Suddenly, my hand feels lighter. The piece I had glued on a minute ago falls off, bouncing a bit on the desk. Oh, great, it didn’t harden all the way. I apply a second layer to this first piece, but the gunk from the first layer of glue keeps the two pieces from aligning evenly.
I am starting to get a bad feeling about this. I am trying to glue that first piece back on, but—ahhh, I knew it. That gunk is in the way. It’s not lining up.
So now what? Try to pick off the crust with a hobby knife or a pair of scissors or something? But what if I damage the record more…? No, don’t worry. Even if it’s a little misaligned, I think it’ll still be listenable. Let’s keep going.
I continue putting the pieces together, this time giving the glue ample time to harden. It’s night by now, so the room is quiet. I stare hard at the pieces. Time passes slowly.
Watching the pieces this intently, my mind begins to wander. His headphones on his head like a mohawk. Learning what a saijiki was. The first time we went home together, when I did all the talking. Summer’s lustrous sheen, there’s a false start in the wind and the evening dusk. “False start” was a cute way to put it. I look forward to him posting new haiku. It was fun adding my likes, too. Mt. Umafuse… Was that kind of like our first date? Mr. Fujiyama’s record store was hot as an oven, wasn’t it? Too bad we couldn’t have those soumen noodles together. Kinda funny how we shouted out in unison when we found the record. I liked that. Guys have it easy when it comes to talking about themselves. When he wrote “leaves,” was that…maybe autocorrect going haywire? Aren’t these fireworks cute? Inviting him to see the fireworks with me…like, that was super embarrassing. And I heard him say it—say “Okay!” so clearly… Oh, wait. Or was he talking to Japan when he said that? That was the happiest moment of my life, too…and I had it all wrong… I have to try and fix this record. If I didn’t screw up like that, Mr. Fujiyama would’ve heard Sakura’s voice by now. But I just had to do that…
Slowly, I move one of my hands away. The pieces stay stuck together…at first. The fragment bounces off the desk again. I thought it was locked in place, but it fell again.
Tears fall on the pieces, bouncing off them. Several tears. I can’t hold back. I can’t stop the tears. I thought things were going to work out, but they didn’t.
I’ve been doing nothing but crying since yesterday.
It hurts. My heart hurts so much.
I wake up. The room is bright.
Sitting up, I feel pain shoot up my back and elbows, like a rusty door. I turn around, look out the window, and realize the room is bathed in broad daylight. Past noon, maybe?
The clock on my desk says…a little before three. I’d fallen asleep at my desk.
“It’s about time,” Julie says, entering the room. “Here.” She holds out a mug to me. I stare at it blankly, then accept it.
“Thanks,” I say, taking a sip.
“It’s tea. I left it at room temperature. Having an ice-cold drink right after waking up isn’t good for you.”
Julie smiles. She’s so good to me. I take another sip of tea and put the mug on the desk. On the desk lay the fruits of last night’s labor. A warped record, with all the pieces glued together. That cute smile of Sakura’s is a bit marred by the glue splotches here and there, and it is slightly misaligned in spots. It’s all in one piece, but it isn’t exactly a perfect circle, and I really don’t think it’s playable. I don’t know much about vinyl records, but I am pretty sure about that, at least.
“Hey…” Marie’s cheerful voice echoes through the room. I look at the door and see half of her body leaning into the doorway, her finger beckoning me.
“Come on down to the living room.”
I follow her downstairs. Julie joins us.
“Ah, you’re finally up?” Dad smiles at me.
“Here, we got everything set up for you.” Mom points to a flower-patterned yukata hanging off the rack—light pink, with a cute cherry blossom pattern. “I’ll help you put it on, so get ready.”
Ah, right. Today’s the Daruma Festival. There are three sets of outfits, one each for me, Julie, and Marie.
“Cheer up, okay? Let’s all go together.”
Marie grabs my arm, smiling at me from down below.
“Yeah, I need a break from exam prep.”
Julie is holding my other hand, smiling just as much.
Julie, Marie… I’m so glad to see you. And you too, Mom and Dad. My mind’s in shambles, but everyone’s so nice, and kind, and trying to cheer me up.
I can’t really repair the record, but I’ll give it back to Mr. Fujiyama anyway. That, and I’ll apologize one more time. Julie and Marie are here for me right now, and that is a huge support for me.
Mom dresses me up and does my hair. I know I am in a fancy yukata and all, but I still don’t want anyone to see my buckteeth, so I put on my mask, and the three of us leave the house.
“I’m really sorry.”
I bow my head. It’s the best apology I can give, and I hope it reaches him.
