Chapter 13

FINAL CHAPTER We’ll Be Alright The faint sound of rain mingles with the song in the gymnasium. Noticing it, I stop singing. The classmates next to me glance my way. I silently glare at the letters above the platform that say GRADUATION CEREMONY; I’m the only one who’s quiet. This is a small ceremony for the graduating class of the island’s high school, even though there are only about ten of us. On reflection, how swiftly the years have flown. Now our time of parting is at hand. Fare thee well. My classmates are wearing their uniforms for the last time today. While they tear up as they sing the graduation song, I stay still and tight-lipped, listening only to the sound of the rain. When I leave the school, the air smells like spring. With my tube-shaped diploma case in one hand and my umbrella in the other, I walk along the coast road. Just a little while ago, the sea wind was so cold it was like a slap against my skin, but by now, it’s mellowed into something softer. Several boats are floating offshore, gliding slowly, back from the afternoon’s fishing. Bright-yellow flowers bloom by the roadside, and pale-pink blossoms are starting to open on the cherry trees. Spring really has come again. I can’t believe it, somehow. I gaze at the view of the island, the same as it’s always been. Why is spring here again, as if nothing happened? Why are the seasons still turning? Why are people going about their business, just like always? After all, it’s been constantly raining since then. As I watch the fishermen unloading their catch in port, I think, Even so. Ever since that day, there’s been a subtle change in people’s faces. It’s very slight, no more than a single drop of ink in a big swimming pool. Color, taste, and scent are no different, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find the people themselves haven’t even noticed. I can tell, though. People’s faces, and their hearts, definitely aren’t what they were three years ago. “—Morishima!” When I turn around at the sudden call, two girls from a lower grade are running down the hill toward me. I know who they are, of course (there are only about thirty students in the whole school), but we’ve never said more than hello to each other. Their names are, uh— I can’t remember. The girls stop in front of me, and one of them nervously starts to speak. “Um, there was something we wanted to ask you…” “Is it true that you’re going away to Tokyo?” the girl with pigtails asks. When I tell her yes, the short-haired girl next to her elbows her. “There, see? I told you. Today’s your last chance.” We’re standing under an arbor by the side of the road, facing each other. The sounds of the rain and surf mingle together. “Go on; just ask him—it’s now or never!” the short-haired girl urges in a whisper, and the girl with pigtails hangs her head, flushing bright red. No way, I think to myself in shock. Is she about to tell me she likes me…? “Um, Morishima!” Screwing up her courage, the pigtailed girl looks at me with watery eyes. “There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you!” Whoa, geez. I didn’t see this coming. What do I do? The palms of my hands start to sweat. “Um, so, I heard that in Tokyo—” Oh, crud. How do I turn her down without hurting her? Help me, Master Nagi. “—you’re wanted by the police. Is that true?!” “…Huh?” My two underclassmen are watching me with excited, expectant faces. “…No, it’s not.” “What? But— I know you don’t look it, but they say you’ve got a record and everything! They say you’ve got connections to the yakuza in Tokyo!” I feel like an idiot; what was I expecting? I’m a little relieved, and I give her an honest answer. It’s not like I’m trying to hide it. “The stuff about the yakuza isn’t true, but I did get arrested. I had a hearing in Tokyo.” “Eeeeeeeee!” The two of them take each other’s hands and jump up and down gleefully. “That’s soooo cool! You’re like a movie hero!” “Thanks,” I tell them with a wry little smile. Beneath a rainy March sky, the long whistle signals that the ferry is leaving port. As the ship’s enormous hull plows through the seawater, the heavy vibrations travel through my seat to the rest of me. My ticket is for the second-class cabin, the one closest to the bottom of the ship. The voyage to Tokyo will take more than ten hours, and we’ll be arriving at night. This is the second time in my life that I’ve made this very trip, on this ferry. I stand up, heading for the stairs to the deck terrace. I remember that summer, two and a half years ago. When I woke up on the roof, in the rain, the police arrested me then and there. Hina was still fast asleep under the torii, and the police picked her up and took her somewhere else. At the police station, Pompadour had told me that she’d opened her eyes soon after, that nothing was medically wrong with her, and that she’d probably be allowed to live with her little brother again. In the small room they took me to at the public prosecutor’s office, I learned that I was under suspicion for multiple offenses. Firearm and Sword