“Tadaima!” Ayane followed as she unlocked the door to the house. Teresa, not wanting to feel left out, tried her best to say tadaima, expecting a reaction of nihongo jouzu from the actual Japanese people accompanying her. However, their understandably shocked expressions probably meant that there was this gaijin who just said tadaima in the near-native pitch-accent.

“Well, I didn’t know I had it in you,” Ayane smugly remarked.

“Now why do you have to be like that?” Teresa chuckled, retorting back at her comment.

“You two got along pretty well—” Yukino started, before being cut by a voice which sounded older yet somehow young for an elderly Japanese woman’s voice.

“And it’s quite what I expected.” The voice showed her face. She was wearing her traditional kimono, as most Japanese grandmothers do. However, she spoke in a more casual conversational tone, more informal than most Japanese grandmothers do. Her physique was one of an office lady, yet with the posture of an elderly woman. She did not have a cane, however, for her legs seemed to be holding steady. All that Teresa could think of when she met her was that she did not age—or it seemed like she did not change at all.

“Nice to be finally meeting you, Teresa Darlington-san,” she bowed her head before Teresa. Teresa quickly reciprocates in order to understand Japanese morals. The Obaa-san was surprised: she had already learned a rather complicated Japanese greeting with the words kochira koso yoroshiku. It looked as if there were a lot of emotions on her facial expression.

This shocked Teresa, who had looked up because of the silence. Quickly turning around to face Ayane and Yukino, she noticed that they too were quite shocked.

Well… more likely two things:

Ayane was shocked, but more importantly she was impressed by this blonde Englishwoman’s ability to reciprocate like a Japanese person. Am I going to expect a nihongo jouzu from her soon? Teresa pondered.

Yukino, on the other hand, was astonished to see a foreigner do what Japanese people do. She looked more surprised than Ayane, which probably fit Teresa’s image of her as the timid, klutzy older sister. However Teresa felt like she might have offended her, from the same look and image.

Had these thoughts gone out of her she would have faced a big misunderstanding that would turn awkward.

The silver lining—or I guess the adequate solution—was the chuckle of Fujioka-baa-san, who had raised her head to see the comically awkward stand-off-esque stance of the three girls. Chuckling at the sight of that, she walked toward Teresa. “As I expected, you were the one who came here.”

Standing close in front of Teresa, she held her hands. “It has been auld lang syne, Ms. Darlington…”

But you finally came back to fill your promise.

Although Teresa understood the situation from the picture, this confused Ayane and Yukino further who stood behind Teresa in shock, almost as if they were frozen in time.

Fujioka-baa-san, after letting go of Teresa’s hand, walked back to the hallway. “Well don’t just stand there, come inside, make yourselves at home.”

Teresa hadn’t noticed it because she was just standing there confused for a good quarter of an hour, but the house was built like an ordinary Japanese house. 

First, when one enters the house, they are greeted by a hallway with a wooden floor, elevated via a small staircase from the mat, where they can take off their shoes and place them on the left side: a shoe rack which faces the umbrella rack and key hangers. Down the hallway to the first left is the way going to the second floor, which contains all the bedrooms.

Further down the hallway there is the living room, which is as spacious as you can get from the word “convenience” in the Japanese setting: it is not too big and not too small. It could probably fit three of each of the girls. The couch, beige in color, was probably the most comfortable furniture, or so Teresa thought, especially when Ayane immediately plopped on the couch, tired from the trip. She sat on the portion of the couch next to Ayane.

Against the soft end of the couch lay a television set. “It is a 10-inch standard flatscreen, which is decent enough for watching news and terebi drama,” Yukino explained. “Obaa-chan loves to watch drama, especially those involving classic romances.”

“That’s because it reminds me of my own love story,” Fujioka-san (the grandmother, for simplicity’s sake) replied. As she replied, she was preparing what smelled like green tea. The kitchen where she is situated at the moment was as big as the living room, complete with an island almost adjacent to the hallway—which served as the nook and the dinner table—and two sinks: one for the dishes and one for the utensils. Cupboards for organizing the different dishes and utensils surround the sinks, and finally, a microwave oven with a standard baking oven below it. 

All these and the living room have the same base of color: shades of brown and white.

Yukino stood up to help Fujioka-san with the refreshments. Ayane was lying down on the couch, scrolling through her phone feed, perhaps trying to find something juicy to repost. Teresa, seeing as Yukino and her grandmother will be taking a bit more time, wandered outside from the glass doors, situated as an extension of the living room. It was not a particularly striking view, but she felt the cold breeze of the early night. 

Through the setting sun and the emergence of the glowing stars, Teresa leaned onto the fence while her mind wandered as far as how her long strikingly vibrant blonde hair stroked the wind which had approached from behind her head. The gentle cold breeze of the early night guided her mind as it wandered, storing itself in its soft cusp as she heard nothing but a peaceful night’s sonata resonating through the wind and the horizon.

Beautiful, she whispered. This is where you make a wish, right?

Teresa closed her eyes, letting her mind wander with every blow of the breeze and every inch of the sun’s settling below the horizon. She had been overtaken by Tsukuyomi’s gentle embraces and the ebb and flow of the sky’s ocean accentuated by the breezes. She had let herself go with her worries, and she felt Tsukuyomi’s clutches until she was passed from the ocean’s cusp onto hers, the orchestra of the winds playing a somber lullaby.

Teresa hummed to the tune. It was too beautiful to describe.

In the peak of the lulling, Teresa remembered her grandmother. The promise made by another has been bound by fate. Fate, who entrusted it to Tsukuyomi, who had sent the breezes guided by Fate’s own wiles to the new generation.

Thank you, gran. I wish you were here right now.

Teresa shedded a tear.