[Episode 104] — Interlaced Fingers
The moment she took her mother’s hand.
Titania felt her mind turn completely white. She had spent an entire week carefully planning their date, yet she could not remember a single part of it. She was too conscious of the hand touching her mother’s to bear it.
“Then, where shall we go first? Let’s go wherever you want.”
“A-at first... the place with the ice sculptures...”
“The sculptures, you mean? We’ll have to look around a little.”
Saying that, her mother began to survey their surroundings. After turning her head several times, she seemed to find the way and started walking a step ahead, pulling along their joined hands.
Titania simply followed wherever her mother led her. She had long since forgotten the date course she had planned. Falling a step behind, Titania gazed at her mother’s back as she walked ahead.
The lively voices of people enjoying the festival rang out all around them, but strangely, they seemed to come from far away. Rather, they were drowned out by the sound of her own heart pounding in her chest.
“Titania, look over there. There are far more street stalls than I expected.”
“Yes... There are...”
Titania could not bring herself to look where her mother was pointing.
Ever since she had looked down at their joined hands, all the nerves in her body had been focused on her mother’s hand, leaving her unable to look at anything else. The warmth she felt through their touching skin was enough to make her forget the chill of winter.
The stalls, the festival—she was in no state to care about such things. She simply could not tear her eyes away from the hands pressed together without even the slightest gap between her palm and her mother’s.
When she had planned the date, she had imagined grand things: interlacing their fingers, receiving a kiss. Yet merely holding hands with her mother made her face feel so hot that it seemed ready to burst.
With her mother’s hand perfectly covering her palm, Titania could not even fidget her fingers, which made things all the more difficult. On top of that, she felt sweat pooling thickly between their palms and wanted nothing more than to wipe it away.
‘Was holding hands with Mother always such a difficult thing to do? How am I supposed to let go? Should I pull my fingers away first? Or should I separate our palms first? And even if I let go, would it be all right to take her hand again? What if Mother dislikes me because of the sweat?’
Her head felt ready to explode from all those foolish thoughts.
If the people passing by saw her, wouldn’t they think she was someone who had held hands for the first time in her life? That was how awkward this situation felt.
Vivian stopped walking for a moment, then slowly turned her head to look at Titania. And so, at that very moment, Titania had no choice but to turn her head and look into Vivian’s face as well.
The sunlight pouring down from the cloudless sky reflected off the snow piled on the ground, sparkling like sunlight glittering across the sea. Vivian’s face, reflected in that shimmering snow, seemed to shine more brightly than usual.
“Titania, isn’t that what you were talking about?”
Where her mother pointed stood a line of ice sculptures on the frozen lake. Countless people were gathered around them to admire the sculptures, while young children ran about innocently atop the ice.
Titania answered with a small nod. Vivian gave her a gentle smile and slowly began walking toward the row of ice sculptures.
To be honest, Titania had no interest in the ice sculptures—or anything else, for that matter. At that moment, all she desperately wanted was to sit somewhere quiet with her mother while holding her hand.
This was the festival she had longed for so dearly, but being with her mother was even happier and more wonderful than the festival itself. She was so happy simply to be beside her mother, their hands clasped together, that she felt the strength draining from her legs.
With her knees trembling from happiness, Titania somehow made her way down to the lakeside where the sculptures stood. But the lakeside was so crowded with people viewing the sculptures that it was chaotic, if not outright disorderly.
Titania and Vivian stood in a daze, watching the crowd move along in a line as they took turns looking at the sculptures. It seemed they would need a fair amount of courage to join that procession.
“There are so many people... What should we do, Mother? Perhaps we should come a little later...”
“But what if there are even more people by then? We can’t come all this way and leave without seeing anything... Titania, don’t stray from my side.”
When Titania did not know what to do amid the enormous crowd, Vivian tightened her hold on their joined hands and pulled Titania closer to her. Titania’s body tilted toward Vivian.
With so many people around, her mother told her to stay pressed close and not to stray, then suddenly wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Titania felt her head grow so hot it seemed ready to burst.
“Don’t let go of my hand, no matter what. Understand?”
“Yes, y-yes...”
“Then let’s go have a look.”
And so, Titania slowly entered the crowd with Vivian and began viewing the sculptures. The sculptures placed across the lake were of a high quality befitting the festival’s reputation.
There were sculptures with wings, sculptures resembling mermaids, and even an ice-slide sculpture for children. If she had come here alone, she would not have been able to take her eyes off them, but...
‘Right now, there’s something beside me that’s far more distracting...’
Even as she bumped shoulders with people whenever they walked, Titania could not take her attention off her palm. Then, amid the crowd, she realized that this might be her chance.
