Blossom by Libby Goddard

Lunch hour at Aojima High School was always noisy. At least half the students brought their own lunches and what only ten minutes before had been a near silent classroom would erupt into noisy laughter, sprawling limbs, buns heavy with filling being tossed about, and the smell of rice and seaweed. Some people crammed whatever leftovers they had into their bento boxes, or grabbed inexpensive rice balls from the convenience store. Yuriko, however, always prepared her lunch in the morning, carefully rationing out rice and vegetables to create a meal both balanced and appealing to her sense of aesthetics. She sat somewhat off to the side at her desk, away from the confusion and unrestrained energy of the other students. She liked to take time with her food, both preparing and eating, and she nibbled on a section of asparagus as she read, savoring the earthy bitterness of the vegetable with each bite. She didn’t normally read when she ate, but today she was unfortunately in a rush. Her tea lesson was that afternoon and she didn’t have much time to prepare.

A few weeks before school started, they had been given a list of school clubs they could join, and traditional art lessons offered in the area around the school. Yuriko had deliberated carefully over the list, and had finally decided on tea ceremony lessons as the safest bet. Rules. Regularity. Her first lesson hadn’t disappointed her; despite several other girls from her school participating in the small group lesson, Yuriko found that she was never required to engage them in small talk. Instead she was given an appropriate phrase for each moment in the ceremony, passed down for hundreds of years as the pinnacle of polite intercourse. Yuriko relished the history that sustained the tea ceremony, the knowledge that the masters had attained insight into the proper way to behave, and were giving it to her, like a secret or key to unlocking the mysteries of communication. In tea, Yuriko saw herself validated.

The lunch hour continued around her, and Yuriko caught snippets of conversation without trying to overhear.

“So! I reserved us a spot at Yasaka for next week.”

“Are you serious? How’d you manage that?”

“I bet it’s, like, off in a corner under a scraggly tree with no blossoms.”

“Have you even been to Yasaka before? The whole place is covered.”

“I hope the big tree blooms by then. I went one year and it was, like, only half done, and I was like, um, are you kidding me?”

“Well, we’ll see by next week. I can’t wait!”

“I hate how there’s, like, nothing going on before cherry blossom season.”

That’s not true, Yuriko protested silently. She didn’t really know the girls who were chattering away excitedly about the anticipated cherry blossom season, and would never feel comfortable questioning their views, but she had her doubts. Of course everyone loved cherry blossoms, and Yuriko had to admit she enjoyed them too, but she found something unsatisfying about the weeks of build up that ended in only a day or two of extraordinary beauty, before an ill-timed rainstorm dashed the petals to the ground. But there were mornings where Yuriko would sit on smooth plastic chairs affixed to the train platform, and look at the pink and white bursts of color on the plum trees, and think that she much rather liked the quiet, unassuming grace of plum blossoms to the busy extravagance of the cherries.

Yuriko had never said that out loud and probably never would; the kinds of girls whose opinions she opposed were the same kinds of girls who breezed in on the first day of high school with bleached hair and gaudily decorated nails, at ease with themselves enough to laugh and flirt unabashedly. Yuriko didn’t want to be them – she felt like she wouldn’t be taken seriously if she were – but at times like these, she wished she knew the right way to make herself heard.

“What are you reading?”

The question came as such a surprise that Yuriko nearly dropped her chopsticks. With a hurried glance around her, she found the source of the voice – Nanohara Kazuki, who was drinking an iced coffee with a lazy grin at the desk next to hers. He wasn’t the best-looking boy in the class, but he was lean, and graceful, and exuded confidence, every easy expression of his completely devoid of self-consciousness.

“Um,” was all Yuriko could say in response, her cheeks tingling with warmth. She had thought ahead enough to put a fabric cover over her book that morning; she hadn’t expected to pursue the topic further than a glance at her page on the train.

“It’s a book about the tea ceremony,” she admitted finally.

Nanohara raised his eyebrows. “The tea ceremony? Are you taking lessons?”

“Yes,” Yuriko answered softly.

As Nanohara smiled, there was an eruption of giggles from another corner of the classroom. Yuriko’s fingers curled around the edges of her book, her stomach clenching. What was he doing, talking to her all of a sudden? He had never seemed interested in her before, always pleasantly distracted by other things. The idea stole over her that maybe he was just playing a joke on her, making her trust him so he could laugh about her with his real friends later. Yuriko had heard about bullying like that at other schools, but she never had thought Nanohara to be the type. She wasn’t convinced he was trying to trick her, but why else would he start talking with her?

“That’s cool. What do you like about it?”

