CH 27

Part 4:

Chapter 27:

The Love Letter

“Dear Osakabe Kengo,

My original plan was to tell you this in person, but I don’t have the courage, so in the end I’m writing you this letter. I would first like to apologize for that. I’m sorry.

But because this is all written down, I can easily say all the embarrassing things that I hesitate to put into words.

That’s how I feel, at least.

I really am a coward aren’t I?”

To make a long story short, Shirakisawa Honoka miraculously regained consciousness six days after Osakabe was allowed to see her at the hospital.

However, that was for just a brief moment—indeed, perhaps no more than five minutes. Only that short amount of time.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all my fault.”

“I came for you.”

“I love you.”

All those words he had come to the hospital to say every day without fail, spoken in a stream of murmurs, over and over—he was too overwhelmed to say a single one. But even now he thought to himself, Yet I know my words still reached her.

Because, in the brief window of just five minutes, Honoka had looked Osakabe in the eyes as she weakly squeezed his hand back, and mustered up an awkward smile.

“You probably don’t remember, Osakabe-san, that day last April. When you pulled over for the college student late for the bus. That was me.

You helped me realize that love at first sight does actually exist. From that day on, my bus ride to school began to sparkle, and everyday became a little more enjoyable.

Osakabe-san. I love you.”

The day she miraculously opened her eyes. Without a doubt he knew in his heart that she had murmured those words—”I love you.”

Just three simple words.

Not “I like you,” but “I love you.”

That’s why, he thought, those thirteen days we spent together in Jodogahama may have been some kind of dream, but we really did understand each other’s hearts. Our love became eternal, he believed.

Six days after Osakabe began visiting Honoka in the hospital, she opened her eyes, and then lived for seven days more.

Altogether, thirteen days.

Coincidentally, it was the same length of time as they had spent together in Jodogahama after their miraculous meeting. Searching for some kind of fateful meaning in all this may have just been a convenient delusion but even now he occasionally considered the possibility that some sort of miracle occurred—that Honoka had regained consciousness just to be able to say goodbye.

“‘Thank you for your hard work.’

Just telling you that much takes everything I have.

Although I still don’t have the courage to begin a conversation with you, I am happy just to be able to watch you from behind while you work, from my special seat to the left behind the driver’s seat.”

Osakabe immediately moved to Morioka after he began to visit Shirakisawa Honoka at the hospital. Canceling the contract on his apartment in Saitama, completing the procedures to have his belongings shipped to him, and reporting his change of address, took in total one whole day.

Right before he returned to Morioka, he showed his face at his family home in Urawa. Seeing his mother for the first time in quite a while, she appeared to have lost a little weight. She repeated a stream of questions, asking him, “Are you doing well? You aren’t sick or anything? Do you have enough money? Have you found anyone nice?” to which he only responded, “I’m fine.” His father only told him, “Hang in there.” Although it was a short reunion, Osakabe could feel the antagonism that had hardened between them begin to quietly melt away.

After he returned to Morioka, he found a cheap and run-down apartment to set up house in. From there he visited Honoka’s hospital room every day to stare at her sleeping face until the sun set. He was satisfied just to check that she still lived and breathed.

In spite of that, Osakabe unfortunately was not present for the moment when she drew her last breath.

It was a night when the cries of the evening cicadas had gradually faded, and the autumn bugs had begun to take up their role as the star of the evening stage.

While he lay on the floor of his apartment after an early dinner, he was surprised to hear the shrill ringtone of his cell phone. Checking the screen, he saw the call was from Mafuyu. His heart began to pound. “My sister’s condition has taken a sudden turn for the worse. Please come to the hospital right away.”

Osakabe got on his scooter without changing and headed for the hospital. However, he didn’t make it in time.

By the time he arrived at the hospital, Honoka’s breathing had already stopped.

“I’m sorry. She was still alive until just a moment ago…” Mafuyu murmured bitterly, biting her lips. Osakabe gently pulled her into a hug.

