A Fox's Whisper

28: |几卂尺|

Why does my head hurt so badly?

I pushed myself to an upright position, blinking my eyes open. I instantly regretted it as soon as I did that. The sunlight sliced viciously through my corneas like knives. I threw an arm up over my eyes and groaned. I felt like I was suspended in honey for how sluggish my movements were.

A high-pitched whining sung in my ears, and it felt like kumi daiko drummers were pounding their sticks on the inside of my skull. Where even was I? I squinted at my surroundings. I sat on a hill overlooking the city, and it would seem that it was about noon judging by the position of the sun, but what I wanted to know was why were the birds singing so loudly??

"Hey, you're awake!!"

I cringed at how much more amplified Haru's voice was. "Could you not shout?" I groaned, turning to find him lying on the ground with his head in Sora's lap. They were both eating onigiri.

"I'm not shouting," he grinned. His brown eyes were clearly laughing at me.

"It sounds like you are," I grumbled.

"How's your head?" Sora asked around a mouthful of rice.

"It hurts. A lot. Why, did I hit it last night or something? I don't...I don't remember."
Wait, I really didn't remember. Not a lot anyway.

I recalled...enjoying myself at the festival with Kazuha. The feather-light feeling that had come over me as he and I had talked and laughed was certainly real enough. Butterflies danced in my stomach as it came to mind.

I remembered looking for Thoma, and then I remembered sitting with Sora and drinking sake. The butterflies in my gut practically turned to ash and my stomach heaved at the thought of rice wine. When first I'd tried it, the stuff had burned all the way down my throat until it reached my stomach where it subsided to a pleasant warmth that spread to my fingers and toes. That feeling was long gone, and now I was stiff, sore, and my head was about to split in two. I was so thirsty it felt like my mouth had been filled with sand.

What had happened after that though? I struggled to think, but it was no use. I kept drawing a blank. I might as well have been trying to catch smoke between my fingers. There was a massive gap in my memories that I simply could not place.

"How'd I get here?" I asked quietly. My voice came out as an awkward croak as I tried not to panic.

"You uh...you seriously don't remember do you?" Sora said slowly.

I put my head between my knees as nausea began to make it hard to breathe. Why didn't I remember? What had happened to me? But though I was already reaching a conclusion, I didn't want to say it out loud. "Sora...I didn't...I wasn't drunk last night. Was I?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "Drunk? Nah, you weren't drunk. You were--"

Before I could breathe a sigh of relief, Haru chimed in. "You were absolutely hammered." He found that somehow very amusing and began to laugh.

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. I was losing it. How could I have done something like that? I never drank, and yet the one time I had, I'd made a fool of myself. At least I thought I had. I couldn't be sure. Who knew what I had actually done?
I was growing uncomfortably hot, the constricting fabric of the kimono clinging heavily to my skin. Much of my hair had fallen loose from the torturous hairstyle Yae had insisted on. I looked like a wreck, there was no doubt about it. I didn't even need a mirror to tell.

"Where's Kazuha?" I said, not sure that I wanted to know.

"He left a while ago for Komore Teahouse to find that guy Thoma," Haru said, polishing off the last of his onigiri.