Beyond the Night We Ran

When summer comes, I can’t use earphones anymore.

To be precise, I can’t use one in my right ear.

Whenever I play music, a sound like sea wind slips into the gaps between the notes. A rushing, hushing sound, as if waves were breaking somewhere far away. And beyond it, I always feel as though someone is about to call my name.

It isn’t the earphones that are broken.

No matter how many times I replace them, it is always the same.

So the thing that is broken must not be my ear.

It must be my memory.

August 27.

2:13 a.m.

I opened my eyes in bed.

Opened them—or rather, I had never managed to close them in the first place.

In the corner of the room, the electric fan slowly turned its head. At regular intervals the breeze came, then went. Beyond the curtains, the summer night seemed to be holding its breath.

My phone was showing me a photograph taken exactly one year ago today.

What a useful feature.

Without being asked, it carefully places in front of you the very thing you have been trying to forget.

The photograph showed a girl’s hand holding up a bottle of ramune.

Her face wasn’t in the frame.

Just slender fingers and a clear glass bottle. Beyond the glass, a streetlight bent out of shape and blurred into pale blue.

I had never been able to delete that photo.

But I couldn’t bring myself to look at it properly, either.

I turned the phone facedown and got out of bed.

When I opened the refrigerator, there was barley tea, half a bottle of water, and a pudding my mother had bought. I thought I wanted something to drink, but none of it felt right.

I wasn’t thirsty.

I think I was looking for the same things that had been there that night.

The blue glow of a vending machine.

Damp asphalt.

Lukewarm cider.

And a voice laughing as it said, “I don’t know what the future holds.”

I put on my sneakers at the front door.

I opened it as quietly as I could.

From the darkness of the hallway, my mother’s voice came.

“Where are you going?”

My heart jumped.

The living-room door was open just a crack, and television light spilled through it.

“The convenience store.”

“At this hour?”

“I can’t sleep.”

My mother was silent for a while.

Once, she would have told me it was dangerous and ordered me not to go.

But now she knew why I couldn’t sleep.

“Be back by morning.”

“Okay.”

“Check your messages.”

“I will.”

When I stepped outside, the night air clung to my skin.

It was warm and damp, and somewhere in the distance I could smell the sea.

I put an earphone into my right ear and pressed play.

The noise, like sea wind, brought summer back with it.

And I started walking down the same highway I had walked one year before.

Her name was Toko Nanase.

From the name alone, you might imagine someone transparent and quiet.

The real Toko was less like something transparent and more like a carbonated drink.

She appeared without warning, fizzed wherever she pleased, and left your heart restless.

April of our second year of high school.

She took the seat beside mine.

Toko was the one who spoke first.

“Kirishima, you always look sleepy.”

“Because I’m sleepy.”

“Stay up late?”

“Sort of.”

“Delinquent.”

“If staying up late makes you a delinquent, half the high school students in Japan are delinquents.”

“What about the other half?”

“They sleep during class.”

“Then everyone’s a delinquent.”

Toko smiled, apparently satisfied.

Looking at that smile made me a little uneasy.

Not because I thought she was cute.

Well, it wasn’t that she wasn’t cute.

She was, actually.

But before I could think that, I thought she looked dangerous.

Her face didn’t look like the face of someone who happened to be smiling.

It looked like the face of someone who had decided to smile.

Toko skipped class often.

She would say she was going to the nurse’s office and head to the roof.

She would say she was going to the library and drink cider behind the school building.

A few times, I got dragged into those hours of hers.

“Kirishima, are you free?”

“We’re in class.”

“So you’re free.”

“You don’t call it free time when you’re in class.”

“Then are you busily being bored?”

I closed my math textbook.

While the teacher’s back was turned to the blackboard, the two of us slipped out of the classroom.

Even now, I’m not sure why I followed her.

Back then, I found the idea of anything happening in my life deeply troublesome.

I didn’t want attention.

I didn’t want expectations.

I didn’t want to become special to anyone.

Once you gained something, you created the possibility of losing it.

So I thought it was better not to have anything in the first place.

That was the kind of unpleasant seventeen-year-old I was.

Toko sat on the concrete behind the school and opened the bottle of cider she had bought from the school shop.

Pssh.

A small sound escaped.

“You know carbonation?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s born just so it can disappear.”

“You’re making it sound philosophical. It just goes flat.”

