“There it is!”
The store looks pretty lonely without any records in it, but I am as chipper as could be. I think everyone else is, too. Smiles for miles. I’m so glad to see Mr. Fujiyama look as happy as he does.
Sakura’s record was in the store the whole time. Cherry didn’t give up until the bitter end, and I think Sakura rewarded that.
When Tsubaki went off to tell Mr. Fujiyama that we found it, the news seemed to improve his health immediately. Now he is sitting on a chair in front of me, looking elated as he stares at the record with Sakura’s smile printed on it.
He has two jackets now, the one we found and the empty one he always carries around, and there is one in each of his hands. We had been looking for the record inside the empty one, but we never did find it. Lucky thing, I think, that he happened to have a duplicate. Tsubaki did mention that he started this store in order to sell her records, and I’m sure he must’ve had more than one of Sakura’s in stock. Guess this one literally fell between the cracks.
To be honest, though, I still have a question or two. For one, where did the record that goes with Mr. Fujiyama’s empty jacket go? Maybe it’s somewhere in the mall still.
“Sakura,” Mr. Fujiyama mumbles in a wobbly voice. Tears are trickling down his cheeks—completely different from the sad tears he’d cried the other day. These come from a place of joy. I almost cry, too, as I watch. He is certainly satisfied enough with this, and I’m sure the record’s identical anyway. Now he’ll finally get to listen to the voice he sought for so long.
“I’ll have Japan play it for you, okay?”
I take the newfound jacket from Mr. Fujiyama. The store had some turntables set up, but we had put them away with the boxes of records. “I’ll get everything set up for it right away!” Japan exclaims, which is awfully nice of him.
After a few moments: “Hey, where are the speaker cords?” Japan looks up from the racks of record players and other machines. “The speakers won’t work without them.”
“Oh, I think I saw some on the porch.”
Cherry jogs out the back door. While we wait for him, I take the record out of the jacket, figuring I’d keep things moving along. Sakura’s smile is right there, printed on the record, just as shown in the newspaper article. It’s so cute. But what’s on the other side of it? …Oh. Fireworks.
Side B has a photograph of a bunch of fireworks shooting up from a rice paddy, all beautiful and colorful. I immediately recognize it as a scene from the Daruma Festival. This record has to be decades old, but the photo hasn’t faded at all. It is just as cute as Sakura herself, even.
So they could print two different pictures on each side of a record? These picture discs are pretty neat, actually.
…I’d love to show Cherry.
And then my feelings, overflowing from the glass of my soul in an instant, brings me right out the back door.
Cherry is just turning around toward the house when I step onto the porch. He has a rolled-up cord in his hand; I can tell he’s found what he wanted.
“Hey, look!”
I run up to him, holding the record in front of my chest, stretching my arms way out so he can see all the fireworks.
“…Fireworks?”
Cherry looks at me.
“Isn’t it cute?”
“Cute…?”
“Yeah!” I turn the record over and look at it again. The bright fireworks are dazzling, as if the light is shining on my face. Incredibly cute. Today’s the fifteenth, so this year’s Daruma Festival is two days away, on the seventeenth.
“The festival’s the day after tomorrow, isn’t it…?”
…I feel hot. My face and head are so hot. Why? Because I want…to see the fireworks. With Cherry.
“Do you…?”
I want to see them with him. I want to. I want to… But it’s so embarrassing. I can’t look at Cherry… I want to. I want to see them with him.
“Do you want to watch the fireworks…with me?”
The mask rubs against my face. My voice is so soft, I am sure only I can hear it. My gaze drifts off toward the loop of electrical cord twisted in Cherry’s hand. His fingers are wiggling around, putting kinks in it.
“Um…”
Cherry speaks. My eyes shoot up to his face. He has his head lowered, face blushing red. Once I know our eyes won’t be meeting, it is easy for me to keep staring at his face.
…Wait. This reaction. It means he fully understands what I just said. It’s a date. I asked him out on a date. And then Cherry goes bright red, and… Oh, man, so that’s how it is? No way. Really?
“Cherry!”
Suddenly, a loud voice comes from the back door.
“Get the cord over here already!”
It’s Japan’s voice. I turn around to find him peeking out from behind the rack, urging us back inside.
