That was my one wish, and my one condition. That he didn’t die before me.
Maybe he would think it was a selfish request. And maybe it was impossible to guarantee something like that. But I wanted him to promise. I wanted him to take care of his own life.
Please don’t leave the person who smiles at you with all her heart, the person who loves you. Please don’t leave me alone.
My face must have looked horrible from trying so hard to hold back my tears. I couldn’t look him in the face because I didn’t want him to see me like that. But he still heard what I was saying. He gently squeezed my hand.
“Starting today, I will eat lots of vegetables,” he said.
Reflexively, I looked at him. His expression was solemn.
“I will work out whether I like it or not. I will strive to eat fish rather than red meat. I will be careful about my salt intake.”
The contrast between his words and his face was so funny, I almost burst out laughing. He was even himself at a moment like this. Innocent and serious and…
“I will never leave you alone. Never ever.”
Sincere to the tips of his toes. Although I was aware of the pain deep in my eyes, I smiled at him.
“Make sure you also get your yearly checkup,” I joked. He smiled gently.
“I promise,” he answered. Then he wrapped his arms around me like he was holding something very important to him.
This is the end of the story of my first love and how I found someone new. Meeting Maori and the two Toorus has made up for all the tears and sadness in my life.
When Naruse hugged me, I was overwhelmed by tenderness and kissed his cheek. As I did, I was reminded of a day in the past. Tooru’s wake was held in spring after our third year of high school ended. When it was Maori’s turn to offer a stick of incense, she looked silently at Tooru lying in his coffin. After the service ended, she began to feel unwell. She staggered and became faint. Worried, Tooru’s sister and father brought her to a quiet room to rest. I was worried, too, and went with them, but thinking her family should come get her, I left the room.
I found a place where she wouldn’t be able to overhear the conversation and called her mother. She answered right away and said she would come get Maori. I had intended to go straight back to her, but a thought crossed my mind.
I wanted to be with Tooru one more time.
Maybe he had already been moved. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to go into the room where the wake had been held. But when I got to the lamplit hall, it wasn’t locked.
Tooru was still there.
No, it was only his body. His soul wasn’t there. He had already left on his journey to the next world. The entity that had been Tooru had vanished like smoke, and it could never return to his body. All the same, I walked toward the first boy I had ever liked.
He lay inside the coffin with his eyes closed. His face had always been pale, but now it was even paler. Deep affection welled up within me. I wanted to touch him. Without thinking, I placed my hand on his cheek. On the day of the school festival, my lips had brushed that cheek. That time, it had been unintentional, a coincidence. But this time…
I felt guilty toward Maori, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I’ll carry out his last wish. I’ll prevent Maori from knowing about his death. I’ll do everything after that, everything. I’ll protect her. So…please.
Imploring forgiveness from someone, anyone, I softly placed my lips against his cheek.
Remembering the day I said goodbye to the person I loved, I slowly opened my eyes. Naruse was smiling bashfully. The day of the wake, Tooru’s cheek had been heartbreakingly cold when I kissed it. The person I loved had turned cold as stone. He would never move, never open his eyes. I had never dreamed something like that would happen.
Now I was touching something warm. I felt the warmth of the person I currently loved, and the person I had loved before. The warmth was there and real, and I wanted to believe in it.
A tear streamed down my face, just like it had when I kissed Tooru’s cheek. It, too, was warm.
Naruse and I became a couple, and I remained close friends with Maori. After she entered university, she continued to desperately try to remember Tooru. But that didn’t mean she neglected her present-day life. She enjoyed herself and broadened her horizons, but she also chose to continue trying to remember Tooru.
I was putting more energy into my job search while also continuing to write my novel. Naruse had reached his goal, but I was still striving for mine. I swore that one day, my novel would reach Tooru’s sister. When I looked into the work I submitted for the contest, I discovered that it had been rejected in the second round. The novel I submitted in my junior year of university made it to the third round. By the time I learned the results, I was done with my job search. The following spring, I would graduate from university and begin work right away.
