“…Don’t tell me the rest of the walk is uphill?”
“It sure is.”
“Hey, hold on… You can’t just make an old man like me do this kinda exercise.”
Sayu snickered.
As I watched her, I found myself thinking about how in only a few days, I’d be saying good-bye to that smile forever.
It was a painful thought, but I tried hard not to let it get to me.
“Haaah! We made it.”
“That was harder than I expected…”
By the time we reached the top of the hill, my body had heated up so much, it was covered in a thin layer of sweat despite the cold night air.
“Are you telling me two high school girls rode up here on a bike?”
“I was thinking the same thing… Maybe it was an e-bike and I just didn’t realize.”
We chatted as we made our way to the grassy area of the park at the top of the hill.
“Over here, Mr. Yoshida.”
Sayu plopped herself down in the center of the grass and lay back.
“Wah! The ground’s so cold!”
“Hey now, won’t our clothes get dirty?” I asked.
“It’s fine. I’m the one who washes them anyway. Come on, Mr. Yoshida, hurry up!”
I sat down on the grass and lay back as Sayu instructed.
A starry sky instantly stretched out in front of me.
“Whoa…,” I said despite myself.
The stars were more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.
“They’re gorgeous, right?” Sayu asked from beside me with a hint of pride.
“Yeah…”
It’d been a long time since I had last seen the stars shining so bright.
“Hey, Mr. Yoshida,” Sayu said, rolling onto her side.
The world around us was silent, so even though she was speaking quietly, I had no problem hearing her.
“When I came here before, Asami told me something.”
“About what?”
“She told me that from the perspective of the stars, each of us is insignificant, but we all have histories and futures of our own—”
“Pfft.”
I burst out laughing, and Sayu’s disapproving gaze bore into me from the side.
It wasn’t what Asami had said that I found funny, though.
“There’s no way that girl is a high schooler.”
“Oh yeah… Ha-ha. She is pretty…grown-up.”
“Sorry for interrupting.”
“No, it’s fine.”
Sayu looked back up at the stars and continued.
“When she told me that…I felt so relieved, I started crying.”
“You felt relieved?”
“Yeah… Asami acknowledged the horrible things I went through in the past and told me how impressed she was that I’d carried on living my life.”
Asami was right. Sayu bore the burden of a sorrowful past no one her age could be expected to deal with, and yet, she’d continued to search for a way out. Other people might not approve of the path she’d taken, but she never gave up trying to improve her situation.
“When I think about it now, though…,” Sayu murmured, her voice trembling, “what Asami said was a kind of forgiveness, but it was also a reality check.”
Her words echoed softly as they were absorbed into the starry sky.
I stayed quiet and listened to her.
“No matter how long I live or how many different people come into my life…what I’ve done, and the journey I took to get here, will always stay with me as part of my history.”
“…Yeah, I guess so.”
“Other people might forgive or affirm me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I did what I did. I threw away a lot of important things just because I wanted to run away. And I turned my back on the people who cared about me…”
Without thinking, I turned to the side toward Sayu.
She was speaking so candidly about something that was clearly hard to say.
I was worried she might be upset, but those fears vanished when I looked at her.
The sight of the stars reflected in her eyes was beautiful…but she seemed to emit a powerful radiance that couldn’t be explained by that alone.
“The mistakes I’ve made will never disappear.”
Sayu paused and stared straight at me. The look in her eyes was so mature, it startled me.
“But, Mr. Yoshida,” she said, squeezing my hand in hers. It felt cold.
“…Despite all that, at the end of my awful time on the run…I found you.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
We stared at each other as I waited for her to continue.
“If I hadn’t met you, I never would have acknowledged my mistakes, and I might have ended up somewhere much, much worse.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by somewhere much, much worse, but I knew it was probably just as bad as it sounded.
“After I found you, everything got better. I’m so happy, I don’t want to run away anymore.”
“……”
Her words lingered in my ears.
“I…want to stay here forever,” she said gently, her eyes never straying from mine.
How was I supposed to respond to that?
I opened my mouth to say something, then stopped… This happened a few times before Sayu interrupted me with a little chuckle.
“But, you know…I really shouldn’t.”
“…Huh?” I asked stupidly before I could stop myself.
Sayu looked back up at the stars.
We were still holding hands. At some point, the heat from my palm had transferred to hers, and it now felt warm.
“If I stayed here forever,” she said, “I’d never come to terms with my past. I’d never get any closure…and I’d never stop running away.”
She squeezed my hand tighter.
“My past would be nothing but an escape. And that would mean…”
I could see a tear falling from the corner of her eye.
She was trying to give voice to a feeling that really mattered to her.
All I could do was listen—no, it was my duty to listen.
With tears in her eyes, Sayu looked at me.
“That would mean…that meeting you would have been for nothing.”
These words weighed heavy on my heart.
Sayu was crying as she spoke, but she was also smiling.
“I feel so lucky to have met you, Mr. Yoshida,” she said gently. “No…I don’t just feel lucky; I am lucky.”
She sat up off the ground and placed her other hand over mine.
Our eyes met again as she peered down at me.
“I’m so lucky to have met you, Mr. Yoshida,” she stated resolutely.
I could feel my chest grow warm.
“Me too,” I almost said, but Sayu continued before I could.
“That’s why…”
I could sense a strength in her eyes, stronger than before.
Sayu sniffled, then carried on.
“…I need to prove it.”
“…Prove it?”
“Yeah, prove it. I need to prove that meeting you was good for me. Convincing myself isn’t enough. I need to prove it in a way that everyone else can see. And then… And then…”
Sayu explained all this in a rush, then took a deep breath.
A smile suddenly came to her face, and she continued in a singsong voice.
“…I think I’ll be able to survive on my own.”
Her expression as she said this didn’t look like that of a high schooler.
The Sayu before me…looked like a full-grown woman.
✦ ✦ ✦
…Oh, right.
I took a deep breath, then let it out again.
I felt a strange sense of euphoria in my heart, followed by a calm that seemed to contradict it.
After hearing her words and seeing the look on her face…I understood.
Sayu was going to be all right.
She had built up the strength to take the next step on her own.
“…All right.” I nodded, pretending not to notice the nasal tinge to my voice. “So how are you going to prove it in a way that everyone else can see?”
Sayu chuckled as she looked at me.
“You already know the answer to that,” she said, squeezing my hand. “I’m going to go home and make peace with my past…and grow up.”
I felt my chest tighten once again.
Her words meant, in no uncertain terms, that she was “ready.”
It had finally come from her own mouth, of her own volition.
I felt my body tremble.
“I’ve been thinking about what I can take home with me from my time on the run.”
Sayu kept her eyes fixed on mine as she said this.
“I finally met someone I felt truly comfortable with, and yet, I was scared that I’d have nothing left to show for it when we separated. But…”
Sayu clasped my right hand tightly in both of hers.
Our eyes stayed fixed on each other.
Sayu flashed me her carefree grin and said:
“I found you.”
She was repeating herself.
But I knew exactly why she’d felt the need to say it again.
“Yeah…”
I felt something warm rising in my chest, and I desperately pushed it back down.
“That’s all I need to bring home with me. The fact that I found you is enough,” she concluded.
Then she took a deep breath and lay back down beside me.
“So…promise you’ll be rooting for me,” she said in the tiniest of voices.
“…Of course I will,” I said, my voice just as small. Sayu chuckled again, then fell silent.
For a long time, the two of us simply lay there together, gazing up at the night sky.
Eventually, the stars became a blur, and I could no longer see them clearly.
I felt my eyes grow hot.
Sayu was going back to Hokkaido in two days.