“Oh,” Cherry murmurs. It feels like the air has been taken out of the porch. The atmosphere is just so…
I look down at the floor, unable to say anything. I can see Cherry’s feet. His sneakers begin moving slowly toward the back door. I just follow them with my eyes.
“…Okay!”
Cherry’s voice—that booming “Okay!”—fades away with his footsteps. It keeps on echoing in my ears, though.
He said okay. I’m going to watch the fireworks with him.
Goose bumps. My mind floods. From the tips of my toes to the top of my head, sheer joy runs through my body at incredible speed.
…I did it. I did it. I did it! Yes! Yessss!!
I hold the record tightly in both hands. My body jumps up and down on its own. I can’t stop. I’m so happy, I can’t. It’s the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve never been this happy. It’s not an exaggeration. I’m so happy, I feel like I’m going to faint.
…Yes. Yes! Yesss!!
I never knew I could ever actually feel like this. I can’t help it if I didn’t, though. Like, it’s the first time. For the first time, I know now. This is love.
I’m in love with Cherry.
And once I realize it for myself, it makes me feel a bit calmer, weirdly. The joy was storming through me like a train earlier, but now it feels more like it’s slowly seeping in, giving my body time to absorb it. I’m just so happy.
I carefully relax my grip on the record I am hugging, then take another look at Side B. I’ll get to see these fireworks with Cherry. It’s a date. That’s so wonderful…
…Oh?
After I calm down a bit, I feel something strange about the record in my hand. From the side, it looks kind of wavy—and come to think of it, the surface feels a bit warped in my hands, too. That is much clearer to see when I place it atop a tatami mat on the porch. There are a ton of gaps between the record and the mat. It is definitely warped.
“Wow, will this even work?”
Maybe it’s because I hugged it too hard just now? It’ll sound a lot better if it’s flat, I assume. So I put some weight on it, pushing it down on the tatami mat in an attempt to flatten it out with my hands. I’m not really thinking. I just don’t realize that records can break so easily.
The moment I place my weight on it, a sharp cracking sound echoes across the courtyard, which is growing cooler now that it’s evening. It is so sharp, it feels like the cracks extend deep into my hands. The blood drains from my face, my feet, everywhere at once. Suddenly, my body feels cold, the moisture in my mask clammy.
I slowly lift my hands. Some pieces of vinyl stick to my hand for a moment before gravity audibly peels them off.
“Oh no…”
The part of the record I’d put my hands on, there atop the tatami mat, is now shattered into fragments.
“Smile?”
I turn around at the sound of Cherry’s voice, startled so much that my heart nearly jumps out of my chest.
Crack!
The sound is even sharper than before. Slowly, I begin to realize that things are only getting worse. I was so startled by Cherry calling for me that I turned around, arms over the record to hide it, only to lose my balance and fall right back on the tatami mat, butt first.
“Hey… What’s up?”
My eyes have been locked with his for a few moments now. He was casually asking at first, but now I think he can tell something is wrong. The tone of his voice grew darker.
Slowly, I raise my arms up from behind my back and let them fall slack. I hate to look, but I have to. I know I have to, but my body won’t listen to me. But I have to…
I twist my upper body around, creakily, like the handlebars of a rusted bicycle—so hard that I think I can hear the creaking. On the tatami, Sakura’s smile is scattered around, the fragments sharply pointed like glass.
Friday, August 16
My eyes are red as an albino rabbit’s. Red around the eyes, too. Looking in the mirror, I can tell I’m a mess in all kinds of ways.
After that whole ordeal, I was so distraught that I could barely keep hold of myself. Tsubaki kept consoling me, telling me not to worry about it. I apologized over and over to Mr. Fujiyama, but I was crying so hard, not even I was sure of exactly what I was saying. What I do remember, though, is that I was just too scared to look Mr. Fujiyama in the eye.
They kept consoling me for a while until I finally calmed down a bit, and Cherry walked me home. Even back there, I was crying way too much to sleep at all. Mom, Dad, Julie, and Marie all tried to make me feel better. Everybody was feeling sympathetic toward me last night. But whenever I pictured Mr. Fujiyama’s face, the tears rolled right back out again. I spent the whole night curled up in bed.
“Did you lose your phone again?” Marie asked, but really, I’d take losing my phone over this any day. The record was all warped, so I thought I needed to fix it. But I shouldn’t have done anything. I made a mistake I can never take back. It was Mr. Fujiyama’s most precious memory, and I destroyed it.