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The locals used to say that if you went to the wishing well on a full moon night when the day changed and you threw a coin asking for what you yearn for the most, the spirit that inhabits the water of the depths grants your wish.
If it was also your birthday, it was fulfilled that same night.
That legend was told to him by Langa's father when he was little and he believed it firmly and with such enthusiasm that he asked to go again and again to visit that well. His mother assured him that he was in a very dangerous place in the middle of the mountains, while she gently slapped his father and he laughed.
Langa was so disappointed that he began to cry his eyes out and only calmed down after his father took him in her arms and pampered him a lot.
"But what did you want to ask the well for, champion?" His father asked when Langa seemed calmer.
"May you be my friend forever."
That made Oliver laugh out loud.
Years later, Langa found out the truth.
The well was never really in the middle of the mountains of Canada, his mother explained to him, when he remembered that anecdote, while they put the clothes that his father would never wear again, in bags to give them to charity.
"Isn't there a well?" Langa was so amazed that the pile he was putting in order of sweaters spilled onto the bed that now belonged only to his mother.
"Not here in Canada," his mother pointed out with one of the few smiles she had shown since that big change in their lives had happened. That well exists where I was born, in Okinawa.
She crouched down beside him and helped him pick up the sweaters.
"Did you go to that well?" Langa asked, very intrigued.
His mother nodded.
"And what did you ask for?" Langa was direct. Nanako laughed.
"You must never ask about the wishes of others, nor say them, or they will not be fulfilled, honey."
Her mother was right, and Langa apologized rather embarrassedly. She caressed his cheek tenderly.
“I asked never to feel alone and I'm not.
Langa felt tears wanting to slip from his eyes, but, as his deep sadness had taught her to do, he was able to hold them back.
"Mom, can I have this daddy's sweater?"
In his hands was the clear with a V-neck and stripes. It was the one Langa had given him last Christmas and he was only able to wear Oliver once.
His mother's eyes shone with pain, which was soon overpowered by tenderness.
“Of course, Langa, of course.
Days passed, the house was emptied and the luggage was loaded onto a plane bound for Japan.
In the midst of that chaos, the night before his birthday arrived. His mother had asked for the day off from the hospital to spend it with him, but for this she had to keep guard that night.
A very convenient circumstance for Langa's plan.
Ten minutes after her mother left, Langa went down to the street, unleashed the motorcycle that she had bought second-hand to help him in his job search and, after marking his destination on the map program on his mobile, he set out on his way. .
It turned out that the wishing well was not a secret in Okinawa, in fact, it was an attraction for tourists, so there were directions everywhere, as well as being marked as a place of interest on all the maps.
He could have gone with his mother, but something inside Langa made him decide not to share his determination to go to the well. It was not superstition, but a hunch. He sensed that if he was accompanied by her, his wish would not be fulfilled. It was foolish perhaps, but wasn't it foolish to believe that an old well was going to give him back what had been taken from him?
That was how about forty minutes later he arrived at a picturesque place located near a cliff, with a stall selling souvenirs and snacks, which at that time, of course, was closed.
The well, low and made of stone, reminded Langa of the one in that horror movie of the girl with her hair covering her face that came out of the television. Langa found the movie very funny, and laughed seeing it a lot with his father. Her mother spent the whole time with her eyes covered with a cushion.
He left the motorcycle parked in the parking lot next to the little gravel path that led to the well, and decided, he undertook the journey towards it, after leaving his helmet in the small luggage rack.
It was a hot night for winter, to tell the truth the temperatures were very high on that island. The coldest day so far had been like a cold day in the middle of summer in Canada.
A light breeze from the sea moved his hair, and his clothes. Under her jacket, he was wearing the light V-neck sweater, and in the right pocket of his jeans was a fifty yen coin.
He was very close to the well when his eyes noticed that something was moving under the shadow that one of the trees cast on one of the nearby benches.
The first thought was that the girl from the movie was there. Something absurd! He pushed her out of his mind. Ghosts do not exist.
But then who or what was it?
He got defensive as he watched as whoever it was got up and the moonlight finally bathed him letting him see who it was.
He was a skater, so he deduced from the skateboard he was carrying under his arm, that in itself was reason enough for Langa's attention.
“Hello! I didn't expect to find you here! “, The skater greeted him friendly approaching him.
Did they know each other?
Langa looked at him more closely.
He didn't sound familiar to him and that he could appreciate that his hair, red, thick and wild, barely contained by a band; was not common.
He must have been about his age, about twenty. He was dressed in a green corduroy jacket, a red sweatshirt and jeans.
