"Wonderful Girl"

I wake up early the next morning. When you’re excited to see a new day, sleep feels like a speed-run since you’re trying to catch that early dawn. Through the ryokan window, I see a young sun learning how to walk, still lingering close to the horizon, slowly standing upright towards the clouds.

Shizuko woke up even earlier. Errands to run, she messaged me. I wonder if she’s off scheming to derail any more electoral campaigns. And speaking of that, my room has an old television, so I turn it on for the morning news. Shizuko got punched in the face by not only a mayor, but a gubernatorial candidate; I can’t help but worry that she's gonna be some sort of celebrity now. If that’s what she wants to do, I’m not opposed, but she strikes me as the type of person who’s not actively looking for fame, and I’d hate to see such notoriety hoisted upon her against her will.

Sitting behind a wide desk, the talking heads deliver today’s news. “-and there were no survivors. For local news, we turn to the city of Soga. The opening of that city’s annual festival saw a surprising development. After being interrupted by an impromptu guerilla concert and theatrical performance, gubernatorial candidate Takeuchi personally struck a young woman who had made her way upon the stage. This, along with his alleged role in a groundwater contamination incident and the death of his former fiancé, has all but torpedoed the fledgling Takeuchi campaign.”

The other anchor continues. “Governor Daisuke, who’s running for re-election, has announced a huge flurry of policy objectives, including the modernization of Yoshiaki. He plans to transform its manufacturing-based economy into one centered around modern fields such as electronics, and has vowed to leave ‘nobody in the cold’, as he says, in Yoshiaki’s transformation. Only time will tell if he succeeds.”

I sure hope he does. This doesn’t seem like a case of empty promises to me - there was genuine meaning behind his pledge to change. But change isn’t easy. I’m still dealing with the past myself.

“As for the young woman struck by Takeuchi,” the first anchor says. “We have been unable to confirm her identity. Local police on the scene have released an amateur sketch of the woman.”

I guffaw at the pen drawing on my screen. Dark beret, wild dark hair - this is none other than a drawing of anime girl Che Guevara. Daisuke’s cousins on the force, at it once again. But fortunately, it seems like Shizuko’s safe from any unexpected attention.

The news program switches to baseball highlights, and Shizuko’s still out, so I take the opportunity to do some reading. Into the Heart of Yoshiaki. The book is set during the travels of Eguchi in the early 1950s. It speaks of yesteryear and it speaks to me. Shizuko told me you gotta confront the past. I know I need to. But I’ve been pushing it off for so long - can’t it wait yet another day?

But the old wounds burrow their way into my consciousness. I still feel Shizuko on my lips, her body pressed against mine. It was an amazing feeling - but not my first kiss, and sitting here, I can’t help but recall the Class Prez, her back against the outfield wall. It was a warm summer day, just like today, and I feel the instinctive need for a cigarette or a drink to cover it all up.

Reading, at least, provides a poor man’s substitute. I’m close to the end of Eguchi’s journey now - and I'm particularly drawn towards an otherwise nondescript passage. Deep in the mountains, at the end of a long river, Eguchi stumbled upon a hidden temple dating back centuries. And inside that temple was none other than an eternal flame, set to be lit since the death of Nobuhide over five hundred years ago. I don’t know if I believe it, and neither can Eguchi, but according to him, this flame was certainly lit, and years later, it inspired him to return home. As long as the candle remains lit, the spirit of old Yoshiaki will never go out.

That’s what he says. And since I don’t want my own candle to go out, I daydream of that temple at the end of the world. Old Yoshiaki. Old Shunsuke. School rooftops and outfield walls and distant memories.

That’s when Shizuko knocks on my door. I let her in and my eyes widen. Her errand? Getting a haircut. The golden endings to the strands of her hair have been chopped away. To remove them, they had to cut her hair short; it clings close to the back of her neck now, not even making it down halfway. But she’s still amazing, because she’s her.

Shizuko looks away and taps her fingers along the door. “I dyed it when I got to Tokyo. I was trying to be somebody else. But I can only be me.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” I tell her. Silence settles in - we’re still a little shy about last night’s kiss (and subsequent makeout session). But she still glows, her feet sliding across the tatami mats as she takes a seat next to me behind the table. “Only a few days left in August,” she mumbles, watching the baseball highlights to take her mind off things. “Got anything left on the itinerary?”

