My days with Sayu seemed to go by in a flash.
I made sure to leave work right on time and spend as long as possible talking with her once I was home.
Sayu put even more effort into her cooking than usual, and every single meal was delicious.
“I’ll leave a notebook with all my recipes for you,” she told me. “You should cook for yourself from time to time.”
I thanked her and nodded, not allowing myself to dwell on how unreal the idea of Sayu leaving felt to me.
Sayu was going back to Hokkaido in just a few days.
Ever since her brother had invited me out to breakfast the previous Saturday, I’d fought the impulse to ask if she was ready to go home yet. Sayu likewise avoided the topic.
I felt like I was especially cherishing each day of our last week together. I couldn’t tell how Sayu felt, but I convinced myself that she was probably the same.
“Um, hey. There’s somewhere I want to go today,” Sayu said abruptly in the middle of dinner. I put down my chopsticks for a moment.
“What, now?” I asked, and she nodded.
“There’s no other time we can go,” she replied, then got straight up from her seat and pushed open the window curtain to look at the sky.
“…Oh, good. It’s clear tonight.”
“Hmm?”
I had no idea what she was getting at, but Sayu flashed me a big grin.
“Wanna go see the stars?” she asked.
“The stars?”
“Yeah. I know a place with a really beautiful view of them. Asami showed it to me.”
“Oh…was that where you two went before dinner last night?”
“Yep! She took me there once before, but I couldn’t really remember the way, so…” Sayu pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I got her to take me back so I could mark the location.” She opened a map on her phone and showed me.
It sounded like she’d gone to a lot of trouble. Did she want to show me the stars that badly?
“…Okay, then. We’ll go after dinner.”
I nodded, and Sayu returned the gesture, smiling cheerfully.
“Great!”
Now that I thought about it, I could remember looking up at the stars on my way home from evening practice sessions with my school club and thinking about how clearly you could see them.
Since growing up and moving here, however, I’d never taken the time to notice the stars.
I was a little excited to find out what kind of night sky Sayu would show me.
After we finished dinner and I smoked a cigarette, we left the apartment together.
“Is it close enough to walk?”
“It’s a little far, but we can definitely walk there. I think it’ll take about twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes? Well, it’ll be good exercise after eating, at least.”
I glanced at my watch and saw it was just past eight PM.
Even if we took our time looking at the stars, we’d still get back at a reasonable hour, so there was no need to worry.
“I’m surprised we can still see the stars, even where the streetlamps are so bright,” Sayu remarked casually, drawing my attention toward the sky.
Sure enough, she was right. There was hardly a cloud in sight, and the stars shone beautifully.
“You’re right. I never really noticed,” I replied.
Sayu snickered.
“When I first came to Tokyo,” she continued, “I remember thinking that you couldn’t really see the stars here.”
“You mean…compared to Hokkaido?”
“Yeah,” Sayu quietly agreed. “The stars were so beautiful there. It was almost obnoxious.”
Sayu’s gaze seemed far away as she said this. She must have been thinking of the past. Hokkaido’s starry skies…and the other things she saw there.
“But that’s the sky I was used to, ever since I was a little kid, so I was surprised when I came here. I didn’t know there were places where the stars were so hard to see.”
“Huh.”
My vague response wasn’t due to a lack of interest. I just thought it would be for the best if I kept my emotions in check.
“Soon, I stopped caring about stuff like that, though. After a while, all I thought about was how I could stay on the move. I quickly adjusted to city life and forgot all about the stars.”
“…Huh.”
Sayu’s voice held little emotion. I stole a glance at her from the side, but she didn’t seem particularly distressed.
Perhaps she’d already written off the painful path she’d taken here as a thing of the past. If she hadn’t, I didn’t think she’d be able to talk about it so easily.
Whatever the case, she’d already put one foot forward.
She wasn’t going to stay trapped in the past any longer, letting it hold her back. She was about to face the future.
As I watched her from the side, lost in thought, Sayu suddenly looked up at me.
“That’s why I was so amazed when Asami showed me this place… I couldn’t believe there was somewhere in the city where you could see the stars so clearly.”
As I walked along listening to her, I noticed we’d left my usual stretch of neighborhood.
“I realized you can see the stars in the city—you’ve just got to be in the right place.”
We were probably only ten minutes away from my apartment.
And yet, despite having lived in the area for so many years, I’d already lost track of where we were.
I went to the office, did my job, and when I was done, I came back home and slept. Caught up in that grind, I’d never realized there was a place where you could see the stars within walking distance of my home.
“Mr. Yoshida.”
“Yes?” I replied, looking over at Sayu.
Her gaze remained fixed in the direction we were walking.
Despite this, I could sense that her attention was actually on me.
“No matter where I go…,” she said, her voice quiet, “I don’t think anything really changes.”
My breath caught in my throat.
I still didn’t know what she was trying to tell me. Her words, however, carried a strange weight that was impossible to ignore.
Sayu must have been speaking from a place of real understanding.
“I’ve been running away, looking for some kind of solace…,” she went on. “I thought that if my environment changed and the people I interact with changed…I would feel a little better. And I thought I did.”
She was speaking flatly, her voice calm.
“But I finally realized, it wasn’t the people or the place… The thing that needed to change was me.”
She paused and shifted her gaze my way.
“That was thanks to you and the people around you.”
“…I see.”
Her words were so direct that I wasn’t sure how to feel. I looked away.
My conversation with Sayu that day was gradually making me realize something.
She must…already have all the answers she needed in order to take that first step. They were already inside her.
All she needed now was the courage to go home and face her mother and, in turn, her past.
“Okay, we’re halfway there!”
“Have we walked that far already? This place is closer than I thought.”
“Talking makes the time go faster. Okay, now we have to climb this hill,” Sayu said, pointing to the start of a gentle slope. The path clearly led to the top.