Chapter Text
July, 1635 (Fumizuki, Kan’ei 12)
The hand that held my own was warm. It was another hot, lazy July and the sun was at its crux in the sky.
I thought of the colour, golden like the tangerines mother peeled in the afternoon before this one for us like the peak of summer. The boy was golden too, like the sun that beat down on our bodies as he dragged us along to the house, where the tops of the millet stalks in the fields shone like his hair. The cobblestones underneath our feet were grey like his eyes, his cotton kimono the colour of lazily floating clouds, the tops of Mount Fuji.
Kanata remembered the entire world through a series of entries written in black ink on a bamboo notebook, green as the fields of rice and the forest beyond his house, and I remembered the world through how Kanata described it in words, how his hands were soft, how his voice was a little low for a thirteen year old boy, how the back of his hair had become a little too long, how his soft grey eyes sparkled with memories. The world seemed to have turned the slightest bit brighter every time he came around. He decided that I was his best friend. He said so himself, so I must be. I accepted it without question.
“-and did you know? Tanabata is tomorrow!” the boy hummed, while we were both walking along to my house.
If anything, I thought that it was much more freer than his. The silhouette came into view, straw rooftops brown like my own hair, Kanata had once said. I cannot forget it now, even if I have tried. All straw rooftops are brown like my hair because Kanata had said so.
My attention momentarily turned to the man driving an ox-cart on the side of the road. I almost pitied the man. His red face glistened in the sun with sweat, his hair tucked behind a handkerchief as if he were a neatly wrapped jar of pickled plums. The wretched beast pulling the cart looked miserable as if it were sharing the man’s burden.
“Already?” I spoke. I was not paying much attention to what I said, but rather the way his eyes were fixed on me instead. That was something much more important.
“This year goes by fast.”
“Maybe you’re just not paying attention.” Kanata teased. He stuck his tongue out but still held onto my hand tightly.
I could feel the small bumps on his palm, a little rough like lumps of cane sugar. It was strange to think about how perfectly the other boy’s fingers fit into mine, like they were meant to be held, each one nicely locked through finger and slit with no gap to leave. His grip was strong, firmly holding his hands as if he never intended to let go. I could only smile as he looked elsewhere, no doubt the large white stork by the flooded rice paddies, plucking at little worms.
His father had started training him at seven years old, being the son of a samurai.
I thought it was a little sad, how Kanata was better with his words, how he wanted to be a poet.
A shame.
The entrance to my home was like any other. The walls were of a pale wood, the doorway covered by thin shoji screens of paper. It was summer, and the heat hazed off the dry straw of the roof that Kanata had deemed to be the colour of my hair. I told mother this curious observation, and she had agreed with me. The trees were a bright green again, as was the grass, and the peel of the watermelon that he ate with me the day before yesterday.
Kanata had told me that his favourite colour was green. That green was new life, and flourishing dreams. If I could paint the entire world green, if I could drown in that colour, just to see his smile more often, then perhaps I would’ve in a heartbeat.
He often scolded me for forgetting a great many deal of things that I deemed rather useless.
It was not ‘forget’ but rather something I pushed to the back of my mind, ever present and lingering, and yet I ignored it. In a way, it was worse than simply forgetting.
A series of somethings that I would never forget, but haunt me for the rest of my life. Still now, I remember the time he asked to borrow a paintbrush. I had never asked for it back, having found no need for such a small thing. I am sure it lies somewhere within his house.
It is the seventh month, the height of summer. The last month of summer draws near, dragonflies darting about the reeds, rushing to get nothing done. He skips along the path, my hand still in his own. He approaches the door without much of a thought, for my home was his home, despite the differences in our social class. He does not pay much mind to it. It is almost admirable in a way. The son of a samurai and the son of an artisan.
He says that Tanabata is tomorrow. To me, this meant nothing. Everything passes, from one day to another where hastening or delaying wasn’t a big deal. It all meant nothing to me, these fleeting days.
But Kanata lived to appreciate, to cherish, to record. Words flowed from his brush, smoother than the Ōoka river’s rushing waters. Right now, weeping cherry trees flourished a bright green above the river, leaves falling like fleeting dreams. For the brief moment they are flourishing. The trees are bare of leaves in winter. Devoid of dreams.