Possession Control Law, article 3: violation of the prohibition against possession of a handgun. Penal Code, article 95: obstructing the performance of public duty. “Firing a weapon at someone” fell under Penal Code articles 199 and 203, attempted murder. Running on the railway tracks had been a violation of the Railway Operation Act, article 37. However, the sentence handed down to me in family court was, unexpectedly, probation. They’d taken into account the fact that I hadn’t had the gun on purpose and, as such, had determined that the gravity of the whole incident was low and that my inclination toward delinquency was mild. By the time they’d let me out of juvenile detention and I’d finally gotten back to the island, it had been three months since I ran away. Before I knew it, midsummer was behind us, and a hint of autumn had slipped into the air. When I trudged dejectedly back home, my parents and my school had welcomed me awkwardly, but warmly. I’d felt so chained down by my dad and my school before, but once I was back, home and school were just natural places to live. I wasn’t perfect, and neither were the adults. Everyone lived that way, imperfections and all, brusquely knocking into one another once in a while. Somewhere along the way, I’d stopped having trouble accepting that. And so my high school life on the island began again. Those were oddly quiet years. I walked through each day as if I were walking over the ocean floor, or somewhere far above the ground. The words people said to me didn’t come through very well, and what I said didn’t seem to reach them, either. Some things I used to be able to do automatically, but now I couldn’t anymore. Falling asleep without being aware of it, eating each meal as if it was a given, even just walking—for some reason, I couldn’t really do any of it anymore. If I wasn’t paying attention, I would almost put my right hand and foot forward at the same time when I walked. I’d stumble on roads, forget what I’d been asked about in class, and freeze during meals while holding my chopsticks, several times. Every time someone pointed it out to me, I’d put on a smile and offer a mild reply: “Sorry, I just spaced out a little.” I did as much as I could to go through life the way I should, so that I wouldn’t worry anybody, so that they could rest easy. It extended only to things like being proactive about cleaning, and listening seriously in class, and not avoiding people—in other words, behaving pretty much like an obedient elementary schooler—and yet before I knew it, my grades had gone up, and I had more friends. Adults spoke to me more often, too. All of those things were just side effects, though; they weren’t what I was aiming for. At night, beyond the wet window glass, and in the morning, beyond the gray ocean, I kept trying to sense her presence. I kept searching the sound of the rain for the distant drumbeats of that summer night. In that way, I was carefully holding my breath until graduation day. My monthly interviews with my juvenile probation officer ended just before my last year of school ended, and then my punishment was over, leaving only the simple risk of falsifying personal history if I wrote No rewards/punishments on my resume. When sunset is near and the whistles of ferries passing each other have grown more frequent, I’ve climbed back up to the deck terrace again. I draw in a deep breath, drinking in the cold wind and rain. On the horizon, the blinking lights of Tokyo are beginning to come into view. Two and a half years, huh? I murmur the words aloud, as if I’m double-checking the divisions on a scale. A long time has passed, and the further I get from that summer, the more what happened then seems like an illusion. What I saw was too beautiful to be real, but the details were too sharp and clear for an illusion. I’m getting more confused again. However, the view that finally appears tells me plainly that it was no figment of my imagination. The landscape of Tokyo has changed. The Rainbow Bridge is underwater, and only four pillars project from the ocean, towers that must hold some significance. The many boxes scattered across the water’s surface like blocks are the tops of buildings that haven’t been submerged completely. This is the new shape of the Kanto Plain, where the persistent rains caused widespread flooding. At this point, one-third of the Tokyo area is underwater. Still, even so, the city has remained the capital of Japan. The vast, low-lying eastern area had been below sea level to begin with; its conventional drainage functions weren’t able to keep up with the never-ending rain, and slowly, over more than two years, it had sunk into the ocean. During that time, people had moved farther west, and even now, vast levees around wide flood control basins are being constructed around the flooded Arakawa and Tone Rivers. Even when the climate has changed this much, people have kept on living in the area, as if that’s the normal thing to do. I’m back here, too. I’ve returned with everything that happened that