A Walk

I was tired from the trip, so I passed out like a light around nine that night.

I woke up at four the next morning. The fact that I woke up after exactly seven hours apparently meant my internal clock operated independently of sunlight.

Outside, the sky was dimly lit, and I could see distant mountains shrouded in haze.

Since I had nothing else to do, I took out a study guide and studied English. Studying in the countryside early in the morning somehow made me feel like a diligent student.

The exam I was taking covered reading comprehension and listening. Naturally, I had to study for the reading section, but the listening passages were on a completely different level from university entrance exams in terms of length. I needed to spend more time training for that too. Lately, I have been spending more time practicing listening than actually listening to music.

“This is hard…”

As for how much I had retained—or how much progress I had made—it was questionable. In a little over a month, I had gotten back to roughly the level I used to be at, but apparently I had forgotten how to use my brain properly. The price of slacking off for two years weighed heavily on both shoulders.

I took out my earbuds and placed my hands on the tatami. As I stared vaguely at the wall, I heard a sound from the room next door.

It wasn’t the sound of a futon. It was footsteps on the tatami.

“Rokurō, are you awake?”

“Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No. I just woke up on my own. …Can I come over there?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

The rooms Yūha and I were using were connected, so we could move between them simply by opening the sliding door.

Yūha, already changed out of her sleepwear, came into my room and sat down right beside me with her legs folded comfortably to one side.

“You were studying. Did I interrupt you?”

“No. I’d just reached a good stopping point.”

“Liar.”

“Who knows?”

I closed the study guide and sat cross-legged. Yūha glanced around and spoke with slight concern.

“Do you think we’ll wake Fuzuki-san and the others if we talk?”

“Their room’s pretty far away, so we should be fine. This house is huge.”

“Right. It really is huge.”

Apparently, they rented out most of their fields now, but in the past, this had been one of the largest farming households in the area. There were sheds and storehouses in the yard for farming equipment, and they even kept chickens in a small coop.

When Kagari was around elementary-school age, she apparently used to get lost in this house all the time. I had gotten lost twice after graduating from high school.

Looking reassured, Yūha returned her voice to its usual volume.

“Fuzuki-san’s cooking was really good.”

“You can feel the history behind that food.”

It was a collection of dishes that had supported generations of men working hard in the fields, all of them perfectly suited to eating with rice. The seasoning was bold yet delicate. Unlike the standardized flavor of restaurant food, it had the distinct taste of a household tradition refined over many years.

“Since we’re here, maybe I’ll ask her to teach me.”

“You probably won’t get many chances like this. You should ask her. I think Fuzuki-san would be happy too.”

“Rokurō, would you be happy if I got better at cooking?”

“Of course. I eat your food every day.”

“I see.”

Unlike me, who only made brutally practical food, Yūha’s cooking had the proper warmth of home cooking. She probably had no idea how much strength that gave me.

At that moment, her slender fingers caught the sleeve of my shirt.

“Hey. When you say every day… do you mean forever?”

It took me a while to understand what she meant. By the time I did, Yūha had already made a face that said she had messed up and was shaking her head.

“Sorry. Forget that. I think I just said something weird. It’s morning, and, well, because it’s morning, I’m sleepy.”

She slowly moved away from me, denying it with her face bright red. She didn’t look sleepy in the slightest, but it was probably better to leave it at that.

Because in Yūha’s mind, we were “brother and sister related by blood.” Someday, the time would come when we went our separate ways.

Nothing lasted forever. We were living within a finite span of time.

Sitting there had become awkward, so I stood up. I gestured toward the hallway outside the room.

“Want to go for a walk? If we don’t work up an appetite, we won’t be able to eat Fuzuki-san’s breakfast.”

“Okay.”

We had woken up so absurdly early that we still had plenty of time. I decided to walk around outside while showing her the area around the house.

Unlike Yūha, who had already changed, I was still wearing the tracksuit I had used as pajamas… but whatever. This was fine.

We put on our shoes and stepped outside through the front entrance. The fact that they didn’t even lock the door felt very characteristic of the countryside.

We wandered side by side down a rural road before even the chickens had started crowing. The smell of field burning drifted toward us on the wind from somewhere far away.

“If you follow that road straight for a while, there’s a convenience store. It’s not open twenty-four hours, though.”

“How far is it?”

“I don’t know exactly, but maybe thirty minutes there and back?”

“That’s far…”

“You really can’t get by in the countryside without a car.”

“Come to think of it, Rokurō, you have a driver’s license, right?”

“I saved up money while I was here and got it at an intensive driving course. Having one really changes the range of jobs you can take.”

“So it really is better to have one.”

“You can use it as identification too. Health insurance cards don’t have a photo on them, right? So proving your identity can be a pain, but with a driver’s license, one card is usually enough.”

“Huh. Maybe I should get one too.”

“Once you’ve saved up some money, that wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

Even an intensive driving course cost a decent amount, so saving up for one would be difficult. Still, once Yūha graduated from high school, it might be worth considering.

“I’d like to go on a drive someday.”

“If I can rent a car, I’ll take you somewhere. We’ll find the chance eventually.”

“Really!?”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

“I always wonder what goes through your head when you say that. Do you seriously think you’re an honest person?”

“There probably aren’t many people worse at lying than me.”

“The fact that even that is a lie makes you the absolute worst.”

Despite her words, Yūha looked pleased as she walked slightly ahead of me.

The sun slowly began to peek out from behind the mountains. Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed. As if blood had suddenly begun flowing through the countryside, a bush warbler started calling peacefully too.

Every time I experienced a morning like this, I remembered how much I liked this village.

There had been many times when I hadn’t wanted to return to my hometown. There had been work here throughout the entire year, and they had even told me I could stay as long as I wanted.

But Yūha had been back in that town.

If something ever happened, even if there was nothing I could actually do, I wanted to be there.

That was why I had left this village.

And now I was walking beside Yūha here.

“What are you smiling about? You’re thinking about something awful again, aren’t you?”

“Do you think I’m some evil mastermind or something…?”

“Aren’t you?”

“I won’t deny that I have that side to me.”

If you asked whether I was white or black, I was pitch-black. Honestly, I had done plenty of bad things in this village too. Yes. No matter where I went, I was still me… Changing locations wasn’t enough to cure someone of being a scumbag.

“I’m going to ask Misuzu-san and everyone about all kinds of things. Like what you did while you were here.”

“Please don’t… Seriously, that’s painful. Hearing that people are talking about me when I’m not around really gets to me.”

“Then do you want to tell me yourself?”

“…………Ask someone else.”

“See?”

Yūha laughed as though she had known what my answer would be from the start.

All I could do was hope Kagari and the others wouldn’t say anything weird. I had briefly considered finding some weakness of hers and using it to keep her quiet, but she was completely open about everything, so that wouldn’t work either.

A rough sigh, completely unfitting for such a refreshing morning, escaped my lips.