When we came out by the river, the color of the air sank one shade deeper into ultramarine. By as much as we had drawn away from the white of the buildings, the color of the water rose up into the window.
The taxi stopped just short of a traffic light on the road along the river. I had given the planetarium as a landmark: somewhere around there.
I brought the wheelchair down onto the sidewalk. The sound of the taxi's engine moved off. From the inner pocket of my bag, I took out the omamori, white cloth with a navy cord. When I moved it into my palm, the hemp fibers of the cord stood up faintly. The one he had given me on the evening of Christmas Eve a year ago, after the rescue. Ever since I received it, I had kept it in my coat pocket. This morning, I had moved it to the inside of my bag.
The first time the two of us went out together, it was here, along this river. I wanted to start giving things back from the place where it began.
On the navy blanket, the white cloth was set down, small.
The winter it spent in my pocket had been far longer than the moment I received it.
—This time, please, you keep it.
I didn't say it aloud. The omamori didn't slide down the slope of the blanket. It stayed where it was.
The low light of a December early afternoon had come down onto the river. Each time the wind stroked the surface, grains of white light leapt in a steady rhythm, and where they finished leaping, they sank back into ultramarine. The sound of cars crossing the bridge, the ring of a bicycle bell, came unexpectedly close, almost to my cheek.
The promenade was paved with stone. Each time the tires crossed a seam, they gave a low rattle.
The smell of the river wind mixed faintly with the smell of the blanket's fibers. Without saying anything, I kept pushing for a while. The wind blew hard once, and the white of the omamori lifted from the blanket for half a breath, then settled again.
We passed the entrance to the shopping arcade. Deep inside the arcade there was an old café. A narrow-fronted place with an entrance you could easily miss. In the second-floor window, I could see the shadow of an old electric fan. The owner had told us, laughing, that he kept it running even in winter. If you could see it, that was the sign they were open.
"Up on that second floor, you ordered black coffee, and I ordered uji kintoki."
Walking beside the wheelchair, I sent the words in a low voice toward his ear.
"When I laughed and said, 'Ever since I was a child, this is the one thing I won't give up in summer,' you looked up from the rim of your cup and smiled at me, and said, 'So even you choose uji kintoki, Sakurai.' Didn't you."
Inside the second-floor window, the fan's head was surely still turning slowly back and forth.
"I was a little mean to you then, too. After I said, 'I do love it, you know,' I held my spoonful of shaved ice out toward you, and then ate it myself. 'It's still too soon, isn't it,' I said."
My voice came back to me, deep in my ear, just slightly sweet.
"I'm sorry about that."
I had decided we wouldn't go into the café today. My hands never eased on the wheelchair, and the entrance to the arcade slipped away behind my back.
I stopped the wheelchair just before the second corner. The old planetarium building came into view. The concrete exterior, the faded gray of its paint, the paper notice in the center of the glass, "Closes at 5 p.m. in winter," were all in the same ink as ever. I had decided we wouldn't go in.
In the darkness beyond the glass, I remembered the indigo of the dome that day, how it had sunk deep, once.
I crouched beside the wheelchair.
"This is where we heard about Lyra and Aquila. Partway through, you fell asleep, once. It was the first day the two of us ever went out together. I wish you'd been a little more nervous."
That was what I had wanted to say back then, playing at being angry, but at the time I couldn't manage to be angry at all.
The dimness of the dome, the way the reclining seat beside me had tilted just slightly toward me—I put no more of it into my voice.
A breeze came drifting from the river. Toru's bangs stirred by just a few millimeters.
I slipped my hands under the blanket and wrapped Toru's right hand in both of mine. Cold.
The stiffness of the seam in thin fabric, on the day our hands overlapped on the handles of a paper bag. There had been many others, too. With the pad of my thumb, I traced, just once, the base of his hand where I held it in both of mine. He had been half a step ahead. I had made the place half a step behind him my own.
"Your shoulder was always just a little ahead of my right side."
I said it aloud, still facing the river. Without waiting for an answer, I leaned my body, as though to bring the height of my neck back in line with the height of his shoulder.
I waited for the feel of my palms' warmth passing into the back of his hand. The heat of my palms did not pass into the back of his hand.
I put Toru's hand back under the blanket. The white of the omamori had stayed just where it was on the blanket. I straightened the edge of the blanket and stood up.
"Next, let's go."