summer inside me. Now that I’m eighteen, I’m going to settle here for good. And I’m going to see her again. What has Hina been feeling, living here? As I watch the city draw nearer, I consider whether there’s anything I can do for her. * * * I’d settled on an apartment near the university. I had only two cardboard boxes of stuff to move, and I got them to the apartment by putting them on a handcart and taking a long ride on a train. I’d heard that the rush to move west over the past two years had raised the rent in this area, but an old apartment like this had sounded affordable even for me, if I worked two part-time jobs. This area is near the center of the Musashino Plateau, and the flooding had hardly affected it at all. Listening to the rain, I clean the room and get my stuff squared away by myself. By the time I’m done with my meal of instant ramen, the sky has begun to darken. The Internet radio is giving a weather forecast for the Kanto area for the next week. It’s expected to rain the whole time. The high is projected to be around fifty-nine degrees. Since the rain isn’t falling hard, we should be able to enjoy the cherry blossoms for quite a while… Letting the report go in one ear and out the other, I’m perusing a job-search website on my phone. The world is overflowing with jobs. But… I still haven’t found it, I think. I still haven’t found it. I still don’t know. Over the past two and a half years, after wearing out my brain on the question, I decided to spend my time at university in the Department of Agriculture. I wanted to study something that would be necessary in this era, now that the climate has changed. Just having a set goal, vague as it was, seemed to make it a little easier for me to breathe. I still haven’t found the really important thing, though. I want to know my reason for going to see her, and what I can do for her. “Oh.” I make a small, startled noise—during the job search, part of my brain suddenly remembered something else. Speaking of part-time jobs, is that site still around? I try entering the URL. “…It’s still there!” The screen of my phone shows a picture of a sun and the words Sunshine for you! in colorful characters. A pink frog in a yellow raincoat says 100% Sunshine Girl! in a speech balloon. It’s the website we made for the Sunshine Girl business. When I type in the password to log in as an administrator, I hear an electronic chime. You have one request, the screen tells me. Startled, I tap it to see what it is. It’s a job request for the Sunshine Girl from nearly two years ago. * * * “My, are you here by yourself?” When she sees me standing outside her front door, Mrs. Tachibana sounds dubious. “Where’s the little Sunshine Girl?” she asks, a bit disappointed, and I hastily explain. “U-um, she isn’t a sunshine girl anymore. I just wanted to let you know…” “You came over just to tell me that? All the way out here?” “Yes…” Claaang, claaang. The sound of piles being driven in echoes through the corridor of the housing complex. This area is near the Arakawa River, and although it hasn’t been submerged, they’re building a large levee nearby. “Well, my home isn’t very big, but do come in for a bit.” Ms. Fumi’s apartment is about twice the size of mine, but it’s still significantly smaller than the traditional Japanese house we visited before. There’s a combination living and dining room that’s about 140 square feet, with one Japanese-style room next to it. I can see the levee they’re building through the aluminum-sashed window; the yellow pieces of heavy equipment moving around on it look like miniatures. There are several photographs in the room. An elderly man who’s probably her deceased husband. A lively family photo. Her grandson’s wedding. Only the scent of the incense drifting from the small Buddhist altar is the same as it was back then during Obon. Ms. Fumi sets a tray heaped with sweets in front of me. “Oh, please don’t trouble yourself!” “No need for niceties; you’re young,” she says, sitting down across the table from me. I’ve come to visit her, but I can’t think of anything in particular to talk about. I try to keep the conversation going anyway. “Um, you moved, didn’t you? The place we visited was more toward Shitamachi…” “Yes. That whole area’s underwater now,” Ms. Fumi says, as if it doesn’t mean much to her at all. “…I’m sorry.” I apologize without thinking. “What are you sorry for?” Ms. Fumi seems amused, but I can’t look straight at her; I lower my eyes and falter. “No, uh…” What on earth am I even qualified to say? I start wanting to confess everything: I’m the one who stole the blue sky from Tokyo. People lost their homes because of me; it was my selfish decision that took the sun away. But what good would it do to say that? I know it would just bewilder her. “—Did you know this?” Ms. Fumi suddenly asks, her voice gentle, and I raise my head. As she continues, she takes a Choco Pie from the tray and unwraps it. “That part of Tokyo used to be ocean. Up until the Edo period—just a little while ago.” “Huh…?” “Back when they called this city Edo, the town itself was an ocean inlet. It’s in the name, you know? ‘Inlet Entrance.’ Tokyo was the entrance to the inlet. People and the weather changed the land, little by little.” Ms. Fumi hands me the Choco Pie she’s unwrapped. For some reason, it feels as if she’s passing something important along. “So you see—in the end, things have only gone back to normal. At least, that’s what I think sometimes.” As she speaks, Ms. Fumi is gazing out the window at the levee, and her expression is rather wistful. Unable to find the right words, I study her wrinkled profile. It just went back to normal…? I wonder what a certain someone would say about it. I decide I want to find out. * * * “What’s with you? You’ve been thinking about that stuff this whole time? You may be starting college already, but you’re still just a kid.” As he speaks, the middle-aged man in front of me is banging away at a keyboard in a dramatic display of just how busy he is. “What do you mean, ‘that stuff’…?” I protest. I thought this guy might understand, at least, so I took the plunge and told him about it. And he’s just giving me crap instead. “Young people these days. You get more hopeless every year. Guess Japan’s finally gone to the dogs.” “Well, I mean, back then, we—” “You think things are the way they are now because of you? You saying you kids changed the world for good?” Rolling his eyes, he finally looks up from the display and focuses on me. Pushing his trendy glasses (although I’m sure they’ve got prescription lenses) up on top of his head, he narrows his small, usually frivolous eyes to slits. “Like hell you did, you moron. Get over yourself already.” It’s Mr. Suga, wearing the same old tight shirt and telling me off with a lazy-sounding slur to his voice. “Quit fantasizing and look at reality, wouldja? Real life. Listen, you kids seem to have the wrong idea. No matter how much time you spend navel-gazing, you ain’t gonna find anything in there. All the important stuff is outside. Don’t look at yourself; look at other people. How special do you think you are anyway?” “No, that’s not what I—” Mr. Suga’s smartphone chimes, and he picks it up. “Hey!” he chirps. He pushes it at me, showing me the screen. “Check this out! I had a father-daughter date a little while back!” “…Whoa!” I exclaim. The photo on the screen is a blurred selfie of Mr. Suga with Moka beside him; she’s grown up a lot. Master Nagi and Natsumi are also there; they’re both striking poses with sideways peace signs. Nagi was a striking kid to begin with, and now that he’s taller and slimmer, he’s the spitting image of a real prince. He’s in middle school already. Natsumi was always beautiful, but now her mischievous smile actually seems mature, and her looks are even more devastating and extraordinary. “Natsumi and Nagi went along, too, not that anyone asked ’em to. Those two are thick as thieves now, although I couldn’t tell ya why…” Even as he grumbles, Mr. Suga seems happy. He and his daughter still aren’t living together, but his relationship with his wife’s parents isn’t a bad one, and it sounds as though there’s a good chance she’ll be able to live with him in the near future, depending on how his work is going. K&A Planning has moved into a room in an apartment building, and it’s a proper editing agency now, with three staff members. The fact that its president, Mr. Suga, seems busy may not be entirely an act, either. He abruptly switches over to lecturing me. “Kid, quit futzing around worryin’ about stuff you can’t change and go see that girl already. You said you haven’t seen her since then? So what the hell have you been doing?” “Well, I mean, you know… I was on probation all that time, so I couldn’t cause trouble for her, and even if I’d tried to get in touch, she doesn’t have a phone. Besides, actually meeting her, I’m kinda, like, nervous about it, or I want a reason for it, and I don’t really know what to say…” Just then, a bell tinkles. I know that sound. No way, I think, my heart speeding up, and then a ball of black and white ambles in. He slowly climbs up onto Mr. Suga’s desk with the help of a chair, sits down heavily, and looks at me. “Ra…Rain? Man, you got big…” It is Rain, although he was a kitten last time I saw him. When I first ran into him in that alley, he was just a little bigger than a smartphone, but now he’s enormous, like a sumo wrestler. He looks like he must weigh about thirty pounds, and his lazy, mean-looking eyes are exactly like Mr. Suga’s. Mr. Suga glances up from the keyboard, pounding away at it again. Seeing those expressions side by side, they remind me of a parent and kid. Mr. Suga waves a hand at me, shooing me away. “Go on, get—head over there now. Just stop by her place already; you’re holding up operations here!” “Sorry for bothering you,” I tell him. As I trudge out of the office, the staff members tell me, “Stop by again, all right?” I start wanting to ask them if they’re gonna be okay, working for a boss like him. “Hey.” Just as I’m about to open the door and leave, Mr. Suga