The next day was Monday, April 3.
Sakuta was behind the wheel of a rental car, driving on the Tomei Expressway, speed limit sixty-five miles per hour. An hour or so ago, they’d crossed the prefectural border between Kanagawa and Shizuoka and had just now passed Fuji City. They’d left Fujisawa almost two hours back.
He’d driven this far without getting bored because the view of Mount Fuji was beautiful, and because of the high school girl sitting in the passenger seat. The same one he’d been reunited with the previous day.
“How’s Nasuno doing?” Shouko asked, nibbling on some Pocky. She offered Sakuta one.
He munched on that, then answered. “She’s great. Steps on my face to wake me up in the morning. How’s Hayate?”
“Great. He got so big. I’ll show you some photos later.”
She sounded delighted. But her eyes were on the blue-and-white road signs.
“We’re almost in Makinohara.”
She pointed proudly at the sign bearing her name.
“Can we stop in the rest area on the way back? I wanna grab some souvenirs for my parents.”
“I don’t mind stopping, but first…can you share where we’re going?”
Sakuta might be driving, but he was unaware of their destination. Shouko had told him nothing.
“You’ll find out when we get there,” she said, impishly pressing a Pocky to her lips. She alone knew their destination and had been helping him navigate this whole time. The phone in her hand had replaced the car’s built-in GPS.
He caught glimpses of the map on her screen, but from the driver’s seat, he couldn’t make out where they were headed.
“Then can I ask why you’re in uniform?”
“I thought this would do it for you,” she said, grinning.
Shouko in a Minegahara uniform was visually indistinguishable from the other Shouko, his first love.
“I dunno about doing it for me, but it’s certainly doing a number on me. Shouko used to be older than me, but now she’s turned into the younger Makinohara.”
He had to laugh, but he meant every word.
An older high school girl he met years ago should have gone on to college. She’d have joined the workforce by now. And yet here she was again, sitting next to him, back in high school and several years younger than he was.
The one thing that hadn’t changed was the smile on her face. She watched him drive with a tender look in her eyes.
“You’ve starting to look grown-up, Sakuta.”
“Well, I can drive now.”
“And I’m in uniform because that’s how high school students dress up.”
“You’re taking me somewhere formal enough to have a dress code? Is that why you said to dress nice today?”
He hadn’t exactly rolled up in the starched suit he’d worn to the college entrance ceremony, but he did have a jacket on over his T-shirt. Business casual? It looked decent enough, he thought.
“Don’t worry, you look good in that, Sakuta.”
“We’re going to see Touko Kirishima, right?”
“We are.”
“Armed with gifts.”
He glanced in the rear-view mirror. There was a bag of dove cookies in the back. Shouko had brought them for Touko Kirishima.
“Yep. Oh, take the next interchange.”
They must have been getting closer.
✦ ✦ ✦
Off the expressway, they followed a national highway south.
The first ten minutes were mostly green. Occasional isolated houses surrounded by tea fields. Very pastoral.
Around the twenty-minute mark, they started to see larger buildings: processing plants.
Five minutes after they’d passed a factory with the name of a famous tea company emblazoned on the side, the farms had given way to a town.
“Turn left at the next corner,” Shouko said, eyes on the map on her phone.
“Got it.”
He made the turn.
Shouko’s back left the seat, and she began peering out the driver’s-side window. It wasn’t long before she spotted their destination.
“Stop at the florist,” she said.
There was indeed a sign bedecked with flowers.
Making sure there were no cars behind them or oncoming, Sakuta pulled into the lot.
He put the parking brake on and killed the engine.
“This won’t take long, Sakuta. You wait in the car.”
Without waiting for an answer, Shouko opened the door and hopped out.
He turned back, and she was already stepping into the shop, calling out to the staff. They spoke briefly, and she did come right back out.
“Thanks for waiting,” Shouko said, settling into the passenger seat with a bouquet.
Nothing weird about stopping by a flower shop.
But the type of bouquet caught his attention.
“The orange are marigolds, the long white ones are stock, the pale purple are sweet pea, and the yellow are freesia.”
He hadn’t asked, but Shouko told him anyway, her tone unchanged. Each flower was beautiful on its own, but bundled together like this, it was all too obvious what this bouquet was for.
Pretty much everyone in Japan would recognize that color combo at a glance.
Flowers for the dead.
Sakuta’s gaze shifted from the bouquet to her face as she put her seatbelt on.
“Head right,” Shouko said, looking straight ahead.
“Okay.”
Choosing not to pry further, he started the car.
They drove maybe fifty yards.
“We’re almost there. I’ll tell you everything when we arrive,” Shouko whispered.
“If we’re almost there, then I can wait that long.”
Maintaining a safe distance from the car ahead, Sakuta pressed the gas pedal, speeding up.
Five minutes later, Shouko gave the word, and they stopped in the lot outside an old, historical-looking temple.