Ch.349IF Side Story: Seems I’ve Arrived a Bit Early (46)

After about a year passed, we became fifth graders in elementary school.

1999.

I remember when I was young, everyone was excited about the coming of the new millennium. There were even rumors that the world might end before 2000.

My family and I weren’t the type to worry much about such things, so we were just a little excited about 2000 arriving.

Plus, the World Cup was coming two years later.

…Ah, I guess that was the same for Japan too.

I enjoyed how the whole country had a festival atmosphere. We even watched matches on TV during school. I’m not sure if they did the same in Japan.

Although people talked about entering the 21st century, the 20th century actually lasted until 2000, so that was still a year away.

Well, anyway.

Neither Kagami nor the man playing the role of my father were particularly concerned about the world ending. If anything, Kagami hoped for a longer life, while the man, having experienced all sorts of things in life, was rather indifferent to such matters.

I felt the same way. I would respond when children brought it up, but I never seriously believed it.

…And then.

More serious news reached my ears.

“So… yeah, that’s what’s happening.”

“I see.”

Mako is transferring schools at the end of this year.

It seems her father’s work in this area is finished. I don’t know exactly what he does, but from what Mako told me, her family has moved around a lot.

I heard this the day after visiting the local shrine with Mako during New Year’s, and I couldn’t figure out how to react.

When you become an adult, you get used to partings. Or rather, you forget how to become that close to people in the first place.

You might become close enough with someone from work to travel together, but usually it’s difficult to get that close. You might chat and smile at work, share bits of daily life, and occasionally have drinks after work, but often you lose contact completely after changing jobs.

You never know if you’ll see the person working next to you for months or years. You might run into them again someday, but that’s a matter for another time.

So, I thought it would be possible to handle this the same way in this life too.

…However, childhood friendships seem different after all. This wasn’t someone I’d worked with for years, but someone I’d only known for about a year, yet the thought of parting after that year was incredibly disconcerting.

“……”

We both remained silent for a while.

“…Let’s have fun together for the year we have left.”

I was the first to speak.

Yes, it’s okay.

It’s Mako, after all.

Even if we part ways like Harumi and Yuu did, making it difficult to meet again right away…

I thought it would be fine if Mako and I could part normally. If we just knew each other’s contact information, if we knew each other’s addresses. If we could exchange letters and occasionally call each other’s homes, our connection could continue.

“Yes!”

Mako nodded with a smile at my response.

*

Although I said we should have fun, what we ended up doing was just being close friends as usual.

Tokyo didn’t get snow, but it snowed in winter where we were. It wasn’t completely northern like Sapporo, but it snowed enough to make snowmen.

For both Mako and me, it was our first winter in this area.

While we were making snowmen, some tactless boys threw snowballs at us.

I immediately responded by making and throwing snowballs back—and Mako followed my lead.

Before we knew it, the snowball fight had turned into a battle between the boys and girls in our class.

If we had been in middle school, we would have been overwhelmingly outmatched, but we were just elementary school students. Many of the girls were actually a bit taller than the boys.

What started as an annoying situation became fun at some point.

Mako was laughing during the snowball fight too.

We returned home covered in snow.

“What happened!?”

Kagami, always sensitive about my health, quickly dried our heads with towels and then filled the bath with warm water.

While the bath was filling, Mako and I drank warm cocoa. As we sipped the sweet cocoa, we absentmindedly watched the snowflakes that had started falling again.

By the time this snow falls again next year, Mako probably won’t be in this neighborhood anymore.

Despite having so much fun, an inexplicable heaviness settled over me.

*

“Kotone, Kotone.”

“Hmm?”

“Here!”

February.

On the way to school, Mako, sitting in the back of Kagami’s truck, handed me something.

It was chocolate.

Valentine’s Day.

Of course, there were supermarkets in this town that sold chocolate. It seemed Mako had bought some chocolate and melted it to make something new.

I silently rummaged through my bag and pulled out a bag of chocolates. …I hadn’t made them specially; they were just coin-shaped chocolates in a transparent plastic bag—

“Wow!”

Mako’s eyes lit up as she accepted the chocolate.

There was no special reason for us exchanging chocolates. Mako had probably made plenty of friendship chocolates for our classmates, and I had bought some in advance due to Kagami’s insistence.

So what I gave to Mako was just one of those friendship chocolates.

“I’ll enjoy it, Kotone!”

Mako smiled purely with delight.

…

Somehow, I felt a little guilty.

Maybe I should have made something myself, even if it was just friendship chocolate.

*

When I was older, cherry trees were planted as street trees in my neighborhood, but when I was young, seeing cherry trees in the neighborhood wasn’t so easy.

There were so many ginkgo trees that I was worried about autumn.

This neighborhood had planted an incredible number of cherry trees as street trees, so when spring came, the streets were dyed pink.

The cherry tree-lined path all the way to school was honestly quite impressive.

This place wasn’t a particularly famous tourist spot, so the only people passing by were schoolchildren and the adults who came with them.

The sound of cameras clicking could be heard everywhere.

Parents who didn’t usually accompany their children were taking time in the morning to photograph them.

“Come on, Kotone, Mako, stand a little closer together!”

Kagami was one of those excited adults.

Normally, Kagami would have driven us to school on the way to work, but today, perhaps thinking it would interfere with the photos, Kagami walked with me instead. Of course, picking up Mako along the way.

After awkwardly standing still for photos, we slowly began to strike more playful poses.

Mako started first. Timidly making a magical girl-like pose with one hand, or perhaps wanting to look more cheerful, placing her hand under her chin—

Seeing this, I smiled a little and followed suit.

We tried combination poses from manga, crouching in front and stretching both arms upward from behind to make some kind of metaphysical expression—

Thanks to all this, we only realized we were about to be late when Kagami noticed everyone else had disappeared, and we had to rush to school.

“See you this afternoon!”

Kagami’s voice, waving from behind us, was filled with laughter.

I should give these photos to Mako too. I’ll ask Kagami to develop two copies of each.

*

Having lived in the town for a while, we gained some peace of mind and started venturing a bit beyond the town.

We rode in Kagami’s car to go shopping in the city center, a little away from town, and then returned. Once the weather warmed up, it wasn’t so difficult to go out.

I enjoyed the time spent in the back seat of the car.

The scenery passing by the window, the feeling that we were going somewhere—I liked it all.

Besides, I used to feel like I was always following other children, but now Mako was following me. Well, Kagami was driving, and it was Kagami who suggested going out, but still, Mako was coming along with our family.

It’s not a fancy car. But I was starting to like this car more and more. Sometimes I would lie down in the back seat and fall asleep, something I wouldn’t be able to do after this age.

I once asked Mako where she was going back to.

She said she was going to Tokyo.

Tokyo again.

Well, I thought, that’s one more reason to go back to Tokyo.

*

One day in the middle of spring, Mako came over to our house as usual.

While sitting together eating fruit, Mako suddenly said to me, as if she had just remembered:

“Kotone, would you like to go somewhere during summer vacation?”

“Go somewhere?”

“Yes. Camping.”

“Camping.”

I thought about that word for a moment.

Come to think of it, we had never been camping. Harumi’s family and Yuu’s family always booked separate accommodations when they traveled.

When I looked at Kagami, Kagami looked at the man playing the role of my father.

“I’ll try to make time.”

That wasn’t a definite yes.

But it was his way of saying he would try his best.

Looking at Mako, I saw she was beaming.

Camping, huh.

I thought that it might be the first and last trip I would enjoy with Mako.