A light dusting of snow fell. Tiny flakes of snow accumulated in a thin layer at my feet. Staring straight at the memorial altar decorated with a picture of the old man with a smiling face, I remembered him, who would laugh heartily in the hospital room, his face crinkled by his honest grin. That was the last interaction between Soejima-kun and the old man.
Late at night, we received another call from the hospital, and it was from Soejima-kun’s uncle, who had come as a proxy for his parents. He was with the old man in his last moments.
Soejima-kun’s parents couldn’t come to the old man’s side immediately upon receiving the news. The flights were canceled due to the low atmospheric pressure. It was only then that I learned that Soejima-kun’s parents lived far away.
When the old man passed away, Soejima-kun neither lost control nor cried. I didn’t know what to say or do, so all I could do was interact with Soejima-kun as usual.
Even during the solemn funeral, Soejima-kun was just indifferent. I had thought I couldn’t go, since I wasn’t the old man’s family member—I wasn’t even a person—but Soejima-kun said he wanted me to come with him. That was the only change in his demeanor that I could notice.
Immediately after the cremation, the old man’s ashes were deposited. The grave was located at a scenic spot up a hill. After the ceremony, Soejima-kun was looking down at the city, which was turning white with snow, as if avoiding the relatives deeply engrossed in their conversation. I was watching Soejima-kun’s back, wondering if I should call out to him.
“Hajime.”
Soejima-kun turned around, and so did I. Behind us were his parents. The father had a stern face, while his mother looked timid.
Soejima-kun’s parents had come the evening after the old man passed away. They greeted him in a somewhat formal manner, then told him they would stay at the funeral home. Even I, who didn’t know their circumstances, could feel the awkwardness between Soejima-kun and his parents, and it reminded me of the exchange between the old man and Soejima-kun I had witnessed before. “I thought you said you didn’t want to see them.”
Soejima-kun’s face was rigid as he interacted with his parents, completely different from when he was with his grandfather.
“We can’t indulge your selfishness anymore.”
I was taken aback by the strong tone of Soejima-kun’s father’s voice.
“Now that your grandfather is gone, we can’t leave you, a minor, here alone.”
It was their way of saying there wouldn’t be room for any dissent. After seemingly considering it for a moment, Soejima-kun opened his mouth.
“Can you wait until spring for me to transfer schools? There are only a few months left, and I want to finish my sophomore year here.”
Because Soejima-kun’s response was not to his liking, his father showed frustration.
“Why is that? You always…”
“Dear…”
With a timid voice, the mother interrupted the father, who was becoming upset.
“It’s so sudden. He needs time to say goodbye to his friends and sort out his feelings.”
His father swallowed his words, looking dissatisfied. Then, Soejima-kun said, “Thank you, Yoriko-san.”
At Soejima-kun’s words, both parents looked surprised. Leaving his parents behind, Soejima-kun left his grandfather’s grave alone.
When we returned home by taxi, blissfully ignorant Fuyu greeted us at the door. After Soejima-kun changed out of his uniform, he began to research information related to me on the internet as usual. “You don’t have to do this today.” I swallowed the words that came to my throat. The house was filled with an unchanging everyday life. The dishes on the kitchen table, the well-kept flowers in the bay window, the toothbrushes in the cups in the bathroom… The old man’s presence was overflowing everywhere in the house, and it seemed like a lie that the old man was no longer in this world.
Like any other night, after midnight, we said goodnight, and Soejima-kun went to his room while I retired to the guest room. Even when I was alone in the guest room, I couldn’t sleep. Outside the window, the snow continued to fall silently. The scene of the last exchange with the old man in the hospital room kept coming to mind. As I was about to leave the hospital room that day, I casually turned around. Looking at the old man on the bed, I was startled. For a moment, it seemed like the old man was smiling at me. There was no way. He must have been looking at Soejima-kun’s back. But it still left a deep impression on me.
As I gazed blankly out the window, I heard Fuyu’s footsteps in the quiet house. When I opened the sliding door, Fuyu was turning a corner in the dark corridor. When I looked at the clock in the guest room, it was past 1 a.m. Normally, Fuyu would be sleeping in the bed in the living room at this time. Wondering what was going on, I followed Fuyu.
Fuyu moved down the dark hallway and eventually disappeared into the gap in the sliding door of the Japanese-style room. That was the grandfather’s room. Knowing that Soejima-kun had been keeping Fuyu out of that room, I hurriedly slipped through the sliding door. “Fuyu! You shouldn’t go in…” I stopped mid-sentence. The moonlight reflecting off the snow was pouring into the Japanese-style room from the large window on the veranda. The back of Soejima-kun’s hair, sitting on the veranda with the window open, was swaying in the wind.
As Fuyu approached Soejima-kun, who was looking up at the falling snow in the night sky on the veranda of the Japanese-style room, she sat on Soejima-kun’s lap as if snuggling up to him. Even from behind, I could tell that Soejima-kun had turned his gaze from the snow in the night sky to Fuyu.
“Isn’t it cold?”
When I timidly spoke to Soejima-kun’s back while sitting on the veranda, he shifted his gaze from Fuyu to me. I was unsure what to do, but like the black cat, I went to the veranda and sat next to him.
“Can I watch with you? I can’t sleep.” When I said that in a muffled voice, Soejima-kun nodded.
Fuyu curled up in Soejima-kun’s lap to keep out of the cold. He narrowed his eyes, looking at Fuyu. His eyes, somehow, resembled the old man’s when he was in the hospital room, watching Soejima-kun with squinted eyes. I imitated Soejima-kun and looked up at the snow falling from the dark night sky. The snow seemed to be sucked into the pitch-dark night sky.
It was quiet. So quiet that you hesitated to breathe. I didn’t know how much time we spent side by side on the veranda, looking up at the night sky. It was Soejima-kun who broke the seemingly endless silence. “I… was wrong?”