“It’s all right, Kanae-kun,” she said. “You sit tight and wait for me in Tokyo, okay? I’ll come join you as soon as I graduate.”
“But what about…”
“I’ll be fine. If anything bad does happen, you’ll be the first to know. I promise,” she said, then reached out and held my hand like a parent trying to reassure an anxious child. This conversation flipping around to concern for my emotional needs did make me feel like a pathetic loser. Akari was right, though. I may not have thought my little plan through as well as I should have. There was only one year left until we both graduated. If we could make it through this next year apart, she and I could be together again, even if it was after far too much time separated. That thought alone gave me the strength to squeeze Akari’s hand back.
“Okay,” I said. “Still…try to stay in touch even if everything’s going well, yeah? I’ll be sure to call you up from time to time too.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t overdo it, either. It doesn’t matter if your school stuff doesn’t work out. You can come and live with me anyway, y’know.”
“I know…” Akari nodded bashfully.
I knew full well the implications of the words that had come out of my mouth. I might as well have proposed to her. But I didn’t feel embarrassed at all, and not only because this was my second time dropping that exact line on her—but because it wasn’t even an exaggeration. I really did see the two of us sharing our lives together in the long run.
“Welp, guess I’d better start saving up money again if I ever want to make it over there,” she mumbled halfheartedly.
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about the financial aspect of it. I’ve got it covered.”
“What? No, no, no. I couldn’t possibly borrow that kind of money from you, Kanae.”
“I wasn’t offering to lend it to you. You’re gonna earn it yourself, and it’ll be a piece of cake. I promise.”
“…What are you talking about?” Akari asked, tilting her head in curiosity.
“Well…” I said nonchalantly. “Ever played the lottery before?”
The next year came and went.
I woke from my peaceful slumber to the sound of sprightly footsteps bounding across hardwood flooring in the other room. I creaked my eyes open and gazed up at the white ceiling above me. This was neither my grandmother’s house in Sodeshima, nor my father’s condominium. This was our new apartment, right in the heart of Tokyo.
Picking myself up out of bed, I left the bedroom and headed out into the living room. Over in the kitchen, a slender figure with shoulder-length chestnut hair darted back and forth, clad in a comfy cardigan. It was Akari, age eighteen. It wasn’t until she stopped in front of the stove to drizzle oil in a frying pan that she noticed my presence and turned to face me with a welcoming smile.
“Well, look at you, sleepyhead! Woke up all by yourself for once, huh?”
“Yeah, guess I did. Can’t keep using you as my alarm clock forever.”
I walked into the kitchen and offered my assistance in getting breakfast ready. I set the table with chopsticks, tea, and a small bowl of rice for each of us. A little while later, she came out to join me on the carpet with two sunny-side-up eggs on a small tray. We sat across from each other and set out our modest little breakfast upon our modest little dining table. We clapped our hands together in unison, picked up our respective pairs of chopsticks, and dug in.
Two weeks had passed since Akari and I started living together. As I leisurely ate my breakfast, I thought back on everything that had happened over the past year since the end of the Rollback phenomenon. There was a lot to say, but the single biggest event had to be Akari winning the lottery—even if it wasn’t due to luck in the slightest. I’d memorized those winning numbers I looked up during the Rollback and told her what they would be. At first, she was pretty opposed to the idea, comparing it to cheating, but I bent over backwards to assure her that we weren’t doing anything illegal, that we probably deserved some amount of restitution after everything we’d been through, and that at least this way the money would be going to a good cause and wouldn’t be frittered away on needless luxuries. I managed to convince her in the end, so she begrudgingly went out and bought the lottery ticket. With that, all of our financial needs would be taken care of for the foreseeable future.
