This Thing so New and Nostalgic

The waves are violent in Hokkaido. They leap up and smack the shore with a loud clack that shakes all the plates in their cupboards and the babies in their cradles. As a young child, Hinn saw the waves as a monster, growling and shrieking, droplets landing up against his window, trying to get in. He would wake up crying, the scent of Matcha already drifting into his room. He sat at the old kitchen table, sobbing turning to soft sniffling with the sound of his mother’s firm hands grinding tea leaves and sleep medication into a soft powder. The freshly whisked drink was then pushed into his palms as his mother hummed him a lullaby, and he would sip it steadily as the last of his tears rolled off his cheeks into the cup.  

When Hinn turned eleven, he was expected to start taking part in the tea ceremonies. It was just him and his mother in the house, and they had few neighbors in their coastal town, but the group they invited was full of warmth, the kind of people that brought Hinn trinkets and laughed deeply from the backs of their throats. That did not mean Hinn was happy with his newfound job. He itched at the shiny embellishments on his kimono and whined when he had to lift the heavy teapot, earning sharp glares from his mother and light laughter from his guests. His mother bribed him into behaving by anointing him the easiest duty, pouring the tea. In the middle of the table sat Hinn’s favorite part, a small ceramic whale, their tea pet. Hinn’s mother had made it herself with great care, so, when Hinn poured a bit of the drink on top of it to begin the ceremony, the liquid would pop back out of the small circle carved in its head like a blow hole. Every time he grinned, leaning his face in close to watch it before his mother chided him for not going to serve the other guests. When the ceremony ended, late into the night as always, he was quick to change into his pajamas and slip into bed, thinking of the leftovers he would have in the morning. 

Old enough to be exposed to all sorts of harshness, but young enough where life still held the inherent fantasy that comes with childhood, the drink was of a certain comfort for Hinn. He savored the taste as he left his house, waving goodbye to his mother in the early morning. They lived far from any larger neighborhoods, so the walk to his middle school was close to an hour, he had to leave his house just before the sun rose. By the time he got there his legs ached, and the soothing feeling of the quiet morning had dispersed. He tried to shrug off the fatigue before waving at his friends as he entered the classroom, passing casual greetings while he retied his shoelaces. During breaktime he perched himself on top of a slight wall overlooking the courtyard, his friend Myka sat next to him, watching as he picked at his bento, swirling the rice around with his chopsticks. He was tan, or at least compared to Hinn, and had deep freckles dusted over his cheeks and shoulders, Hinn liked him, his Japanese was slow and methodical, holding each syllable, like something precious. He stared at Myka while he finished eating, something about the grass stains on his uniform reminded him of home. 

At thirteen, Hinn brought Myka over to his house for the first time. The walk seemed shorter with him. They raced each other to the shoreline, tripping over rocks and tumbling into dirt the whole way. When they reached the water, Hinn led them both to the cramped wooden cottage, bumping the door open with his shoulder and instructing Myka to be careful climbing up the old hollow staircase. Inside, Hinn stretched up onto the counter, reaching for the cupboards where they kept the leftover tea powder. His Macha was not as good as his mother’s, but he wanted Myka to have some, to share the things he liked with him. After a moment of grasping for the handle he felt a hand touch slightly at his waist, looking up he saw Myka leaning over him. He opened the cupboard and looked down at him expectedly. Hinn told him to bring down the jar with the green powder, then shuffled out from under him. Once he had what he needed he sat Myka down and began boiling the water, brushing his hair back to cover the fact that the tips of his ears had started to turn pink. 

Hinn noticed his mother limping just before he turned sixteen, the years of working in house cleaning had made her thin and brittle, her skin turning grayish and papery. The reality of her life had only now become clear to him, he laid in bed restlessly thinking of her daily routine; first she would wake up before sunrise and make Hinn breakfast, then without eating anything herself she would make the trek to the estate where she worked as a housekeeper, there she spent her day bent over scrubbing and trimming and sweeping, then she made her way back and immediately began to clean their own home and make the both of them dinner. Hinn was uncomfortable with change, but it made him increasingly anxious to see the steady decline of his mother’s health. So, he began to subtly increase his own share of the housework. The first week of this went by with ease, when he got home, he would sort the garbage, sweep the floors, and wash the dishes, leaving only a bit of each chore undone so as not to alarm her with the transition. When Myka came over (a common occurrence by this point) they raced to see who could be fastest completing the tasks, laughing and swearing at the other, making sure to finish every chore they could think to do. Those nights his mother would chide him half-heartedly for ‘stealing her job’ and forcing his friend to help. She glanced over at them on the couch, sitting just a bit closer than necessary, and tsked when Hinn said Myka was the one that forced him to clean. The first time Hinn tried to help make Matcha for them both his mother smacked him on the back of his ankles with her cane, telling him to not grow up so fast on her, before prepping the tea leaves. 

