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“Mamoru!” Kensuke ran up to meet Mamoru on the grassy hill.
“Ken-chan!” Mamoru smiled at his friend. The two of them were both wearing matching summer yukatas and sandals to protect their bare feet.
“Are you ready to go?” Kensuke asked.
“Mm! You said you had something to show me, right? What is it, another game?” Mamoru asked curiously.
“It’s a surprise!” Kensuke took Mamoru’s hand and the two little boys ran down the hill towards the forest. Kensuke kept a tight hold on Mamoru’s hand so that they wouldn’t get separated or lost.
After passing through the trees, Mamoru heard the sound of gentle flowing water. A river flowed calmly through the middle of the forest. Even though it was night time, Kensuke and Mamoru could see the river as clear as day time since the bottom of the river had glittering stones that glowed under the water.
Kensuke and Mamoru arrived at a small wooden dock by the side of the river. There was a wooden signpost with a picture of a shooting star on the sign, but nothing else around.
“Ken-chan, I don’t see anything here?” Mamoru wondered.
“It’ll be here soon, trust me!” Kensuke said confidently and smiled as he held Mamoru’s hand.
The two boys waited for a moment before they saw something glowing brightly in the distance coming towards them.
“Ken-chan, what’s that?” Mamoru pointed at the glowing object.
“It’s here!” Kensuke was excited. “The wishing boat!”
“Wishing boat?”
Mamoru and Kensuke watched as a large star shaped boat drifted slowly towards them until it reached the dock they were standing on. On the glowing boat were two tiny plush dogs, one was purple and the other was orange. They looked like the plush toys that Kensuke and Mamoru had on their backpacks. But unlike their toys, these two dogs were moving and waved to Kensuke and Mamoru to come on board.
“Come on, Mamoru!” Kensuke jumped on first and held out his hand to Mamoru.
“I-Is it safe?” Mamoru asked. The little dogs nodded.
Kensuke helped Mamoru climb up. The boat actually felt soft like a pillow, but it stayed afloat without sinking. The boys sat in the center of the star together as the tiny plush dogs climbed up onto their shoulders. The orange dog pulled out a whistle and blew a sound before the boat started to drift slowly down the river.
“Ken-chan! Ken-chan! We’re moving!” Mamoru was amazed. “Oh, is this what you wanted to show me, Ken-chan?”
Kensuke shook his head. “Bu-buuu, nope! What I’m gonna show you is much bigger! But the wishing boat will take us there!”
Kensuke rolled and laid on his stomach while Mamoru sat right next to him. Despite the large ripples of the river pushing them forward, the boat didn’t rock too much to cause any motion sickness. It was a peaceful ride that Mamoru almost wanted to doze off and fall asleep.
The two boys and little dogs rode the star shaped boat through the forest. Mamoru started to hum a little song and Kensuke joined in, the two of them humming and then singing together.
“Row, row, row your star boat, gently down the stream~,” they sang together.
Soon the boat floated out of the forest and continued down the river through wide open fields.
“Mamoru! Look up!” Kensuke pointed.
The little boys’ eyes looked up and saw the most ethereal view in the sky.
“Ken-chan! So many stars!” Mamoru exclaimed.
“It’s the Milky Way!” Kensuke said.
“Milky Way? Oh, like in that picture book you showed me? The one with the train!” Mamoru remembered.
“Yeah!” Kensuke smiled.
The two boys laid down on their backs on the star boat and stared at the sky. There was a peaceful quietness around them that even animals out at night did not want to disturb with noise.
“Do you think we’ll see a train in the sky?” Mamoru asked.
“Haha, I’m sure we can if we believe enough!” Kensuke answered. “Kou told me anything is possible if you believe with all your heart!”
“I wish Kou-chan and Ryo-chan could see this too,” Mamoru said.
Kensuke sat upright. “We can tell them all about it when we get home! Oh! That reminds me, did you bring the paper tanzaku?”
“Yeah! I almost forgot!” Mamoru sat up and pulled out a handful of colorful tanzaku.
“Let’s write our wishes together and release them into the Milky Way sky! That way our wishes are sure to come true!” Kensuke said as he pulled out some writing markers.
The two little dogs looked at the colorful tanzaku curiously.
“Do you want to write wishes too, inu-chans?” Mamoru asked and they both nodded happily.
Mamoru handed paper tanzaku to the orange and purple dog and Kensuke gave them markers. The four of them wrote their wishes on the colorful tanzakus.
“Ready?” Kensuke asked when they were all done. They held their paper tanzakus up towards the Milky way. A gentle breeze flowed and picked up the paper tanzakus, carrying them up high in the sky towards the stars.
“The tanzakus are becoming stars!” Mamoru commented.
They watched the blue, pink, orange, and purple tanzakus be carried up with the wind to the sky until they blended in with the stars.
“Do you think our wishes will come true, Ken-chan?” Mamoru asked.
“They will! Orihime-sama and Hikoboshi-sama are up there after all!” Kensuke said. “And we can always make our own wishes come true ourselves!”
Mamoru smiled as he held Kensuke’s hand tightly.
~
“Mamoru…Mamoru!”
“Mmm, the star boat is still sailing, Ken-chan….” Mamoru mumbled in his sleep.
“Earth to Mamoru! If you don’t wake up soon, we won’t get to eat lunch that Kou made for us!” Kensuke called out to Mamoru a bit louder.
“Huh…huh? Huh?!” Mamoru woke up a bit confused and saw Kensuke look down at him. “Ken-kun?”
“You were sleeping pretty deep despite being on the floor again,” Kensuke commented. “Were you dreaming of another song to write?”
“Ahh…I wonder? I felt like I had a really sweet dream,” Mamoru vaguely recalled, but the memory of the dream became fuzzy now that he was more awake. “I think you were in my dream too, Ken-kun!”
“Really? What was I doing? Hopefully nothing weird.” Kensuke laughed.
“I don’t think so. Somehow, I feel warm inside.”
“Hmm? What’s that in your hand, Mamoru?” Kensuke noticed an orange piece of paper in Mamoru’s hand.
Mamoru noticed too and looked at it strangely. “A tanzaku? I don’t remember writing this.”
“What does it say?”
“It says…” Mamoru read it first and chuckled.
“Mamoru?”
“Mm-mm, I think I’ll go hang this up on the tanzaku tree downstairs in the lobby, but don’t read it, Ken-kun!”
“What? Why not? Wait, Mamoru! I want to see it too!” Kensuke said as he followed Mamoru. “Mamoru!”
~I wish for Ken-chan and Mamo-chan to be together forever~