Did he work at the supermarket? Would he be a delivery man? Or had he simply mistaken him for someone else?
The other must have noticed that he didn't know who he was. He pouted in disappointment and pointed to himself.
“Reki Kyan, part of the Kyan, the noisy large family who live in the apartment below.
Now Langa remembered. Yes, a bunch of shrieking redheaded girls who'd shown up on the landing while he and his mom were carrying up some of the moving boxes.
"I thought it was all girls," Langa blurted out.
“Well no! I'm the older brother and by the way...!”
The skater, Reki, realized that Langa was not paying any attention to him, but that all his attention was fixed on the board.
He giggled.
“You want to try?@ he invited him in a way that Langa found very attractive.
“Really? “Langa repeated, finding the possibility appealing.
At that moment the alarm sounded on his cell phone. Langa took it out of his pants pocket. It marked 23:55.
“Oh! Have you also come to make a midnight wish?
Reki asked him this as he watched the screen of his phone. Langa quickly hid it back in his pocket. As if the other didn't notice Langa's discomfort, he continued talking nonchalantly.
“Better, so I'm not alone."
“Are you afraid? “ He asked, although it was quite obvious by how Reki looked at the shadows around him.
“Of course not! “ Reki denied flatly.” It's just that this well reminds me a bit…, the one from that movie, I had nightmares for a week and Koyomi, one of my little sisters, all the while whispering to me, „seven days“!
"That's all fiction, ghosts don't exist," Langa stated without hesitation.
Reki tapped his fingers on the board, saying in a slightly nervous voice:
“Of course of course. Who would believe in ghosts?” And he laughed nervously.
Langa nodded.
He took out his cell phone to check the time and noticing less than thirty seconds to go, he took the coin from his pocket and raised his arm over the dark hole.
Reki followed suit.
“Ready?” Reki asked in heavily accented English, and that made Langa unsettled, because suddenly it wasn't his neighbor who was by his side, but his father, ready to share an adventure with him, and his brain repeated „Ready@ again. with the voice of Oliver.
But it wasn't his father, it was Reki, who suddenly realized that his brown pupils had an amber glow in the moonlight, that his hair shimmered with silver tones, and his eyelashes were very long as he closed his eyes and sighed through his pink lips.
He half opened his right eye and whispered:
“Langa, your time is going to pass.”
How did he know his name?
But yes! He was going to be late!
He imitated Reki, closed his eyes and made his wish:
„I want to feel my heart vibrate again, I want to be happy again, I want not to feel alone“
They were three wishes in themselves, but Langa trusted that the magical being, of which his father told him when explaining the legend that he was kind and powerful, would take it as one.
He dropped the coin and only opened his eyes when he heard two splashes in the water meters below them. The two coins.
Langa was surprised to find herself smiling.
"What have you wished?" Reki asked with great curiosity.
"It's a secret, if I tell you it won't work," Langa answered resolutely.
Reki laughed.
“You are right. Then I'll keep my secret too”.
Langa found that Reki did indeed has a very pleasant laugh.
"And how do you know my name?" he finally asked suspiciously.
"Everyone in the building knows your name," Reki exclaimed, opening her arms. “ Although they call you the prince”.
“That is not true! “ Langa protested angrily because he thought Reki was making fun of him.
“It is!” Reki put on a teasing voice.
It was definitely a lie. He had nothing princely about him.
"I have to go," Langa cut short Reki's jokes, "I have to go home, tomorrow, no, today is my birthday," he told the truth to serve as an excuse as to why he had to leave now.
“Really? Really? “ Reki shouted, jumping on himself all excited.
Langa just nodded.
"Am I going to be the first person to congratulate you?"
And before Langa could even guess what was going through Reki's head, Reki wished him with a grin from ear to ear:
“Happy Birthday!”
And he hugged him.
Langa wriggled free.
That was too much confidence. And to think that his mother had told him that the Japanese were more distant than the Canadians. Well, Reki was an exception.
“If it's your birthday, then your wish will come true. 100% guaranteed,” Reki assured him, raising his right index finger.
Langa was already beginning to be more than overwhelmed by so much attention. Besides, he was sleepy and had a long way to go home. And most importantly, he was hungry.
“I'm going! “He announced resolutely turning around, to be stopped by Reki, taking his arm.
"Didn't you want to try skating first?"
And that smile, those eyes, and that warmth that Reki gave off finally overcame Langa's misgivings and he let herself go.
That was how Langa's wish came true.
And Reki's too.