• There was little to say as they sat by the kotatsu, warming their stiffened joints under coverlets as they listened to the howl of the wind, so small and lonely in the darkening distance. Past a broad glass panel clouded by frost, the first snowfall of the season was settling gently over the hills.

    “Would you like more tea?” Noriko tried, her voice suffused with the dreamy lull that had overtaken them. His mind had been left to drift aimlessly, and again, she felt as though a door had been shut into her face as dim childhood memories took possession of him. She ached to be privy to his guarded thoughts and to nurse the pain he faithfully empowered, the sort that left him hollow and inaccessible, cheerless on a peaceful night.

    It was of some comfort to her when she saw that his eyes were sobering at last, though left with a muted bittersweetness. A switch flicked on again and he stirred for the first time in an hour, finding that his backside had since gone numb.

    “No, thank you.” While polite, Goemon's refusal nonetheless left little room for conversation.

    Resenting the sleepiness that encroached on her, Noriko studied him pointedly, wondering how long he would remain oblivious. There was a pensive elegance to his profile with his high and regal cheekbones that starkly contrasted his humble roots.

    'Your nose is very strange,' She had told him once, when pulling away from a kiss. He looked startled, and had gone cross-eyed trying to get a good glimpse of it as she teasingly traced the long, subtly sloping shape of it with her finger. 'It's not a Japanese nose.'

    'I am full-blood Japanese!' He had replied quite seriously, and with firm conviction, hoping she was only joking as she laughed at him.

    Slowly reaching across the table, Noriko now draped her fingers over his knuckles, stroking them as though to smoothen their bony sharpness. She knew by his stiffening posture that she had his attention, and indulged in his quiet acknowledgment. She liked the look of firm veins branching along the back of his hand; he liked her tender touch, brushing against the grain of his nerves.

    Emboldened with his approval, she thought fondly to the American movies she had seen many months before. The idea of couples expressing their affection openly had struck her as an alien concept, but undoubtedly fascinating - and at times, she couldn't help but fantasize his reaction if she were to engage him as one of those heroines of idealized romances.

    “Ai shiteru...” She announced, and was just as quickly cut down by fierce shame as they both blushed and looked in opposite directions. Silence fell heavily between them, and it was a while before any semblance of composure was restored. With his face turned to the wall, she hadn't seen the thoughtful furrows between his eyebrows softening. Unexpectedly, a needless remark was met with another.

    “I know.” He said, in English; and they shared an embarrassed laugh.

    * * *