“Kirishima, you have no sense of poetry.”

“Nanase, you pile on too much poetry.”

“You can call me Toko.”

“That came out of nowhere.”

“We sit next to each other. Last names make it feel like there’s all this distance between us.”

“There is distance between us.”

Toko took a sip of cider.

Then she held the bottle out to me.

“Then shorten it.”

“What?”

“The distance.”

I didn’t take the bottle.

It wasn’t that I was thinking about putting my mouth where hers had been.

I think I was simply afraid of accepting something that had been offered to me.

Toko took another sip without seeming bothered.

“You’re a scaredy-cat, Kirishima.”

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“Don’t act like you know me.”

My voice came out sharper than I meant it to.

Toko didn’t look surprised.

She only looked up at the sky.

The spring sky was thinly overcast.

“I do know.”

Her voice was small.

“Because I’m the same.”

Only those words disappeared quietly, like bubbles in cider.

We started running around at night near the end of July.

It had been a week since summer vacation began.

I was stocking shelves on the late shift at the convenience store where I worked.

1:40 a.m.

The automatic doors opened, and Toko came in.

She wore a white T-shirt and black shorts. Her hair had been tied up carelessly, and her cheeks were faintly flushed.

“Welcome.”

When I said it, Toko laughed.

“You sound like an employee.”

“I am an employee.”

“When someone I know says ‘welcome,’ it suddenly makes us feel like strangers.”

“Inside the store, you are a customer.”

“Then will you grant a customer’s request?”

“Depends on the request.”

Toko took a bottle of cider from the refrigerated case beside the register.

She placed it on the counter.

“Run away with me.”

My hand stopped above the barcode scanner.

“From what?”

“We can decide that now.”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“1:42.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Kirishima, what time do you finish tonight?”

“Two.”

“Then I’ll wait eighteen minutes.”

Toko really did wait eighteen minutes.

She stood reading manga by the magazine rack, then sat on the curb outside while I checked the boxed meals that were due to be discarded.

When my shift ended, she tossed the cider to me.

“Where are we going?”

I asked.

“The sea.”

“It’s far.”

“If we run, it’s closer.”

“That is not how distance works.”

“Then bikes.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Let’s run.”

“Were you listening?”

Toko was already running.

Along the highway in the middle of the night.

Her white T-shirt grew smaller beneath the streetlights.

For a while, I just watched her back.

I could have gone home.

I could have left her there and headed in the opposite direction.

But instead, I started running.

“Wait!”

Toko looked back.

“I’m not waiting!”

“Are you seriously going to run all the way to the sea?”

“We’ll think about it when we get tired!”

She was laughing.

Before I knew it, so was I.

Summer nights blur the outline of the world.

A closed gas station.

An empty pedestrian bridge.

A vending machine glowing blue.

A sleeping neighborhood.

Places I knew by daylight looked like a stage that had been prepared for the two of us alone.

We were both out of breath almost immediately.

In front of a vending machine beside the highway, Toko bent over with her hands on her knees.

“I can’t.”

“I told you.”

“The sea is far.”

“I knew that.”

“Let’s take a taxi.”

“Do you have money?”

“Three hundred and twenty yen.”

“You spent the rest on cider.”

“How much do you have?”

“Six hundred.”

“That makes nine hundred and twenty together.”

“Less than a kid takes on a school trip.”

Toko dropped down in front of the vending machine.

Blue light washed over her face.

Her bangs were stuck to her forehead with sweat.

I sat beside her.

A single car passed with a low growl.

After it was gone, only the noise that sounded like sea wind remained.

“Hey.”

Toko spoke.

“What are you going to be in the future, Kirishima?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you want to be?”

“Nothing.”

“What university do you want to go to?”

“Haven’t decided.”

“Is there someone you like?”

“That question got sloppy all of a sudden.”

“Is there?”

“No.”

It was a lie.

By then, I already liked Toko.

I think that was the moment I realized it.

When someone asks if you like anyone and one face appears before all others, there really isn’t another explanation.

“Oh,” Toko said.

She sounded a little relieved.

Or maybe a little disappointed.

“What about you?”

When I asked, she stared into the vending machine’s blue glow.

“I don’t know what the future holds.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“My future. University. The person I like. All of it.”

“Someone you like isn’t the future.”

“For me, it is.”

