CHAPTER THREE:
LATE SUMMER
A Summer Night’s Dream
“UGH… IT’S SO BRIGHT…”
I awoke to the feeling of warm sunlight playing across my eyelids.
Slowly, I lifted myself up and blearily scanned my surroundings.
Wait… What happened to me again? I remembered fainting at the airfield, so I assumed that someone must have carried me home—until I felt the texture of damp earth beneath my palms. This wasn’t Tsuru’s house. But if I wasn’t at Tsuru’s, where was I?
Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I tried to take another look around—but had to reflexively squint and lower my gaze as the bright sunlight assailed my retinas. As my eyes began to adjust, I let out a gasp as I finally saw what I was wearing.
I was back in my school tracksuit again. But how? Since when?
Then I looked over to the side and saw that I’d been using my book bag as a pillow. This was even weirder—hadn’t I stashed that in the closet back at Tsuru’s house?
Hoisting myself up, I crawled over toward the light—and then I saw it.
“…No way,” I muttered in disbelief.
Large concrete houses and apartment buildings.
A wide road paved in asphalt stretched before me.
These were the streets I’d grown up on.
Had I returned to my own time…?
“No way… It can’t be… But how? Why? What happened…?”
You’d think I’d be elated, right? But no, I was more disoriented and bewildered than anything else.
I’d already resigned myself to never going home again—so I wasn’t mentally prepared for the possibility of it happening so suddenly and without warning.
Dazed and confused, I stumbled out of the shelter and made my way down the familiar streets of my hometown. But all I could think about was the version of it from seventy years prior—the world I’d just left behind.
I hadn’t even gotten the chance to thank Tsuru properly. Or to say goodbye to Chiyo. Or even read Akira’s letter to me, for that matter; I’d left it at Tsuru’s. Hoping against hope, I checked my bag and coat pockets, but, of course, there was no letter to be found there.
As I walked around town wrestling with my shock and regret, before I knew it, I was standing right in front of my old apartment building.
What time was it, I wondered? I pulled out my smartphone, which, somehow, still had some juice left. It said it was 5:30 in the morning—though I didn’t really trust it, given that my phone also claimed it was the very next day after I’d run away from home. Maybe it’s just broken, I thought to myself as I walked up to our doorstep, unlocked the front door, and let myself inside. And not a moment later.
“…Yuri?!”
My mother came rushing out from the living room—her hair was disheveled, and her nightly makeup was beginning to peel off.
“…You foolish girl!” she shouted, slapping me across the face.
A searing pain shot through my skull. But as I rubbed my reddened cheek and glared at my mother, I noticed something. From the corners of her pitch-black, eyeshadow-and-mascara-stained eyes, there were tears streaming down her cheeks.
It might have been the first time I’d ever seen my mother cry.
I was so stunned at the sight that I didn’t know what to do or even say.
“…Just where in the world did you run off to?!” she demanded.
Obviously, I couldn’t tell her I’d run off to 1945, so I just stared at her in silence.
“…You really are a headache, you know that?” she said. “I went looking everywhere for you, so I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night… How am I supposed to have the energy for work today? Just what are you going to do to make it up to me?!”
I tilted my head in confusion.
She didn’t get a wink of sleep…last night?
“Wait… Hold on,” I said. “I’ve only been gone for one night?”
“Excuse me?” said my mother, her expression suspicious. “Did you hit your head or something on the way back home?”
She reached out and rubbed my head, checking for any welts or bruises. This took me slightly aback as well; I couldn’t even remember the last time my mother had touched me so gently.
Feeling awkward and embarrassed, I hung my head—as I did, I saw that my mother’s ankles were caked with dirt and mud. And on closer inspection, I could see countless dark footprints all across the short entry hallway leading into the living room in both directions. Almost as if she’d been pacing back and forth through it over and over.
“Uh, Mom…?” I said. “Your feet are filthy.”
“Oh, be quiet!” she said, shoving me. “Just whose fault do you think that is?!”
“Huh…?”
“Since you weren’t coming home, I had to run all around town in the dark looking for you. I fell into a huge muddy ditch while I was looking, so you’d better have quite the apology prepared for me, young lady!”
It was only at this point that she turned and walked into the bathroom and started scrubbing her feet clean.
“Wait… You were out there looking for me? All night?” I asked.
“…Of course,” said my mother. “You may be a fool, but you’re still my daughter, for crying out loud…”
I could hear her voice trembling ever so slightly.
And before I knew it, I’d started to weep.
“Didn’t know you were such a crybaby, Yuri.”
I could still hear Akira’s voice in my ear, chuckling slightly.
He was long gone now. After all, it’d been seventy years since I’d watched him disappear into the southern sky. I’d never see him again.
I couldn’t stop crying; the tears flowed like a river.
Eventually, I fell to my knees and started sobbing convulsively.
I clung to my mother’s back—and she turned to look at me, surprise in her eyes.
To think she’d been out there looking for me the entire night, searching so desperately that her legs got caked in mud, not getting even a wink of sleep. This woman, who’d raised me all alone, had been waiting up all night, anxious for me to come home.
And all I’d done in return was take every opportunity to fight her and cause her trouble.
“Mom… I’m sorry…” I said. “I’m so sorry…”
I repeated the words over and over through fits of sobs, until eventually my mother reached out her arms and wrapped me up tight.
“…I’m sorry too, dear,” she said. “I’m just so busy and tired and frustrated all the time…but that’s no excuse for me to take it out on you. I’m sure I’ve been making you feel quite terrible recently, haven’t I? I’m so sorry, Yuri…”
Seeing her sniffling and apologizing like this, I couldn’t help but crack a trembling smile.
For all our foul-mouthed bickering and complaining, it seemed she and I were both big softies at heart—we just didn’t want to admit it. Like mother, like daughter, I supposed.