Looking up, I see Mr. Fujiyama staring at the patchwork record. Then he slowly looks me in the eye and nods, a kind smile on his face. Whew. That’s great. He can understand how I feel. That smile really saves me.
“Oh, that’s the record?” Nami comes closer, looking at the album in Mr. Fujiyama’s hands.
“There’s a photo on it?” Akiko asks, joining us.
“It’s called a picture disc,” I say.
“Ohhh…”
They both look impressed. I had told the staff about the record just now—how we all searched for it together and found it, only for me to shatter it.
Mr. Fujiyama hands the record to Nami. “Thank you,” she says, accepting it with a smile. “This lady’s cute, isn’t she?”
“She’s Mr. Fujiyama’s wife, actually.”
“She is?!”
Now they are even more intrigued. Nami turns the record over, revealing the fireworks photo—the fireworks from the Daruma Festival. My glue job didn’t go all that well, so Side B looks a lot more misaligned, much to my chagrin.
Nami wrinkles her nose and holds the record close to her face.
“You know, I feel like I’ve seen this before…”
“Okay, everyone,” Akiko says, turning around, “it’s almost time for the performance. Ready to head up to the roof?”
That time already, huh? I look at the clock on the wall; it is just before six in the evening. We are set to perform at seven, doing the Daruma Ondo dance we spent so much time rehearsing up on the roof for the festival. She was right. It was about time to…head out…
…Huh. That’s weird. I feel like I’m overlooking something really important.
“Once the factory closed down twenty-eight years ago, the Nouvelle company purchased both the land and the factory on it. Nouvelle builds and operates large-scale commercial sites across Japan, and they transformed the factory into a shopping mall, you see. When Nouvelle builds a large site like this, they make sure they don’t completely erase the memory of what was there before, out of respect for the local community. Sometimes they use what was on-site for other purposes, or sometimes they use them to create a monument. I understand that over in the Kansai region, they built a mall over an old baseball stadium and kept the main grandstand intact inside it. In much the same way, this used to be a vinyl plant, so sometimes the clocks and other things you see around the mall are actually records.”
Suddenly I recalled the story from the guide at the photo exhibition.
“Sometimes the clocks and other things you see around the mall are actually records.”
“Ahhhh!!”
Nami’s sudden shout interrupts my thought process, and it’s so loud that I thought my heart would literally stop. She’s pointing at something, a surprised look on her face. Following her finger, I see that she is pointing at the circular clock near the ceiling above the sofa where Mr. Fujiyama is sitting. It is the same clock I glanced at just now; it has been up at Sunnyside for as long as I’ve worked here. It’s a picture of some fireworks and there are no numbers on it, which sometimes makes it hard to tell the time.
…Wait. This clock’s fireworks… It’s identical to Sakura’s record.
I hurriedly take off my geta sandals and climb onto the sofa, taking the clock off the wall. Once it is safe in my hands, I give it a closer look.
“…Ah!”
Now I am shouting. Looking more closely, I notice there are tiny grooves on the surface, just like a record. I can identify that well enough after all the many records I handled and examined at Mr. Fujiyama’s shop. This has to be a record.
The clock mechanism is on the other side of the hole, the long and short hands sticking out from it. The short hand just clicked in front of me—in front of that fireworks photo I thought was so cute.
With trembling hands, I flip it over. My eyes meet…with Sakura’s! Carefully, I take the machine with batteries and stuff in the middle and slowly remove it. There, I find Sakura’s smiling, unobstructed face.
“This is it! The record!”
I hurriedly hand it to Mr. Fujiyama. He greets it with total disbelief. “Sakura,” he mumbles happily. How can I not believe in miracles now? This is totally amazing. I never expected to find Sakura’s record right here in Sunnyside.
Nami sighs. “Wow, now I feel bad for Cherry. Talk about bad luck.”
“Oh, I know,” replies Akiko. “If he wasn’t moving today, he’d be here to listen to this.”
It’s close to the evening now. Cherry’s probably already left town…and we’ll never listen to this together. I take my phone out of my handbag. My summer with Cherry began because I mistook his phone for mine. He looked hard for that record; he wanted Mr. Fujiyama to hear it, too. Now it is right here, but Cherry isn’t. I sure wish I could hear Sakura’s voice with him.
…The phone. Right, the phone. There’s just one way left that we can listen to this record together, and this is it! And it’ll require the help of everyone at Sunnyside—that, and Japan with his record expertise.
“Guys, I need all of your help!”
I shout loudly through my mask. This is the only thing I can do, and only I can do it.