Chapter 5:
Roller Coaster
“YOU ONLY JUST GOT HERE! What are you looking for?” asked Hinako’s mother as she carried in some barley tea and watermelon. Not only had her daughter turned up with no advance notice, now she was practically tearing through the old family albums.
“Didn’t I rescue a boy from the ocean when I was a kid?!”
“Oh, that! You really made headlines back then. Just a moment.”
Mrs. Mukaimizu headed back into the kitchen and used a chair to reach one of the cupboards. From there, she produced an alligator-print cylindrical tube and popped off the lid. The momentum sent a scrap of paper fluttering out to the floor. It was an old newspaper clipping titled “Certificate of Heroism,” and it featured a photograph of young Hinako holding up her certificate with one hand and a shaka with the other.
“You were a certified hero!” Mrs. Mukaimizu laughed.
The incident made headlines because of their age difference—a first-grade girl rescuing a fourth-grade boy.
Fourteen-year-old memories revived in Hinako’s mind one after another. At the time, she remembered hearing a popular song playing from someone’s boom box…
I see you there, looking at the water
Glittering sapphire as far as the eye can see
Bit by bit, you’ll find that its color will change
Kaleidoscopic majesty…
School was out for the summer, and Hinako’s father had brought her to Kujukuri Beach during the height of surfing season. She had only recently learned how to surf, but she was a natural, and now she was obsessed with it. After all, she was such a “water child,” she learned how to swim before she properly learned how to walk.
Riding on the porpoise surfboard her parents had bought for her, Hinako swam out among the grown-ups and waited for a wave to come. In the distance, she could see a boy with one arm around a swim ring, doggy-paddling in the direction of the shore. He was trying his best to practice, but he wasn’t doing too well.
Hinako glanced at the beach—and when she looked back, the boy was gone. Only the swim ring remained floating on the surface.
He’s drowning!
Hinako reacted on instinct, paddling desperately over to the swim ring. She could see bubbles faintly rising to the surface, so she took a deep breath and plunged underwater. There, she saw the boy from earlier slowly sinking to the bottom of the ocean—so she hauled him back up to the surface.
Gasping for breath, she swam around to the opposite side of her surfboard and pulled the boy’s larger, unconscious body onto it.
“Nnnngh!”
Hinako’s board flipped over, and the boy slid onto it facedown. Hinako didn’t know it at the time, but this was actually the correct rescue method for women and children to perform. Breathing hard, she knelt on the tail of her board and started paddling toward the shore.
Her only thought: I have to save him.
“That was incredible!”
“You rock, little girl!”
Partway through, some grown-up surfers took over for her. A bunch of lifeguards were waiting on the beach when they arrived; someone had the quick thinking to wave them over. They started CPR right away.
The boy’s face was as pale as a corpse, and he showed no signs of stirring. Standing beside her father, Hinako held her surfboard and prayed desperately: Please, don’t die!
“When the ambulance gets here, direct them over!”
Just then—the boy started coughing. The crowd cheered, and the lifeguards rolled him onto his side so he could get all the water out.
Hinako could remember the intense relief she felt knowing the boy was alive, and the feeling of her father’s hand ruffling her hair. “You did good, sweetheart.”
Then one of the lifeguards spoke to the boy.
“You see that little girl? She saved your life. She’s your hero.”
Hinako thought back to her conversation with Youko:
—That’s why he dedicated his life to rescue work.
And on Christmas Eve, Minato had told her about what inspired him to become a firefighter:
—When I was a kid, I almost drowned out in the ocean. But someone saved me. I remember it all like it was yesterday… I wanted to work in a field where I could help people.
And that song too:
—It got featured in a movie recently, so they’re playing it on the radio again.
Had Minato intentionally played that song for her as a sort of hint?
All along, he’d known she was the same girl who saved his life as a child.
When Hinako was ferrying him to shore, all she could see were two things: the porpoise decal on her board and the sea turtle on his trunks. The same two animals hanging from the Bakeratta’s rearview mirror…
On the train platform, Hinako sat on the bench. After the way she’d dashed out of her parents’ house, even her own mother had to think she was a nutcase. But she needed some alone time in order to test something.
Clutched in her hands were two objects: the newspaper clipping and Minato’s smartphone. According to Youko, his near-death experience “changed his life and gave him a purpose.” Date: August 8th, 2006.
She punched in 8806.
“Oh…”
At last, Minato’s phone unlocked.
She opened his LINE app. At the very top was her own name—she was the last person he had messaged before his death. She tapped the conversation and found an unfinished message typed into the chat bar:
“Hinako! I rode those post-snow waves and pulled off an air reverse! You said it’ll make my wish come true, right? So I wished for you to learn how to ride your own wave…and for me to always, always, always be by your side.”
That was where the message ended—and it was exactly the answer Hinako was looking for. That morning, Minato had gone surfing with her in mind.
Her hand trembled as it clutched his phone.
He did it all for a girl as hopeless as me.
A hot lump rose in her throat.
Minato, why do you always have to be so sweet? Why do you always coddle me?
Hinako tilted her head up, fighting the tears that threatened to spill out.
Tell me, Minato… How can I ever repay you for the love you’ve given me?