“Ha,” the builders said, “you are right,” and they went back to pounding the foundation posts.
Old Gentleman rolled his eyes a few times. “Don’t ask me to save you next time the big wave comes,” he told everybody.
“But you will save us,” Jiya said gently, “because you are so good.”
Old Gentleman shook his head at this and then smiled. “What a pity you would not be my son,” he said and then he went back to the castle and shut the gates.
As for Kino and Jiya, they returned to the farmhouse, but the whole family could see that Jiya was restless from that day on. They had supposed that he would be a farmer, for he had learned everything about the land, and Kino’s father trusted him with much. But Jiya fell into a mood of forgetfulness, and one day Kino’s father spoke to him when they were working in the fields.
“I know that you are too good a son to be forgetful on purpose,” he said. “Tell us what is on your mind.”
“I want a boat,” Jiya said. “I want to go back to fishing.”
Kino’s father was shaping a furrow. “Life is stronger than death,” he said quietly.
From that day on the family knew that someday Jiya would go back to the sea, and that he would build himself a house on the beach. One after another now seven houses had risen, the frail wooden houses of fisherfolk that the big wave could lift like toys and crush and throw away. But they sheltered families, men and women and children. And again they were built with no windows toward the sea. Each family had built on the bit of land that had belonged to it before the big wave came, and at the end was left a bare piece. It belonged to Jiya now, for it had belonged once to his father.
“When I have a boat, then I shall build my own house there,” Jiya said one night to the farm family.
“I shall pay you wages from this day,” Kino’s father said. “You have become a man.”
From that day Jiya saved his wages until he had enough to buy a boat. It was a fine boat, slender and strong, of seasoned wood, and the sails were new. The day he got it he and Kino sailed it far into the channel, and Jiya had not been so happy since before the big wave. Kino could not forget the deep still cold of the bottomless waters upon which they floated. But Jiya thought only of the joy of having a boat of his own, and Kino did not want to spoil his joy by any hint of fear.
“I knew all the time that I had to come back to the sea,” he told Kino.
Then to Kino’s surprise Jiya grew very red. “Do you think Setsu would be afraid to live on the beach?” he asked Kino.
Kino was surprised. “Why should Setsu live on the beach?” he asked.
Jiya grew redder still, but he held his head high. “Because that is where I shall build my home,” he said firmly. “And I want Setsu to be my wife.”
It was such astonishing news that Kino did not know what to say. Setsu was his little sister, and he could not believe that she was old enough to be anybody’s wife. Nor, to tell the truth, could he imagine anybody wanting her for his wife. She was careless and teasing and mischievous and she still delighted to hide his things so that he could not find them.
“You would be very foolish to marry Setsu,” he now told Jiya.
“I don’t agree with you,” Jiya said, smiling.
“But why do you want her?” Kino urged.
“Because she makes me laugh,” Jiya said. “It is she who made me forget the big wave. For me — she is life.”
“But she is not a good cook,” Kino said. “Think how she burns the rice because she runs outside to look at something!”
“I don’t mind burned rice,” Jiya said, “and I will run out with her to see what she sees.”
Kino said no more, but he kept looking at his friend. Jiya, wanting to build a house, to marry Setsu! He could not believe it.
When they got home he went to his father. “Do you know that Jiya wants to marry Setsu?” he asked.
His father was looking over his seeds, for it was springtime again. “I have seen some looks pass between them,” he said, smiling.
“But Jiya is too good for Setsu,” Kino said.
“Setsu is very pretty,” his father said.
Kino was surprised. “With that silly nose she has?”
“I believe that Jiya admires her nose,” his father said calmly.
“I don’t understand that,” Kino replied. “Besides, she will hide his things and tease him and make him miserable.”
“What makes you miserable will make him happy,” his father said.
“I don’t understand that, either,” Kino said soberly.
“Someday you will understand,” his father said, laughing. “Do you remember that I told you life is stronger than death? Jiya is ready to live.”
On the day in the early summer that Jiya and Setsu were married, Kino still did not understand, for up to the very last day Setsu was naughty and mischievous, and indeed on the day of her own wedding she hid his hairbrush under his bed. “You are too silly to be married,” he told her when he found it. “I feel sorry for Jiya.”
Her big brown eyes laughed at him and she stuck out her small red tongue at him. “I will always be nice to Jiya,” she said.
But when the wedding was over and the family took the newly married pair down the hill to the new house on the beach, Kino began to feel sad. The farmhouse would be very quiet without Setsu and he would miss her. Every day he would come to see Jiya and many times he would go fishing with him. But Setsu would not be in the farmhouse kitchen, in the rooms, or in the garden. He would miss even her teasing. He grew very grave indeed. What if the big wave came again?
There in the pretty little new house he turned to Jiya. “Jiya, what if the big wave comes again?” he asked.
“I have prepared for that,” Jiya said. He led them through the little house to the room that faced the sea, the one big room in the house, where at night they would rest and where in the day they would eat and work.
All the family stood there, and as they watched, Jiya pushed back a panel in the wall. Before their eyes was the ocean, swelling and stirring under the evening wind. The sun was sinking into the water, in clouds of red and gold. They gazed out across the deep waters in silence.
“I have opened my house to the ocean,” Jiya said. “If ever the big wave comes back, I shall be ready. I face it. I am not afraid.”
“You are strong and brave,” Kino’s father said.
And they went back to the farm, and left Jiya and Setsu to make a new life in the new home on the old beach.