“The Soga festival was the last thing on the list,” I tell her. “I’m a free man, open for anything.”

She laughs, so I put my arm around her waist. It feels natural, and we end up leaning on our backs against the tatami mats, looking up at the swirling ceiling fan. August sunlight pours through the window. “You know,” I say, “For somebody who’s allegedly my tour guide, I feel like the only place you really guided me around was Mabuchi. For the rest of the prefecture, we were experiencing everything for the first time together. Following my itinerary.”

Shizuko turns to face me with a raised eyebrow. “I got all the train and bus tickets. I showed you the best way to get to all your places. You wrote about my contributions, right?” I keep my face blank; she presses her own closer. “...right?”

Let it be known that my dear Shizuko got all the train and bus tickets and showed me the best way to get to all my places.

“Well, it’ll be in there now,” I answer. She laughs and squirms away, sitting back upright; I remain on my back. The mood turns serious; she taps her fingers along the wooden table. “I do have one place, then. Shuten Village.”

“Your hometown?”

She slowly rubs her bandage-covered temple. “I haven’t seen my parents since graduating high school. Haven’t spoken to them since around that time, either. I’m staying with Aunt Azawa while in Yoshiaki, so I guess I don’t have to see them. But they don’t live too far. And…I have to at least seem them. At least one more time. I’ve grown up a little. I want to see them with this new perspective.”

I trace a finger down the back of her shirt. “Let’s do it, then. I’m one hundred percent behind you.”

Shizuko smiles and hoists me to my feet. An hour later, we’re on the first bus of several to Shuten Village, deep in the mountains. Shizuko sits next to me, staring out through the window. Summer and autumn are still locked in mortal combat; the cool breezes have been picking up, and storm clouds are on the horizon. And not just a summer storm; this one has all the bearings of shrill shigure - autumn rain. Summer rain is short and fast, warm and intense; shigure is long and drawn-out, chilling you to the bone, reminding you that next summer is a long, long way off. Summer itself might end with this storm.

Shizuko taps me on the shoulder. Her eyes brim with confidence. “You alright, Shunsuke? You look more worried than I am.”

I laugh it off. “Sorry. Just got a lot on my mind.”

She gives her shirt a light scratch. “I’m sorry, Shunsuke. I should’ve told you about my plan in Soga. You’re very special to me. I should’ve trusted you. So I know it’s selfish of me to say that you should trust me. You’ve helped me so much this summer. Please, tell me if there’s anything I can do to help you.”

Dark clouds grow in the distance. “You’ve already helped me. I’ve been avoiding the past, too. You taught me that I need to confront it. If I need any help, let’s talk about it after you meet your parents. One thing at a time.”

She accepts this, and once we make it onto the last countryside bus, we fall asleep on each other’s shoulders.

Shuten Village is tiny, tucked away among high peaks. It’s just fifty people at most, if that, and it’s clearly reaching the end of its life. It’s too rugged to grow anything beyond the struggling crops on hillside terraces - the town relies on shipping out timber and shipping in food. People ship out, too, for anywhere but here, but nobody comes in. There’s only one bus per day, and we’re the only people on it.

When we arrive in the village center, it’s deserted. Houses are boarded up; general stores have long fallen silent. There’s an eerieness about the place - the village's slow march toward death weighs upon me. Shizuko walks slowly through familiar roads that must’ve once been vanquished to the corners of her memories, only to now suddenly resurface. I wonder if she’s the youngest person here. She has to be.

The last child of Shuten. Nobody saw her off; nobody’s here to welcome her.

Shuttered factories loom overhead as we approach an isolated house at the village outskirts. It looks rundown, the wood peeled and metal rusted. Shizuko approaches it gingerly, because death is just another word for rebirth. The flowers here shine brightly, as do the vines overgrowing the factories. A return to mother earth, and perhaps Shizuko is here to see the village off itself.

Taking up old familiar motions, Shizuko slowly opens her door. She doesn’t hesitate when she says-

“I’m home.”