.”
“Uh…” Victor began. “You know Yuri sees me naked all the time, right? Hell, you’ve seen me naked before and it’s never been a problem, so…”
“Look, I don’t personally care if you run around in the buff all day long,” she said. “It doesn’t affect me in the least, but I’m not the one with delicate sensibilities or whatever, am I?”
There was a lot to unpack in that statement, and I wasn’t entirely sure how I should react. It seemed Ellie was not, in fact, affected by Leo and Victor being in their proverbial birthday suits. Other than simply taking note that they weren’t wearing anything, her demeanour toward them seemed no different than if they’d been fully clothed. As for my 'delicate sensibilities’, I didn’t know whether I should be flattered that she felt she should protect me in some weird way, or insulted that she thought I needed protecting in the first place.
Victor was correct. it’s not as if I’d never seen him naked before, and Leo’s display didn’t bother me overmuch either. I may be romantically attracted exclusively to men, but the plus side of being asexual is that I don’t get excited about seeing them with nothing on. Unless we’re talking about Victor, of course. I might sometimes get a little excited over him, but I have to be in the right mood. Watching him hold a dingy towel over himself with one hand while swatting mosquitos with the other was not my ideal romantic image, I can assure you.
But I digress.
“Victor,” I said. “Let’s go into the tent and you can put some clothes on. Then you can show me where the public washrooms are so I can do my skincare routine and shower like a civilized person.”
“Are you suggesting I’m uncivilized?” he said.
“You’re standing in the middle of a forest, wearing only what nature gave you,” I said. “You tell me.”
“Uh…” was his less than eloquent response.
“I’ll take you to the public washrooms, Yuri,” Ellie said. “I want a normal shower too. We can let these morons sort themselves out.”
“Hey,” said Leo. “Keep calling me a moron and I’ll be forced to stop being madly in love with you, Eleanor.”
“Stop calling me Eleanor, or I’ll be forced to start calling you Leonardo,” she said.
"That's my name." He stuck out his tongue at her. “You know you want me… Eleanor.”
“Ugh.”
“Anybody got any anti-itch lotion?” Victor asked. “I’ve got some mosquito bites in, um… some places.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t been skinny dipping in the lake—” Ellie said.
“Come on! I might be in actual torment here.”
“There’s some in our tent,” Ellie said. “Front pocket of my backpack. Just let me grab some clean clothes and my towel first, and then you can go for it.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“You get your stuff too, Yuri,” she said. “Then we can hurry over there. I doubt the bath shack will be busy, but you never know.”
“Bath shack?” i echoed. “Please say that’s just a nickname. It does have running water, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it has running water, but don’t expect it to be hot. Actually, don’t expect anything approaching what you’re used to at home,” she said. “I doubt there’s even a mirror or a place to put your stuff down. Last time I was here, they had hooks on the walls for clothes and towels.”
“But, my skincare routine—“
"Here’s hoping it’s not anything more complicated than a wet facecloth with soap on it,” she said.
I cringed. “You think I’d use something as harsh as regular soap on my face? I thought you were a medical professional.”
Ellie shrugged. “I’m a nurse, not a dermatologist.”
“Welcome to the great outdoors, little guy,” Leo said cheerfully. “It’s not the Holiday Inn.”
Victor and Ellie laughed, and both of them chorused the punchline to their inside joke. “It’s the Holiday Out!”
I sighed.
I’m sorry, delicate facial skin, I thought. First, wrinkled clothes, and now no place to cleanse and moisturize adequately. What was next? Outhouses? Leaves instead of toilet tissue? If I had to take a cold shower in a place nicknamed the 'bath shack’, maybe I would’ve done just as well to throw myself into the lake with Victor and Leo.
Resigned, I gathered my clothes, soap and towel, and then followed Ellie along a winding, uphill path through the trees.
After a few minutes, we reached a cleared area with a shabby wood and stonework structure that did seem to merit the name 'bath shack'. It wasn’t a long way from our campsite, but I realized I never would’ve found it on my own. I’d tried to pay attention so I could find my way back. No more peeing in the foliage if I could help it. My mother would be mortified if she knew what I’d done last night. She’d raised me far better than that.
The public washroom wasn’t quite as bad as I’d anticipated from the outside. It was clean and not excessively drafty, which earned it some points. The best I can say about the water in the shower is that it was warm; not hot, but thankfully not cold either. The water pressure was weak, so it was more like having water trickled over me by someone holding a watering can above my head, but I kept telling myself, at least you’re not bathing in the lake.
Just as Ellie had said, there were no shelves and no counters. The sinks were the pedestal kind, but they did have plain rectangular hanging on the wall above them. Fortunately, both the showers and the toilets were in individual stalls and were functional, and there was plenty of toilet tissue. It was low quality and slightly damp from humidity, but I was too grateful to be picky.