Simply holding hands did not seem enough to keep them from becoming separated. No, it definitely was not enough. What if they became separated while merely holding hands? The moment they parted here, she would surely be lost.
If she became lost, she would ruin the date she had struggled to get permission for, and she would also make her mother worry. Therefore, this was an action with a valid justification—and an opportunity to gain something more.
Thump.
Titania looked down at her hand with an expression of deep contemplation, then swallowed hard and made up her mind. As her throat bobbed, her fingers gently stroked the back of Vivian’s hand.
Thump. Thump.
As the fingers they had been holding slowly loosened one by one, the gaps between them gradually began to widen. When the winter wind filled the space where their skin had been touching, moist with sweat, Titania felt gooseflesh rise all over her body.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her heart pounded so violently it hurt.
Titania slipped her fingers between Vivian’s, threading them through the spaces between her mother’s fingers, damp with sweat—whether it was her own or her mother’s, she could not tell—and began to interlace their hands.
The tender flesh on the insides of their fingers rubbed together, fitting tightly into place as though seeking their proper positions. Their sweat-dampened palm lines brushed against each other, and soon their fingers were entwined.
The soft flesh between their interlocked fingers burned as though scorched by fire. Glancing at Vivian to gauge her reaction, Titania intertwined her fingers more deeply, then a little more.
Did her mother know?
That this interlacing of their fingers was not merely a child’s show of affection.
That it was an action etched with deeper feelings.
That she was not entwining their fingers because a child was afraid of getting lost, but because she wanted to keep her mother from ever straying from her side.
Their long fingers intertwined and overlapped, and Titania’s hand and Vivian’s became one.
Gazing at their hands, stuck tightly together and unable to part, Titania smiled bashfully. It was not even a kiss—they had merely interlaced their fingers—yet she could not stop smiling.
Even though she had been the one to interlace their fingers first, her hand was relatively smaller than her mother’s, and looked as though it had been swallowed up by Vivian’s palm.
Her wrist, too, was bent toward her own side, clearly showing who still held the advantage. Titania let out a quiet giggle, thinking that, as expected, she still could not beat her mother.
Though it was nothing more than the simple act of interlacing their fingers, every moment of the process was so vivid that it felt as though it would remain etched in her memory forever. Time itself seemed to flow more slowly.
The lukewarm sweat gathering between their interlocked fingers. Her mother’s fingers tightening around hers until not even the slightest gap remained. Every part of it was vivid and beautiful.
“Hehehe.”
“Are you really that happy to be outside?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You’re smiling like that. How could I not know?”
Following Vivian, who was chuckling softly, Titania smiled as well.
No, her mother did not know. Titania was not happy merely because she had come outside. She was not happy simply because of the festival. She was happy because she could be together with her mother like this.
Titania was happy simply to be able to spend time alone with Vivian. Yet even as she felt happy, she could not help resenting the passage of time.
As expected, a single day was far too short. They had done nothing more than walk around with their fingers interlaced, yet when Titania came to her senses, the viewing of the ice sculptures had already ended.
To be honest, she could not even remember what she had seen. Her gaze had always been fixed on her mother, so there was no way she could have remembered.
“They were magnificent—almost unbelievable that they were carved from ice. There were even activity areas that children would enjoy, like the slide. And then...”
Vivian seemed to have liked the sculptures on display and began sharing her impressions of them one by one. Titania quietly took in the sight of Vivian as she spoke, her eyes curving into a smile.
Her cheeks reddened by the cold, the pale steam escaping between her lips—the sight of her mother enjoying herself like a child was something Titania had not seen in a long time. Simply gazing at Vivian made her feel happy.
As she watched her mother talking, Vivian suddenly came to a stop and began pondering something. The reason soon became clear. After all—
“Titania, don’t you want something to eat?”
Her mother’s stomach clock had rung through their interlaced hands. With a rumbling sound, Vivian gave a bashful smile and pointed toward the street stalls. The sight was so adorable that Titania let out a quiet giggle.
“Come to think of it, we didn’t eat breakfast. I’m suddenly very hungry.”
“What would you like to eat? No, let’s look around together, and tell me if you see something you want. Today, don’t worry about gaining weight. Eat as much as you like.”
With that, Vivian headed toward the street stalls, still keeping her fingers interlaced with Titania’s. Following behind her, Titania tightened her grip, making their interlocked fingers cross even more deeply.
They said human greed knew no bounds. Titania felt her desire for something more intimate with her mother—not merely holding hands—growing steadily clearer.
The longing to go beyond holding hands, to grow closer to her mother. With a dry swallow, Titania forced down that simmering desire, then followed behind her mother with an earnest smile.