Yuriko wished she had the courage to tell him about her class, how the thick scent of incense blanketed the room, how her calves started to ache after sitting in seiza for over an hour, how you were supposed to arrange the little bamboo stick across your plate when you finished your sweet, how today Yuriko’s teacher was giving them the chance to pick their own themes for the ceremony, and how much Yuriko was anticipating and dreading that moment. But she didn’t know how to delve further into the topic, how to communicate so generously with someone she barely knew. So she shrugged in response to his question and turned her attention back to her book, refusing to look back at him until the lunch hour was over. Yuriko was okay with being alone, to do what she pleased without having to worry about being boring or plain. She was okay until she glanced at Nanohara and saw him slouch just a little deeper into his chair than usual.

***

After school, Yuriko walked the short distance to her teacher’s house, pushing the outer door open with a bumpy rattle. She moved swiftly across the stones of the inner passageway, sliding the smaller wooden door open to reveal the cozy room within. The warm smell of tatami mats and fragrant incense met her nose, and she slipped off her shoes before entering. She could hear the water boiling in the large iron kettle resting on the smoldering coals in the brazier pit sunken into the floor.

Before the lesson began, Yuriko joined her classmates, peripherally participating in their conversation about the themes they’d selected for their ceremonies. Those who had already selected a theme seemed to have caught onto the cherry blossom fever themselves – “cherry blossom viewing”, “budding cherries”, and “transient beauty” all permeated the discussion.

When it was time to begin, their talkativeness faded quickly, and the initial greetings passed smoothly, four young women in a row placing their small folded fans in front of their knees as they bowed to their teacher. When they had risen and tucked their fans away, their teacher turned to Yuriko expectantly.

“If you would indulge us, Matsuda,” she said in a kindly tone, turning to Yuriko.

Yuriko’s stomach knotted as she rose from the floor, swishing to the back room to prepare the utensils for the tea ceremony. She was ready; she could do this. Everything was laid out for her; what did she have to worry about? If she remembered the order of each movement – when to purify the utensils, how to hold the ladle so as not to spill a drop, what the correct way was to bend the wrist while whisking – she would have nothing to worry about.

Almost nothing. Despite knowing that her movements would no doubt be clumsier if she couldn’t let go of her distractions, Yuriko couldn’t help worrying about the end of the ceremony and the naming of the theme. Every lesson until then, her teacher had always given the girls a theme to recite along with the other standard phrases of the ceremony. Usually the theme related to nature, seasons. But this week, their teacher wanted to test them – or torture them, as Yuriko thought of it – by letting each girl come up with her own theme for her role as host of the ceremony.

After bowing to her fellow students – her guests – Yuriko glided over the tatami mats with each utensil, carefully arranging them to the left of the pit brazier. She settled herself, sitting back on her knees, and slid out the silk cloth hanging from her belt. Folding it with a soft swish, her fingers moved smoothly against the silk, a noticeable contrast to the scratchy sounds made by her teacher’s calloused hands. With deliberate slowness, she slid the cloth along the tea scoop, touching the edges along the lid of the tea caddy in purification. She wiped the ancient tea bowl with a dampened cloth, spooning in two scoops of bright, powdered green tea, calling forth the gestures she had spent so long learning and reviewing. After ladling in the steaming hot water, she began to whisk the tea in broad, quick strokes, until the dark green surface had frothed to a pale layer of bubbles. Turning the bowl, she set it gently on the tatami to her side, waiting for her first guest to take a sip before asking in a clear voice,

“Ofukukagen wa ikaga de gozaimasu ka?”

The words themselves were old fashioned and awkward when she had first learned them, but Yuriko had managed to remember them through intention, eager to comply with the proper way to inquire about the quality of her tea. If she had the words laid out for her, she could fill them with emotion, and not worry about offending or boring anyone. If only she had been given the right words that morning, she could have avoided most of the doubt and awkwardness that always caught her up in unexpected conversations. Then maybe Nanohara wouldn’t have…

An audible slurp alerted Yuriko to begin cleaning her utensils, to prepare for the end of the ceremony. She washed the tea bowl with the same careful movements as she had begun, trying not to focus on the impending conclusion of her performance. As she cleaned the utensils, she set them out for display, a line of beautifully understated scoops and containers along the tatami. The other guests examined each utensil, which had a name and a meaning their teacher had taught them along with the physical gestures of the ceremony itself. The guests asked the specifics on the utensils, which Yuriko recited dutifully.

“Nani ka gomei wa?” the principal guest asked, and finally the moment had come. Yuriko knew the other students were expecting her to pick a theme related to the cherry blossoms, but Nanohara’s slouching figure appeared in her mind instead. Maybe he had tried to talk to her for the same reasons why she liked plum blossoms instead of cherry. Maybe he had wanted something different from what was expected. Maybe he really had wanted to hear about her lessons. Yuriko couldn’t get over the thought that she had hurt Nanohara in trying to protect herself.

“Koubai,” she announced finally, her voice shaking a little. Red plum blossoms. As soon as the word passed her lips, Yuriko knew she had made the right choice.