Kazuhiko did his best to smile. “Oh, you’re very welcome.”
Sakura looked down at the small bouquet, then finally said, “So we’ll never be able to go home together. We won’t be able spend time together walking around town, eating ice cream, and doing anything else anymore.”
“Well…”
Sakura interrupted Kazuhiko. “It’s futile to resist. I should know. I heard my father was against the government, and then one day…”
Kazuhiko could tell from her hand that she was trembling.
“The police came and killed my father. No warrant, nothing. They just came in without a word and shot him dead. I can still remember it clearly. We were in the kitchen. I was still small. I was sitting at the table. My mother held me tight. Then I grew up and ate my meals at the same table.”
Sakura turned to Kazuhiko.
“It’s no use resisting.”
It was the first time she had ever told him about the incident, even though they’d been going out for two years. The first time they slept together, just a month ago at her house, she hadn’t mentioned it.
Kazuhiko felt there must be something else to say, but all he could muster up struck him as incredibly trite. “Wow, that must have been hard.”
But Sakura broke into a smile. “You’re so kind, Kazuhiko. You’re so kind. That’s what I like about you.”
“I like you too. I love you so much.”
If he weren’t so inarticulate, Kazuhiko could have said so much more. How much her expressions, her words, her gentle manner, and untainted pure soul meant to him. How important, in short, her existence was to him. But he wasn’t able to put it in words. He was only a third-year student in junior high, and worse yet, composition was one of his worst subjects.
“Well.” Sakura closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, as if a little relieved. Then she breathed out. “I really wanted to make sure I saw you.”
Then she went on. “Horrible things are going to happen. No—according to what you said, they’ve already begun. Just yesterday we were all friends—and now we’re going to kill each other.” Putting this thought into words, she trembled again. Again Kazuhiko could tell from her hand.
Sakura gave him a weary smile that betrayed fear along with the terrible irony of the fate awaiting them. “I couldn’t take that.”
Of course not. Sakura was kind. Kazuhiko didn’t know anyone else kinder.
“Besides,” Sakura spoke again, “we can’t go back together. Even if by some miracle one of us could go back, we still wouldn’t be together. Even if… even if I were to survive… I couldn’t bear being without you. So…”
Sakura stopped. Kazuhiko understood what she was getting at. So I’m going to kill myself here. Before anyone gets me. Right in front of you.
Instead of finishing what she had to say, she said, “But you have to live.”
Kazuhiko smiled grimly, then squeezed her hand tightly and shook his head. “No way. I’m with you. Even if I were to survive, I couldn’t stand being without you. Don’t leave me alone.”
Tears came streaming out of Sakura’s eyes which were fixed on Kazuhiko’s eyes. Sakura turned away from Kazuhiko. Wiping her eyes with her left hand that was holding the bouquet of clovers, all of a sudden she blurted out, “Did you see the final episode of Tonight, at the Same Place, which airs every Thursday night at nine?”
Kazuhiko nodded. It was a TV drama broadcast by the national DBS network. It was a superfluous love story produced by the Republic of Greater East Asia Television Network, but it was quite good, topping TV ratings for the last several years.
“Yeah, I saw it. You wanted me to watch it.”
“Yes, I did. So what I was thinking…”
As she spoke, Kazuhiko thought, this is exactly how we’d always talk. It was always about something really ordinary and meaningless, but there was something so blissful about these conversations they had. Sakura wants us to stay the way we’ve always been.
The thought suddenly made Kazuhiko want to cry.
“Well, I was all right about the two main characters ending up together. That’s how it’s supposed to be. But I don’t know about Miki’s friend Mizue, the one played by Anna Kitagawa. How could Mizue have given up on the guy she loved? I know I would have gone after him.”
Kazuhiko grinned. “I knew you’d say that.”
Sakura laughed bashfully. “I can’t hide anything from you.” Then she said happily, “I still remember when we became classmates in junior high. You were tall and good looking, sure, but the thing that really got me was how I thought, ‘This guy would understand me, he would understand me down to the core of my heart.’”
“I don’t know how to say this very well but…” Kazuhiko twisted his tongue a little and thought for a moment, then continued, “I think I felt the same way.”
He said it well.
Then he leaned over a little, towards Sakura. With his left hand still clutching her right hand, he wrapped his other hand around her shoulder.
They hugged in this position and exchanged kisses. Was it just a few seconds? Was it a minute? Or was it eternity?
In any case, the kiss ended. They heard a rustling sound. They sensed someone in the bushes behind them. That was their signaclass="underline" all aboard. The train is departing, so you better get on board.
They had nothing left to say. They could have fought against the intruder. He could have taken his gun and aimed it at the person behind them. But she wouldn’t want that. What she wanted was to leave this world quietly before they got sucked into this horrible massacre. Nothing was more important to him than her. There was no room for compromise. If this was what her trembling soul wanted, then he would follow her. Had he been more eloquent he might have described his feelings as something like, “I’m going to die for her honor.”
Their two bodies danced in the air beyond the cliff, the black sea in the background, their hands still clasped together.
Yukie Utsumi (Female Student No. 2) poked her head out from the bushes a little. She held her breath and watched them. She had no intention whatsoever of harming anyone, so she had no idea that the noise she made signaled their departure. She was simply stunned by the sight of the No. 1 couple in class vanishing beyond the grassy cliff. The sound of waves quietly brushing up against the sheer rock face continued and the small clovers Sakura dropped remained lying on the grass.
Even when Haruka Tanizawa (Female Student No. 12) approached her from behind and asked her, “What’s wrong, Yukie?” Yukie just stood there trembling.
13
Megumi Eto (Female Student No. 3) sat in the dark, hugging her knees while her small body shook violently. She was inside a house slightly removed from the island’s most populated area on the eastern shore. The lights might have worked, but Megumi didn’t dare try them. The moonlight coming through the window didn’t reach under the worn out kitchen table she was hiding under. It was almost pitch black, so she couldn’t check her watch, but two hours had probably passed since she sat down here. It was probably almost 4 a.m. Was it one hour since she heard that distant, faint sound that sounded like firecrackers? No, Megumi didn’t even want to think about what that really was.
She raised her face and saw, silhouetted against the moonlight, the cupboard and kettle right above the sink. She was aware the government probably relocated the island’s residents to some temporary housing units, but the remaining traces of someone’s life in this house was unnatural and creepy. It reminded her of the ghost story she’d heard as a child, about the ship Marie Celeste whose entire crew suddenly vanished into thin air, leaving behind their meals and possessions in mid-use. She became even more terrified.