She smiled quietly.

In the blue light, that smile looked terribly far away.

“I don’t know what the future holds.”

I still didn’t know what those words were refusing.

I had an older brother.

He was three years older than me, and his name was Kohei.

He was cheerful, smart, and liked by everyone.

The complete opposite of me.

Our family never compared us.

At least, not out loud.

But I compared us more than anyone.

What would my brother do at a time like this?

My brother would know how to say it better.

My brother wouldn’t make Mom worry.

My brother wouldn’t disappoint Dad.

My brother would.

My brother would.

My brother would.

Two winters earlier, my brother died in a traffic accident.

He was on his way home from university.

A car ran a red light and hit him.

I was told he died instantly.

Apparently he didn’t suffer.

Adults offered that to us as if it were supposed to be comforting.

He didn’t suffer.

It was like falling asleep.

I’m sure he’s watching over you from heaven.

I hated every one of those phrases.

So what if the person who died didn’t suffer?

The people left behind were suffering this much.

After my brother died, sound disappeared from our house.

Mom stopped singing while she cooked.

Dad stopped watching baseball in the living room.

I started listening to music through earphones.

I filled my family’s silence with other sounds.

And at some point, a noise like sea wind began mixing into my right ear.

I told Toko about my brother in early August.

We were sitting on the curb in front of the convenience store.

She had waited for my shift to end and bought two bottles of cider.

“You had a brother.”

“I did.”

“Past tense.”

“He died two years ago.”

Toko didn’t say anything.

Not “That’s terrible.”

Not “I’m sorry.”

Not “That must have been hard.”

She only opened her cider.

Pssh.

The sound popped into the night.

“Why did you tell me?”

she asked after a while.

“I don’t know.”

“Because I asked?”

“You didn’t.”

“Then you wanted to tell me.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m glad.”

“About what?”

“That you had something you wanted to talk about too.”

She set the bottle beside her feet.

“All I can do is listen.”

“That’s enough.”

“You don’t want me to encourage you?”

“Please don’t.”

“Like, ‘Live enough for your brother too’?”

“Never say that.”

“Or, ‘Time will heal everything’?”

“I’m going home.”

Toko gave a small laugh.

“I figured you’d hate things like that.”

“I do.”

“So do I.”

“You too?”

“Time doesn’t fix anything. It only gets you used to it.”

That was what she said.

The words were too heavy for a seventeen-year-old.

But I couldn’t ask why.

Toko had lost something too.

That much, I understood.

People slowly change shape around whatever they have lost.

Even if it isn’t visible from the outside, somewhere inside them is a dent that shouldn’t be there.

Toko and I were dented in similar ways.

Maybe that was why I was drawn to her.

People with similar wounds can save each other by being together.

I never believed stories like that.

People who are hurt are often very good at finding another person’s wounds.

And sometimes they touch them.

Even so, I wanted to stay beside her.

I didn’t need to be saved.

I only wanted to be inside the same night.

I learned that Toko was leaving five days before summer vacation ended.

That night, too, we were riding along the highway.

The destination was the sea.

We had given up halfway so many times before, but that night we actually meant to make it there.

Unusually for her, Toko had prepared two bicycles.

One was hers.

The other, she said, belonged to a cousin who lived nearby.

“Did you borrow that without asking?”

“I left a note by the front door.”

“That’s called taking it without permission.”

“If I bring it back, it becomes borrowing.”

“What if he gets mad?”

“I’ll leave that to future me.”

Two in the morning.

We headed for the sea.

The sleeping town flowed past on both sides of the road.

The lights turned red again and again.

Even when there were no cars, we dutifully stopped.

At every red light, Toko told me something completely unimportant.

How, in elementary school, she once drank three cartons of milk at lunch.

How her favorite ice cream was soda-flavored ice on a stick.

How cats never seemed to like her.

How the stories in Japanese textbooks were almost always too depressing.

“Why do textbook stories always have somebody dying or disappearing?”

“Maybe happy stories are harder to write book reports about.”

“Right. ‘They were happy. It was good.’ The end.”

“With a sad story, you can always say, ‘It made me understand how precious life is.’”

“That’s so lazy.”

The light turned green.

Toko pushed down on the pedals.

I followed her back.

It was past three thirty when we reached the sea.

As soon as we entered the coastal road, the smell of salt grew suddenly stronger.

