When we finally reach the rest stop next to the ocean, the two of them look like some free-spirited couple who sneaked into a pool at midnight and went swimming with all their clothes on. They want to change, dry their things, get some food, and use the restroom. They invite me to come along, but I turn them down. Slurping ramen at a restaurant is the last thing I feel like doing right now. I’m not the slightest bit hungry. When I decline the invitation, Tamaki sighs and disappears into the building with Serizawa. I sit in the back seat of the parked car, hugging my knees and staring at the rain as it’s sucked into the dim ocean. Daijin is curled up silently by my side, sleeping.
As I’m watching the rain, Tamaki is in the restroom, changing into a spare set of clothes she brought (a white tank top and a lavender cardigan) and quickly fixing her smeared makeup in the mirror. It’s enough to warm her chilly mood, if just a little. In the cafeteria, she orders the “fisherman’s pick of the day” and eats it at a different table from Serizawa. This rest stop was rebuilt just a few years ago, and the cafeteria is sprawling with high ceilings. The fatty mackerel is tasty, the air-conditioning is comfortable, and the customers are sparse. As she sips hot tea after her meal, Tamaki lets out a sigh of relief for the first time since leaving Kyushu.
Not all the problems are solved, she thinks, but at least I managed to find Suzume. It seems we’ve ended up heading for her old home, and I don’t know anything about this Souta guy who’s supposedly there for some reason—but once we get there and she sees him, I’m sure she’ll be satisfied. Are they dating? It’s possible. But why go home after all this time?
…Maybe it’s her way of finding herself. Tamaki thinks about that for a while. Suzume’s still young, still in the process of growing up and forming relationships. Maybe she felt the need to go back to her roots. Yes, that must be it. She’ll go back home, sort out her feelings, then return to her ordinary life. This is a perfectly normal rite of passage—the kind anyone might go through.
She tries that theory on for size. She doesn’t feel the least bit convinced it’s true, but by telling herself it must be, she feels slightly relieved. Guess I’ll be back at work the day after tomorrow or so…which reminds me—I should call Minoru.
“—So now you’re with the male escort?!” he shouts after she’s explained the basic situation.
“No, he’s not really an escort. He just acts like one. A pretty low budget one, too… No, not at all. It doesn’t sound like there’s any manipulation involved.”
She glances over her shoulder, still holding the phone to her ear. Serizawa is slurping his ramen with gusto at a table toward the back wall. Tamaki had considered the ramen, too.
“But that’s so dangerous!” Minoru is saying. It must be sunny there, because she can hear the peaceful calls of seagulls in the background. She can imagine the old windows in the fishing cooperative office and the blue horizon beyond.
“You’re two helpless women! A car is like a locked room, you know!”
“Not this one. It’s a convertible—”
“A c-convertible?!” he says, his voice leaping to a falsetto. “That’s even worse! Tamaki, where in Miyagi are you right now? The Oya Coast Travel Oasis? Got it. Hold on just a second—”
She can hear him tapping furiously at his keyboard. She imagines him there, his big, tanned form dressed in a T-shirt—a guy who’s probably never driven anything other than a farm truck or a forklift in his life—working so desperately to help her.
“There’s an express bus bound for Tokyo stopped in the parking lot right now. Plenty of seats are open. I can get tickets for you—”
“Minoru, slow down!” she says frantically. She explains that since they’ve come this far, she intends to go with Suzume to her old hometown, and that she believes that will satisfy her. “It’s like a rite of passage,” she says, smoothly repeating platitudes she’s heard somewhere before. “You know how teenagers are.” But even as she does, part of her knows it’s not true. It’s completely wrong. As she speaks, she finally accepts the uneasy, foreboding feeling inside herself. I don’t think things are going to go as smoothly as I’m imagining. I think Suzume has something in mind that goes way beyond my little ideas. She doesn’t have anything to back up this feeling, but she knows instinctively that it’s true.
“I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Can you handle things till then?” she asks Minoru, though she no longer believes what she’s saying. Then she hangs up.
My destination is an hour and forty-five minutes away by car.
I peel my eyes away from the map on my phone and take a deep breath. The air is damp with rain and sea spray. A little farther. Just a little farther. I slowly exhale the air from my chest, trying to soothe my anxious, racing thoughts.
I tap the map menu to display the log of my movements. The map zooms out until all of Japan is on my screen, my route a blue line. From Miyazaki to Ehime by ferry, from there across Shikoku by car to Kobe, and then by Shinkansen to Tokyo. The line traces the Pacific coast through Chiba, Ibaraki, and Fukushima. My present location is in Miyagi. Next to this line spanning most of the Japanese archipelago is the distance, 1,630 kilometers. I’ve come so far. It’s going to be fine, I tell myself. I can make it to Ever-After.
Suddenly, an unpleasant sensation bubbles up under my feet, startling me. A low rumbling has begun.
“—!”
My phone buzzes, and red letters spell out “Earthquake Early Warning” on the screen. Kneeling on top of my seat, I look around. The cars on either side are bouncing up and down with a creaking sound. The rain accumulated on the roof over our parking space is pouring off in a wild waterfall. But a few seconds later, the shaking calms, as if the earthquake had second thoughts. Eventually, my phone goes silent, and the strange sensation disappears. Only my own heart continues to pound.
“…Souta.”
I grip the key under my shirt as I murmur his name. “Souta, Souta.” Will it go on like this, for years, for decades? Every time there’s an earthquake, will I think of Souta, all alone on that black hill? Even if he can stand it—I know I can’t.
“Souta, Souta,” I whisper like a prayer. I’m coming. I’m coming to save you.
“Suzume!”
Tamaki is running along the roofed area toward the car. “Did you feel that earthquake?” she asks, opening the car door and piling into the passenger seat. She’s changed into a lavender cardigan, and the color is back in her cheeks.
“I hate that feeling…,” she mutters to herself, fixing her rain-wet bangs with her fingers.
“Where’s Serizawa?” I ask, looking at her reflection in the rearview mirror.
“Still eating, I guess. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”
“Yeah.”
“You haven’t eaten all day.”
“I’m not hungry.”
I can hear her sighing softly. We fall silent as the rain continues. It’s only a little after noon, but everything is dim, like a phone screen with the brightness setting turned all the way down.
“…Suzume?” Tamaki says, like she’s just made up her mind. “I want you to tell me something.”
“…What?”
“Why do you want to go home?”
“There’s a door—,” I start to say, then stop. “…Sorry. It’s hard to explain.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
She stops looking at me in the rearview mirror and turns around. For the first time in hours, our eyes meet directly.