Kengo saw Yumeko closed her window and he closed his right after. It left him smiling thinking that the lady was too energetic. He was happy to hear that she actually came to their house but regretful he could not meet her. 

With all happy thoughts, he placed the last origami he received from Yumeko on a drawer of his study table where all the other origami he collected from her in the past two days rested. 

He felt lucky he was sick. If he was not, there would never be any chance to talk to the lady next door.

He lied to his bed looking forward for a sunny day tomorrow.

Several days earlier…

“Really? I didn’t expect she would come here. Undeniably, she’s an interesting girl. It was more salty than that in the deep blue sea.” A pleasant voice grinned followed by slight coughing, it was Kengo.

“Young master, please refrain from talking for now. You need to recover soon,” said worriedly by Mrs. Ikeda.

“What have you done, knowing that beans had terrible effect on your health?” she continued.

The young man then recalled how Yumeko believed in her skills on that day. He was moved on how someone could have faith and joy, despite the arrows of hate trying to break her efforts.

“How will you defend yourself from those arrows?” Kengo softly said.

“I’m…I’m sorry I can’t quite fathom these words of yours,” Mrs. Ikeda replied in confusion.

The young man looked at her, and just smiled. Mrs.Ikeda’s face was indescribably perplexed. Chiaki, who was a longtime friend of his, noticed that Kengo had no regrets at all.

“Forgive him, Mrs. Ikeda. He might still be hallucinating because of the beans. It might be one of the effects, ‘hallucination’.”

“As you can see there was no arrow in this room.” He grinned, showing support to his friend.

Mrs. Ikeda, was more worried and bowed to not ever let the young man eat beans anymore.

“Please get well soon, young master!” She went out and gently closed the door.

“I wonder if Mrs. Ikeda could sleep well tonight after all that we’ve said,” Chiaki joked.

He caught a glance of Koharu and Yumeko that day, even their voices appeared to be amusing so he opened door. In his impression, they looked like stray puppies looking for a home to accept them.

“Even their murmurs have positive energy. I have never seen a woman who had the courage to go to a man’s house. She must be tough.” Chiaki added and smiled.

“She’s quite dangerous. I am sure Mrs. Ikeda was so shocked too.” Kengo chuckled and coughed once more.

His friend, Chiaki, left his room to give him the rest he needed. As the threshold of closing door met its bottom rail, he lied down. The young man laid his forearm on his eyes.

“I didn’t even need to forgive her. I wonder if she knew how innocent she looked,” he said with a tender smile, and fell asleep.

The following day was very humid and hot, Mrs. Ikeda rushed to Kengo’s room to check his condition. He was still sick; the burning temperature might zonk him out even more.

From the young master’s suite, Mrs. Ikeda moved him to another room facing their garden, so he could receive refreshing and healing air from the trees and flowers. Meanwhile, Yumeko was throwing desperate pebbles on his actual bedchamber. 

That afternoon, Mrs. Ikeda came to Kengo’s room to open its windows to ventilate the room.

Right after dinner Kengo came back to his minimalist yet elegant room. Then he found three yagasuri patterned origami safely landed on his hardwood floor. He saw some signs of penmanship inside it.

He curiously unfolded and thoroughly read to each messy letters.

He softly laughed as he read on.

“Paper cranes to send letters? She’s one funny woman.”

He chuckled in disbelief.

“How a salty anpan could poison and stop my breathing?”

He slowly looked up to Yumeko’s direction, and her window just closed. He caught the long silky hair of Yumekoas it waved goodbye through the cool air of the night.

He intently stared at Yumeko’s room from the outside until the light dimmed and finally turned off.

It was almost bed time for him too. He then placed the cranes on the drawer of this study table. 

The young man realized that these origami mysteriously gave colours to his rich yet dull and lonely painted walls.

“Should I reply back? I would love to collect more of these cranes though,” he joked, as he thought of how strange the girl next door.

“Honestly, I felt much better since this afternoon. I’ll play dead for a little bit more,” he continued, with a simple desire of getting more flying cranes from Yumeko.

The next morning, Kengo intentionally slammed open his window a bit loud, letting Yumeko heard it. Then he quickly moved away from her eye range. A few minutes later, another origami came flying—it was pink.

Please let me know you’re okay.

The young man stunned as if such caring words were embracing him. As if he could hear an honest tone. He felt how much worries Yumeko was carrying. He was not mistaken from the day she met her on one beautiful sunrise. She was different. The young man felt the urge to finally to talk the young lady and freed her worries away.

“I could barely hear your voice before, I want to listen to it once more.” Kengo whispered to himself.

He then looked at the clock and thought Yumeko might have gone out to school already, whilst he was taking her final rest today. He decided to wait for her any time of the day. He sat down on this study table and the pen followed the flow of his hand as he wrote:

The silly ways of saying sorry.

He drew a paper crane around the quote he wrote, resembling the ones Yumeko threw. He finished it by drawing a pink flying paper crane with a young lady riding on it.

“I wonder if I should start writing fiction  too,” the aspiring author continued, as he stared at his artwork of girl on a flying paper crane.

He was greatly attached and inspired by Yumeko’s beautiful act these past few days.

The young man’s day went by. As soon as he woke up from his afternoon nap, the heavy rain fell. He could not see the window from the other side, as its clear colour blended with the thousand rain drops.

As the sound of the cloudburst slowly vanished, the earthly smell of the rain finally joined the air from the ground.

“It’s the petrichor. Finally it’s over.”

The young man walked towards the opening.

He looked up, and at that very moment, Yumeko’s round lovely eyes met his.

To be continued.