“Thanks for coming out tonight. I had a really good time.”
That was all that she wrote. Yet funnily enough, it quelled the demons inside me and set my soul at ease. She really was my only safe harbor in this world. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to hold it together after what happened at the festival earlier if she hadn’t been there to support me. Never in my life had I let myself lean on another human being before—certainly not to the extent of breaking down and wrapping my arms around them, at least. Only Anzu had seen me at my most vulnerable, and I couldn’t possibly express how grateful I was to her for accepting me, even as the flawed screwup that I was. My respect for her was renewed after tonight, welling alongside a strange new emotion, an almost magnetic affection that I couldn’t resist. Anzu had officially cemented herself as an irreplaceable part of my world.
I replied to her text with a simple “Same here,” then drifted into a deep, murky sleep, still clutching my cell phone tightly in my hand.
August 1st, the day before our final expedition into the Urashima Tunnel. It was 10 a.m., and the cicadas were out in full force. I sat at my writing desk, composing a letter to my father that ultimately boiled down to “Hey, I’m running away from home, and I’m probably not coming back.” I was mainly leaving it so my father couldn’t get the police involved to look for me after I was gone, thinking I’d been murdered or abducted. By making my intent to leave clear in advance, they wouldn’t have cause to launch a full-on search party for me. At least, that was what Anzu said.
My primary source of anxiety was that they might somehow track us to the Urashima Tunnel and unwittingly walk inside trying to find us, and there was no telling what problems that might cause. Worst case, we would be apprehended before we got our wishes granted, or they would seal off the tunnel and trap us inside. That was one possibility I definitely wanted to avoid.
Of course, that was only if my father managed to successfully request a search party, and even that was unlikely, so I wasn’t all that concerned. I knew my father wouldn’t try that hard to find me before giving up—and from what I’d heard about Anzu’s parents, they wouldn’t either. My father had become extremely bitter toward me ever since the night of the festival when I puked all over the living room floor. He hadn’t asked me if I was feeling okay, or even acknowledged me when I walked in the room or came home. He did give me dirty looks from time to time, however. He was pretty much treating me like a leper, an obstacle standing between him and his ideal new life. I would be out of his hair very soon, so I hoped he could be patient just a little bit longer.
“…All right.”
With the letter finished, I went over the things I planned to bring with me into the Urashima Tunnel one last time. I had everything laid out on the floor: my flashlight, my wristwatch, my wallet, four packages of Calorie Mate, and a two-and-a-half-liter thermos for drinking water. I shoved them all inside my big hiking backpack and put it on to test the weight. Surprisingly, it was only about half as heavy as my normal school book bag when filled with textbooks. Even after filling up the thermos with water, it’d still be pretty damn light. The plan was to power walk—not run—the whole way once we made it past the torii, so we needed to keep our load as light as possible. This was another one of Anzu’s ideas. I felt like I wasn’t really pulling my weight as her partner, what with her being the one always coming up with the good ideas, but that just went to show her intelligence. If her wisdom made it more likely for the expedition to be a success, then I’d have been a fool not to take advantage.
The time was finally drawing near. Soon, Karen and I would be reunited. The plan was to take the whole day off and rest up for the big day. Yet I’d barely curled up in bed with a nice volume of manga when I heard my phone ring. It wasn’t just a text either, it was an actual phone call—and from Anzu, no less.
“Yes, hello?” I answered.
“Hey, Tono-kun? Sorry for calling you out of the blue like this.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it. What’s up?”
“Are you busy right now? Could we meet up and talk for a bit?”
“Sure, no problem. Where at? The tunnel?”
“Preferably not… I’d like to sit somewhere indoors, if possible.”
I glanced at the clock. “Then how ’bout the café? If we wait a bit, we could grab lunch while we’re at it.”
“Okay. Which café?”
“The one right by the school. Why don’t you meet me in front of the main gate at around noon or so?”
“Got it. I’ll see you at noon, then.”
“Sounds good. Bye.”
End call.
I wondered what she wanted to talk about. Maybe she wanted to have a pre-game meeting before the big expedition. One last chance to go over things face-to-face, since we’d only talked via text for the past week. Either way, I’d find out soon enough.
The hot sun radiated mercilessly off the asphalt, baking the bottoms of my feet through my rubber soles. A sudden gust of ocean wind blew past, caressing my cheeks with even more sweltering humidity. As I stood waiting for Anzu in front of the school, a whole half hour before we’d agreed to meet, it felt like I was sitting in a sauna. Unfortunately, I had no other option; if I’d taken the next train, I would’ve arrived well past noon. One of the many things I hated about living out in the sticks. About ten minutes later, the local bus rolled up to the stop in front of campus and let Anzu out onto the sidewalk. I waved at her, and she jogged to where I stood.
“You’re here pretty early. Hope I didn’t make you wait too long,” she said, slightly apologetic.
“Nah, just got here myself.”
“Oh, good. Well then, shall we?”
I nodded, and we headed down the main drag, walking shoulder to shoulder along the sidewalk in the direction of the café. From a bird’s-eye view, the area would have looked like a ghost town or an abandoned movie set, with stray cats and crows far outnumbering the number of people on the streets. Occasionally, a small pickup truck went puttering by, but other than that, the only sound was the distinctive cry of the min-min cicada.