If every leaf was a dream, blossoms are flowering, fruition of dreams. I thought back to the trees that could never blossom.
I wrenched the wooden door open with a little force. Inside, there was a little square of stone before a raised platform of wood that made up the floor of the rest of our house. I tossed the sandals without much care to the side. Kanata politely took his slippers off, laying the pair next to the wooden step. He oriented it so that when he stepped back out, it would be the right way around.
“That’s a little much, don’t you think?” I told him.
He only shook his head in reply. Mother awaited us both with a smile. Her eyes were creased softly, her brows slender and slightly furrowed in such a way that reminded me of an old woman’s expression. A reflection of the future, a thing far past her age. I told her not to worry.
There was a clay plate on the low wooden table where several wedges of persimmon lay like a blooming flower. Mother must have meticulously cut and peeled them, for no single strip of skin nor leaf remained, the whole fruit lay nakedly.
A bleeding heart that lay helplessly exposed. A disgusting visage, cut into pieces to study. A wretched specimen laid bare.
Kanata only smiled, bowed and thanked her. Mother smiled back, shaking her head softly and wearily. Mother doesn’t say much, her voice is quiet and feeble when she speaks, her demeanour is meek and shy like a schoolgirl.
He gets on his knees, bare feet against the tatami mat that lines the floor. When he picks up a wedge of persimmon, it is like he is holding the sun. For a moment, he became God in my eyes.
I soon followed after, kneeling before him and taking a piece. It wasn’t nearly as radiant. I was a mere fool, a follower before this god of a man.
It suddenly occurred to me that he would outrank me in every way possible without even using the slightest of effort. Kanata lifted the slice to his mouth, his bite gentle and effortless. It came away without even the slightest of a squirt, not a drop of juice dripping from his fingers.
That evening, Kanata went away again. I watched as his silhouette disappeared into the growing darkness, the dying light shining on his golden hair. I thought I had just saw God leave me in the night. My heart was filled with an immediate despair at his departure. What was this wretched feeling? This horrid sickness-like feeling clawing at my chest? What had become of my rational mind?
The next day was rather insignificant. I did not spare a thought nor much of a care towards such a bleak, meaningless thing. Yesterday, nothing happened. The day before that, nothing happened. And the day before that, nothing happened. When I returned to the wisteria tree by the hill, Kanata stood there awaiting my arrival with a small smile. It was dusk, and the crickets chirped loudly as the sun settled. The sky was painted with orange like the persimmon we had the day before this one.
He was dressed in his yukata, a gentle green like the fresh bamboo sprouts of autumn. The streets below us in the town were decorated with colourful banners waving in the hot summer wind. With the fading day came Tanabata.
He took my hand and led us both down the hill together. The heat hazed off the cobblestone paths as we descended the hill in the dying sunlight.
When we came down, it was dark. We went to write our wishes on paper, heads dipped down and almost in reverent silence. The brushstrokes were rather noisy against dozens of others, a flock of cranes taking flight. By the time we went to hang it on the bamboo trees by the temple, thousands of wishes on coloured strips already hung from its branches. A myriad of hopeful dreams that may never come true. Kanata tied his fluttering crimson wish to a branch.
[“I wish that we could be together in every life.”]
I fought back the urge to laugh, and to cry. How sweet it all was, how despairingly hopeful his dream was. It was beautiful, it was pitiful, it was crushing and fleeting all the same. What an innocent, pure-hearted wish. What a wonderful dream. I smiled, he smiled back and squeezed my hand tightly. Was it a gesture of comfort? A wish?
What did he mean by that? Was he hoping to stay friends for eternity? Was he wishing for something more?
He looked to my azure tinted wish, almost blending into the shadows of the trees.
[“I wish that Kanata could find happiness.“]
“Why me?” he asked almost innocently. His eyes were intently staring at me as if I were some sort of curious specimen. His hands were behind his back as he did so.
“I think you deserve it. I think you deserve happiness.” I finally said after a while.
“I think you deserve happiness, moreso than I do. You need to live happily for me.”
“And not you? Not yourself?” he spoke, his question feeling more like a small accusation. It was like he saw right through me. A shudder ran through my body. I felt sick, naked and revealed. I felt pointedly accused.
I thought for a while, before suddenly speaking at last.
“No.”