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There was something lethargic about the familiar yet unfamiliar landscape, cherry blossom petals lining the roads despite the summer atmosphere, the trees full of life with the pink flowers in contrast to the heat that threatened his very stamina and comfortability.
A contrast in seasonal attributes wasn’t the only thing that made this walk uneasy; the otherwise memorized commute to his high school often included this road that led up to the bridge he had to cross to get to the side of town that the institutional prison was on — however, it seemed that with every step he took (and he’d taken a lot, as far as he knew), he would be close to reaching the bridge before the road seemingly extended itself, stretching a little farther, preventing him from ever stepping foot on the bridge’s wooden structure.
There was something strange about the time of day — or rather, the nearing night. The sun played with colors of red and orange and yellow, drenching the scenery with familiar hints of an upcoming sunset. And somehow, despite the bright hues, the cherry blossom petals remained a shining beacon on the road, a blanket unbothered in his infinite steps.
If the night was soon to come, then why was he walking towards school? Why had he taken a walk at all? It was his nature, against his principles, against the very character that he had been given. There was nothing at the school for him to walk towards to, and even more-so in this seemingly endless road. The —
“Ah, there you are!”
A voice calls out from behind him, keeping its cheerfulness despite the huff and puff of the person it was coming from. It was a voice that he couldn’t quite get rid of, paired with a name that he couldn’t erase from his mind — and with that, he turns around, like in the type of slow motion that happened in movies. The cherry blossom petals danced about in the nonexistent wind that swept by, and the face burned into his memory appears.
“I’m glad I caught up with you!” Ayano’s enthusiastic chirp mimicked the skip in her step, smile frighteningly the same just as always. He takes one, two blinks to take in the girl next to him, donned in her summer uniform and signature red scarf, the two red hair clips sweeping away a part of her hair in its usual manner.
There was nothing out of the ordinary with her, and yet there was.
“You look like this right now, but even more intimidating.” She tilts her head to the side, poking Shintaro on the cheek with a childish pout on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“I just…” Shintaro pauses, looking at anything but her at the moment — at the road, at the near but far bridge, at the sun that dipped into the hills at the pace of a snail, and at the cherry blossoms sticking out more than before, the juxtaposition of their appearance in relation to the summery daze he was in making the girl’s appearance seem all the more confusing.
“You forgot to put on your uniform?” Ayano breaks the silence he put in, tugging on the red jersey — and he notices that now, the fact that he was wearing the clothes he would usually wear at home — with a grin on her face. “Haha, silly Shintaro~ Oh well, it’s not like people follow the dress code. It looks good on you, anyway. Let’s go!”
And she began walking ahead without his approval — and wait, it looked good on him?
“Seems like an odd time to be heading to school,” he says, nodding towards the setting sun, stuck in its position now. It seemed like a permanent sunset, an infinitely early dusk, and the cherry blossom petals swayed about with each step, though they never seemed to go away definitely.
“Spring and summer are an odd set of seasons, aren’t they?” Completely ignoring his statement, Ayano turns her head, acknowledging her surroundings for the first time, though she says nothing of its peculiarity. “Spring is often about rebirth, where everything becomes new or renewed. Summer, however…”
The bridge had gotten closer — for real this time, and Ayano was able to step foot on it. Shintaro looked down, unsure for a second, before also making his first step. The high school was in sight, its looming structure ever present, lined with bare cherry blossom trees that had shed their petals in front of its gates.
Ayano makes her way across the bridge, turning around and stopping to face Shintaro.
“In summer, it seems like things come to an end.”
There’s a silence, only because he wasn’t sure what to say back. All he knew was that something was really off now — really, really off.
He thinks that it’s the beast of summer right in front of him.
Her smile is sad now, her entire expression a strained balance of bitter and sweet — and he could how much she understood her current state of being, that she was but an apparition that fails to exist in reality, crossing the streams of consciousness and imagination to deliver a message to him. (But was he making up the message himself or had she somehow made herself something sentient for just these few moments?)
“Why are you doing this now?” He sounded a little angry, frustrated, confused, dazed — every negative emotion came pouring in at the very thought of her, at what she had been, at what she had done, two years of everything that had gone wrong just coming back because she decided to poke her nose into this summer sunset. “Why, out of all the times — ”
“Ah, I couldn’t congratulate you earlier…!”
“It’s not something that big that you need to worry about that.” Shintaro huffs, hand landing on top of Ayano’s head, like a soft karate chop — that sort of thing. “I would say I’m surprised about you, but I think I’ve worn that phrase out.”
“Ouch…well, it’s a new occasion every time, so it’s okay to be surprised now, too.” Diploma in hand, she turns to look back at the school, graduation season’s spring welcoming them with its gentle atmosphere, cherry blossoms falling peacefully with birds and squirrels sharing the tree. “Soon, we’ll be in high school. Isn’t that crazy? The same one, too, with Takane and Haruka — it’ll be exciting for you!”
“For me? I don’t know about that.” He lets out an exasperated sigh, already tired of what antics they might get into in the future. “You got this whole group together. You’ll have to deal with them, too.”
“Aha…” Her laugh trails on, lips twitching from the ends of her smile. “I have to do some summer supplementary classes to catch up. It’s not that bad, and I might be able to see them! But even so, it’ll be okay. It’s just that…”
“What?”
“When it’s summertime, all these cherry blossoms will be gone.”
“I forgot to congratulate you.” She laughs, though her sheepish look didn’t fully match the concern she had — but that was, perhaps, a cause of her train of thought, piled up one after the other. “Congratulations on graduating…and thank you for becoming friends with me then. Through my stubbornness, unable to leave you alone…thank you for putting up with me. There’s a lot more things that I want to say, actually, but I don’t have much time.”
He hadn’t realized, but the sunset that had stopped seemed to be moving forward again, dipping more and more into the night — a case of limited time, it seems, not enough time to figure out just what type of emotion was bothering him, why the appearance of her, though she had appeared in a peaceful way, had agitated him.
The sun set, and the cherry blossom petals were gone, the school, the bridge, everything — and only she remained, smiling as always, in a space that he couldn’t quite comprehend, a space that seemed like a long, distant memory.
“You’ll remember this, right?” She steps forward, and then another, and another — until they were face to face, a distance less than a bridge apart, determination in her eyes as she continues.
“You have to remember this one specifically. It’s important. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m sorry for a lot of things. I’m sorry for what happened.”
Her eyes had turned red — and he could tell that she meant it.
“We’ll get it right the next time. I’ll tell you more of what I have to say next time. We’ll see each other again — don’t give up yet, Shintaro!”
“You’re awake! Geez, a producer falling asleep? Your songs not cutting it out for you? Maybe a game of solitaire will cheer you up…~”
Ene’s voice rang loudly in his headphones, and he scrunched his face, taking off his headphones and glaring at the virus getting ready to pull up the card game in his browser.
Sleep —
“…It didn’t feel like sleep?”
Ene pauses, the cards lined up on the screen while she blinks. “Hah…you’re losing your mind, master! Seriously, you were snoring and everything!”
He rubs his eyes — guess he really did go to sleep, though what he saw didn’t feel like a dream of any sorts. He closes the browser for solitaire — much to Ene’s chagrin — and he pulls up the music program, thinking that, if that was he was doing prior, he might as well continue.
…Maybe this song was the reason why he saw her.
toumei_answer.mp3