A Saturday at the end of June, before the rainy season had ended. The sky stayed a thick, unmoving gray, and only the air had gone ahead into summer, heavy and damp.
A private-line station on the edge of town. I reached the ticket gates five minutes early, and Sakurai was already standing off to one side. She wore a blouse in a paler color than the ones I saw her in at the library, and a navy skirt that fell below her knees. Her long hair was tied back in a single bundle. The glasses she wore at the library, she had left off today.
"I'm sorry, I kept you waiting."
"Not at all. I just got here myself."
The old science museum stood partway up a slope, one street off the shopping arcade from the station. When I pushed open the double doors, there was a smell of paper and old air conditioning.
Inside the dome were reclining seats. The hemisphere overhead sank slowly into indigo, and stars lit up, one, then two.
"—Among the light you are about to see, there may also be the light of stars that no longer exist."
So said the low voice of the narration. Beside me, I sensed Sakurai draw a small breath.
It moved on to the Summer Triangle. Two stars on either side of the Milky Way, permitted to meet only once a year. While the old story was being told, neither of us said anything.
The narration moved from one corner of the Triangle to Lyra. A constellation in the shape of a small stringed instrument, the low voice said. In an old story from a distant land, a master of this instrument went down to the depths of the earth to take back the wife he had lost. He had been told never to turn around on the way back, yet at the very last step the man turned, and his wife never returned to the world of the living.
Beside me, Sakurai shifted ever so slightly in her seat.
The narration pointed to Aquila, a little south of Lyra. In the rest of the story, the man too eventually lost his life, and his soul rose into the sky and was placed near the star of the instrument—there are regions where it is told that way, the voice said. A thin line tracing the arc of the constellation was drawn across the indigo of the dome.
As I gazed into the darkness between the two constellations, the indigo seemed to sink deeper once, and I blinked. Then—the next time I came to, the narration had already moved on to another constellation.
The projection ended, and the ceiling of the dome slowly brightened. Sakurai's profile came back a little behind the lights. She blinked twice, looked my way just slightly, and faced forward again.
As we came out of the alley, a fine rain began to touch my cheeks. We ran into the covered arcade, and our footsteps turned into echoes under the roof.
"Um. I've been here before."
Sakurai said it looking at the door of an old coffee shop at the back of the arcade. It was said in a single phrase.
We were shown to a window seat on the second floor. An old electric fan turned its head slowly left and right. Just below the window, wet tiled roofs went on, overlapping one after another.
Sakurai began to open the menu, then raised her eyes.
"Seto, you fell asleep partway through, didn't you."
She said it very lightly. There was no reproach in it at all.
"...You noticed?"
"Partway through, your breathing got a little deeper."
There was a laugh in her voice. The tip of her finger stroked the corner of the menu once.
"I'm sorry. Um—to make up for it, something. Whatever you like."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course."
She made a show of thinking for a moment, and then,
"Then, the Uji kintoki shaved ice, please."
she said. I ordered black coffee.
When the green mound was brought out, Sakurai let out a small "Oh" and laughed.
"Ever since I was a child, this is the one thing in summer I won't give up."
"You like Uji kintoki."
"Yes. We used to have it at home a lot."
She smoothed the syrup on the ice with the back of her spoon and brought a mouthful to her lips. Then, a little at a time, she began to talk about her home, about summers when she was a child.
"...You're more talkative than I thought."
It came out before I could stop it.
"Not in a bad way. I'd just assumed you were someone cool."
Sakurai's eyes went round, and then she shrugged and laughed.
"Once I open up to someone, I talk a lot."
With that, she laughed out loud. It was short, half a tone higher than usual. It was different from any laugh of hers I had heard before.
Outside the window, the rain grew heavier once, and then quickly went quiet again.
"Seto, is there someone you like?"
Still holding her spoon, Sakurai said it suddenly. Her tone was so offhand that I was slow to answer.
"...No."
"I see."
Sakurai left a slight pause, and then,
"Me, I'm in love."
she said. Somewhere near the top of my heartbeat, something gave a small jump.
"—With Uji kintoki shaved ice."
Mischievously, she held the spoon out toward me. A thin trace of green syrup remained in its bowl. I hesitated a moment, then began to reach out.
"Would you like a taste?"
Sakurai drew the spoon back toward herself and brought just one mouthful to her own lips.
"...It's still too early, isn't it."
"What?"
"Hehe. I'm sorry. Your reactions are just so cute, Seto, I couldn't help it."
I quietly set down the cup I had begun to lift.
Sakurai turned her eyes to the window,
"If the rain has stopped, would you like to walk back along the river?"
she said, and I nodded.
When we left the coffee shop, the rain had already stopped.
On a narrow sloping lane beside the shopping arcade, there was a flight of old stone steps. Hydrangeas poked their heads over the walls on either side. Sakurai started up first, stopped halfway, one step above me, and turned around. For the space of one step, the height of our eyes switched places.
"There were hydrangeas in the garden of the house I used to live in, too."
"Ones just about this blue."
I didn't answer. I looked up at the blue above the walls and thought it was a blue that could only just be called blue. She said only that, then faced forward again and climbed to the top of the steps.
We joined the walking path along the river. On the surface of the water, light that had fallen through a break in the clouds scattered unevenly. Sakurai's right side was somewhere near my right shoulder. Half a step behind. She stayed in that position.
As we came to a short bridge, Sakurai stopped a step ahead of me. She rested both hands on the railing and leaned out, looking at something on the water.
"There are carp."
I moved up to the railing to stand beside her. Backs mottled orange and white wove through the shadows on the riverbed. Sakurai counted with only the movement of her lips, then turned to me.
"Eight."
It was the voice of someone making a report. The wood of the railing still held the heat of midday. Once we had crossed the bridge, she went back to her place half a step behind.
"I'm graduating soon."
She said it looking toward the river.
"I'm writing my senior thesis on the oral traditions of Eastern Japan."
"My grandmother used to tell me a lot of old stories, and that's how I got interested in oral traditions. She's passed away now, though."
Her voice neither lowered nor grew damp. It was a different, level pitch from the voice that had laughed in the coffee shop.
"She used to tell me a lot about an old shrine near here, too."
It was said almost as if to herself.
"Um. Someone senior to me, in my seminar,"
"has encouraged me to think about going on to a doctoral program."
"I'm thinking of giving my answer next week."
"Ah. Yes."
I answered briefly. Sakurai didn't go on any further either. The conversation drifted away into the sound of the river.
As we neared the station, the path turned off toward a residential neighborhood.
"From here, I go that way."
"Thank you for today."
"No, thank you."
Sakurai began to move her lips once, then stopped. It looked, perhaps, as though she had meant to go on with "Until next time," and it hadn't come. She gave a small bow.
When I went through the ticket gate and looked back, Sakurai bowed once more at the corner of the residential street, and disappeared beyond the wall of hydrangeas.