I can’t say I felt refreshed when I was done, but I was clean and hopefully somewhat presentable. My hair was a mess, especially since the best I could do was rub it halfway dry with my towel, but I convinced myself that my hat would hide the worst of it, and I tried not to worry too much about it.
Ellie was waiting for me outside. I guessed she hadn’t tried to wash her hair, because it looked completely dry.She must’ve been wearing a shower cap to protect it. Why didn’t I think of that?
She grinned at me. “So, how was it?”
“Exactly like you described,” I said. “Except you didn’t tell me about the spiders. I think I saw a spider on the wall.”
“You probably did,” she said. “You didn’t get any bites, did you?”
“No.”
“Good,” she said. “Those really sting.”
“They’re not poisonous, are they? Would I get sick if one bit me?”
“The spiders around here aren’t poisonous, but their bites really do hurt. Just try not to disturb them, and they’ll leave you alone.”
“Is there anything else I should be worried about?”
“Maybe leeches, if you’re brave enough to go into the lake,” she said. “Or dumb enough.”
I shook my head. “No, I most definitely don’t intend to go into the lake, but I’d like to see it up close. It looks pretty in all the photos Victor has showed me, but I’m afraid I missed seeing it for real from the car on the way up here yesterday.”
“Do you want to go for a walk?” Ellie asked. “The lake’s way more gorgeous up close and in person than it is in a picture or from a moving car.”
“Okay,” I said. “But what about Victor and Leo? They’ll be expecting us.”
“I’ll just text Leo,” she said. “Or you can text Victor. It’ll be fine. I’d rather it was just the two of us, anyway.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that, but I decided I’d better not jump to any conclusions. “What would you need to talk to me about that you can’t say in front of Victor and Leo?”
“It’s kind of about Victor,” she said, and then added hastily. “Don’t panic. It’s not something bad.”
“Okay,” I said again, because I was at a loss for anything more appropriate. “What is it?”
“Let’s find a place to sit by the lake,” she said. “I don’t like having serious talks when I’m walking.”
To be truthful, I don’t like having serious talks while walking, either. I was content enough to follow a step behind Ellie as she led us on a meandering trail past a handful of cottages.
When we reached the lakeshore, the view took my breath away. 'Pretty’ wasn’t enough of a word to describe Granite Lake. It was stunningly beautiful and nearly rivalled the scenery in the Hanamigawa valley. For me to acknowledge any place is as beautiful as my home is saying something, but I didn’t hesitate this time. I could see the brilliant white gleam of snow on the distant peaks of the mountains, and it was almost as majestic as my own beloved Arashiyama.
“What do you think?” Ellie inquired.
“I’m speechless,” I said.
“The North Range has that effect on people,” she said. “You’ll get to see that, too. I heard Victor and Leo are taking you snowboarding up there. That’s Victor’s mountain, you know. His real first love.”
I nodded. “I know. I’ll always have to share him with one mountain or another.”
“Mountains never betray you or hurt you," she said. "Not like people.”
“They can,” I said. “But, if they do, it’s not intentional.”
“They don’t judge you.”
“True, but they also don’t love you in return, no matter how much you love them, and they don’t dry your tears or comfort you when you’re hurt or afraid.”
Ellie turned toward me. “I can see what Victor sees in you,” she said. “You’re a perfect foil to him. I can tell you think a lot, and that’s something he’s not super great at.”
"You underestimate him," I said.
"I've known him a long time."
"Implying that you know him better than I do?"
"I do know him better than you, but that's not a criticism of you," she said. "It's just a fact. All I meant is that he's the type who acts before he thinks, and you seem like the kind of person who thinks before he acts. He needs somebody like you to protect him from himself."
"I need him just as much as he needs me,” I told her. “Sometimes I think too much, and it’s good for me to have someone as spontaneous as him in my life. He protects me from myself sometimes too, but there's a lot more to us than that."
"I never said there wasn't," she said. “Honestly, I'm glad he found you.”
“Things might’ve been a lot different for both of us if he hadn’t.”
“Not just for the two of you,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She pulled in a long breath and let it out slowly.“Yuri, I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“For a lot of stuff, probably," she said. "For overstepping your boundaries, mostly.”
“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?” I inquired.
“Sort of,” she said. “It’s that, but there’s some stuff I need to explain about me and Victor, too."
"What about you and Victor?"
"Stuff about our past. I don’t know if you know any of it already, but you probably don’t because it’s been mine and Victor’s secret for a long time and I don't think he'd tell you, but…” She trailed off. “Sorry. I’m rambling. I don’t usually. I guess it’s because this isn’t going to be the easiest talk to have, but I want you to be part of the team, and well… there are things you really should know.”