Chapter 12

CHAPTER ELEVEN More Than the Blue Sky When I opened my eyes, I saw a deep-blue sky. The color was incredibly dark, very nearly black. Below me, there was a huge arc shining azure. The boundary between the sky and the ground—Earth. The air was freezing cold, and every breath I exhaled froze and twinkled like glitter. I was falling straight down helplessly, from high in the heavens. Even so, I wasn’t afraid. It was an odd sensation, like a lucid dream. Far in the distance, the sky rumbled. When I looked in the direction of the sound, red light was flickering from a cloud toward outer space. Was that lightning? The phenomena of this world above were nothing like the ones on the ground. Before long, a white band came into view below me, an impossibly long strip of clouds that ran all the way from one horizon to the other. They twisted around one another like tree roots, undulating slowly, flowing in the opposite direction from the sun. “Those are…!” As I fell, getting closer to the band, I saw something strange. “Dragons…?!” As I approached, the band started to resemble a mass of living creatures. Enormous white dragons twined together, swallowing one another, circling the planet. “Are those…sky fish…?” Right then, I sensed a presence above me and looked up. My eyes widened. One enormous dragon was surging toward me, its white mouth gaping. “Aaaaaaaaugh!” The dragon swallowed me. On the inside, it was like a muddy torrent. I was swept helplessly along through the gloom—not quite water, not quite mist—as if I were right in the middle of a waterfall that went on forever. Soft objects struck me with wet splats. When I pried my eyes open, I saw what looked like a school of little fish. Finally, the world ahead of me grew brighter, and then, suddenly, there was blue sky all around me again. I was out of the dragon. The sky was a familiar vivid blue. When I looked up, the band of dragons was rapidly receding into the distance. The air was sharp and cold, but it wasn’t a frozen void anymore. Before I knew it, several sky fish had begun to follow me as I fell, sticking close to me. They were as transparent as water, a whole lot like Hina’s body had been at the hotel. She was here, in this sky—I was sure of it. I sucked in a deep breath of cold air. Then, at the very top of my lungs, I shouted her name. “Hinaaaaa!” * * * A distant drum sounds like a whisper. Tump, tump, tump. No, it’s a pulse. Whose? Mine. —Me? Do I still exist? Thump, thump, thump. My pulse accelerates. My body is waking up all on its own. Why? Because someone called me. Badmp, badmp, badmp. Because wishes can find me here. Because he’s wishing for me to exist. “—Hina!” I can hear it. His voice, calling my name, reaches me. I open my eyes. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the fish surrounding me withdraw with a swish. I guess I couldn’t become part of them, I think vacantly. I set my hands on the grassy plain and sit up slowly. I look at the sky. And then I see it. Our wishes given shape. My wish and his, overlapping. “Hina!!” Shouting in the sky in front of me, desperately reaching out for me—is Hodaka. “Hodaka!” As if I’ve snapped awake from a dream, I stand up. My chest is hot. My whole body is on fire. I run with all my might, driven forward by the joy and love welling up inside me. * * * “Hina!!” I screamed. Hina was running over the grassy plain below me, and I stretched my hand out to her desperately. But I couldn’t get any closer; the strong wind was buffeting me. “Hodaka!” Hina was reaching for me, too. We have to get out of here, I thought. This plain on top of the cloud was the “other shore.” This world wasn’t meant for us—this was a world for the dead. “—Hina, jump!” As the wind blew me upward, I yelled. Hina nodded. She ran to the edge of the plain, then flung herself into the blue sky like a track star doing the long jump. The wind caught her, carrying her closer to me. I reached out. Finally, her hot hand caught mine. The next moment, as if gravity had finally noticed us, we began plummeting to Earth. “Hina, I found you! I actually found you!” Hina was right there, right in front of me. Her eyes, her voice, her hair, her scent—they were really just a few inches away. “Hodaka, Hodaka, Hodaka!” “Don’t let go of my hand!” “I know!” We plunged into a valley between thick clouds. The sunlight was blocked out, and the world around us darkened. The humid smell grew stronger as our