calls to me, and I turn back. He exhales with a wry smile and looks straight at me. “Just…don’t let it get to you, man.” “Huh?” “See, the world—it’s always been screwed up.” Somehow, I can tell that saying it has taken a load off his shoulders. * * * After leaving Mr. Suga’s office, I board the Yamanote Line at Shinjuku Station. It isn’t a circle anymore; it’s a C shape, interrupted by a sunken area. The ends of the C are Sugamo Station and Gotanda Station, and water buses leave from each one. I want to take the long way around, so I get off at Gotanda, cross a pier, and transfer to a two-story boat. The second floor of the boat is open to the elements, and like me, a few passengers are bundled up in raincoats, gazing out over the water. Everyday conversations brush past my ears: “What do you want to get for lunch?” and “There’s a new shop open” and “I’m looking forward to the flower-viewing party this weekend.” A rain as fine as silk is falling evenly all across the inland sea. Maybe because the east side of the route was originally a residential district, the roofs of quite a few buildings poke up through the surface of the water. The view reminds me of a flock of sheep sleeping in a spacious pasture. Released from their long, dutiful service, the multitude of roofs look somehow relieved. “Next stop, Tabataaa, now stopping at Tabata.” I hear an easygoing voice make a shipboard announcement. Beyond the rain, I can see the hill road that leads to Hina’s apartment. I take off my raincoat, put up my umbrella, and walk along the narrow, sloping road. I walked this road lots of times that summer. There’s a line of cherry trees on the embankment on my right, their blossoms half-unfurled, and a panoramic view opens up below me on the left. Before, it was a crowded view of train tracks and buildings, but now it’s the inland sea, and it goes all the way out to the Pacific Ocean. Here and there, the tops of all sorts of buildings protrude from the water. The elevated Shinkansen track runs in a straight line, almost like an enormous pier. Green ivy and bright flowering weeds tangle around the vast, deserted blocks of concrete, claiming new ownership over them. “It was ocean to begin with…,” I murmur aloud, taking in the view. “The world’s always been screwed up…” I hear the rain striking the earth, and spring birdsong. Water-bus engines, and the distant noise of cars and trains. My own footsteps, sneakers on wet asphalt. I take a ring out of my pocket and examine it. It’s small and silver, in the shape of a wing. If I see her again…what should I say? “It’s no one’s fault the world is like this.” I murmur the words aloud as a test. Is it okay to say that? Is it what she’ll want to hear? Tokyo started out as ocean. The world’s always been crazy, right from the beginning. Suddenly, water birds take flight, and my eyes follow them. Then my heart leaps. She’s there. At the top of the slope, without an umbrella, her hands folded. She’s praying, eyes closed. In the midst of the ceaseless rain, Hina is facing the sunken city and praying for something. Wishing for something. No, that’s wrong, I think, and it’s like waking from a dream. That was wrong; it wasn’t true. The world didn’t start out crazy—we changed it. That summer, up above that sky, I made a choice. I chose Hina over the blue sky. I chose her life over the happiness of the majority. And we made a wish. No matter what the world became, we simply wanted to live our lives together. “Hina!” I shout. Hina looks at me. Just then, a strong gust of wind sends cherry blossom petals flying and whisks the hood off her head. Her long black hair, tied back in two ponytails, flutters in the wind. Her eyes fill with tears, and she breaks into a big smile. As soon as she does, the world blushes into brilliant color. “—Hodaka!” Hina yells, and I throw my umbrella aside. We start running at the same time. Her face comes closer, bobbing up and down. Then, when she’s right in front of me, Hina jumps into my arms and clings to me. Her momentum startles me, and I spin around with her in my arms to keep from falling over. Then we stand, facing each other. Still smiling, we catch our breath. Hina’s big eyes are gazing up at me, from a different height than before, and I realize for the first time that I’ve grown. She’s wearing her high school uniform, and it hits me that next time, she really will be eighteen. Suddenly, worry crosses her face, and her fingers touch my cheek. “Hodaka, what’s wrong? Are you all right?” “Huh?” “You’re crying.” I realize tears are streaming from my eyes, like the rain. How extraordinary are you? You’re crying, too. And how useless am I? I’d wanted to ask you if you were all right. I smile at Hina. I squeeze her hands, make up my mind very, very firmly, and speak. “Hina, we’ll—” No matter how drenched we are by the rain, we’re alive. No matter how much the world changes, we’ll live. “We’ll be all right.” Hina’s face shines, as if it’s been illuminated by the sun. Raindrops trickle over our clasped hands in a soft, gentle caress.