Then the front door opened and my grandparents walked out, chatting with each other. When they spotted me, they looked surprised and delighted in equal measure, inviting me to come inside. I nearly agreed. Then I saw the small figure waiting behind them and fought the urge to break into a run.
“Will you come in and visit for a while?” they asked gently.
Again, I was tempted to say yes—but then I thought I heard someone call my name. “Shiiimamuuura-saaan!”
A shower of pale petals fell between us.
“…No, I have somewhere else to be.”
Maybe if I’d stayed there, I would have felt true, genuine happiness, but…
“That’s all right,” they replied, letting me off after merely tousling my hair—sometimes taking turns, sometimes both ruffling it at once. My throat hitched, and I realized from the motions of my face what I must’ve looked like.
Instinctively, I crouched in front of the small dog weaving his way between my grandparents’ legs. Scooping him into my arms, I gave him a hug, burying my face against his fur. I didn’t say a word, but I heard a strange, beastly whimper leak out, like blood seeping from dry, cracked skin.
I felt him slipping out of my arms, so I released him and took a few steps forward. In a blink, the blue sky and fields were gone in a cloud of flower petals, replaced with the condo we’d chosen together. I had figured that this would be next.
Glancing around the bedroom, I waved at the seal and walrus plushies sitting in the corner. The sofa was so soft and comfortable, it threatened to draw me in, but I kicked it away and walked straight forward. Up ahead was a window, then a balcony, followed by nothing but sky, but even then, I didn’t hesitate.
Before I could register whether I was walking on solid ground, the scenery changed again. Gradually, awareness of where I was and what I was doing set in like a rising fever, and around the time I predicted I’d see a graveyard next, I realized that I was falling. In a blink, the sky slipped away.
A moment later, I could tell that my feet had landed on solid ground. The fuzzy feeling of déjà vu faded, and as my vision settled, my surroundings solidified. Having fallen down alongside me, flower petals danced in the air once more.
Now I was in a place that was utterly foreign to me. This wasn’t my hometown, nor the city where I’d gone to college, nor the neighborhood where our condo was, nor the district in which I’d worked, nor the grocery store parking lot, nor a vacation destination, nor the studio I’d ended up in.
I was in a crescent-shaped park. In front of me was a creatively colored slide: The ladder was green, the support beams were red, and the slide itself was yellow. Beyond the fence—so low, I wasn’t sure it actually served a purpose—lay an unfamiliar cityscape. This wasn’t the new world that I’d anticipated; still, it welcomed me peacefully.
Near the entrance, a sign stuck out of the ground, but its words were too faded to read. All I could make out was MURA.
Meanwhile, a massive tree occupied the center of the park, casting an equally massive shadow on the ground. Beside that tree fluttered flower petals, and the hair on someone’s head, and a skirt. I caught a whiff of a scent, and with it, I remembered something. The tip of my tongue quivered as I spoke the word aloud.
At last, I’d remembered the name of the flower dropping the petals.
“Took you long enough.”
The voice rose slowly through the petals, as if quietly taking wing, and I was elated to hear it after so long.
She was waiting for me there, dressed in the same uniform. Her voice bloomed like spring flowers—charming, soothing, nice, dreamy, and aromatic indeed. Meanwhile, my lips twisted into different shapes, distorting my voice into meaningless sounds as I fumbled for a joke—so awkwardly that I reminded myself of her so many years ago.
“…Yaaay, we’re both young now!”
She stared back at me, wide-eyed and a little flustered. “Um…yaaay,” she chimed in stiffly, raising both hands into the air.
The sight yanked my heart sky-high, and my body nearly went with it.
“We lucked out, huh?” I couldn’t help wondering which of us had made this happen—and how. “Maybe once we got old, we both started quietly wishing the other was young again?”
“Not me! I’ll always…l-love you no matter what you look like!”
“Oh yeah? Then you wouldn’t care if I turned back into a granny right now?”
A deep silence followed, and I could only assume that she was seriously considering the possibility. My eyes grew warm at the sincerity of it.
By the time the fallen petals had nearly buried our feet, a bashful voice came fluttering out: “Um…I’d like the younger version, please.”
“I knew it! Same here, though!”
When I burst out laughing, she looked up at the sound and smiled in relief. For a moment we stood there smiling at each other. I felt my eyes and throat quiver.
“Reunited at last, huh?”
I couldn’t tell who’d said it aloud, but our feelings were the same, so there was no difference either way.
“As promised…”
The voices, the words—everything we shared made me so giddy. I was glad now that I hadn’t stopped at any of those other places; however long I’d waited, she wouldn’t have come. Besides, I didn’t need to see her in my memories, anyway.
From now on, we could go anywhere we wanted all over again.
✦ ✦ ✦
