ROUTE 1 - ONSEN BREAK

Dawn over Ashinoko. The thin mist clinging to the roadside looked like it was mimicking the steam off a hot spring. A red open-top and a yellow coupe with her at the wheel run side by side. The needle has already settled, yet the speed inside my head is still spinning high in the red. I stare straight ahead and line up big letters in my mind. A bath. Right now.

We thread through the fun winding road two cars wide, feeling Hakone's own peculiar rhythm of breath. A short pier comes into view down the narrow approach to the lakeshore, the fringe of mist like a white corridor, and without thinking I drift my steering toward it. My tomboy of a friend spins a tidy loop in the parking lot and stops. Please—not in a public place.

We arrive late in the seven o'clock hour. On the way to the entrance, I take another spectacular tumble straight at a puddle. My skirt is soaked through, and she laughs without a shred of mercy. Being hopelessly clumsy even out of the car must just be how I'm built. We sort out admission for the morning bath at the front desk, and for some reason the stairs up to the rooftop open-air bath rang out with an oddly lovely sound.

Two steps to the edge. I test the heat with my fingertips and sink in to my shoulders. The scent of sulfur drifts after me, soft, and a white veil slowly takes over my view. The cold that had stayed lodged at my core comes undone. This—this is the white dream of today that I've been chasing all the way from Tokyo. She giggles and flicks the white surface of the water with her fingertip. A droplet leaps, then vanishes.

When the wind shifts, the white splits open and the sound of a distant waterfall reaches us. My cheeks take on a faint color, and my pulse finally drops back to a human pace. I rinse off, dry my hair, slip on the sandals, and my bare foot goes click. At the same moment, her footstep—click. This morning's keyword is "in sync." We both laugh and step outside. The white is thin now; the sky is deep.

Beyond the ridgeline, a single slender line. The next road was beckoning faintly. She tips her chin toward it. "Shall we chase the blue next?" Take the white with us, I answer. Seriously—but with just a pinch of mischief mixed in. The accelerator replies in a sound a little warmer than before. Carrying the warmth the morning bath gave back to us, we set off running again. The white—it really is on our side.