Beyond the seawall, I could hear the waves.

We stopped the bikes and climbed the steps.

The sea was sunk into the bottom of the night.

Far away, lights from ships trembled.

The border between the ocean and the sky had disappeared, and it looked like the end of the world.

“We made it,” Toko said.

“We did.”

“Although we didn’t run.”

“Bikes run too, in Japanese.”

“That doesn’t feel very youthful.”

“Two high school students coming to the sea in the middle of the night is youthful enough.”

“Then let’s do something youthful.”

Toko stood on the seawall.

She cupped both hands around her mouth and shouted at the sea.

“Future, you idiot!”

Her voice vanished into the sound of the waves.

I laughed in disbelief.

“What was that?”

“You shout too.”

“No.”

“We came all this way.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“Then shout, ‘My brother is an idiot!’ or something.”

When she saw my expression change, Toko stopped.

“Sorry.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because I thought you were angry.”

“At my brother?”

“For leaving you behind.”

I couldn’t answer.

I was angry.

It felt like she had walked into my heart without permission.

But what made me angrier was that she was right.

I was angry with my brother.

Why did you die?

Why did you leave us here?

Why did you leave all of it to me?

The grief. My parents’ silence. The fact that I could never take your place.

I stood on the seawall.

I stared at the dark sea.

And I shouted.

“You weren’t supposed to just die!”

My voice cracked.

“You idiot, Kohei!”

I shouted again.

“Don’t leave me behind!”

My throat hurt.

The backs of my eyes hurt too.

Toko stood silently beside me.

She didn’t comfort me.

She didn’t rub my back.

She didn’t tell me it was okay to cry.

She only stayed beside me until I was done.

After a while, we sat on the seawall.

Waves struck the concrete below.

“Thanks,” I said.

“For what?”

“For making me shout.”

“I wanted to shout too.”

“Are you angry at the future?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

She hugged her knees.

The sea wind moved her hair.

“I’m moving.”

For a moment, the words made no sense.

“When?”

“Next week.”

“Where?”

“Tokyo.”

“That’s too sudden.”

“It’s been decided for a while.”

“You never told me.”

“Because I didn’t tell you.”

“Why?”

My voice sounded more accusing than I expected.

Toko kept looking at the sea when she answered.

“My mom is getting remarried.”

“And?”

“I’m going to live with her new family.”

“You’re transferring schools?”

“Yeah.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can we still talk?”

“Of course.”

“Then why are you making that face?”

Toko was smiling.

Trying to smile in the blue night.

“Do you really think being able to message each other means everything will be fine?”

I couldn’t answer.

A different school.

A different town.

We wouldn’t be able to see each other.

That was all.

She wasn’t dying.

These days, you could contact anyone whenever you wanted.

I could take a train and visit her.

That was what I should have said.

But looking at Toko’s profile, every one of those words felt like a lie.

Losing someone doesn’t only mean that they stop existing.

It can mean you can no longer be inside the same hours.

That you can no longer see the same scenery.

That they begin laughing with people you don’t know, in places you have never seen.

That more and more versions of them exist without you.

That, too, is a kind of loss.

“Kirishima.”

Toko spoke.

“Even after this summer ends, remember it. Really remember it.”

“There’s no way I’ll forget.”

“People forget.”

“I won’t.”

“My voice too?”

“I won’t forget.”

“My face?”

“I won’t forget.”

“What I’m wearing right now?”

“A white T-shirt and black shorts.”

“My hair?”

“Tied in one ponytail.”

“What did I drink today?”

“Cider.”

“Yesterday?”

“Ramune.”

“The day before that?”

“I don’t know.”

“See? You’re already forgetting.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Toko laughed.

This time, just a little, it was a real laugh.

“Then don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

I nodded.

I thought about telling her I liked her.

I opened my mouth more than once.

But I couldn’t say it.

If I told her now, I would only make things harder for her.

Forcing my feelings onto her right before she left would be unfair.

That was what I told myself.

Really, I think I was just scared.

Scared to know her answer.

So I swallowed the most important words I had.

Instead, I said something that didn’t matter.

“Let’s stay until morning.”

Toko looked at me.

“Okay.”

Five in the morning.

White light fell across the sea.

The night slowly thinned, and the line between sky and water returned.

We watched the sunrise without speaking.