clothes got damp and heavy. A wall of leaden clouds crawled in a slow convection current, like the organs of some living creature. Once in a while, deep inside, gigantic bolts of lightning flickered. Every time it happened, an earsplitting roar shook the air around us. “Aaah!” Our wet hands slipped apart again. Hina fell, and I followed her. She was falling toward a black hole, as if it was sucking her in. The distance between us grew. I reached out frantically. “Hina, let’s go home together!” As if she’d remembered something, Hina’s face clouded, and her expression turned hesitant. She shouted back to me, uncertain. “But if I do, the weather will go back…!” “It doesn’t matter!” I shouted angrily. Hina started, but I’d made up my mind: Nothing else mattered. I’d even defy the gods. I already knew what I had to say. “It doesn’t matter! You’re not a sunshine girl anymore, Hina!” A reflection of lightning flickered violently in Hina’s wide eyes. We plunged through clouds vibrating with thunder, falling straight down below a cumulonimbus cloud. Beneath us were the shining streets of Tokyo. My hands were gradually drawing nearer to the city, and to Hina. Yes, I knew what I needed to say. “I don’t care if the sun never comes back!” Tears welled up in Hina’s eyes. “I’d rather have you than a blue sky!” Hina’s big teardrops danced in the wind, striking my cheeks. In the same way raindrops create circular ripples, Hina’s tears were creating my heart. “And if the weather goes crazy—” And finally, my hand… “—it can just stay that way!” …caught Hina’s again. She immediately took my other hand. We held tightly on to each other. Our vision, the world, everything around us was spinning. At the heart of this beautiful, breathtaking world, we danced hand in hand. Hina’s face was right there. We were close enough to feel each other’s breath. Her long hair flowed in the wind, gently stroking my cheeks. Her eyes, still brimming over with tears, were like a secret spring only I knew about. For a moment, that sight burned itself into my eyes—the sun and the blue sky and the white clouds, Hina and the city below, shining in the light. I smiled, and I told her: “Pray for yourself, Hina.” Hina smiled back. She nodded. “…Uh-huh!” We closed our eyes and pressed our foreheads against our clasped hands. And we wished. It was the cry of our hearts, of our bodies, of our voices, of our love. Live. * * * I thought I’d heard thunder in the distance. I froze and stood still as they were dragging me to a police car, and the detective with the hair glanced back dubiously. “Hey, Mr. Suga,” he snapped, but I ignored him and looked up. I wasn’t sure when, but thick clouds had begun to billow into the afternoon sky. I glanced at the roof of the abandoned building. A cold, damp wind was rippling the weeds up there, whisking leaves up into the sky. “Don’t just stand there. Come on.” He pulled on the handcuffs around my wrists, but I kept gazing up at the torii gate. According to the officer who’d gone up the stairs after him, Hodaka hadn’t been on the roof. They’d decided he’d escaped, and the police were still searching the vicinity. But I had a feeling he actually was there. For some reason, I felt uneasy. My throat stung something awful, and my skin was breaking out in goose bumps. A kind of premonition was crawling up from my feet. Just then, the sky over Tokyo flashed, while thunder rumbled loud enough to shake the ground. Right after that, I saw it. Like several dragons attacking at once—an enormous mass of water came plummeting down. The skies just opened up with rain as heavy as a waterfall. The weather had virtually snatched away the blue sky by force, and the cops and I just stood there, stunned. When it happened—everyone could probably tell the rain wasn’t normal. The truth was, we’d all known a day like this would come eventually. We’d always sensed that our peaceful lives wouldn’t last forever, that we couldn’t possibly make such a clean getaway. We hadn’t done anything specific. We hadn’t decided anything. Hadn’t chosen anything. Even so, just getting away was never an option. Every one of us had sensed that, someday, the world was going to change forever, and we’d all just pretended we couldn’t see the truth. As those thoughts ran through my head for no real reason, I kept gazing up at the rainy sky, soaked to the skin. It’s been three years since then, and in all that time, the rain has never stopped.