As far as schooling went, Akari got accepted into the university on nothing but her own merits. She worked her butt off and won the district preliminaries last summer, then went on to make an admirable showing at nationals and secured the requirements for an athletic endorsement. She cleared the required application process with flying colors and was admitted to her dream school with priority status. I could still remember the emotional phone call she gave me when she first heard the news. Now, a few months later, she and I were finally reunited in Tokyo and had begun cohabitating. It had been smooth sailing so far—we were way more compatible than I ever would have thought. Almost freakishly so.
“Phew. That hit the spot, thanks,” I said, finishing my meal and carrying my dishes over to the sink. When I returned to the living room, Akari had set her chopsticks down and was staring fixedly down at her phone. “What’s up? Something happen?”
“Yeah, my mom just texted me. Get a load of this,” Akari said, holding her phone out in front of my face. On the small LCD screen was a picture of Akito and Hayase smiling in each other’s arms, beneath which hung the caption: “Guess who’s getting hitched!”
“Well, damn. Now there’s a shocker,” I said, though I wasn’t especially surprised. Akari told me Hayase took a renewed interest in getting Akito back on his feet after the whole alcohol poisoning incident. From what little I’d heard, I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’d turned over a completely new leaf, but it sounded like his behavior had made a marked change for the better. He now had a full-time job at Hayase’s family’s liquor store and was working to steadily pay back the million yen he stole from Akari.
“I know, right?” Akari replied. “Talk about hitting the ground running, jeez.”
“Yeah, those two sure didn’t waste any time… They’ve been together for what, a year?”
“If that. I’ve gotta say, though…there’s something else that surprises me more,” she said, looking me in the eye as though she’d just had some huge epiphany. “See…if I’m honest with myself, I still haven’t really forgiven my brother for everything he did to me, right? But when I read this text just now, there was a moment where…for a split second…I felt genuinely happy for him, from the bottom of my heart.”
From where I was sitting, Akari looked a little confused, as though she wasn’t sure how to interpret these unfamiliar emotions. How could she feel happy for the same man who’d once abused her, who she’d hated so much that she nearly condemned him to death? I thought this was a poignant testament to just how much she’d grown.
“Hey, good for you! Go ahead and be happy for him! Nothing wrong with that. I think that’s pretty mature on your part, actually. I’m proud of you.”
I flashed a broad, wholesome grin over at Akari, who smiled right back at me—with the sort of reinvigorated smile of a person who’d just overcome impossible odds.
Akari and I worked together to clean up after breakfast, then got ourselves ready for school and stepped out of our apartment. It was a nice, warm day without a cloud in the sky. We made our way down to the nearest bus stop and got on board. About twenty minutes later, the bus dropped us off right outside the main entrance to the U of I. As I took a step off the bus, a single cherry blossom petal fluttered past me, flitting right in front of my nose. I turned my head and tried to follow it with my eyes, but it was soon picked up by the breeze and sent careening upward into the sky, where I lost track of it.
“C’mon, Kanae-kun! Let’s go!” Akari beckoned me, reaching out her hand.
“Right, sorry. I’m coming.”
With Akari’s hand in mine, we took our first steps onto campus—together. The brick road leading in wasn’t particularly wide, lined on either side by rows of magnificent cherry blossom trees. I looked up to a beautiful soft pink canopy; an endless shower of petals came fluttering down to the ground like powdery snow. I read in a brochure that this footpath, which ran from the main entrance up to the central university building, was affectionately dubbed the “Tunnel of Cherry Blossoms” by the students and teaching staff. They were long past full bloom by now, but it was still a gorgeous sight to behold.
Akari came to a stop without warning. Wondering why, I turned to face her, and her gaze met mine. There were tears in her eyes, and a warm, natural, completely uninhibited smile spread across her face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing, I…I’m just really happy right now. Y’know?”
I felt her hand grow warmer in my own.
“Yeah? Well, just you wait,” I declared, “because the best is yet to come.”
Akari nodded enthusiastically, and we set off once more, walking hand in hand toward the rest of our lives. With heads held high, we trained our eyes firmly on tomorrow—never once looking back.