I had always imagined that when something ended, there would be a louder sound.

But the night ended with astonishing quiet.

Toko transferred schools on September 1.

On her last day, our classmates gave her a farewell card and took photographs.

Toko smiled the way she always did.

Some of the girls cried.

The boys all said versions of, “Do your best in Tokyo.”

I couldn’t say anything.

After school, she called to me near the shoe lockers.

“Kirishima.”

“What?”

“Here.”

What she handed me was a clear glass marble.

The marble from inside a ramune bottle.

“What happened to the bottle?”

“I broke it yesterday.”

“Don’t do dangerous things like that.”

“I wrapped it in a towel first.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I want you to have it.”

“Why?”

“Because it feels like summer.”

I placed the marble in my palm.

The bluish glass held a piece of the entrance hall’s light inside it.

“Don’t lose it.”

“You either.”

“What am I not supposed to lose?”

“Me.”

The moment I said it, I felt embarrassed.

Toko’s eyes widened.

Then she smiled.

“I won’t lose you.”

“Not ‘I won’t forget’?”

“Forgetting something and losing it aren’t the same.”

“What’s the difference?”

“There are things that don’t disappear even after you forget them.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You will someday.”

Toko stepped closer.

There was only about a fist’s width between us.

I could smell fabric softener and something sweet like cider.

“See you, Kirishima.”

“See you.”

“Yeah. See you.”

Those became the last words I exchanged with her.

At first, we stayed in touch.

Toko sent me photographs of her new school.

Tall buildings.

Crowded stations.

Sunset seen through the window of a small room.

I sent back pictures of the sea near home, new convenience-store products, and the space behind our school.

We called each other too.

We talked late into the night.

But little by little, the gaps between replies grew longer.

Toko joined the drama club at her new school.

She made friends.

She started a part-time job.

She got busy.

I became a student preparing for entrance exams.

Then my father collapsed.

Thankfully his life wasn’t in danger, but the air in our home grew heavy again.

More and more often, I started a message and deleted it.

I didn’t want to carry my dark stories into what looked like her happy new life.

Toko seemed to be holding back too.

Are you okay?

How are you?

How have things been?

Our conversations gradually became little more than status checks.

Then December came.

A message arrived from Toko.

—Would it be okay if we stopped talking for a little while?

There was no reason attached.

I stared at the screen.

I wrote sentences and erased them over and over.

No.

Why?

Did I do something?

Let’s meet and talk.

I couldn’t send any of them.

In the end, I typed only one short reply.

—Okay.

The message was marked as read.

After that, nothing came from her.

I didn’t send anything either.

I told myself I was respecting what she had asked.

Really, I was afraid of being rejected.

Spring came.

Then summer.

I became a third-year student.

I got used to the classroom without Toko.

Someone else sat in the seat beside mine.

I kept working at the convenience store.

At two in the morning, I would sometimes imagine the automatic doors opening.

But she never came.

As a year passed since that summer, I finally began to understand.

Forgetting something and losing it are not the same.

Little by little, I was forgetting my conversations with Toko.

What we had talked about.

The order in which she had laughed.

The colors of the clothes she wore.

Even the pitch of her voice was becoming unclear.

And still, she had not disappeared.

The more I forgot, the clearer the shape deep inside my chest seemed to become.

The place where she had been.

The ache she had left.

Only that refused to fade.

I walked alone along the same highway as a year before.

2:40 a.m.

The blue vending machine was still in the same place.

I bought a cider and sat at the edge of the sidewalk, just as I had that night.

I opened the bottle.

Pssh.

That sound alone made something deep in my chest hurt.

“I don’t know what the future holds.”

I said it into the empty night.

There was no answer.

Of course there wasn’t.

I drank the cider.

It was slightly warm and sweet.

I took the glass marble from my pocket.

I had gotten rid of my old school uniform, textbooks, even my old phone, but I had never been able to throw away that small piece of glass.

Held up to the vending machine, it glowed pale blue.

Then my phone vibrated.

My heart jumped.

I was startled by the fact that my first thought was: Maybe it’s Toko.

We hadn’t spoken in almost a year.

The notification was from my mother.

—Pick up something for breakfast.

I laughed as the tension went out of me.

—Okay.

I replied, put the phone away, and stood.

From here, the sea was an hour and a half by bicycle.

Running would probably take more than three hours.

Still, I started running.