Pulling aside the cloth that covered her, he stared down at Honoka’s face as she lay stretched out on the mortuary table.

Her eyes would not open again.

She would no longer laugh or cry.

And of course, she could no longer sit up and talk. As the words her mother had spoken just a few weeks before passed through his heart, the regret and grief bubbled up to the surface of his heart. A steady stream of emotions, like a fountain.

“Every day with no word from you, I grow uneasy,” Minako had said in her letters. Every day. It was summed up in such simple words, but it was not a short period of time.

“Goodbye, thanks for the two years we spent together,” his ex in Saitama had said. I wonder if I thanked her even once.

“Just let us stay together…” Honoka had pleaded through tears. And yet, despite her tears, she had nodded. “I’ll do my best to wait for you. For two years.”

He didn’t know whether it belonged to him, or to all three girls. But the feelings of regret became a lament that materialized in the silent space. It echoed through his ears, mixing with Mafuyu’s weeping and someone else’s violent sobbing. …that’s my voice.

Why? The regret in his thoughts sank in deeper. Why couldn’t I have given any of those girls a happy ending? Even just one of them. Because of this, and that.

Why, why am I—

Honoka’s funeral came two days after her passing.

It was a cold, rainy day. They had originally planned to keep it to just close relatives, but whether the name of the tragic heroine Shirakisawa Honoka was known far and wide, or whether it was due to her popularity, a large crowd of people gathered to pay their respects.

Osakabe was naturally also present, and among the mourners was also Takasaki Minako.

She had noticed his presence and whispered just one thing to him: “Hang in there.”

That’s what she said, despite her hatred of the hypocrisy in those words, as she had told him before. Most likely she could find no other words to tell him when she saw his haggard figure.

“There’s this beautiful spot near my hometown, called Jodogahama. Since you’re a bus driver, Osakabe-san, maybe you’ve heard of it?

It’s my dream to one day stroll through that place with my boyfriend—of course, I need to get one first.

The sea there is beautiful.

The sunset, too.

There’s one secret spot I know with a special view that my mother once told me about. Would you like to see it too?

I keep dreaming of the day I can show it to someone special… I’m even going to buy a swimsuit in preparation—can you believe it?”

After her funeral, Mafuyu and her mother split up the belongings Honoka had left behind.

From out of those things came the straw hat. A white and green dress. A blue, floral-print two-piece swimsuit, with frills.

According to Mafuyu, all these summer items were never worn.

The moment he saw those, he vividly recalled the memories of those summer days. And Osakabe understood less and less. Those dreamlike days—were they really a dream? Or somehow real?

Even now, there was no way to explain the strange events given that he could still clearly recall those days he spent with her, down to the feel of her skin.

“Right now, I am a coward who can only express their feelings through a letter, but I will one day come to stand before you one more time.

Because after all, confessions of love are best conveyed through words.”

The Shirakisawa family grave1 was located just a ten-minute car ride from the center of Morioka City. It was in a tidy graveyard located behind a temple.

Osakabe had sold off his scooter to buy another car. He had interviewed for jobs at different companies several times since the end of August, and though he had been rejected numerous times, he had somehow found employment at a remote factory. He had bought his car while counting on his first month of pay.

Though it was an old car, he still could not pay for it with cash. Yet, he was okay with that. This was the first of many steps to begin his life again.

Mafuyu joined him on the visit to the grave.

The hair that she had begun to grow out after her older sister’s death now reached to her shoulders. It shouldn’t surprise him since they were after all twins, but she was the spitting image of Honoka.

Personality-wise, Mafuyu was a little stronger-willed, he thought, but he was sometimes startled by her similarity to her sister whenever she laughed or sulked.

Of course, that was not all. Her pink nails. Her soft, faint lips. The fair, delicate skin that reminded him of porcelain… Traces of Honoka lingered all over her, making his heart ache.

This can’t be good for me, he would think to himself.

With a bouquet of flowers for Honoka, they lined up and squatted in front of the grave, clapping their hands together in prayer.

