Unfading Emotions
MY EVERYDAY LIFE HAD COMPLETELY RETURNED to normal.
But ever since I returned from living in the past, everyone around kept saying I was like a totally different person now—much calmer and better behaved. It made me realize what a stubborn brat I’d been all these years. I couldn’t help but wonder why I’d been so irritable and combative about everything before. I really didn’t get it.
In this world, I could go to school and gaze up into the bright blue sky without a care in the world. I could fill my stomach to the brim and take a nice, warm bath whenever I wanted. I could sit in my nice air-conditioned bedroom and read manga with the lights on all through the night, never fearing for my life, never having to keep my valuables packed up to be moved at a moment’s notice, never having to sleep with one eye open on the off chance that there could be an air raid during the night.
I really was lucky to have been born when I was. I didn’t know what I was so unhappy about before. At least in Japan, it was an era of plenty, an era of safety.
But now, every time I saw reports about tragedies overseas on the international news, my breath caught in my throat. There were, of course, many nations at war today, with their people living in fear of bombings, or revolutions, or even suicide bombers taking their own lives in the name of their faith or creed. There were still young men being forced to take up arms and fight, and children living in fear due to the decisions made by a handful of foolish, selfish adults. Every time I was reminded of that fact, I thought back on all the wonderful people I’d met in that time period, seventy years ago.
They’d all been so warm and kind to me, a total stranger—despite having to live in a world that was so much crueler than my own. Even after the war was over, I was certain they’d all struggled to survive in all the chaos and poverty of the postwar era.
That same suffering was still going on now, in the modern day. Any time I read an article about rising tensions and internal strife in other countries, or saw images of towns ravaged by air raids and terrorist bombings, with civilians’ faces covered in blood as they mourned their lost loved ones, I’d have flashbacks to that fateful day seventy years ago. I still relived the firebombing in nightmares from time to time.
I wanted nothing more than for there to be no more war anywhere in the world. At this rate, we were only going to make ourselves extinct. But what could I even do about it?
Such were the agonizing thoughts that ran through my head, day in and day out, after I had returned to my peaceful, everyday life.
Before long, it was July, and the summer heat finally hit its stride.
On my way home from school one day, while wiping the sweat from my eyes with the backs of my hands, I came to a sudden stop as I smelled a familiar fragrance in the air.
I looked around and saw a small patch of lilies in the garden of one of the nearby houses, their petals pure white and in full bloom. The sight made my heart ache and tighten with melancholy, as though it had just been clamped in a vise.
Oh, Akira. Even now, I still thought of him every single day.
It wasn’t even intentional; I’d just close my eyes, there he’d be.
I couldn’t help but remember his gentle smile. His low, but ever so slightly sweet voice. The way he’d rub my head with his great big hands, the way he’d hold me tightly in his sturdy, muscular arms, or the way he’d carry me on his warm, broad shoulders.
For a split second, after I returned to my world, I had wondered if it had all just been a dream—if all the horrors I’d experienced there, all the caring and considerate people I’d met were just figments of imagination that my mind cooked up that night I fell asleep in the old air raid shelter. A mid summer night’s dream. A hallucination cooked up by the sweltering heat, like a desert mirage.
But I knew better. It was reality—I was certain.
After all, my mother had all but confirmed it the very night I got back: She’d leaned in close to my chest, and after a few curious sniffs, declared that I smelled like lilies. So I looked down—and saw that my hands were covered in pollen, the same deep orange hue as the evening sun.
It had to have come from the lily he’d given me as he took off.
The one I’d been clinging to tightly as I passed out.
So yes—I was fully convinced it hadn’t been just a dream. Akira actually existed in my life. That much was true, I knew for certain—as certain I was that I’d never see him again.
The thought made my eyes well up with tears. And so, standing there in front of the lilies in this random stranger’s garden, I softly began to weep.
“Didn’t know you were such a crybaby, Yuri.”
For a moment, I could have sworn I had heard his voice again.
“All right, folks! Time to pick your groups for the field trip next week.”
Staring out the window as the cicadas buzzed their endless song, I turned my gaze back to the lectern, where my homeroom teacher was standing in front of the blackboard.
Three weeks from now, it’d be summer vacation, but before that, we would be having our annual class field trip. I didn’t even know where we were going this year; they’d probably mentioned it in class or via handout at some point, but in my rebellious phase, I’d generally tuned stuff like that out entirely.
Not that it mattered where we went, really. I was fairly certain the overall experience would be about the same as last year: We’d take a long bus ride somewhere, listen to some random guy explain some boring stuff to us for a few hours, eat lunch, go listen to some other guy explain some other thing for a few more hours, then go home.
Resting my cheek on my palm, I gazed absentmindedly up at the blackboard.
“Now, you’re free to group up with whoever you like—we just need to make sure you divide up into six groups of six,” said the teacher.
Ugh. This was the worst-case scenario for a girl like me, since I didn’t really have any good friends in class to speak of. If anything, my previous behavior as the class’s resident problem child had made all the other kids treat me like I was some sort of leper. My only choice was to find some group that didn’t have enough people to glom on to.
My teacher was well aware of this, it seemed, as he quickly pointed to a group of five girls and told them that they needed to let me into their group as well. Given that the group was made up of some of the more quiet and reserved girls in class, I saw them all exchange a look of mild bewilderment at hearing this—but then the liveliest among them, a girl by the name of Hashiguchi, who’d always seemed like the leader of the group to me, said it was fine with them.