I didn’t know why.

It wasn’t as though Toko would be there.

It wasn’t as though anything would change.

I just couldn’t stand still.

I wanted to run and run until I had left the night behind.

If becoming an adult meant counting only the things I had lost, then just for now, I wanted to run like an idiot.

My breath came hard.

My legs grew heavy.

Sweat stung my eyes.

I walked again and again.

I stopped again and again.

And every time, I started running once more.

A closed family restaurant.

An unmanned gas station.

An old pedestrian bridge.

Some places were unchanged from a year ago.

Some had changed.

The night was slowly getting thinner.

I stopped at a convenience store and bought water.

The clerk was a girl about my age.

With a sleepy face, she asked if I needed a bag.

I said no.

As I was about to leave, the automatic doors opened behind me.

“Kirishima?”

I knew that voice.

Even though I thought I had forgotten it.

I turned around.

Toko stood in the entrance.

Her hair was longer.

She wore a white dress.

A large bag hung from her shoulder.

She looked a little thinner.

Her face looked a little older too.

But it was still Toko.

“Why...?”

That was all I could say.

Toko looked just as stunned.

“That’s my line.”

“When did you come back?”

“Yesterday.”

“Why?”

“I’m staying at my grandmother’s.”

“Why didn’t you message—”

I stopped.

I had no right to accuse her.

Toko lowered her eyes.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“But...”

“I didn’t send anything either.”

“I was the one who asked you to stop.”

“And I was the one who said okay.”

The clerk was watching us.

We fled the convenience store as if we were escaping.

The wind outside was damp.

In the distance, I heard the first train of the morning.

“Are you going to the sea?”

Toko asked.

“How did you know?”

“There’s nothing else in that direction.”

“That’s prejudice.”

“By yourself?”

“That was the plan.”

Toko gripped the strap of her bag.

“Can I come with you?”

I couldn’t answer right away.

I had wanted to see her.

For so long.

I had even imagined what I would say if I ever did.

I would ask why she stopped talking to me.

I would ask if she had forgotten me.

I would ask what that promise from the summer had meant.

But with Toko standing in front of me, all those words lost their shape.

“It’s far,” I finally said.

“I know.”

“We’re walking.”

“If we run, it’s closer.”

The same words as one year ago.

I laughed.

Toko laughed too.

Her smile was a little different now.

It was no longer the face of someone who had decided to smile.

It was the face of someone who had decided not to cry.

“Let’s go.”

We started walking side by side.

For the first ten minutes, we barely spoke.

A whole year of silence was too large.

I didn’t know where to begin.

Asking, “Have you been well?” felt wrong.

Asking about school felt too distant.

I watched Toko’s feet as she walked beside me.

White sneakers.

One shoelace a little longer than the other.

She had always been bad at tying bows.

“Kirishima, your hair is shorter.”

Toko spoke first.

“It was just too long last year.”

“It suits you.”

“Yours got longer.”

“I missed the right time to cut it.”

“What about drama club?”

“I quit.”

“Why?”

“Lots of reasons.”

“Oh.”

Silence again.

There were other things I wanted to ask.

But I couldn’t make myself say them.

We climbed a pedestrian bridge.

Halfway up the stairs, Toko stopped.

“So you really aren’t going to ask.”

“Ask what?”

“Why I stopped talking to you.”

“Am I allowed to?”

“I want you to.”

“That’s selfish.”

“Yeah.”

Toko leaned against the railing.

Cars moved beneath us.

Headlights briefly lit her face.

“My mom’s remarriage didn’t go well.”

she said.

“With your new stepfather?”

“That too. With Mom too.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing huge.”

People who say that usually have something huge to tell you.

Toko continued.

“In the new house, I was the one extra piece. Mom, him, and the baby they had together—they were a proper family. I was supposed to be family too, but I never knew where I was supposed to fit.”

“But it was your home.”

“I learned that a place doesn’t become home just because you live there.”

The wind blew.

Toko’s long hair moved across her shoulders.

“Mom tried hard. She tried to make sure I wasn’t lonely. He was a good person too. That made it worse.”

“Because he was nice?”

“If you dislike a good person, it makes you feel like you’re the bad one.”

I had nothing to say.

“At school, things were good at first. Drama club was fun. But little by little, I couldn’t get up in the morning. Then I couldn’t sleep at night. Talking to anyone started to feel exhausting.”