“Hey, Kengo-san,” Mafuyu said, with her hands still clasped, “did you love my sister?”

Osakabe lowered his hands before answering. “Yes, of course. Although I still worry whether it’s really okay for me to tell her that.”

At that, Mafuyu also lowered her hands, and her lips broke into a troubled smile.

“You have to just stand strong and say it. If you don’t, her spirit won’t ever be at peace.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“And I’m fairly certain she loved you too, Kengo-san.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Is that some kind of bad habit of yours? I guess you can’t help it… But you saw her face at the end. After she died. People who die unhappily, they don’t smile like she did. She must have had a nice dream.”

That’s right. That last day. Honoka had smiled in the end. He had thought it might have just been a convenient fantasy born from his own sentiments, but if Mafuyu said she saw it too, then she must have really been smiling.

At the very least, her face had been peaceful. Almost as if she were asleep. Osakabe had been relieved just to see that. How much had he hurt Honoka by breaking up with her that night, on August 12th? He had struggled over that question.

“My sister, you know, she would go on and on about the guy she liked.”

“She told you?”

“Yeah” While she spoke, Mafuyu pulled a cell phone from her pocket. “‘Today, I fell for a guy. He’s someone I see almost every day on my way to school. I’m happy just to watch him from afar…’ stuff like that. That’s why I told her. ‘You have to tell him how you feel!’ I never realized that it was you she was talking about, Kengo-san.”

Mafuyu leaned up against Osakabe, holding out her cell phone screen.

“This is a photo she sent me from the day of the accident. This guy in the suit, that’s you, isn’t it?”

It really did seem to be the day of the accident. A single photo at the rest area, right after Honoka had handed Osakabe the letter.

He stood in the background in his suit, his back towards the camera. Honoka wore her pink down jacket and scarf, a smile of joy beaming across her face.

She must have been surprised by her friend taking the picture out of nowhere. Her mouth and eyes were wide open.

She looked as if she was saying “Ah—”, perhaps reacting to suddenly being photographed by her friend.  Perhaps it was only the first sound of a word, some message she was trying to convey, though he couldn’t know for sure.

“So for now I’ll tell you this one last time in this letter.

I love you. Will you be mine?”

“Here, I think you should have this too.”

Saying that, Mafuyu sent the same photograph to Osakabe’s phone. He looked at the photograph, remembering Honoka’s face, and choked up once more.

Such a nice smile, he thought. She has no idea what’s going to happen next, but… she looks so happy.

And so he pulled out her letter from his pocket and looked over that last page one more time.

One page of stationary, pulled out of the corner ziploc bag stuffed with all the terrible memories from after the accident.

He had apparently been clutching this one page, with the dark red spot of blood, after the accident. The bus had slid off the nearly vertical cliff face, and in that last instant before it hit the ground, he was certain that his hand had touched Honoka’s.

He had no memory of clinging to this letter. But surely at that time, she had handed him this one page.

The letter, which he assumed she had written as the bus had begun to fall, was crumpled, the handwriting messy. And yet it spelled out her powerful message.

“Kengo-san, I know things will be hard for you from now on, but don’t cry. Even if I die, don’t cry.

I’m so happy I could meet you.

I love you.”

For the first time in two years, Osakabe cried. The tears spilled out, on and on without end. The grief he had continued to hold within himself for so long came pouring out as he continued to sob.

Mafuyu stood with a hand on his shoulder, also crying.

That’s right, he thought. We must continue to live our lives in this world, to make up for the life she wanted that she couldn’t live.

He wiped away the tears and looked up at the sky.

…Had the light returned to Osakabe’s misted eyes because of Honoka? The sky was so clear, so blue.

In Japan, it is customary for family members to be cremated and their ashes interred in the same grave, usually of the family to which they are officially registered. These graves are usually located at Buddhist temples, and may be visited during Obon or other minor holidays so that people can tidy up the graves and pay their respects with offerings of incense, fruit and other food, and flowers.