Hinn let out a theatrical groan while he lugged his suitcase out the door, drawing a laugh from the entryway. He looked back at his mother, holding up a smile as she hobbled out the door to give her last goodbyes. She hugged him as tightly as her body let her and rocked them both rhythmically back and forth. He told her in a choked voice that he would visit her as many weekends as he could, that college schedules were really quite flexible, and that in the wintertime he could come back for a whole month, but she just shushed him as she stepped back. She told him to go, that he would miss the bus, but before he could turn, she pushed a warm lidded cup into his hands, he already knew what was inside. Sometime down the road, stumbling down the bumpy pathway with his luggage, the cup slipped from Hinn’s hands, clattering to the ground. He watched the soft green tea sink into the ground solemnly, mourning the loss deeper than what was logical to him, then continued to the bus stop. 

Hinn’s dorm was sizable compared to his space back home, and having Myka as a roommate was helpful in taking away the inherit strangeness of living in the city, but still, months after moving in he felt almost constantly exhausted. The light of his computer screen washed through the room, 12:52 am, it read. Hinn slammed his head down on the table, groaning as he reached for his fourth cup of coffee that night, wishing for something sweet and earthy instead. 

When winter comes, Myka goes back home with him, wanting their brief vacation to be shared. The bus ride back to Hokkaido was nothing like the one he took away from it, and instead of staring out the window solemnly, he chatted excitedly with Myka, watching his smile grow as they interlinked their hands. Despite his enthusiasm, Hinn felt his nerves flicker. He had written to his mother while he was away, and she had replied, but over the course of his semester the responses had made him increasingly concerned. In the letters she would write about Hinn’s father as if he were still alive, scribble out whole paragraphs, and misspell the names of cities and people she had known her whole life. When they got to their stop, Hinn rented Myka and himself bikes to get home faster, images of a clear ocean, a soft green liquid, and his mother’s toothy smile flashing in the back of his mind. He did not want to wait any longer to be home. 

Amnesia ran in Hinn’s genetics, he had known that somewhere in the back of his mind, but his family history always seemed so distant, it felt to him that his ancestry could not hurt him where they lived, he certainly never predicted it could hurt his mother. The doctors told him it was not as bad as it could have been with his family's record, but it failed to make him feel better. She struggled navigating their house, getting lost on her way to the kitchen or the bathroom. More nights than not she woke, wailing and muttering things that made no sense to him, calling out for people long since gone. That night it was particularly bad, the wind brought a storm that shook the glass in the windowpanes and the waves that hit their house leaked slightly through the bricks, Hinn’s mother woke already crying. Her screams brought Myka from sleep as well, who normally dozed through it. When he saw the somber look on Hinn’s face he placed a hand on the small of his back in comfort, Hinn just told him to try and get back to sleep, their wedding was soon and they had lots to do in the morning, before creeping into his mother’s room. She sat panting in her bed, tears rolling down her cheeks, he already knew what she needed. Taking her hand, he led her to the kitchen before pulling last night’s leftover tea powder from the fridge, shivering from the cool air it let out. She watched intently as he stirred it into the boiling pot, cries dying out, leaving the house silent except for the storm and the clink of the metal whisk against their pot. When he was done, he placed her hands around the cup, bringing it up to her lips, the flavor was semi-dull from half a night spent in the refrigerator, but still fresh enough to comfort her. She let out a pleased exhale, and Hinn brought her back to bed, making sure she had enough blankets. Some distant memory called to him, and hesitantly he began to hum her some slow song, with that her eyes slipped closed, the taste that still lingered lulling her to sleep. For once, the shrieks the waves felt gentle on Hinn’s ears.