Toko gripped the railing.

“When a message from you arrived, it made me happy. But it hurt at the same time.”

“Why?”

“Because it reminded me of who I used to be.”

“The old Toko?”

“The me who ran around at midnight, drank cider, and said stupid things. When I talked to you, that version of me felt real, and the person I had become felt fake.”

“That’s not—”

“And I wanted to see you.”

I stopped breathing for a second.

Toko didn’t look at me.

“I wanted to see you, but I couldn’t. I wanted to come back, but I couldn’t. So I thought if I cut everything off, it would be easier.”

“Was it?”

“No.”

“I...”

My voice trembled.

“I thought you’d thrown me away.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought, here it is again.”

“Again?”

“Just like my brother.”

I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth.

Toko’s face twisted.

“I know I shouldn’t compare you to my brother who died. But it felt the same. Someone important disappears without warning. They don’t explain properly. They leave me no choice in anything.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology.”

“Then what do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know!”

My voice rose.

It echoed across the pedestrian bridge in the early morning.

Toko looked down.

I clenched my fists.

“I spent the whole year trying not to forget you. Your voice, your face, the things you said. But I kept forgetting anyway, and it scared me.”

“Yeah.”

“And even when I forget, you don’t go away. You’re still in here. You’re still here, and it still hurts.”

“Yeah.”

“What was I supposed to do?”

Toko looked up.

There were tears in her eyes.

“I wanted you to contact me.”

“You told me to stop.”

“Even then.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“I know.”

“That’s unfair.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re unfair, Toko.”

“I know.”

Tears ran down her cheeks.

It was the first time I had ever seen her cry.

The girl who had decided to smile.

The girl who had decided not to cry.

Both were Toko.

All along, I had thought I understood her wounds.

I thought we were alike.

But we had never carried the same pain.

I stayed angry at what had been taken from me.

Toko stayed afraid that she would disappoint someone.

I was the one left behind.

Toko was the one who chose to disappear from sight.

We looked alike, but we were completely different.

“Hey, Kirishima.”

“What?”

“I...”

Toko wiped her tears.

“I used to like you.”

Past tense.

Pain went through my chest like a blade.

“Used to?”

I knew I was being mean.

Toko gave a small smile.

“Would it bother you if I said I still do?”

“It would.”

“Oh.”

“Of course it would. You don’t talk to someone for a year and then suddenly tell them that.”

“Yeah.”

“I liked you too.”

“Liked?”

She asked it back exactly the same way.

I didn’t answer.

Beyond the pedestrian bridge, the sky was beginning to turn blue.

The night was ending.

“Let’s go to the sea,” I said.

“Okay.”

“It’ll be morning by the time we get there.”

“We’re going to steal the dawn, right?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“A line that sounds youthful.”

“You pile on too much poetry.”

“You have no sense of poetry.”

We laughed.

The missing year did not fill itself in.

Maybe it didn’t need to.

The blank space remained between us exactly as it was.

And still, we could walk side by side.

It was after five when we reached the sea.

The same seawall as a year ago.

The same sound of waves.

But the sky was a little brighter than it had been that day.

We sat down beside each other.

Toko pulled two bottles of ramune from her bag.

“Why do you have those?”

“I bought them near my grandmother’s house.”

“Were you planning to see me?”

“I thought it would be nice if I could.”

“You could have messaged me.”

“I was scared.”

“You’re a scaredy-cat too.”

“I know.”

The marbles clicked inside the bottles.

We drank ramune.

Through the glass, the streetlights blurred just as they had before.

“What are you going to do after graduation, Kirishima?”

“Go to a university outside the prefecture.”

“So you decided.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you going to study?”

“Literature.”

Toko burst out laughing.

“You? With no sense of poetry?”

“Shut up.”

“Are you going to be a novelist?”

“No.”

“Then what are you going to be?”

“I don’t know what the future holds.”

Toko narrowed her eyes at me.

“That’s my line.”

“I borrowed it.”

“Give it back.”

“I’ll leave that to future me.”

Toko laughed.

In the morning light, her smile was no longer blue.

“I’m thinking of moving back here.”

“Back here?”

“I’m talking with my grandmother about whether I can go to school from her house.”

“What about your school in Tokyo?”

“I might transfer.”

“And drama?”

