We met at an old coffee shop by the river. It was the shop where he and I had first had tea, back before the rainy season set in. When I asked, "Would you like to go to that shop again?" he answered with his usual brevity: "Sure, let's go." He didn't ask which shop I meant by "that shop."
Outside the window, the orange of evening flowed thinly across the surface of the river. Near the foot of the window seat, a single dead leaf that someone's shoe had carried in lay without moving. We ordered the same things as back then. He had the house blend, hot. I had milk tea with extra milk.
The cups were brought over. After he took a sip of his coffee,
"Um, Toru."
"Yeah."
"We were going out, weren't we?"
He stopped. Slowly, he set his cup down on the saucer.
"Yeah. We were."
Past tense.
"And now we aren't?"
The voice I asked it in came out at a pitch so ordinary it was hard to believe. He was quiet for a while. I should have known several of the small signs of hesitation he gave off when he was at a loss. Today, there were none of them.
"Yeah. I'm sorry, it's just... the feeling cooled off. I don't know why."
Between his words, a single clink of cups touching fell from somewhere at the back of the shop.
—You were never someone who "cooled off" like that. ...But he is someone who can't lie. If he says it "cooled," then inside him, it has. The two voices didn't fight. They sank, one after the other.
"I hurt you, didn't I."
"No, it's all right."
"I don't really understand it myself. It's not that I've stopped liking you, not at all. It's just..."
"Just?"
"Just, how do I put it, it feels like something inside me has changed."
He lowered his eyes. I knew that way of lowering them. I knew it, and yet whatever should have been beneath it wasn't there today.
No anger welled up, and no tears came.
"No. Really, it's all right."
He stood first and took care of the check. He was just a little quicker than I was in starting to say, "Half—"
We walked along the river together. It was the same path as our first date, before the rainy season. The cold slipping in at the cuffs of my coat touched my wrists. The wind was no longer that damp, lukewarm wind. His shadow was longer than it had been back then.
"We walked this path before, didn't we?"
"Yeah. We did."
"That day, what was I looking at?"
He thought for a moment, and then,
"The carp in the river. You leaned out over the railing and watched them the whole time, Sakurai. You reported there were eight of them, I think."
Mixed in at the back of his throat as he answered was a thin laugh, like a breath. It slipped from the corner of his mouth before he could hold it back.
"You re... member, don't you."
"Yeah. I remember everything."
—Everything.
When he said "everything," the last sound dropped, just slightly. Not the drop of something sinking, but the drop of something being set down. The eight carp, my back as I leaned out over the railing—inside him, they were probably resting quietly somewhere on a neatly arranged shelf.
No orange was left on the river's surface. The water was a dull silver, and the carp couldn't be seen. When I stopped on the bridge, he stopped too, a moment after. I rested both hands on the railing, and the cold rose into my palms. Back then, the railing had still held the heat of the day, even into the evening.
"Thank you. For coming today."
"Yeah."
"I go this way, so."
"Oh, that way? Then I'll head back this way."
He lifted one hand lightly. His tall back passed under one streetlight on the north side of the bridge, and did not enter the next light.
I started walking toward the south end of the bridge. The first step was heavy; on the second I loosened it, and on the third I brought it back to my usual stride. By the second streetlight, my footsteps had returned to their usual pitch. That they had returned was the only thing certain at the end of that evening.