That year passed in a flash. The second spring after graduating, I went with Maori to view the cherry blossoms. I had continued seeing her after I started my new job. She was a senior in college now, the same as Naruse since he had taken a year off.
Maori was still trying to remember Tooru. Using her journals and my descriptions, she went to the places they had visited, did the things they had done, and desperately tried to remember him. By continuing to delve into her own mind in this way, she gradually began to succeed.
At her invitation, we gazed at the blossoms, talked happily, and walked through the park between the rows of cherry trees. It was the park where she and Tooru had gone on their first date and where the three of us had visited in high school. While we were there, I realized something. I closed my eyes and tried to recall an image of Tooru. He appeared there in the darkness, but his face was slightly hazy. It made me sad to realize he was fading into the past.
I had wanted so badly to forget him, and I had cried when I realized it was all right not to. Time mercilessly marches on, pulling everything into its orbit. It turned everything into the past. No one can stop time or resist oblivion.
But even so, people…hold on to things. They don’t forget what is important to them. When I talked about Tooru, Maori remembered something new about him. She began to draw him in her sketchbook.
“I loved him…and he’s gone. But the memories are here inside me. Sleeping here in my body and heart. By remembering him, we can continue to live together; I can’t explain it very well, but it’s similar to hope. The world is gradually forgetting him. But…”
Maori looked inward and drew a Tooru not recorded in any photograph or video. As I watched her draw, I was deeply moved. She drew Tooru with her heart, turning her vision of him into a drawing that would remain over time. I couldn’t do that. But I had my own way of keeping him with us that only I could do. After we walked in the park, I went home and began writing a new novel. I had just submitted one to a contest in February, but I had an overwhelming urge to write a new one. I felt like I had to write it.
I drew Tooru with my words, in my own style. That was something only I could do. The next year, I submitted that novel as my fifth entry to the writing contest and won an award. It took five years, but I achieved my goal of having Tooru’s sister read my novel.
Naruse got a job with a camera manufacturer. He was happy when I told him I’d won. We’re still together. I have his picture Last Ice on my phone. Naruse had continued taking pictures in his free time, and he introduced me to his friend and mentor, Sakurai. They get along as well as two little kids and see each other often.
I wasn’t sure if I should tell Maori about the literature prize. I decided to wait until it was published. I wondered how she would react when she found out I was a novelist. Would she be happy for me?
After the awards ceremony that summer, I began the work needed to publish it. With advice from my editor and Tooru’s sister, I revised and added more to the novel. It was hard to do while working full time, but I enjoyed it. On a fall day, beneath a broad blue sky, I finished the revisions. All that remained was to send the file to my editor for a final review. After I saved the file, I scrolled up to the top page. I gazed silently at the screen. I still had one more thing to do.
I hadn’t talked to my editor about it, but I added an extra blank page. I began to type in the center of the page. I dedicate this book to Tooru Kamiya, who is no longer with us. I stared at the blinking cursor. My editor would probably let me get away with that much, but I bet they would make me delete the next line. That was fine. To me, this was the complete version of the novel.
I kept typing. I would continue to remember Tooru in my own way. I would not hand him over to the past, to oblivion. Never. He was my one and only first love. My one and only heartbreak. My wound. My pain. My tears. All of it was a treasure to me. A glittering, beautiful thing. Without meaning to, I remembered him, and my eyes stung. How many days and months had passed since he died? Maybe life is fleeting. Once lit, our fire is fated to go out. No one can escape that.
But when people go, they leave something warm behind. I still feel warmth from the glow of his life. Tooru isn’t in this world anymore, but he exists inside me. There was something I wanted to say to him. He isn’t in the world we can see with our eyes, but I wanted to say it to the Tooru who was within me.
You lived a beautiful life.
I want to tell you that you lived with kindness and warmth, more beautifully than anyone I know.
I typed the final words. As I read the sentence I had just written, I smiled at its inadequacy. Still, I had finally given him shape. Given shape to Tooru…