“I want to try again.”

“Oh.”

“That’s not much of a reaction.”

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to be happy.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m leaving in the spring.”

Toko said, “Oh.”

We looked at each other.

Then we both laughed at the same time.

She might finally come back to the same town just as I was about to leave it.

How could our timing always be this bad?

“We won’t be able to see each other,” Toko said.

“We can take the train.”

“Can we message each other?”

“These days, anytime.”

“Do you believe that?”

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

Light spilled across the sea.

The white morning sun trembled on the waves.

It was beautiful.

So beautiful it hurt.

“This time, I’ll do it right,” Toko said.

“Do what?”

“If I feel like disappearing, I’ll tell you I feel like disappearing.”

“And what am I supposed to do when you say that?”

“Stop me.”

“Even if you tell me not to?”

“Even then.”

“That’s unfair.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll say things properly too.”

“Say what?”

I put down my ramune bottle.

I looked toward the sea as if I could find an escape route there.

The words I hadn’t been able to say one year ago.

Back then, I thought keeping them to myself was kindness.

But some feelings become almost the same as never having existed if you never give them words.

“I like you.”

Toko went quiet.

The waves sounded below us.

Far away, a seabird cried.

“Still?”

she asked.

“Still.”

“Even though we didn’t see each other for a year?”

“Even then.”

“I disappeared on you.”

“I know.”

“I’m difficult.”

“I know.”

“I might run away again.”

“Then I’ll come after you.”

“Running?”

“By train.”

Toko laughed through her tears.

“You really have no sense of poetry.”

“I’m practical.”

“I like you too.”

This time it wasn’t past tense.

I touched her hand.

Only with my fingertips.

Toko didn’t pull away.

She didn’t place her hand over mine either.

We simply stayed there, touching.

It was enough.

I had always imagined the beginning of love would be more dramatic.

An embrace.

A kiss.

Music playing.

The world changing.

In reality, nothing changed.

The waves came in and went out.

The sky grew brighter.

In town, people were beginning their ordinary morning.

We were still wounded too.

My brother wasn’t coming back.

Toko’s lost year wasn’t coming back.

Nothing about our families or our future had been solved.

Even so, I felt that maybe we could go on living while still incomplete.

Even if the wounds never disappeared.

Even if there were more things we gradually forgot.

We could still see another morning with someone beside us.

“Hey,” Toko said.

“How are we getting home?”

“Walking.”

“No way.”

“Then the train.”

“Do you have money?”

I checked my wallet.

Seven hundred and sixty yen.

Toko had one five-hundred-yen coin.

“Together, we have twelve hundred and sixty.”

“More than last year.”

“We grew up.”

“Don’t measure personal growth in train fare.”

We decided to walk to the first station.

Before climbing down from the seawall, I looked back at the sea.

I felt as though that summer night was still there.

The two of us who rode bicycles all the way here.

The two of us who knew nothing about the future.

The me who couldn’t say I liked her.

The Toko who had already decided she was going away.

We could never go back.

And I thought that was all right.

Youth disappears like bubbles in cider.

No matter how hard you shake the bottle, the exact same bubbles never come back.

But the sweetness remains.

On your tongue.

At the back of your throat.

Inside your memory.

We climbed down from the seawall and started toward the station.

Morning spread across the eastern sky.

“Run?” Toko asked.

“I’m tired.”

“We never managed to outrun the night.”

“It’s morning already. Let’s say that counts.”

“That’s cheating.”

“You’re the last person who gets to say that.”

She laughed.

The sound rang somewhere deep inside my chest.

This time, I thought, I’ll never forget it.

But I probably will.

The pitch of her voice.

The breath between her laughs.

The way the hem of her white dress moved in the wind.

Little by little, I will forget.

And that is all right.

Forgetting something and losing it are not the same.

Even if we forget, the fact that we ran through that night will not disappear.

The fact that we headed for the sea.

The fact that we watched the morning come.

The fact that, wounded as we were, we fell in love.

All of it will remain somewhere inside the people we become.

Far away, I heard the first train.

It no longer sounded like something carrying summer away.

It sounded like something that would carry us into a new season.

I took Toko’s hand.

This time, properly—not just with my fingertips.

“Let’s go.”

Toko squeezed back.

“Okay.”

And we started running.

Toward the morning.

Beyond the night we could never return to.